Category: Marketing Automation

The thing that can make or break the success of a sales team, is responding to leads at the right time. As research shows, 63% of surveyed businesses were taking up their leads way too late to convert them to sales, even though being the first responder can give you 30-50% sales from the contacted leads. However, only up to 25% of your leads at any time are ready to buy. So acting fast is not enough.

It’s more complex than just being able to take up lead right after it was sourced from a website, ad, or in any other way, by just any of the salesmen in the team. Yes, you need to be quick but also smart about it, if you don’t want to waste your time on leads that have little chance of converting into customers. With sales alerts in SALESmanago, you can manage the number and quality of leads passed to your sales reps.

What is a sales alert and why is it useful?

Sales alert is an automatic email or SMS notification sent by the system to the selling team and supporting their work with close to real-time updates on leads’ activity. It notices them about every important event connected to a potential customer, about their website visits, downloading an ebook, or asking for pricing. That information indicates that the lead is interested in offered products or services and taking it up can result in conversion.

Sales alerts are therefore useful when you want to make sure that the selling team works as fast as possible and also gets a chance to be better prepared. Thanks to the alert being activated by a specific action on the lead’s side, you also know that the ones who are about to be contacted have potential and your team is not wasting its time on contacts that will probably not turn into opportunities.

What’s more, sales alerts can be generated by any leads, even those, who originally told you over the phone, that they need more time to think. When they get back to your site for more details, your sales team will know this.

Define the rules for lead’s sales qualification

Thanks to the possibility of setting the events which are supposed to trigger automatic sending of the sales alert, you can decide what makes the lead qualified. It can be an event like a form on the website being filled, a request for a demo, etc., but also, a specific monitored behavior, which will also from the beginning help you figure out what a given person is interested in. Or from the business perspective – think what actions on your website are indicators of the leads’ interest in your product and set up the right events in automation rules or Workflows to inform your reps on such actions. 

Let’s say a contact visits your website repeatedly, they look at a range of products or services, from which one is viewed the most. You contact them for example by email with extended information on the product, but they don’t decide on the purchase. Sometime later, they visit your website again, looking for more information. You already know what they would be willing to buy, you can see that even though they didn’t purchase anything before, they show interest again, and based on that you can assume they are ready to buy. 

The first visit on the product page doesn’t always mean the customer is actually interested. You can use the tag scoring feature in SALESmanago to assign points to the behavioral segments assigned for visiting different products or services, and execute sending alerts only for leads that collected a specific amount of points in the tag scoring. For example, scoring points can be assigned to a specific tag after every time contact visits a specific category on your website.

Assign leads to the reps that will provide them the right service

Not all prospects are equal. They want to buy different products, some already know quite much about your product, some saw it for the first time. And your reps are not equal as well – you might have more experienced workers or some of them may specialize in specific fields or situations. You can easily manage the lead routing process, by defining different sales alerts triggered with different website behavior or user data and assigning the right sales reps to take over leads generated with such alerts. To do so, insert the email address of the salesperson who should contact the lead in the automation rule’s action. The alert can be also sent to a phone number, which can make the reaction to it even faster, especially if your reps work in the field. Not all prospects are equal. They want to buy different products, some already know quite much about your product, some saw it for the first time. And your reps are not equal as well – you might have more experienced workers or some of them may specialize in specific fields or situations. You can easily manage the lead routing process, by defining different sales alerts triggered with different website behavior or user data and assigning the right sales reps to take over leads generated with such alerts. To do so, insert the email address of the salesperson who should contact the lead in the automation rule’s action. The alert can be also sent to a phone number, which can make the reaction to it even faster, especially if your reps work in the field.

Because the alerts contain key information about the contacts, including information and data about their behavior, it’ll help your salesmen to step into action prepared. They’ll know what event triggered sending the alert and relate to that while contacting the lead. The sales alert contains contact details, history of messages last sent to a lead, and the last visited URL-s on the website.

Alert your lead management software

As delivering alerts directly to the sales reps might not always be the most reliable idea to make sure all leads will be handled properly, you can integrate sales alerts with any CRM or Call Center software. In this case, the information on the leads’ activity won’t be sent directly to your reps but will create a new lead in the CRM software or add them to the queue in your Call Center. To make it possible, you can put an attachment into the sales alert that will contain the right script that will send the lead’s data to the web service generated in your lead management software. 

These alerts also might contain other information taken from the leads’ 360° profile, to indicate suggested conversation subjects or ask the lead for other products that interested them earlier. 

marketing automation

marketing automation

The Files, in Lightning Experience, consolidates all of your users’ files, documents, content, and attachments into a single system for easier management and collaboration. Files are more versatile and provide some cool features like Version Control, Collaborate on files, Sync File … Continue reading →

When Thanksgiving rolls around, there are a few questions that we don’t exactly look forward to hearing: “When are you getting married?” “When am I getting grandchildren?” “Have you been moisturizing?”
And yet, none of those oh-so-polite questions even come close to the complexity of explaining what, as an inbound marketer, you actually do for a living.
It’s not that inbound marketing requires a long, drawn-out answer — after all, it can easily be described in 44 words. But explaining it requires some fundamental knowledge of how technology, marketing, and the internet work. You know, the things that your grandparents might not fully grasp in one fell swoop.
Good news — all you really need are a few storytelling strategies. We found five ways you can explain inbound marketing to your family. And sure, some of these are useful, and some are just sarcastic. But hey, family is family, right? They’ll still love you.
5 Ways to Explain Inbound Marketing to Your Family This Thanksgiving
1. The Food Analogy

Source: Giphy
In the U.S., Thanksgiving typically consists of a few staples: turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie, to name a few. And while it might sound strange, you can use that knowledge to your advantage by using food preparation as an analogy for different aspects of inbound marketing.
To explain lead nurturing, you can use the pumpkin pie. Sending unnurtured leads to sales is like giving an unbaked pumpkin pie to your guests. I suppose the pumpkin pie could be eaten raw, but … gross. Instead, you should bake the pumpkin pie — that ultimately makes it richer and more palatable.
Nurturing leads before sales contacts them works in the same way. It warms them up to your brand, and starts to qualify them with better information on what they might need. “Warm” leads, like the cooked pie, are already familiar with your business, and will close at a much higher rate than those that are “cold.”
Use whatever analogy you like to describe inbound marketing — it clarifies confusing issues by comparing them to something that, quite literally, is right in front of everyone.
2. The Real-Life Scenario

Source: Giphy
When I’m asked about inbound marketing, I like to use real-life examples of interruptions that they’ll likely recognize, and explain how the inbound methodology pertains to it. It usually sounds something like this:
Amanda: Hey, Dad. You know how much you hate telemarketers calling you in the middle of dinner?
Dad: Yes. Hate it. Why? Is that what you do for work?
Amanda: No, actually. Inbound marketing is the exact opposite. That’s interruptive marketing. They literally interrupt you. So annoying, right?
Dad: Yes. I’m surprised they’re not interrupting us right now.
Amanda: Well, in my job, I create marketing that doesn’t interrupt what people are doing. In fact, I create content that people are actively looking for, because it’s helpful, entertaining, or informative. Instead of a telemarketer who is calling to sell you spoons, I create stuff that someone looking for information about spoons might be searching for on the internet.
Dad: So I would find you, instead of you calling to bother me?
Amanda: Yes! I provide you with actual value from my company, which makes you more interested in what my company sells.
The keys here: 1) Identify which interruptive media your dinner guests are familiar with, and 2) play into their pain points when dealing with that media. Inbound marketing is much more logical when you explain it that way — even if your family doesn’t work in marketing or communications.
3. The Theatrics

Source: Giphy
If you’re feeling especially creative — and you have at least one Thanksgiving guest who is willing to participate — you could set up a role play. There are lots of scenarios you can act out, but a classic one would be the telemarketer/dinner guest scenario.
Let’s use the telemarketing example above — and be warned, it might require a few minutes of planning before everyone sits down to dinner. You play the role of the telemarketer, and your dinner guest can be, well, the dinner guest. First, put his or her phone’s ringer on the highest volume possible. Then, as soon as someone asks you about your job, excuse yourself and duck out to a quiet area with your own phone.
Next, call the dinner guest, and have him or her answer the call on speaker while you pretend to be a telemarketer selling something completely unnecessary at that point: Halloween costumes.
Be sure your dinner guest uses key phrases like “You’re interrupting me in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner with this irrelevant call,” or, “Don’t you think it’s a little late to be calling me about Halloween?” or, if you really want to go nuts, “I wish you had sent me a targeted, personalized email in October about those costumes — I would have bought them.”
Then, have them slam down the phone on the table. You can return from your “bathroom break” and say, “See? Telemarketing, or any type of interruptive marketing like that, is profoundly annoying. In my job, I create marketing that helps people — not annoy them.”
End scene.
Depending on the talent of your guest, you might be able to improv the entire thing. Otherwise, you might want to type a script out and email it to the guest beforehand. And if you really want to go overboard, stay in character the entire dinner. The sight of you dressed up as a skeezy telemarketer with a headset will be just too intense to forget … that is, at least until your mother requests, “Please remove your headset from the table.”
4. The Puzzle Pieces

Source: Webnode
This technique boils down to an age-old philosophical question: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? Aristotle thought so, but when you’re describing inbound marketing to an unfamiliar audience, it’s probably okay to explain the three ways you might apply inbound marketing specifically: attract, engage, and delight. 
Try explaining inbound marketing by breaking it up into those three aspects, and explaining each one individually.
For instance, you might say to grandma: “Attract means drawing in the right people with valuable content and conversations that establish you as a trusted advisor with whom they want to engage. Engage means presenting insights and solutions that align with their pain points and goals so they are more likely to buy from you. And delight means providing help and support to empower your customers to find success with their purchase.”
Of course, it’s easier said than done. And I’m willing to bet diving into how the inbound methodology serves as a strong foundation for the flywheel, which creates momentum and eliminates friction in your organization, is another feat entirely. 
5. The “I Write Articles on the Internet”

Source: imoviequotes
If the previous four have all failed, you can always say, “I write articles on the internet for a living.” I mean, it’s somewhat accurate — you drive real business results with inbound marketing, and you don’t just spew out nonsense blogs about your feelings to get paid — but it can get your family off your back, especially if you’re not sure they’d be interested in hearing the whole shebang. If you choose this path, be prepared to hear how easy it is to blog, and how many of your family members wish they could get paid to do it.
Then, try to switch the subject quickly to something everyone can relate to. “Hey, Uncle Eddie, I’d love to get your amazing stuffing recipe.” Trust us … It works every time.
We’re Grateful for You
Good luck out there. And remember: There are so many people who want to know what you do — which, admittedly, is why we love writing about it every day.
We always give thanks for you, our amazing readers. And to express our gratitude, we put together what we hope is a hilarious video of what our families think we do. Happy Thanksgiving!

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2013 and has been updated and for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

If you’re in business, you need to know how to create captivating presentations. Whether you’re trying to convince your boss to support a new campaign, talking with a prospect to close a deal, or building a new piece of marketing collateral, you need to know how craft a presentation that won’t put people to sleep.
The best (and easiest) way to do that? Use the right tools to create and deliver your presentation.
If you’re not sure which tools to use, look no further than this blog post. We’ve compiled our list of the top presentation tools for sales and marketing professionals. They’re listed below, in no particular order. But first …
Why You Should Use Business Presentation Templates
Using a professional presentation design ensures your content is conveyed in a clear, creative, and visually appealing way. To make it stand out further, try using HubSpot’s custom-build templates rather than utilizing one of the existing templates in in your presentation software. You can download them for free here.
Best Presentation Tools
1. Canva

Canva makes design easy — even for marketers and salespeople who feel like they’re design-challenged. The platform gives you a bunch of presentation templates to use right away, and it’s very easy to customize them to your organization and presentation objective. Plus, a variety of apps that integrate with Google Drive, Instagram, and YouTube, to name a few.
Pricing: Free; Pro, $12.95/month for up to five people; Enterprise, $30/month per person

2. Powtoon

Often, being different is what attracts prospects, and Powtoon can help you do that in your presentations. Powtoon’s animation software lets you easily create videos with props, characters, and more — which can help you differentiate your company when talking with prospects.
Pricing: Pro, $19/month; Pro+ $49/month; Agency, $89/month

3. PowerPoint

For years, PowerPoint has been the standard in presentation software, but it hasn’t remained static. PowerPoint is full of features to make sales and marketing presentations dynamic and engaging. (Here are just a few ways you can do that.)
Pricing: Business Basic, $5/user/month; Business Standard, $12.50/user/month; Business Premium, $20/user/month

4. Oomfo

A PowerPoint add-in, Oomfo helps sales and marketing pros create those oh-so-important interactive charts for presentations. Specialized charts, live charts from multiple files, data from cloud applications, interactive options, one-click conversions — it’s all possible, and more, with Oomfo.
Pricing: Free

5. Keynote

Apple’s Keynote allows users to work between their Mac and iOS devices, as well as with people who use Microsoft PowerPoint. With easy-to-use visual tools, drag and drop functionality, interactive charts, and more, Keynote is a popular choice among sales and marketing professionals.
Pricing: Free

6. Beautiful.ai

Create beautiful slides, pitches, and proposals without a team of designers. AI applies design rules in real time, and a library of free photos and icons are at your fingertips.
Pricing: Basic, $0; Pro, $12/month; Team, $38/user/month

7. Haiku Deck

Available for the web or iPad, Haiku Deck has become a favorite of sales and marketing pros. With Haiku Deck, professionals can quickly create presentations that can be “easily projected, shared, posted, embedded on a website or blog, or viewed on any web-enabled device.” Though it’s another tool that helps you create presentations from scratch, its ease-of-use sets it apart from the rest.
Pricing: Pro, $9.99 – $19.99/month; Premium, $29.99/month

8. Vyond

Vyond is an online animation software that allows you to create animated videos for marketing campaigns, sales enablement, or even human resources. Use their library of customizable templates or create your own from scratch.
Pricing: Essential, $229/year; Premium, $649/year; Professional, $999/user/year; Enterprise, contact for pricing

9. emaze

Busy sales and marketing pros choose emaze because it makes creating amazing presentations quick and easy. The options abound with emaze: Choose a professionally designed template and then create a slideshow, video presentation, or 3D presentation.
Pricing: Business Plan, contact for pricing; Executive Plan, $40/month; Pro Plan, $13/month

10. Camtasia

TechSmith’s Camtasia is an amazing tool that helps you create professional videos. You can record screen movements, import HD video from another source, customize and edit the video, and then share the completed video presentation on practically any device. 
Pricing: Individual, $249.99/user/year; Business $249.99/user/year; Education, $169.99/user/year; Government and Non-Profit, $223.99/user/year

11. SlideShare

SlideShare is a popular choice for sales and marketing professionals looking for a way to share their content publicly. Because it already has a built-in audience, you can easily distribute your presentation out to lots of people — and those people can embed your SlideShares on websites and blogs, or share them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Pricing: Free

12. SlideDog

Sometimes, sales and marketing professionals need to be able to move between presentation tools, but it’s not always possible because of their technical limitations. SlideDog is the solution, as it enables users to switch between PowerPoint, Prezi, PDF, web pages and others.
Pricing: Free; Pro, $99/year; Pro Event, $49 for one-time payment

13. Presentation Assistant

Presentation Assistant lives up to its name: It assists professionals by enabling them to annotate, zoom, and more during a presentation. Sales and marketing professionals can clarify and emphasize points more clearly to their audience with Presentation Assistant.
Pricing: Presentation Pointer, $29.95; Presentation Screen Master, $29.95

14. authorSTREAM

Sales and marketing pros choose authorSTREAM to make their presentations dynamic and engaging. authorSTREAM allows users to share their PowerPoint presentations publicly or privately, broadcast them, convert them to video, communicate and collaborate about them, and more.
Pricing: Free or paid plans start at $4.20/month

15. Zentation

With Zentation, salespeople and marketers combine video and slides into a simulated live experience. Presentations created with Zentation become webinars, webcasts, and virtual events for prospects and customers — all great collateral for marketing and sales.
Pricing: Free; Premium, $10 – $45/month; White-Label, contact for pricing

16. Prezi

Sales and marketing professionals love Prezi because it is cloud-based. Prezi makes creating, editing, and presenting from your browser, desktop, iPad, or iPhone possible anywhere, any time.
Pricing: Standard, $5/month; Plus, $15/month; Premium, $59/month

17. Brainshark

Sales reps and marketers often choose Brainshark, a cloud-based presentation tool, because it allows them to create and deliver presentations live or on-demand (even using their iPad or iPhone), use on-demand video content, polls, or surveys for increased engagement, and embed presentations in websites and blogs.
Pricing: Contact for pricing

18. Vcasmo

Vcasmo is a unique presentation tool — it’s a multimedia solution that enables users to synchronize a video and slideshow, side by side. Sales and marketing pros love Vcasmo because it supports playback in three forms: browser, mobile, and iPad. 
Pricing: Free; Standard, $10.99/month; Professional, $16.99/month

19. ViewletBuilder

ViewletBuilder is a different presentation tool; it captures critical screen updates and cursor position changes so sales and marketing pros can create presentations detailing how their product or sites work. With a plethora of features, ViewletBuilder allows for editing and enhancing and includes a variety of publishing and sharing options, too.
Pricing: Pro, $399; Enterprise, $599

20. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a top pick for sales and marketing pros because it lives online, making it possible to create, access, present, and more from anywhere, any time. The simple, intuitive interface and collaboration features are just two of its beloved benefits.
Pricing: Contact for pricing
What are you waiting for? Pick a tool and start creating. Your prospects are waiting.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in October 2014 and has been updated for freshness and comprehensiveness.

Millions of dollars are poured into the Google Display Network (GDN) every day. But why? Google offers endless options for marketers to promote their products, so how is this network different?
Frankly — because it works.
When industry competitors’ congest search engines, the GDN can be a great alternative. With it, there’s less competition for inflated keyword bids, so you’re more likely to reach users actively searching for your products and services. Though the audience intent is not as strong, you get a much lower cost-per-click and many more impressions.

Here, we’re going to explore why you should use Google Display Network (GDN), how GDN differs from search ads, and how you can target your GDN ads to reach the right people in the right places.
Why Use the Google Display Network?

The value for GDN boils right down to reach and affordability. Prospecting, brand awareness, and remarketing can come with a hefty price tag when pursued for traditional search ads. GDN, by comparison, bypasses a lot of costly competition from other networks. There are also endless options for customizing your audience targeting.

Ultimately, you don’t need a fat wallet to set up a campaign through Google Display — you just need to choose the right targeting factors for your marketing goal.

With Google’s search ads, you’re essentially throwing out a wide net, which can be largely hit-or-miss, both with whom you’re targeting and with how you’re spending.
Google’s Display Network, on the other hand, allows you to define your audience in a way search engines can’t. Since you can target more than just keywords, you aren’t limited to the Google results page. Instead, GDN allows you to target websites by audience affinities, in-market segments, and custom intent keywords. You can even hand-pick website placements that fit your target audience.
The other differentiator is volume. Where do the fancy image ads appear when you market with GDN? Across millions of websites that your prospects are visiting every day.
But really — what’s the difference between GDN and a simple search ad? Let’s explore that, now.
Google Search vs. Display Network
You need a different mentality when using Google’s Display Network than when you’re using the search network and others available on Google Ads. Let’s define some use cases and expectations.

Your average conversion rate with GDN will be a minuscule 0.7%. Why? Because you’re targeting users that may not be familiar with your brand at all. The Google Display Network is first and foremost a tool for prospecting and brand awareness.
The standard CTR for this network is still under 0.5%. But, for targeting prospects outside of search engines and social networks, that’s still pretty good.

The next key differentiator is the fact that the user’s primary interest is the website content itself — the display ad has an indirect, secondary role in the website’s appeal to the viewer.
Marketers are hoping the prospective user will view their GDN ad along their journey to fulfilling another purpose. That makes the user intent different than when an ad appears at the top of a Google results page for a high-intent search phrase. It should be no surprise that the click-through rate and conversion rate for GDN are below 1%.
Unlike with search, there is a variety of targeting options outside of keywords that span across a network of millions of websites. You can access the majority of internet users through website placements. Your number-one goal with GDN is finding the right audience size with strict targeting criteria.
There are ways to approach this network with tighter, more relevant targeting. Ultimately, remarketing is limitless — but it involves audience development outside the Google Ads platform. Let’s start by exploring the default prospecting options Google provides and work our way toward opportunities customized for your brand and those who have engaged with your website.
Google Display Network Remarketing or Prospecting?
On the GDN, you can target in two ways. First, you can target prospects on the internet who may have no previous knowledge of your website, brand, products, or services. Second, you can remarket to users who have engaged with your website in some form. Option two allows you to leverage the audiences you find in Google Analytics for your website. If you don’t have any Google Analytics website audiences built, doing so is incredibly easy — simply set up an audience for a user that completes specific actions.

Some of the most common remarketing audiences include:

General website visitors
Users who have submitted a form
Users who have downloaded content
Users who have viewed specific product pages
Users who have signed up for an account or trial offer
Users who have completed a transaction or purchased a product
Users who have begun any of the above actions but abandoned the page before completing it

Remarketing and prospecting are two vastly different initiatives that you can execute through GDN. Some businesses prefer to focus only on remarketing because reaching users familiar with one’s brand drives leads and sales for the most affordable cost. However, other businesses aren’t focused on the return as much as generating awareness of their products and services. It all comes down to your company’s marketing goals.
Google Display Ad Examples
Once you know how to target, you’ll want to create the collateral that gets the attention you need from your ad placements. Here are some great examples of Google display ads: 
1. SEMrush

The copy of this ad does two things:

States the value (“skyrocket your marketing”)
Provides social proof (“like our clients did”)

It does this with large white font across an eye-catching blue background with bold oranges and pinks, making it colorful and stark enough to attract attention. 
2. Conversica

Conversica utilizes the large vertical format, which takes up a lot of real estate space on a page, enough to hopefully stir any website visitors out of “banner blindness.” Their strategy is not to promote their company but rather an offer: research on virtual assistants in sales.
3. E*TRADE

This is one of the skinnier horizontal banners, and E*TRADE uses it to make a bold statement: “$0 commissions” in large letters across the center. The call to action (open an account) is much smaller than the value proposition so that they recognize the value first before taking action on it.
Google Display Network Audience Targeting
Here’s how to achieve success with prospecting and brand awareness GDN targeting:
1. In-Market Segment Targeting
In-market segments are Google users interested in broad categories of products and services, including real estate, education, home and garden, sports and fitness, and more. Google defines these segments based on users’ historical views, clicks, and conversions on previous content. There are sub-categories for specific types of each segment, but the criteria Google uses for these aren’t public. The size of each sub-category is easily millions — and sometimes billions — of users. It’s safe to say that testing a GDN in-market segment is a good starting point.
However, layering demographic qualifiers, device targeting, and other affinities is necessary to create a focused pool of users.

An easy way to control audience size for in-market segments is by comparing with Google Analytics data. The in-market segments on Google Analytics line up perfectly with those on Google Ads. Google Analytics should show you which in-market segments on your site have the highest conversion rates.
Educated guesses for targeting on the Google Ads platform can only go so far. Google Analytics has the tools for identifying and building data-driven audiences from which Google Ads can learn and optimize. Ultimately, using Google Analytics can help ensure you’re reaching highly qualified users.
2. Affinity Audience Targeting
Like in-market segments, affinity audiences are Google users with similar interests, including cooking, fashion, beauty, gaming, music, travel, and more. These are very expansive categories of internet users, so it’s equally important to find targeting criteria to narrow down the size of any one affinity interest, or its sub-categories.

Strictly relying on the default options for in-market segments and affinity audiences within Google Ads can leave a giant dent in your budget for marketing spend. Google Analytics can be a huge help in pinpointing exactly which affinity audiences yield the highest conversion rates on your website.
Google Ads will also create a “similar” audience based on the Google Analytics’ audience created. These audiences are usually more focused in size, making them ideal for testing.

3. Custom Intent Audiences
Custom intent audiences is another valuable contextual targeting method.
How does it work? Simply put, Google can show your ads to users who are “likely to be interested” in specific keywords and website URLs. It may also show your ads to people who have recently searched for your suggested keywords.

The key difference between custom intent audiences and other targeting methods is that you aren’t targeting websites that use these exact keywords, and Google is not placing your ad exclusively on specified website URLs. Rather, Google serves your ads to users on various other websites that have some contextual connection to the website URL or keyword given to Google.
4. Placement Targeting
Google can show your ads on specific websites when provided with placement URLs. This option offers tighter, more controlled targeting because it limits display ad placements to custom websites selected by the marketer.
You could be saving money by being so specific, but you could also be missing out on mainstream websites that your target audience is more actively visiting.

Simply put, users who visit your website also visit other websites. With custom affinity (interests) and custom intent (keyword and URL) audiences, Google can target these users at other online destinations. Picture your specified website as the center of a digital spiderweb — Google uses the central URL to target the users in other URLs within the spiderweb, amplifying your reach to include websites you may not know about.
These websites may or may not have content related to your suggested keyword or URL, but Google knows that these websites are sites that users of your suggested keywords and URLs also visit.
5. Topic Targeting
Google can show your ads on web pages only about your specified topic. Some of these topics could be similar to interests or affinities, or they may fall outside the default categories that Google offers (e.g., they may be along the lines of hiking, camping, or agriculture).
This targeting is an alternative to researching and selecting website placements for one interest without knowing the impact of those placements.
Three Key Audience-Building Factors
Now that you know the basic mechanisms for targeting and creating an audience, let’s dive into three essential tips to ensure you build those audiences better. Here are some high-impact areas for tightening audience targeting where it counts.
1. Select the right devices.
When setting up a display campaign, it’s important to consider where the target audience will be using the product and how they will be signing up. If the user experience is compromised or not nearly as good on a particular device, consider excluding that device altogether.
For example, is mobile really the right platform for your landing page offer? Can your products or services be used easily on tablets and other small devices? If your company produces games or apps, mobile is ideal. But if you’re marketing business software used on desktop computers, mobile targeting could be costly and unnecessary.

2. Choose the right demographics and locations.
Google lets you customize several demographics when targeting for a display campaign. For example, age and household income are broken out into seven different ranges. If you know your audience is not within 18-24 years of age, or the top 10% of household income, you can easily exclude those users when creating ad groups.
There could also be some states in the U.S. or territories internationally to which your business prefers not to drive sales. The bids of these locations can easily be adjusted to redirect your budget to more profitable locations.

3. Mark the box for content exclusions.
Before launching a campaign on GDN, it’s easy to make the mistake of skimming past the additional settings for websites with explicit content. Some advanced content settings are available for preventing your site from appearing on parked domains, sites with sexually suggestive content, sites with sensitive social issues, and more.
Google doesn’t mark these boxes by default, so they must be manually selected to prevent your ads from appearing on undesirable sites.

Optimizing Your Google Display Network Results
Now that we’ve explored targeting methods as well as specific audience-building factors, let’s dive deeper into how you might optimize your GDN results.
1. Assess demographic performance, and then recalibrate if necessary.
Some of your audience demographics may be ideal for traditional marketing but could perform poorly in a digital setting. Even after setting up specific demographic and location targeting, it’s important to review the performance of what hasn’t been excluded. For example, there are some demographic categories (e.g., “unknown”) and ages (e.g., “65+”) that can become costly after launch.

2. Assess placement performance and use those analytics to continually improve.
Google makes it easy to review where your ads are appearing on a daily or weekly basis after campaign launch. You can find this information under “Placements -> Where Ads Showed.”

Filtering placements by unusually high spend or CTR can quickly identify websites that are more of an immediate threat to your campaign’s health. If you’re considering bulk exclusions, you may find it helpful to export web placements within the timeframe of “all time”.
Focus on blocking the duplicate placements that yield no results, since repeat offenders are a higher priority than websites that appear once with only a few impressions. After identifying duplicates, review the relevance of these sites, how much they have spent, and whether they have led to any conversions.
3. Consider which ad style and location will yield the best results.
There are two main ad types available for a GDN campaign — standard image ads and responsive ads. Standard image ads have a number of formats, including square, rectangular, skyscraper, and banner. These ads are an image-only display option. Here’s an example:

Responsive ads, on the other hand, offer a combination of text and image options that display in a variety of formats, depending on where the ad appears. The complete ad is composed of three image types, up to five short headlines, one long headline, up to five descriptions, and a business name. The short headlines and descriptions rotate to find and show the best-performing combination. Here’s an example:

If you’re limited on time, budget, or creative resources, it can be tricky to know which display ads will work best for your campaign, and you might not want to risk time testing different ones. If this is the case, it’s important to note studies have shown that 300 x 250 and 728 x 90 receive more impressions than other ad formats. Half-page ads and large rectangles receive higher CTRs than other ad formats, as well. So if you’re not sure where to begin, try out the rectangular formats and leaderboards!

Figure Out Whether Google Display Network Is The Right Choice For Your Business
You can amass a very powerful reach on the Google Display Network with the right attention to targeting. The network’s affordability, as well as the separation from the competition, makes it a viable marketing option.
This guide has covered several audience-building and optimization factors to help you hit the ground running with Google Display Network campaigns. Whether you’re just starting out or have some room for improvement, check out the custom audience capabilities to see if one might work for your next campaign.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Well-working customer service is exceptionally important for businesses today and that importance is only going to increase over time. 90% of customers consider the level of customer service when deciding to do business with a company, and just last year, 49% of consumers decided to turn to competition because of poor service. Retaining customers is extremely important and profitable, and it’s only going to become both harder and more important in the future.

The COVID pandemic has greatly accelerated the move to online, and while that has presented numerous business opportunities in the eCommerce world, it has also forced us to face a peculiar barrier of sorts – the barrier of communication. In retail, hiring store help, or the so-called “greeters”, is cheap, efficient, and solves most issues of customer service. Online, this is not the case, things are in some respects easier and in others much harder. Due to the increased volume of customers, direct and personal communication between the company and users is more difficult, all the meanwhile companies are trying to find ways to automate as much of the communication as possible. It can be done, but it has to be done cleverly. So here, we’ll talk about how the approach to customer service needs to keep up with the changes in customer behavior, and how you can deal with it all with marketing automation.

The new consumer will require online shopping-specific tools and help

The changes in the way we conduct our daily activities mean that we approach shopping differently than we used to. Since the bulk of our shopping is happening online, the onus is now on things like being able to pick the product going purely on pictures in the gallery, choosing the appropriate payment methods, costs, and time of the product delivery. But more important is what happens after that. It’s a reality of doing business that some customers will want to return the product, or they’ll require additional explanations for using it, oftentimes they’ll need it before they make a purchase, and that’s where a lot of modern eCommerce companies fall behind.

Previously, it would have been possible to go to the store and brute-force your way into finding a manager to talk to about your gripes. That’s not a possibility anymore, since they’re buying online, but the gripes remain. This makes customers wary and cautious, which in turn makes it harder for you to reach them. Whereas previously a customer could have easily assumed that if something went wrong, they would have been able to go back to the store and figure it out, they’re not so sure about that anymore. But here’s the conundrum: being able to ease the mind of your customer about this is hugely beneficial in the long run. Research shows that customers spend more if they’re engaged and surveys show that, on average, they’re willing to pay 17% more to companies with good customer service.

Customers will require their needs to be taken care of and these needs will depend on your service. Nobody can possibly know better than you how to do it and it will be on you to communicate that to your customer.

Use marketing automation to help you reach the customer with answers to problems before they reach out to you

It is going to be virtually impossible to take the old-school approach and treat all of your customers individually. This is where automation comes into play. Starting off, you can definitely roughly estimate the potential problems your customer might have, based on the problems other customers had in the past, and put forward solutions before the problems even arise. You don’t have to drown your customer with messages, and in fact, you definitely shouldn’t, but you should consider trying to reach them after some time has passed after the purchase to establish if everything is fine by asking for opinions or filling surveys.

But much more important than that, you have to be responsive to communication attempts from the user. People are willing to communicate via automated channels, as 48% of customers first try to engage via email before picking up a phone to call you, but 48% is not 100%. There’s a not-insignificant portion of the customers who will demand contact with actual people, so provide them with an opportunity to leave their data so they can be contacted, you can even use automated popups for that. People don’t usually spend a lot of time on the stores’ websites, if they’re staying in your service for much longer than is required to make a purchase, they’re clearly looking for something. This is a good moment to present them with an opportunity to leave their data so that they can be contacted (for instance by using a personalized popup, or by automatically displaying them a chat window with an invitation to start asking questions about the product). 

All this may sound obvious, but it’s really not and is too often neglected by companies. A lot of time, thinking, and effort should go into your customer service strategy, because successful service keeps them informed, calm, and happy, and that’s the kind of customer that spends money.

Create and maintain a good knowledge base

If you can’t serve them on time, you have to give them an appropriate tool to serve themselves. Studies show that QA-style knowledge bases are the most popular kind of self-service that users opt for when they can’t get a hold of a company representative and you should keep one too.

Don’t neglect its design, it has to be easy to navigate and informative. It should actually help your users address the challenges they might be facing, and it has to be constantly updated. You can gauge its effectiveness by how much time your users spend there and remember that you can always ask for an opinion about using the service at the end. People are actually very likely to leave a positive opinion if they’re successful because it’s genuinely something of a nice surprise these days. The hallmark of a good customer service strategy is not waiting for your customer to have a problem, it’s giving them a wealth of solutions before it arises (part of which can be achieved with a solid new customer onboarding strategy, and you can find about how to make it better in this article).

Due to how important keeping a happy and loyal customer is and how much of our activities have moved online, maintaining good customer service is paramount and you’re going to have to start using more and more technologically advanced means of achieving it. The future of eCommerce is clearly delineated as technologically-savvy brands that are able to maintain a loyal following of a concrete customer base

marketing automation

marketing automation

Types of Charts to Use for Your Data

Column Chart
Bar Graph
Line Graph
Dual Axis Chart
Area Chart
Stacked Bar Graph
Mekko Chart
Pie Chart
Scatter Plot Chart
Bubble Chart
Waterfall Chart
Funnel Chart
Bullet Chart
Heat Map

You and I sift through a lot of data for our jobs. Data about website performance, sales performance, product adoption, customer service, marketing campaign results … the list goes on.
When you manage multiple content assets, such as social media or a blog, with multiple sources of data, it can get overwhelming.What should you be tracking? What actually matters? How do you visualize and analyze the data so you can extract insights and actionable information?
More importantly, how can you make reporting more efficient when you’re busy working on multiple projects at once?

One of the struggles that slows down my own reporting and analysis is understanding what types of graphs to use — and why. That’s because choosing the wrong visual aid or simply defaulting to the most common type of data visualization could cause confusion with the viewer or lead to mistaken data interpretation.
To create charts that clarify and provide the right canvas for analysis, you should first understand the reasons why you might need a chart. In this post, I’ll cover five questions to ask yourself when choosing a chart for your data.
Then, I’ll give an overview of 14 different types of charts you have at your disposal.
5 Questions to Ask When Deciding Which Type of Chart to Use
1. Do you want to compare values?
Charts are perfect for comparing one or many value sets, and they can easily show the low and high values in the data sets. To create a comparison chart, use these types of graphs:

Column
Mekko
Bar
Pie
Line
Scatter Plot
Bullet

2. Do you want to show the composition of something?
Use this type of chart to show how individual parts make up the whole of something, such as the device type used for mobile visitors to your website or total sales broken down by sales rep.
To show composition, use these charts:

Pie
Stacked Bar
Mekko
Stacked Column
Area
Waterfall

3. Do you want to understand the distribution of your data?
Distribution charts help you to understand outliers, the normal tendency, and the range of information in your values.
Use these charts to show distribution:

Scatter Plot
Mekko
Line
Column
Bar

4. Are you interested in analyzing trends in your data set?
If you want to know more information about how a data set performed during a specific time period, there are specific chart types that do extremely well.
You should choose a:

Line
Dual-Axis Line
Column

5. Do you want to better understand the relationship between value sets?
Relationship charts are suited to showing how one variable relates to one or numerous different variables. You could use this to show how something positively effects, has no effect, or negatively effects another variable.
When trying to establish the relationship between things, use these charts:

Scatter Plot
Bubble
Line

14 Different Types of Graphs and Charts for Presenting Data
To better understand each chart and how they can be used, here’s an overview of each type of chart.
1. Column Chart
A column chart is used to show a comparison among different items, or it can show a comparison of items over time. You could use this format to see the revenue per landing page or customers by close date.

Design Best Practices for Column Charts:

Use consistent colors throughout the chart, selecting accent colors to highlight meaningful data points or changes over time.

Use horizontal labels to improve readability.

Start the y-axis at 0 to appropriately reflect the values in your graph.

2. Bar Graph
A bar graph, basically a horizontal column chart, should be used to avoid clutter when one data label is long or if you have more than 10 items to compare. This type of visualization can also be used to display negative numbers.

Design Best Practices for Bar Graphs:

Use consistent colors throughout the chart, selecting accent colors to highlight meaningful data points or changes over time.

Use horizontal labels to improve readability.

Start the y-axis at 0 to appropriately reflect the values in your graph.

3. Line Graph
A line graph reveals trends or progress over time and can be used to show many different categories of data. You should use it when you chart a continuous data set.

Design Best Practices for Line Graphs:

Use solid lines only.

Don’t plot more than four lines to avoid visual distractions.

Use the right height so the lines take up roughly 2/3 of the y-axis’ height.

4. Dual Axis Chart
A dual axis chart allows you to plot data using two y-axes and a shared x-axis. It’s used with three data sets, one of which is based on a continuous set of data and another which is better suited to being grouped by category. This should be used to visualize a correlation or the lack thereof between these three data sets.

Design Best Practices for Dual Axis Charts:

Use the y-axis on the left side for the primary variable because brains are naturally inclined to look left first.

Use different graphing styles to illustrate the two data sets, as illustrated above.

Choose contrasting colors for the two data sets.

5. Area Chart
An area chart is basically a line chart, but the space between the x-axis and the line is filled with a color or pattern. It is useful for showing part-to-whole relations, such as showing individual sales reps’ contribution to total sales for a year. It helps you analyze both overall and individual trend information.

Design Best Practices for Area Charts:

Use transparent colors so information isn’t obscured in the background.

Don’t display more than four categories to avoid clutter.
Organize highly variable data at the top of the chart to make it easy to read.

6. Stacked Bar Chart
This should be used to compare many different items and show the composition of each item being compared.

Design Best Practices for Stacked Bar Graphs:

Best used to illustrate part-to-whole relationships.
Use contrasting colors for greater clarity.
Make chart scale large enough to view group sizes in relation to one another.

7. Mekko Chart
Also known as a marimekko chart, this type of graph can compare values, measure each one’s composition, and show how your data is distributed across each one.
It’s similar to a stacked bar, except the mekko’s x-axis is used to capture another dimension of your values — rather than time progression, like column charts often do. In the graphic below, the x-axis compares each city to one another.

Image via Mekko Graphics
Design Best Practices for Mekko Charts:

Vary you bar heights if the portion size is an important point of comparison.

Don’t include too many composite values within each bar. you might want to reevaluate how to present your data if you have a lot. 

Order your bars from left to right in such a way that exposes a relevant trend or message.

8. Pie Chart
A pie chart shows a static number and how categories represent part of a whole — the composition of something. A pie chart represents numbers in percentages, and the total sum of all segments needs to equal 100%.

Design Best Practices for Pie Charts:

Don’t illustrate too many categories to ensure differentiation between slices.
Ensure that the slice values add up to 100%.

Order slices according to their size.

9. Scatter Plot Chart
A scatter plot or scattergram chart will show the relationship between two different variables or it can reveal the distribution trends. It should be used when there are many different data points, and you want to highlight similarities in the data set. This is useful when looking for outliers or for understanding the distribution of your data.

Design Best Practices for Scatter Plots:

Include more variables, such as different sizes, to incorporate more data.

Start y-axis at 0 to represent data accurately.
If you use trend lines, only use a maximum of two to make your plot easy to understand.

10. Bubble Chart
A bubble chart is similar to a scatter plot in that it can show distribution or relationship. There is a third data set, which is indicated by the size of the bubble or circle.

Design Best Practices for Bubble Charts:

Scale bubbles according to area, not diameter.
Make sure labels are clear and visible.

Use circular shapes only.

11. Waterfall Chart
A waterfall chart should be used to show how an initial value is affected by intermediate values — either positive or negative — and resulted in a final value. This should be used to reveal the composition of a number. An example of this would be to showcase how overall company revenue is influenced by different departments and leads to a specific profit number.

Chart via Baans Consulting
Design Best Practices for Waterfall Charts:

Use contrasting colors to highlight differences in data sets.
Choose warm colors to indicate increases and cool colors to indicate decreases.

12. Funnel Chart
A funnel chart shows a series of steps and the completion rate for each step. This can be used to track the sales process or the conversion rate across a series of pages or steps.

Design Best Practices for Funnel Charts:

Scale the size of each section to accurately reflect the size of the data set.
Use contrasting colors or one color in gradating hues, from darkest to lightest as the size of the funnel decreases.

13. Bullet Graph
A bullet graph reveals progress toward a goal, compares this to another measure, and provides context in the form of a rating or performance.

Design Best Practices for Bullet Graphs:

Use contrasting colors to highlight how the data is progressing.

Use one color in different shades to gauge progress.

14. Heat Map
A heat map shows the relationship between two items and provides rating information, such as high to low or poor to excellent. The rating information is displayed using varying colors or saturation.

Design Best Practices for Heat Map:

Use a basic and clear map outline to avoid distracting from the data.

Use a single color in varying shades to show changes in data.
Avoid using multiple patterns.

Although Cyber Monday has been described as the biggest online shopping event of the year, more than $7.4 billion in online purchases were made on Black Friday in 2019.
And, although 2019 had some of the most successful online Black Friday sales ever. The events of 2020 could lead to even more online transactions this holiday season.
As an advertiser, you might want to learn more about growing online purchasing behaviors — and how you can leverage it in 2020.
Below, we’ll highlight what we learned from polling 300 consumers last year. Then, we’ll present a few consumer behavior predictions you’ll need to know about when determining your 2020 Black Friday ad strategy.

What We Learned About Black Friday Shoppers in 2019
To help marketers discover more about the consumer behaviors behind Black Friday’s 2019 results, I surveyed a pool of more than 300 people using Lucid Software back in December. The goal was to learn what led them to engage with or purchase products in Black Friday ads.
Here’s what we learned from our results
Black Friday Marketing Saw Major Online Engagement
With Black Friday deals comes an inundation of Black Friday ads throughout all forms of media. It’s no surprise that millions of people shopped on Black Friday — but which ad strategies actually led to purchases?
When I asked participants, “Did you engage with any online ads or promotions for Black Friday?”, 61% said they engaged with one or more ads in some way, while only 39% said they disregarded them.

Data Source: Lucid Software
Of that 61% of people who engaged with one or more ads, 38% clicked on the promotions without making a purchase, while 23% converted to a customer after clicking the ad.
When it came to where people saw the ads they clicked on, 62% found promotions on social media.

Data Source: Lucid Software
“Non-social media sites” were also a fairly successful place for promotion, with 38% of people saying they clicked on ads in these locations. These sites could include websites owned by other brands where a native ad is located, search engine platforms, or other areas of the web that aren’t considered social media.
Although only 32% of people clicked on ads shown in marketing emails, research from CampaignMonitor showed that email marketing was responsible for 20% of holiday-related traffic.
Consumers Showed Interest in Technology Deals
Aside from the ad’s location, the product or service advertised could have played a role in an audience’s level of engagement. To get an idea of which products were most popular, I asked survey participants, “Which best describes the products or services that were featured in the Black Friday ads you clicked on.”
Of those who said they clicked on or purchased something from an ad in the first question of the survey, roughly 36% said the ads they engaged with featured products in the “Gadgets and Technology” category. Meanwhile, two other popular categories were “Fashion and Beauty” and “Home Goods, Furniture, and Decor” which both received votes from more than 18% of participants.
Black Friday Ads Actually Lead to Foot Traffic
In 2019, in-store Black Friday foot traffic dropped 6% lower than in 2018. However, this shopping event was still significant for brick-and-mortar stores as earnings from in-store purchases still rose by 4.2%.
Much of the in-store foot traffic and purchases could have also been because of ads. When I asked consumers if they “entered a store on Black Friday after seeing an ad or promotion for its sales,” more than half said, “Yes.”

Data Source: Lucid Software
To determine how much impact online ads made on Black Friday foot traffic as compared to physical ads, I asked the same consumers, “Where did you see the Black Friday ads for the store you visited on Black Friday?” Those surveyed could choose from a long list of ad style options from more digital social media promotions to traditional TV commercials or newspaper advertisements.
Although these participants decided to brave crowded physical stores on Black Friday, the survey found that they weren’t pulled into them by physical or more traditional ads like billboards, newspaper promotions, or commercials.
Again, social media was the front-runner, as 38% of people who entered stores on Black Friday found ads on these types of platforms first.
Aside from social media, 15% of those who visited a store due to a Black Friday ad said they saw it on the store’s own website. Only small portions of those surveyed said they went to a store after seeing television commercials (7%), email marketing ads (7%), newspaper promotions (8%), or physical signage (1%).
Although only 7% found ads that led them to physical stores in marketing emails, other data shows that including ads and offers in e-newsletters was still a vital strategy for gaining web visits, leads, and even in-store foot traffic.
4 Predictions for Black Friday 2020
When we last published this post in December 2019, we anticipated that web presence and online marketing would be key for small and large businesses in 2020.
Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought many brands online — and quickened digital transformation around the globe — an internet presence isn’t just nice to have. At this point, it might be vital. 
Below are just four research-backed Black Friday predictions and tips for how brands can navigate themy.
1.  Brands with an online presence will outperform brands without one on Black Friday.
Our 2019 results and mounting research continues to show the growing importance of developing or constantly improving on a web presence. 
And as we mentioned, an online web presence might not just be a nice perk for your customers. It might result in ROI for your brand, especially on Black Friday. In 2020, it’s projected that online holiday spend will surpass $189 billion — up 33% from 2019. 
At this point, growing an online presence can be easy and affordable. For example, if you’re just tipping your toes into online marketing, you could start with free strategies like building a social media profile, launching a basic website, starting a marketing email, or creating a Google My Business for your store. Then, once you’re comfortable, you experiment with larger investments such as buying online ads.
The strategies above will allow people across the web to learn more about your brand, offerings, or services. These tactics could also make it easier for prospects to find you when they’re researching products or services in your industry.
2. Consumers will continue to use social media to learn about products and Black Friday sales.
While an overall internet presence could take your brand a long way, a great and affordable place to start marketing or advertising could be on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. 
Due to social media’s popularity and track record for ROI, you’ll definitely want to consider advertising or at least posting for free about your products on platforms that align well with your audience if you aren’t doing so already.
If you’re trying to build your social presence, or determine which platforms you should be promoting your products or deals on, check out this research-based blog post where I reveal which social media platforms people use to learn about products.
3. Most Black Friday purchases will happen online.
This might sound like a no brainer, but it is important to keep in mind as you plan your Black Friday strategy for 2020.
While there will still likely be Black Friday shoppers that brave crowded stores, the 2019 and 2020 data above suggests that more people will avoid in-person shopping as much as possible on Black Friday — as well as throughout the holiday season. 
This year, people have embraced online shopping and ecommerce more than ever before. And, even if a physical store hosts a big sale, consumers might be more likely to order products from the safety of their own home. 
Along with online advertising and marketing techniques, you’ll also want to consider other ways that your brand can do business online. For example, it might be an excellent time to launch an online store or virtual services ahead of the global shopping holiday. 
If you don’t consider yourself web savvy, a number of tools and platforms can help you create and manage an online store in minutes. For example, Facebook recently launched Facebook Shops, which allows users to create online stores linked to directly to a Facebook or Instagram Business profile.
4. People will place needs over perks when purchasing products.
This year, we’ve seen consumers toss aside fancy products and brand loyalty to budget for products that help them solve problems or provide long-term value. 
Why? Due to the financial uncertainties of 2020, consumers are finding themselves on tighter budgets and are more cautious than ever about bigger investments. 
What does this mean for marketers? It will be more important to market your product, deal, or sales value points than ever before. Even if you work for a notable brand, consumers will be looking for value beyond your logo in order to justify buying something. In the section below, we’ll give you a few tips on how to do just that.
Tips for Creating Effective Black Friday Ads
1. Highlight how a service or product can solve for your customer.
Remember, this year, shoppers of all ages will be more cautious than ever about the products they’ll be buying. While some might be saving up to splurge during the holiday season, they’ll still be taking their product research seriously to determine that anything they spend money on will have solid value. 
For marketers and advertisers, this means that your ads should aim to educate ideal customers about your offerings, how they can help them, or why they might need them in their daily lives. 
But, how do you convey that your offerings are valuable, important, or necessities when you don’t actually sell an essential product? Although it can take some creativity, it is possible to do this.
Below is an example of Twitter content from InfoArmor, an information security service owned by Allstate. In the tweet, InfoArmor shared a blog post about the dangers of information security when working remotely and how InfoArmor could protect remote employee information.

2. Present deals, sales, or affordable offers.
Aside from aiming to buy products with the best value, budget conscious shoppers will also be looking for the best deals this holiday season. If you can offer a deal or sale on your product or offering, embrace that information in your advertising. Here’s a great ad from Walmart that highlights all the online deals they’ll be offering this year:

Source
Along with the ad highlighting a bunch of great deals and alternatives for Black Friday in-person sales, the ad is also interesting because it’s interactive online but formatted so it can also work as a static print ad if needed. 
Aside from the ad above, Walmart has created content with a similar aesthetic and deal-oriented message for social media platforms like Facebook. Here’s a screenshot of featured content on its Facebook Business page.

3. Embrace video marketing.
In our 2020 State of Marketing Report, we found that video is the leading form of marketing content used across industries. And, with Gen-Z and millennials embracing video more than ever for product discovery, this format becomes more of a low-hanging fruit each year.
If you think video marketing is only for big brands, think again. In the last year, we’ve seen all sorts of small and large brands affordably embrace video ad and long-form content strategies that helped them gain ROI. Here’s one great example of a startup demo video created by Beauty Bakerie.

 
While the content allows viewers to see what the products will look like in real life, Cashmere, the brand’s CEO — Cashmere Nicole Carillo — gives instructions on how to use it so they’ll also know just how easy it is to add to their daily beauty routine.
4. Create content for different online platforms.
Regardless of which online platforms you embrace, be sure to create content that speaks to those customers, rather than just placing a basic ad on every website you can access. 
By creating content that’s tailored to platforms your customers use, you’ll increase the likelihood of catching their eyes as they scroll through endless web pages, feeds, or email inboxes. And, once you grab their attention, you can use that content to highlight your value proposition in an entertaining or interesting way.
For example, if you’re creating an ad for Instagram, it might be tempting to just use a picture of the ad you made for a website or newspaper on with a basic caption. But, that might not be engaging for people scrolling through their feeds looking for valuable product information or entertaining content. Instead, consider creating a short marketing video or a series of photos of customers with your product to better engage this audience.
Below is a great example of a Black Friday post that could also work well as an ad on Instagram. The post shows a video demo of someone from Hair Vivi putting on one of the brand’s wigs.

View this post on Instagram

Step by step simple lace frontal bob install✨🔥💯 @_excuse_my_beauty looks cute with our bob wig Wig Name: The Queen 👑 10% Off Code: NYE2020 ✨ https://www.hairvivi.com/✨ . . . . . #hairvivi #hairvivigirl #hairviviwig #bluntbob #bobunit #wiginstallation #wigvideo #wigslayer #blackinfluencer #blackfriday2019 #blackfridaysales #bobwig #boblife
A post shared by Hair Vivi｜Wig Company (@hairvivicom) on Jan 20, 2020 at 5:47pm PST

While the video shows viewers how easy it is to put on the wig, the caption also highlights the product’s value and the company’s Black Friday deals. 
Navigating Black Friday 2020
It’s safe to say this year’s Black Friday will be one of a kind. But, many of the consumer behaviors you’ll see won’t go away. anytime soon. 
On Black Friday and throughout the rest of 2020, some of the most successful brands will embrace online marketing strategies, meet their audiences on the platforms they regularly use, and effectively leverage content to highlight the value or affordability of their products. 
Craving more Black Friday data ahead of the event? Check out this handy list of stats. 
Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in December 2019 but was updated for freshness and comprehensiveness in November 2020.

No one seems to agree on cover letters. How much time do you need to spend perfecting them? Do hiring managers even read them? Is it better to just send in your resume and call it a day?
I’m not in HR, but I’ve been approached by applicants who wondered whether their cover letter would actually be read. My answer is one not many of them wanted to hear: “sometimes.” Sometimes it will be read. Other times, you can get away with just sending in your resume — like when you network your way into applying for a position.

The truth is, you can’t really predict on a case-by-case basis — and you’re better safe than sorry. For the most part, having a cover letter will give you an upper hand in ways your resume doesn’t. It allows you to show off your writing skills, provide details that you couldn’t fit on your resume, demonstrate your passion, and show your willingness to put in as much time and effort as possible.
Seems fairly basic, right? Cover letters can hold different levels of importance to an employer depending on the industry you’re in and the job you’re applying for. If you do plan to write a cover letter, keep in mind there are certain qualities it should have that are not included in the definition above.
What to Include in a Cover Letter
So, what should you include? We’ll let the 11 templates below this list do most of the talking. No matter which one you download, pay attention to the following elements — all of which should shine through in the letter you send to your future manager.

1. Contact Information
Cover letters shouldn’t just carry your contact information, but also that of the company to which you’re applying. Contact info includes your phone number, email address, and any social media accounts you’re willing to share and receive connections to.
Home addresses aren’t required, but they can be a helpful reassurance to the employer that you already live nearby and would have no trouble coming into the office.
Avoid offering phone numbers, email addresses, or actual addresses that belong to your current employer. Using your personal Gmail address over your work email, for example, ensures your correspondence with recruiters remains separate from all of your current work communication.
2. A Personal Address Line
For as often as you see “to whom it may concern” at the top of cover letters today, do your best to avoid writing this exhausted line.
Address lines that specify a person or company grab your reader’s attention much more quickly, and show the employer that you’ve taken the time to tailor your application letter to them. Don’t have the name of the hiring manager? “Employers at [company name]” will do just fine.
3. A Hook
A “hook” is a clever introduction that “hooks” your reader into wanting to learn more. Think about yourself as a job candidate — what makes you unique? What about your career might a recruiter be intrigued by that you can package into an interesting first sentence?
4. Why You’re Qualified
It’s a no-brainer that you should summarize your professional experience in your cover letter. However, today’s best applications describe why this experience qualifies the applicant for the job they’re applying for. For example, don’t just state that you spent three years writing for a company blog. Explain that this type of work lends itself to managing your new potential employer’s content calendar every week.
5. General Knowledge of the Business
Grammatical errors could mean your application is thrown in the trash, but that’s not the only thing that could get your letter tossed aside. Using a generic “one-size-fits-all” cover letter — especially if you forget to change the name of the company — will also hurt your chances of landing an interview.
So, if you take the time to write a cover letter, take the time to comment on the business itself. Why are you applying to this company? What about their business stuck out to you as a professional?
Now, let’s take a look at an example cover letter, what makes it effective, along with 11 templates you can download or draw inspiration from.
Cover Letter Example

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The example above illustrates how to write a marketing cover letter using the elements we listed.
Besides the contact information and the address line, the first few paragraphs explain why the candidate is qualified for the position. This example uses specific data to show why they would be a good fit.
Additionally, in the second to last paragraph, the candidate discusses why they’re interested in the specific company, demonstrating general knowledge of the business.
By combining all the elements to a cover letter, this is a great example to use for inspiration.
14 Free Cover Letter Templates for Your Next Job Application
Template 1: Basic

The example above is a basic (but great) cover letter. The numbered sections are explained in more detail below.
1. Header
The level of formality your header has will depend on the company to which you apply. If you’re applying to a formal business, it’s important to use a formal header to open your cover letter, like in the sample above. Put your address, the date, and the company’s address. But if you’re applying to a company that isn’t as formal, you don’t need to include yours and the company’s addresses. You can still include the date, though.
2. Greeting
Using “To Whom It May Concern” is okay, but you may want to take the time to research the name of the recruiter or hiring manager online. If you do your research and aren’t confident you found the right name, then you should definitely use the generic greeting — but if you are sure, then it shows you put in the effort to find their name and it will catch the recruiter’s eye.
If you have the recruiter’s name, do you greet them by their full name, or by their courtesy title (i.e. Mr., Ms., or Mrs.)? Similar to the header, it depends on the company’s level of formality. If you’re applying to a corporate business, you may want to consider using “Mr. Snaper” instead of “Jon Snaper.” If you’re applying to a start-up or a business with a more casual culture, you can use “Jon Snaper,” as shown in the example.
3. Introduction
Your opening paragraph should, in 1-3 sentences, state why you’re excited to apply and what makes you the perfect candidate. Get right to the point, and don’t worry about explaining where you found the posting or who you know at the company. This isn’t a place to go into detail about why you’re a great candidate — that’s for the second paragraph. Here, simply list a few key reasons in one sentence to set up the rest of your letter. Keep in mind that the recruiter may cross-reference your cover letter with your resume, so make sure the two sync up.
4. Paragraph 2: Why You’re a Great Fit for the Job
Next, sell yourself and your experience by choosing one or two concrete examples that show why you’re a great fit for the position. What did you do at a previous company that gave you relevant experience? Which projects have you worked on that would benefit the new company? How will your prior experience help this company grow? Stay humble in your explanation of credentials while still showing that you would be an asset to the team. Use this paragraph to show you’re genuinely excited and interested in the position.
5. Third Paragraph: Why the Company Is a Great Fit for You
While it’s certainly important you’re a good fit for the job, it’s also important that the company is a good fit for you. “A cover letter typically describes why you’re great for a company — but how will you benefit from getting hired?” asks Emily MacIntyre, a Team Development Manager at HubSpot. “We want to know why our company appeals to you, and how it will be a mutually beneficial working relationship.”
In the third paragraph, show you’re serious about growing and developing your career at this new company. What impresses and excites you about the company? Is there something that you feel strongly about that aligns with the company’s goals? For example, the candidate in the sample letter used this space to show his personal commitment to environmental causes aligns with the company’s green initiatives.
6. Strong Closer and Signature
Don’t get lazy in the final few sentences of your cover letter — it’s important to finish strong. Be straightforward about your interest and enthusiasm about the new position, and tell them you’re available to talk about the opportunity at any time. Be sure to include your phone number and email address. At this point, the ball is (rightly) in the recruiter’s court to decide how to follow up.
Last but certainly not least, thank them for their time and consideration. Use a formal sign-off like “Best,” “All the best,” or “Sincerely,” and finish by typing out your full name. You don’t need to sign it with a pen.
Template 2: Data-Driven Marketing Cover Letter
Get it here.

When applying to a data-driven position, it might be tempting to inject your cover letter with, well, the data to describe what you’ve done for other employers. But in an application letter — particularly for the marketing industry — how you convey this data is just as important as the data itself.
The cover letter template above, which we created here at HubSpot, can help you present the data that’s most important to you as a candidate such that it’ll matter to your future employer.
Notice the three bullet points near the center of the letter above, preceded by the statement: “… I’ve developed a strategy that has helped the company achieve …” This setup is important, because while you can add as many statistics as you want to this template, your data points should describe how your current/former business benefited from your work, rather than how you, yourself, benefited.
Template 3: Straight-to-the-Point Cover Letter
Get it here.

Harvard Business Review contributor David Silverman hailed the above cover letter example as “The Best Cover Letter I Ever Received.” For context, Silverman believes there are only a handful of times when writing a cover letter is actually necessary:

When you know the name of the hiring manager.
When you know something about what the job requires.
When you’ve been referred to the job personally.

Under those three circumstances, a straight-to-the-point cover letter like the one above could be your best bet. Because it’s so concise, however, make a point to add your own letterhead above the message itself. It might be easy for a recruiter to sift through a short and sweet cover letter like the one above, but it’s just as easy for it to get lost in the shuffle of their application list without a unique design or format.
Template 4: Referral Cover Letter
Get it here.

Just because a friend or colleague recommended you for a job doesn’t mean the company is all set to hire you. Therefore, the cover letter template above is written specifically for referrals. We made this one here at HubSpot. Download it here (it comes with four other cover letter templates, too).
As you can see in the picture above, the first paragraph of the cover letter is dedicated entirely to acknowledging the circumstances of your applying: You know someone who works there — no harm in that. But there might be harm in not mentioning it to the hiring manager. Telling the reader about your connection at the company shows you’re aware and confident of the actions you take to get the opportunities you’re interested it.
Ultimately, it’s better than the recruiter hearing about your employee connection from somebody else.
As for the rest of the cover letter, treat your message the same way you would if you had applied with no connection from within. Your skills and successes are no less important because of your internal referral.
Template 5: Photo Letterhead Cover Letter
Get it here.

The cover letter template above was designed by Microsoft Office, and as comprehensive as it looks, it’s completely free to download and modify.
As it looks right now, this cover letter contains about half photo, half text. Feel free to shrink (and change) the image to give yourself more room to tell your story. Of course, a nice washed-out image that expresses who you are can be part of that story …
Template 6: Digital Creative Cover Letter
Get it here.

This sixth template is perfect for the applicant who wants to emphasize the many different digital channels he or she is on. The header bar also allows this template to go well with a resume of the same format.
As you personalize this letter with your own experience, make note of the social networks and industry software included in this template. You’ll see along the top that LinkedIn, email, and personal website are all available for you to fill with your own information.
The bullet points in the above template also allow you to highlight your most important skills or accomplishments for the hiring manager.
Template 7: Marketing Manager Cover Letter
Get it here.

Our seventh cover letter comes from Monster.com. This cover letter, shown above, is focused specifically on a marketing role.
Notice how the writer includes references to important marketing metrics and terminology. If you’re applying to a data-driven role, you might not want to fill the page with a story of your experience in paragraph form, like Template 1 does at the beginning of this article. Instead, consider highlighting three (or four, or five) of your successes that you believe the hiring manager would resonate most with, in bulleted form.
As a marketing professional, breaking up your letter with bulleted details like the ones above shows a respect for the hiring manager’s limited time — a mentality that all marketers must understand when communicating with a brand’s audience.
Template 8: Career Day Follow-Up Cover Letter
Get it here.

This is a unique kind of cover letter from Princeton University.
CareerBuilder, Monster, and Indeed might take the lion’s share of your job searches online, but still some employment opportunities come out of a trade show, job fair, or similar networking event. For those occurrences, you have the follow-up cover letter template above.
This cover letter has everything you need to help an employer recall a conversation you had with him/her at a career fair. As you can see in the second paragraph, the letter is particularly useful to people who are about to graduate college.
Template 9: Logo and Watermarked Cover Letter
Get it here.

Here’s another cover letter template from Microsoft Office. This one has a light touch of color in the design just above the letterhead, but make no mistake — the template caters to any professional looking to make a good first impression on their future employer.
Don’t let the logo space on the top-right of the page confuse you. This can be the logo of the company to which you’re applying — to quickly get the attention of the recruiter — or your own logo. Perhaps you freelance on the side or simply like branding yourself. This cover letter template is meant for customization.
Template 10: Business Cover Letter
Get it here.

The cover letter template above is perfect for entry- and mid-level marketers who want to show a little extra professionalism in their opening note to a potential employer.
The multi-colored header (you can change the color if you wish) shows just the right amount of creativity and can go quite well with a resume of the same style. If you don’t have enough experience to fill the entire page, don’t worry. Feel free to write to a length you think is representative of who you are and what the hiring manager wants to see.
No matter how long your final cover letter is, the above template is your opportunity to show your attention to detail — from your contact information in the top header, to the personalized address line where you can include the name of the hiring manager. Like we said, “to whom it may concern” is pretty outdated, anyway.
Template 11: Entry-Level Cover Letter
Get it here.

The cover letter template above, written by HubSpot, is specifically designed for entry-level applicants.
When you only have a few years experience, it’s important to display how you gained your skills and what you learned from your education or internships. Additionally, it’s important to mention why you want to work at the company you’re applying to.
No matter your experience, the template above will help you decide what skills you want to highlight and flesh out in your cover letter.
You can download it here (it comes with four other cover letter templates, too).
Template 12: Healthcare Cover Letter
Get it here.
What stands out to me in this cover letter is the direct, straight-to-the-point bullet points that reference the job posting. The cover letter, created by The Balance Careers, cuts down on repetition by following the “I have” statement with six bullet points that highlight the applicant’s strengths, including “I have … practical knowledge of creating and implementing care plans” and “I have … a proven track record of compassionate, effective care”. 
Additionally, phrases like “I’d love to put my skills to work for your clinic” and “Please contact me at your convenience and let me know how I can help you” focus on what the business will gain as a result of hiring the applicant, rather than what the applicant is looking to gain. 
Template 13: Freelance Cover Letter
Get it here.

If you’re looking for freelance work, your biggest goal is to get your strengths across quickly, so busy clients won’t pass by your cover letter entirely. Additionally, if you’re sending out multiple cover letters to different clients, you’ll want to target each one to that client’s unique goals.
For instance, if one client is looking for SEO-optimized content related to marketing, you’ll want to highlight past experience writing marketing content; this will change if, for instance, the client is looking for fitness content. 
For this reason, it’s a good idea to structure your cover letter so you start with a) past credentials or references, and b) bullet-point information related to the client’s goal, as shown in the cover letter above. 
Template 14: Director Cover Letter
Get it here.
If you’re applying for a Director position, you’ll want to start by explaining how you’ve either successfully handled a similar role in the past, or why you believe you’re qualified and ready to handle new responsibilities for the first time. 
In the cover letter above, the candidate does a good job outlining how she succeeded in a leadership role previously: “For the past five years, I have successfully developed and maintained all data systems, including schedules and records for a business employing more than 100 people.”
You’ll want to demonstrate how your skills align with a Director position — both through organization and leadership — and, when possible, where you received recognition for your hard work (i.e. “I earned an award for Most Valuable Administrative Staff Member”). 
Writing a cover letter is easier said than done. Don’t hesitate to spend a lot of time writing and editing it. Or, ask a friend or family member to read it over and give you feedback. If the recruiter does end up reading it, you’ll be thankful you did.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2014 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.