Author: Liz Cerrone

Today’s consumer is bombarded with advertising messages from both traditional and digital media channels. The journey they are taking from their initial search for a solution to making a purchase is becoming more complex. According to digital marketing experts, 80 percent of consumers either start searching online and eventually make a purchase offline or start searching offline and purchase through online channels. Consequently, effective omnichannel engagement strategies are crucial to customer retention. Organizations that employ these strategies retain 89 percent of customers, while companies that do not only retain 33 percent.

Yet, with an omnichannel strategy, it’s more difficult for marketing managers and executives to determine which channel or advertising piece produced customer conversions. With all of the types of media and advertising customers see before they make a purchase, more than one channel has an influence. An omnichannel attribution model can help managers determine which advertising contributed to converting customers. Effective models can return data that reveals insights by campaigns, customer segments, and degrees of influence. However, an effective model will look different for each company and scenario. Here’s some tips on how to determine the best approach.

Factors to Consider

When designing an omnichannel attribution model, there are several questions you’ll need to ask and factors to keep in mind. The most important is the size of the organization. For instance, small companies may not always focus on more than one channel. Some campaigns or customer segments may be targeted with one media channel, while others are targeted with a larger scope. Medium to large companies, on the other hand, typically have the budgets to consistently use an omnichannel focus.

Small Organizations

If you’re a marketing manager or executive in a small company and you want to use a single channel, consider whether your sales cycle is short or long. While a short cycle typically concentrates on-demand generation, a longer cycle is more focused on conversions. Short cycles usually do best with a first-touch attribution model, while longer cycles are better served with a last-touch model. First-touch models credit the first point of advertising contact and last-touch models credit the last touchpoint. When using an omnichannel method, a small organization’s focus should shift from the length of the sales cycle to the growth strategy.

Medium to Large Organizations

Determining the optimal omnichannel attribution model for medium to large companies starts with asking whether there’s access to historical data. That data has to be both high-quality and in large enough quantities to be usable. Provided that type of data is unavailable, you should determine your growth strategy next. Without a defined growth strategy, a linear attribution model will be the best fit. Conservative growth strategies are best served by a time-decay model and aggressive growth fits with a position-based model. Firms that use an external vendor to collect, track, and manage historical data will find a data-driven omnichannel attribution model works well.

Types of Omnichannel Attribution Models

Data-Driven

A data-driven model is also called marketing mix modeling. This type of model works well for companies that have large amounts of historical data that can produce insights across a wide variety of digital and offline channels. Marketing mix modeling reveals how you can make your marketing budget more efficient by funneling more dollars into channels that have higher conversions. One of the advantages of this model is that it can also analyze sub-channels. Marketing mix modeling also incorporates factors external to the organization or campaign. For example, seasonal fluctuations in the weather or economic downturns can be used as inputs to determine temporary changes.

The con of using marketing mix modeling is that the data is often not uniform. As a result, your team will end up taking raw data from multiple sources and re-arranging it. Either you’ll need to restructure the data so that it’s apples to apples or make adjustments for differences. This can take your team extra time and additional help may be necessary. It is also more difficult for managers and executives to determine the non-financial performance of different media channels and make predictions for future campaigns.

Setting up a data-driven model works similarly to a weighted average formula. Let’s say your prospect’s first point of contact is an email, then a radio ad, followed by a call to a sales rep, then a store where a purchase is made. Depending upon the performance of each channel, you would assign a different percentage or weight to it. For example, the email was 30% effective, the radio ad was 20% effective, the call to the sales rep was 40% effective, and the trip to the store was 10% effective in converting the prospect.

Time-Decay, Position-Based, and Linear-Attribution

A time-decay model also assigns a percentage or weight indicating effectiveness to each channel. The difference is that the closer to conversion the channel is in the customer’s buying journey, the more weight it is given. This model can increase customer loyalty and incorporate all stages of the customer’s buying journey. However, this model tends to always place more value on channels that are nearest to conversion and less value on channels that are farthest away from conversion.

In a position-based model, equal emphasis is placed on the customer’s first and final exposure to advertising. Besides placing equal emphasis on the first and last channel the customer sees or interacts with, less weight or effectiveness is assigned to points of contact in the middle of the journey. Using the previous example from the data-driven model, you would assign 40% to the email and the store, along with 10% each to the radio ad and the sales rep. While this model helps managers focus on acquiring leads and converting them into customers, it discounts the other channels that could play a bigger role in converting prospects.

Unlike the other models, linear-attribution assigns the same percentage of weight to all of the channels. This is the easiest model to work with and does not overlook any of the media channels. However, the model fails to take into account that different channels can exert various degrees of influence on prospects.

Tracking Channel Performance

Without the ability to track the performance of each channel with a unique ID or actions, assigning weights or percentages to different channels can be misleading and ineffective. Generally speaking, there are three different overarching methods to track channel performance. Those methods include using rules, paths, or multiple dimensions.

Using rules means that you first determine which actions to consider. For example, will unique last clicks be used to track channel performance? Or will calls into a service center be used? When paths are utilized, you look at the entire customer journey from the first contact to conversion. The same path or means to conversion is used to track performance across all channels. The multiple dimensions approach uses a unique ID for each prospect or customer as he or she goes through the channels to conversion. Although the path-based method can become less accurate when you attempt to apply it to specifics like keyword phrases, the multiple dimensions approach’s data can become limited to the channels converted prospects encounter.

Digilant’s Approach to Omnichannel Attribution

If all of this sounds overwhelming, know that omnichannel advertising experts like Digilant can help you build an effective strategy and model. Combining digital and offline advertising to convert prospects and grow your business can be challenging, even for the largest firms with the best resources. Digilant takes the guesswork out of the process and shortens the learning curve with data-driven approaches. We can offer full-service and self-service options, and over 500 clients trust us to aid in their omnichannel strategies.

Don’t put the fate of your omnichannel strategy at risk. Contact us for more information today.

There’s no overstating the potential impact of a successful digital marketing campaign. In fact, a sound digital marketing strategy can help your brand grow in the face of fierce competition and other challenges. Unfortunately, handling your own digital marketing in-house can also be extremely time-consuming, costly, and cumbersome.

Enter a digital marketing agency; with an integrated suite of digital marketing capabilities, a results-driven digital marketing agency can handle any and all aspects of your digital marketing strategy so you don’t have to. As a result, you can free up valuable time and resources to continue doing what you do best: running your business.

So, which digital marketing agency services should you consider outsourcing (if you’re not already)? We’ve got some suggestions.

7 Digital Marketing Agency Services to Consider Outsourcing

1. Paid Search Advertising

While paying for online ad space may seem like an antiquated concept, the reality is that paid search advertising can still be extremely effective when carried out correctly. The problem is that many business owners simply don’t have the time to fully understand the intricacies of paid search ads and how best to use them to their advantage.

The good news is you can outsource a team of search advertising experts that live and breathe SEM. From analyzing search signals and keyword intent to choosing the right advertising channel to reach your audience, they can do it all. And by taking this digital marketing task off your plate, you can spend more time on other aspects of your business.

2. Social Media Marketing

Many growing businesses these days ultimately reach a point where they need to hire a dedicated, full-time social media specialist (or team of specialists) to stay on top of their Facebook, Twitter, and other platform presence. If you’re still trying to handle your company’s social media accounts on your own, your business may be probably missing out.

From posting new content and replying to followers to getting involved in paid social media advertising, your social media marketing is not something you should be trying to handle alone. By working with a social media marketing specialist (such as our team at Digilant), you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle while enjoying the peace of mind in knowing that our professionals know today’s hottest social media platforms inside and out.

In addition to organic social media marketing, your social media team should also be well versed in up-and-coming paid advertising opportunities that are now being offered by popular social media platforms such as Facebook. No matter how big or small your advertising budget, a strategic digital advertising company will make the most of each dollar.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Your brand’s search engine result page (SERP) rankings can have a very direct impact on growth and success. In fact, if your site isn’t currently ranking on the first page of search engine results, there’s a good chance you’re missing out on substantial web traffic from potential customers and clients.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a great way to boost your search engine rankings and get your site listed towards the top of the results. It’s also a very cost-effective marketing service, with many SEO strategies requiring no more than your time and research.

Unfortunately, implementing a successful SEO strategy can be extremely time-consuming and confusing without the proper experience. Meanwhile, some SEO tools can be difficult to learn and use. Furthermore, using the wrong SEO techniques (such as “black-hat” strategies) can have the opposite impact harming your SERPs and possibly even getting your website de-indexed by Google or another search engine.

By outsourcing your brand’s SEO, you can let our team of professionals take this digital marketing agency service out of your hands and make sure it’s done right. Find a team that is well-versed in the most effective white-hat SEO strategies and is always staying on top of changes in search engine algorithms to help your brand rank as high as possible.

4. Paid Influencer Advertising

These days, more businesses are using paid influencers to spread awareness of their products and services. In fact, global brands are expected to spend more than $7 billion on social influencer marketing by the end of 2020 alone. However, navigating the ins and outs of paid influencer advertising can be complex—especially to those with limited experience in this arena.

When you work with a digital marketing team, they can help you leverage all types of influences in any category imaginable to take your brand recognition to new heights. Some examples of influencer types we work with regularly include:

• mega influencers
• macro influencers
• micro influences
• referrers
• loyalists
• advocates

5. Web Design and Development

Unless you already have a dedicated web design and development team in-house, this is one of many digital marketing agency services that you should absolutely be outsourcing. After all, your website is typically one of the first (if not the first) opportunity to leave an impression on your audience; you want to be sure that you’re doing it right. And if you’re not a web design professional, you’re may not be.

A well-designed website is not only professional-looking, but it is easy for your users to navigate. Likewise, the coding of your website should be handled with security, SEO, and other factors in mind. This is where working with an experienced web design and development team can make all the difference.

6. Email Marketing

From a return-on-investment (ROI) perspective, email marketing really can’t be beaten. In fact, it is estimated that email generates an ROI of up to $38 for every single dollar spent.

At the same time, carrying out an effective email marketing strategy can be easier said than done. From audience segmentation to crafting the right subject line, there’s a lot that goes into implementing a successful email marketing campaign. And if you’re like a lot of business owners, you simply don’t have the time or resources to tackle this yourself.

By outsourcing your email marketing to a team of professionals, you can maximize the returns on each campaign with strategies like audience segmentation, A/B testing, and more.

7. Content Creation

Regularly publishing creative and unique content on your social media channels, blog, and website is key to your brand’s growth as an authority within your industry. But who has the time to constantly be coming up with new content ideas and carrying them out?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your content creation and content planning needs, it’s probably time to look into outsourcing this task to an experienced professional. A content creation team will have the tools to carefully research your target audience and figure out what they’re searching for. From there, this team can create one-of-a-kind content that can not only help boost your SEO, but that is share-worthy on social media and other platforms as well.

Digilant is Here to Help

These are just some examples of the many digital marketing agency services your brand may want to consider outsourcing if you’re not already. By doing so, you can free up more of your own valuable time as well as that of your employees. Meanwhile, you’ll know that your digital marketing agency services are in skilled and capable hands—and that we have the tools and resources to help you get the best possible return on your marketing budget.

The Digilant team has already helped more than 500 clients take their digital marketing to new heights. From SEM to social media to programmatic and email marketing, we have a diverse group of talented digital marketers that hone in on their craft to master it and implement the most timely and effective strategies for clients’ campaigns. We offer varying service levels because we understand that no digital advertising strategy is alike – from full service to manage service and self-service, we are eager to work with you to find out which areas of your digital advertising strategies you are looking to take to new heights. Interested in seeing our digital advertising expertise in action? You can learn more about how our team of social media experts worked with PopCorners to promote their product launch via Facebook here. 

Have you considered incorporating programmatic digital advertising into your marketing efforts? If so, you might have done a little research, and you may have already answered some of the questions you had when you were just starting out. If you’re new to this idea, however, there’s a whole world of information that’s just waiting to be uncovered. With this in mind, let’s take a little closer look at the world of programmatic digital advertising so you can better understand the pros and cons associated with this method of marketing.

What is Programmatic Digital Advertising?

Programmatic digital advertising is a method of marketing that utilizes technology to buy and sell online advertising space. It’s helpful in that it can target segmented audiences using real-time data in ways that humans simply can’t accomplish. In the end, programmatic ad buys to ensure that advertisements are delivered to the right people at the right times.

Elements of Programmatic Digital Advertising: Pros and Cons

When you hire a digital advertising agency, you should be comfortable knowing the agency’s team will take your brand under its wing and guide you from there. If you’re seeking programmatic digital advertising assistance, you might feel a little lost at first. Fear not! We’ve got everything you need to know about the use of this type of technology in the marketing realm.

1. Humans Still Need to Oversee the Process

Programmatic advertising, by definition, is run by computers (or, some might say, robots). However, people still need to be at the helm, monitoring analytics, and ensuring buys make sense. If a digital marketing agency has bad practices or inexperienced staff, you could find yourself wasting viewability or worse, not being seen at all.

Cons: It’s easy to lose money on programmatic digital advertising if you don’t hire the right team.

Pros: The right digital advertising agency will have a team in place that can launch, manage, and execute successful programmatic advertising campaigns.

2. Programmatic Digital Advertising is Highly Efficient

There was a time when online spots were purchased by humans. Those employees would sit at their desks for hours on end, calling up other people and trading money for ad spaces. This was a slow and unreliable process. Today, algorithms do the work.

Cons: Your employees may have less interaction with peers they may have spoken to in days-gone-by.

Pros: Programmatic digital advertising is incredibly efficient, doesn’t have vacation days, and never calls in sick.

3. It’s Important to Know that Bots are Real

Almost any digital advertising agency you talk to will tell you that bots and ad fraud, unfortunately, are a real thing that you might have to deal with in the digital arena.

Cons: Some companies have been known to create bots that click on advertisements over and over again, running the advertiser’s budget into the ground. Online traffic fraud is a real thing, but it doesn’t have to stop you from putting your brand out there. You just need to employ a digital advertising agency that knows how to look for thieves and miscreants so they can be squashed before your budget bears the brunt of unfortunate actions.

Pros: When you employ a digital advertising agency that knows how to work programmatic buys, they’ll pay attention to unsavory clicks and ad fraud that could cost you a lot of money and put a stop to those behaviors as they’re happening.

4. ROI Can Be Substantial

When you’re not paying humans to do all the little things that algorithms can bring, you might be surprised about how much less you’re spending on your marketing budget in comparison to the amount of money you’re bringing in.

Cons: Bots and unsavory competitors can eat away at your marketing budget pretty quickly. (Thankfully, that’s not a very common occurrence, especially for small business owners.)

Pros: When everything’s been programmed and set up to go, machines will keep chugging along until you meet your goals or hit your budget. This ensures you maximize your ad spend and get a higher return on investment overall.

5. You Have Unlimited Access to Audiences

When you use programmatic technology, you have access to real-time data that can help you match your brand to targeted ads when and where people are most likely to pay attention to them.

Cons: If you don’t have an experienced digital advertising agency on your team, the data can be a little overwhelming when it starts to trickle in.

Pros: Real-time data helps reduce the likelihood that you’ll buy wasteful ads or target incorrect traffic, which can save you time and money in the long run.

Why You Should Explore the Possibilities that Programmatic Digital Advertising Can Bring to Your Business

When it comes down to it, you’re operating a business, and you need to put your brand in front of as many people as possible. While marketing teams may be amazing for a thousand different reasons, the humans that man those roles can’t really stand up to the robots and algorithms that facilitate efficiency, effectiveness, and overall great returns on investment. If you truly want to bolster your brand into the next category of being seen, you need to employ technology to purchase your ad spaces in today’s cyberspace.

At Digilant, we understand programmatic digital advertising because that’s what we do. If you want to work with a team of professionals whose day-to-day livelihood revolves around this type of technology, we’d love to talk to you. Let’s touch base so we can tell you more about our team!

When it comes to a full service marketing agency, you might be surprised about all of the tasks the team on the other side of the screen can handle. A stellar digital advertising agency takes care of everything from digital marketing to content creation and website development. Bear in mind, however, that none of this happens overnight. A great full-service marketing agency takes time to plan strategies well in advance of campaign executions, hones in on your branding and messaging, and monitors the results as the analytics begin to roll in.

With this in mind, let’s dive a little deeper into the role of a full service marketing agency so you can see how this type of setup might help your business.

Solutions-Focused Services

When you’re searching for a digital advertising agency, you want to find a team that’s able to deliver a wide range of services. Digilant is proud to say we’re here for you in this area, as we focus on improving our clients’ businesses by all means possible. This means we can help you concoct awesome email campaigns, design unbelievable landing pages, and promote yourself on social media sites.

No matter what you’re trying to accomplish, our full-service marketing agency can take care of your needs (and then some).

Teams with Varied Backgrounds and Experiences

At Digilant, we find that it’s important to tout our employees’ talents to our clients so they can see the wide breadth of knowledge that each person brings to the table. Our digital advertising agency is filled with professionals from various backgrounds and years of experience in what they specialize in, be it inbound marketing, programmatic ad-buying, direct response marketing, or paid affiliate marketing.

Digilant’s team members come from a varied array of experiences, bringing with them a combination of creativity and analytical skills that bolster each project we take on.

Open Collaboration and Communication Within the Team

At Digilant, we believe in being the type of full service marketing agency that thrives on being transparent and communicative with our clients. We want you to understand that the person who’s helping with your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts can easily reach out to the social media manager if they need to connect about ideas or exchanges. The same goes for the folks who will be working on your paid advertising, paid influencer, or paid affiliate marketing campaigns. To us, the machine is really well-oiled when everybody can get together and share ideas. That’s what makes our clients’ campaigns successful.

Creation of Branding and Design

Your digital advertising agency should be able to offer you the ability to bring your ideas to life by way of creative touches and innovative processes. At Digilant, we’re a full service marketing agency that offers a complete range of creative services that are built to both engage and inspire your audiences. We’re experts in media planning and strategy, creative development, and analytics oversight.

Media Planning & Strategy

We’ll talk to you, listen to what your ideas are, and bring our team of experts in to make everything cohesive. Our in-house team of media planning gurus understands strategy, and will happily bring their insight into your project. These people can help you understand your existing data, plan for future success, and make informed decisions that can drive greater brand awareness going forward.

Creative Strategy

When you work with this team at Digilant, you’ll be exposed to professionals who understand audiences and create campaigns around their needs and expectations in ways that are engaging and far-reaching.

Paid Search Marketing

If you really want to be successful with your marketing endeavors, you have to make friends with the search engines. This is where our paid search team can help you. We help companies gain audiences within searchers’ SERPs (search engine results pages) so they can boost their rankings and enjoy highly-targeted search engine optimization and paid search programs. We make sure you have the keywords and proper phrases woven into your content and online advertising so you get the most attention possible for your efforts.

Lead Generation

Everything a great digital advertising agency does ultimately revolves around generating well-qualified leads for its clients. It takes a mix of a lot of ingredients, including:

• Content marketing
• SEO
• Email marketing
• Marketing automation
• Paid advertising
• Website and landing page creation
• Data integration and onboarding

Choosing a Full Service Marketing Agency

In the end, it’s our team’s goal to make sure you get as much attention to your brand as possible. When you work with us, you’ll realize a number of benefits, including a scalable solution that can change on a dime, depending on your business’s needs. This isn’t always possible with an in-house marketing team, and the costs associated with training, development, and software can easily find small business owners in over their heads when the bills come due. For us, as a full service marketing agency, you only have to worry about one thing: sharing your thoughts with us. We’ll take care of the rest, including data integration and monitoring of analytics.

Digilant is a premier digital advertising agency that knows how to take advertisers from “now” to “next”. Our team of experts is filled to the brim with creative ideas that can take your brand to the next level. If you’re ready to elevate your digital marketing strategies, we’re ready to step in and help. Connect to our team today!

When it comes to finding the right marketing campaign attribution for your medium-sized business, it is important to trust in a digital marketing agency that understands what strategy will provide the best results. There are no two businesses that are exactly alike, which means no two marketing strategies should be the same either. The right marketing campaign attribution can make or break your success each year. Depending on whether you need short or long sales cycles to successfully operate your business, you will find success from following any of these five strategies.

Making Campaign Attribution Models for Business With Short Sales Cycles

Short sales cycles are important to understand because your business does not have a long period of time to nurture a lead into a customer. These individuals are looking to quickly purchase a product or schedule a service. Often, these leads already understand what your business offers. Therefore, they do not need to go through extensive touchpoints of engagement to decide if they will do business with your company.

1. First-Touch Attribution

As the name of this attribution implies, this strategy looks at your customer’s engagement history from the very first time they engaged with your brand in the sales cycle. Whether this first point of engagement was in-person, via email, on a social media post, or through your website, it is important to identify how each of your leads have found your company. This is an incredibly easy strategy to build and maintain because it follows the exact timeline of interaction. You can see the history of your customer’s engagement with your company and understand what actions lead to them finally making a purchase.

When you trust a digital marketing agency to build this strategy for you, you can ensure any and all automated events will be properly logged. Furthermore, you can trust that those who need to be notified about engaging with a lead are properly notified at the exact right time. You will not need to worry about losing out on a sale simply because your sales team was not notified of a customer inquiry.

2. Last-Touch Attribution

Similar to the last attribution strategy, last-touch attribution identifies the final engagement with leads before they become customers. While it is important to understand your customer’s history, it is even more important to identify trends in actions or conversations that lead to conversions. These conversions are what drive your business forward and provide you with the revenue needed to excel each year.

Fortunately, this strategy is just as easy for a digital marketing agency to build for your business. All pertinent information that needs to be logged can be done so with ease. As more leads convert into customers, your agency can provide you with detailed reports that show what made the conversion possible.

Making Campaign Attribution Models for Businesses With Long Sales Cycles

Long sales cycles require multiple touchpoints of engagement to fully nurture a lead into a paying customer. In order to reach a decision that leads to conversion, your business must understand how to nurture the lead. This process is lengthy and required detailed notes on each point of engagement.

3. U-Shaped Attribution

With U-shaped attribution, it combines some of the ideas of the first touch and last touch attribution strategies. Especially, this strategy provides 40 percent of credit to the first point of contact along with the last engagement that leads to conversion. The remaining 60 percent is evenly divided to the mid touchpoints that occurred through the sales cycle. This type of strategy paints a complete picture of how media, messaging, and marketing tactics hooked, nurtured, and converted leads into customers.

By trusting a digital marketing agency to create this attribution strategy for your business, you can begin to fully understand your customer journey and fine-tune your sales cycle. There will not be a guessing game on what happened between the first point of engagement and the last touch. Rather, you will see the mid touchpoints and be able to determine if they need to be expanded or decreased in order to create the most efficient sales cycle.

4. W-Shaped Attribution

A W-Shaped attribution strategy evenly distributes credit to the first, last, and mid touchpoints. This type of strategy does still focus on the first and last points of engagement before conversion, but this strategy is important when all engagement is important for obtaining conversion. With a W-shaped strategy, you understand the points of engagement that both nurture and convert leads.

A digital marketing agency can help you identify all the various touchpoints that are apparent in your sales cycle. Once these are identified your agency can help you analyze data to determine if these touchpoints are more likely to educate or persuade your leads on your offering.

5. Time-Decay Attribution

A time-decay attribution strategy recognizes that events leading up to conversion carry more weight than events that occur earlier in the sales cycle. While gaining interest is important, the touchpoints that convert leads into customers are ultimately what increase your revenue. Therefore, more value is credited to the final events in the sales cycle.

Your digital marketing agency can help you determine which events are crucial to converting your leads in the final hour. These events are identified based on past sales, speaking with the individuals who interact with your leads, and understanding what actions your leads can complete without speaking to your company. This information is compiled and used to assign the best values to each touchpoint.

Trust In Marketing Campaign Attribution To Improve Your Sales

Whether your business follows a short or long sales cycle, you can improve your results by understanding what events are crucial for converting customers. For others, only the first or last touchpoints are important. For other businesses, understanding the mid touchpoints or the final stages of the sales cycle is what makes a difference in their sales. 

Whatever model your business follows, Digilant can assist you. Please do not hesitate to contact us today to learn how we can help you understand your sales cycle and increase your conversion

 

The customer journey is just as important as offering the highest quality product or service. The days of offering just the best product or service are in the past. Now, your business must also give customers the best experience possible in order to win their business and retain their loyalty. With the number of brands operating across the globe, the customer is in a position to go with whoever offers them the highest value and most pleasurable journey. This means your company must use the right marketing attribution models to provide the most seamless customer journey. Once you understand the difference between mobile attribution and desktop attribution, you and your digital advertising agency team can determine what type of journey you need to provide your customers.

Mobile Attribution vs. Desktop Attribution

Mobile attribution is used to understand the types of marketing campaigns and media channels that will deliver specific goals. These goals can focus on app installations, click-through rates, submissions, or other actions that are vital to the customer journey and sales cycle. The actions completed by your customer during this journey will occur on a mobile-friendly device, such as a smartphone or tablet. The information that is obtained drives optimization for customer acquisition campaigns and overall marketing performance.

Desktop attribution is used to understand the web pages and digital marketing efforts that drive traffic to a company’s website. This attribution will also review the customer touchpoints throughout the customer journey that are specific to the website and any PPC campaigns being run on search engines. The data can come from any web page, whether it through the mobile version of your website or the desktop version.

Value Of Marketing Attribution

When it comes to marketing attribution, it is important to understand the values that both mobile and desktop attributions can provide your business. Each type provides unique insights that allow your digital advertising agency team and yourself to fully understand your customer journey. In order to successfully analyze your current marketing efforts, you must evaluate the data obtained through both attributions.

In regards to the value of mobile insights, you can fully understand how individuals complete specific actions while on their smartphones or tablets. Understanding where they click, how they get to your app or website, and what touchpoints they are utilizing to learn more about your business are incredibly valuable to improving the customer journey.

On the other hand, desktop attribution values are also important. Learning how traffic arrives to your website and what content marketing pages are responsible for educating your customers helps you determine which marketing strategies are performing the best. Furthermore, it allows you to evaluate the ROI your digital advertising agency is able to provide to your business.

Challenges With Each Attribution Type

As with all things in digital marketing, each type of attribution comes with its own unique challenges. It is important to understand what these challenges are in order to properly analyze the data and understand where some interpretation of the numbers may be required.

Mobile attribution can be difficult to trace with 100 percent certainly. This is largely due to the limitations of tracking touchpoints. It is impossible to determine if you have outlined every single engagement point for your customers. While you can certainly get close, you cannot know if your customer followed the journey you have predicted. Additionally, not every individual who purchases a product or service from your company will have access to a smartphone or tablet. This means that the data compiled from this attribution will eliminate a portion of your total audience.

In regards to desktop attribution, some of the challenges include assessing if the customer utilized multiple devices to discover information about your company. It is possible for one customer to use two, three, five, or more devices. If they opt-out of cookie tracking, it will be difficult for you to identify each desktop attributed interaction and link it to a single customer. This can cause your data tracking to be skewed and create multiple customers when, in fact, all of these engagements were completed by a single individual.

Trust Your Digital Advertising Agency To Provide The Right Customer Journey

Each attribute type is incredibly important for your business to understand. Otherwise, you cannot provide the best type of customer journey for those who are interested in your business. As our world continues to aggressively move into mobile prioritization, mobile attribution is incredibly important to focus your resources on. If your customers cannot easily learn, browse, and shop for your offering from their favorite devices, they will find another company that makes the process simpler. Additionally, this attribution type will ensure you fully understand what actions lead to your specified goals.

On the other hand, desktop attribution is still vitally important. This type of attribution ensures you understand how the deliverables produced by your digital advertising agency impact your customer journey. Between content marketing and social media efforts, desktop attribution helps you understand what drove traffic to your website.

Depending on your business, it may be in your best interest to use one or both attribution models. The best way to determine this information is to trust in a digital advertising agency like Digilant. We can help you understand your customer journey and identify what actions need to be taken to help your business grow. Please do not hesitate to contact us today!

As technology continues to develop, so do the ways brands advertise to their customers. Each year, it is important for a digital advertising agency and business owners to understand the upcoming digital advertising trends. By understanding these new trends, brands and agencies can stay ahead of the competition and provide better ROI. Otherwise, companies will fall behind those who invested the time and resources to learn the latest marketing trends. Those who develop the latest trends into their current marketing strategy will reach their audience easier and build relationships that nurture leads through the sales process more efficiently. Without further delay, let’s jump into the digital marketing trends of 2021.

1. Increase Social Media Engagement

As social interactions remain limited due to the novel coronavirus, engagement on social media will retain its importance. A digital advertising agency must have a plan in place to quickly respond to followers on various social media accounts. No one wants to wait days to get a response to simple questions, so it is important to have a detailed plan in place that addresses how and when messages must be addressed.

Furthermore, engagement on social media comments is also vital. Individuals are extremely limited in who they can see in person. If they are taking time out of their day to comment on a brand’s social media post, it is the brand’s responsibility to respond in a timely manner. The increase of time spent online and at home means followers have more freedom to engage with who they deem worthy. In 2021, brands will increase time spent responding to comments to ensure their followers know their messages are appreciated.

2. Additional Focus On Google Listings and Local SEO

Google My Business profiles will continue to be important in 2021. However, simply having a Google My Business profile will not be enough. The profile must be fully filled out and optimized for SEO. There is no longer an acceptable excuse as to why hours, specials, and contact information are not completely accurate. More individuals will turn to Google and search engines to find pertinent information before leaving their homes. In order to ensure these individuals call the right number, go to the right address, or purchase the right product/service, the Google My Business listing must be updated often and maintained correctly.

Local SEO will continue to reign king in digital advertising trends. The best digital advertising agency will continue to grow their efforts and deliver the most traffic possible to your website and your physical location. A large focus on new city location pages and blogging efforts will drive SEO efforts in 2021.

3. Communicate Availability

The novel coronavirus will still be making headlines in 2021. To ensure individuals have the most up to date information, companies will improve the way they communicate their availability. If their offices are open, it will be known. Should teams now work remotely and a physical location is no longer operating, brands will need to share this information. These details will become a regular addition to social media and email marketing efforts.

4. Google Ads Continue To Rise

PPC advertising has always been a powerful tool, but it will be even more important in 2021. With more individuals at home, digital advertising trends regarding PPC will continue to rise. As consumers search for news, products, and services, brands will want to appear on the top of results. Rather than waiting to organically gain a ranking on the first page, brands will pay to play in order to reach the top.

5. Increased Voice Search

Since more individuals are home, they are using their voice assistants more often. From Bixby and Siri to Alexa and Google, individuals are searching more by voice. This trend has always been growing, but it will be vital for a digital advertising agency to understand in 2021. Voice searches require a different SEO strategy than local SEO and mobile-friendly blogs. However, the results will speak for themselves once a proper voice search strategy is employed.

6. Deeper Customer Segmentation

A deeper understanding of the customer will be required in order to fully market to them in 2021. The more time someone spends online, more information about them can be learned and logged into a CRM. From the pages they visit on your website to which emails they actually opened and clicked on, a complete understanding of your customer can be achieved. This information can be used to segment them into proper marketing campaigns, which will garner the highest ROI.

7. More Interactive Content

Static, one-way conversations are an idea of the past. In 2021, interactive content and meaningful conversations will be the new normal. Social media stories, polls, forms, quizzes, and more will take over the social media realm. Individuals who spend time interacting with brands in 2021 will want to feel like they are part of the conversation rather than part of the crowd.

2021 Will Bring New Digital Advertising Trends 

It is no secret that the world we live in is changing rapidly. From the way we interact with one another to how often we leave our home, 2021 will bring about many changes. It is important for brands of all sizes to understand the digital advertising trends that are quickly arriving.

Digilant is the digital advertising agency you can trust to monitor, learn, and adapt to these trends as they arrive. Your marketing campaigns will incorporate the latest trends of 2021 and every year’s trends moving forward. Please do not hesitate to contact us today and inquire about our digital advertising services.

In March of 2020, the world as people saw it officially changed when the novel coronavirus outbreak became the Covid-19 pandemic and dramatically affected the lives of millions of people around the globe. Wearing facial masks became ordinary, and social distancing became the societal norm.

Due to the fear of getting sick, people did not leave their homes to shop, so they did the next best thing—they shopped from their homes’ comfort for everything they needed while on their computer or cell phone.

From groceries to clothes and from toilet paper to electronics, people had the online convenience to shop for all they required and all they wanted, thereby boosting the eCommerce industry into a digital stratosphere the world has never seen before but will probably see again.

How though? By way of omnichannel retail marketing.

Read on and learn more about this digital phenomenon, how learning about it can help your digital marketing agency, and the three reasons it is the ultimate future of the eCommerce industry.

What is Omnichannel Retail Marketing?

In short, omnichannel retail marketing bridges the physical world with the digital world. In the long-form, omnichannel retail marketing is the fully integrated marketing approach to multichannel retail and commerce, which provides a unified and seamless consumer experience across all channels and touchpoints. Such channels include cell phones, eCommerce marketplaces, computers, in-person storefronts, TV, radio, mail, catalogs, social media, etc.

Overview of Omnichannel Retail Marketing

According to Salesforce’s studies, 55% of consumers say there is somewhat of a disconnect while switching between channels during their retail experiences. Yet, Statistica’s additional research suggests that only 22% of retailers in North America consider omnichannel experiences a top priority as many of them have only been using multichannel marketing strategies.

Multichannel vs. Omnichannel

While omnichannel and multichannel get often used interchangeably, they are two different ideas.

Multichannel refers to separate and disconnected channels, while omnichannel talks about the connection between the digital and the brick-and-mortar and their ability to seamlessly work together to improve a customer’s buying experience journey.

Another distinct difference between multichannel and omnichannel is their ultimate goals.

Multichannel concentrates more on the sale and doing everything it can to make the deal happen. On the other hand, omnichannel marketing focuses more on merging a brand’s physical world with its digital world to improve customer retention and provide a laid back, unforgettable, and consistent shopping experience–something every digital marketing agency needs to know about.

But how do you deliver an omnichannel retail experience?

First, you need to understand your consumers’ behavior and become familiar with their journey using multiple channels, including online, eCommerce, social, mobile, and in-store. You must understand your customer and what influences them, drives them, and keeps them coming back to your store. By gaining a deeper understanding of your customers, you will need to expand your number of touchpoints in a purposeful way to deliver what the customer wants before they even realize they want it. 

Second, brands must implement technology that can share inventory and product data with customers in real-time, through any channel, but can gather information to personalize the buyers’ shopping experiences.

But early 80% of retailers state they fail to offer consumers a unified brand experience because they are falling behind, and here is a list of the reasons why:

• Lack of internal organization (39%)
• Lack of consumer analytics across channels (67%)
• Siloed organization (48%)
• Low data quality (45%)
• Inability to identify consumers across shopping trips (45%)

You can start to overcome the obstacles above, with not only the help of a digital marketing agency, by understanding the potential of omnichannel and why its strategies are critical to your campaigns’ success.

Why an Omnichannel Strategy is Critical for Campaign Success

Omnichannel retail marketing will not just track consumers across one or two channels, but all of them. Omnichannel retailers will allow consumers to experience a brand and not only a channel within a brand.

Omnichannel retail marketing must be implemented sooner rather than later, to uphold a competitive advantage.

The omnichannel user experience leverages data about one sales channel to invite the customer to participate in another, thereby allowing their actions to feel inherent to the given medium instead of forced.

One primary reason an omnichannel strategy is critical for campaign success is that nearly 75% of shoppers state they use multiple channels to compare prices, look for deals, or use in-store tablets to shop on the internet. Besides, omnichannel customers spend 4% more on each in-store shopping occasion and 10% more online than single-channel shoppers.

In short, the more channels a customer uses, the more money they spend.

Read on and discover 3 Reasons Why Omnichannel Retail Marketing is the Future of eCommerce, and how a digital marketing agency can help.

3 Reasons Why Omnichannel Retail Marketing is the Future of eCommerce

More Personalized Experiences

When consumers feel like the brand knows them, it personalizes their shopping experience. The goal of omnichannel retail, after all, is providing shoppers with one easy, cohesive, and smooth shopping process.

An online business needs to consider what people want to see, and no matter how shoppers interact with the retailer, they need to get the same positive impression of the retailer’s brand.

Shoppers care about personalization. According to an Evergage study, 96% of marketers have improved customer relationships by providing personalized shopping experiences. In comparison, 88% of the study’s respondents said their customers and prospects expect a personalized experience.

In short, consumers want things to be personal for them, which is one primary reason why omnichannel retail marketing is the future of eCommerce.

Detailed Information About Customer Behavior

Omnichannel retail marketing will give consumers personalization, but it will provide data about their behavior to satisfy their needs.

With all the different ways to enter into a brand’s ecosystem, retailers need to understand their consumers and their behavior more than they have ever had to before.

According to Harvard Business Review research, approximately 7% of participants shopped exclusively online, while only 20% shopped solely in retail stores. The remaining percentage favored a mix and used multiple channels throughout their shopping journey.

Due to this eclectic combination, it is imperative to know when a customer first encounters your brand and when they end up finally converting. Gaining access to these different pathways can help companies better understand how to give improved experiences to their shoppers and recognize the key touchpoints, thereby funneling their marketing budget adequately.  

Retailers Can Concentrate on the Most Effective KPIs and Effectively Target Customers

If you have a better understanding of the various touchpoints customers use and how they navigate their way through your brand, you can more effectively and efficiently optimize the points they convert.

Approximately 71% of consumers use their phones to research products before buying them—even while they are already in the store. So, developing an omnichannel marketing strategy that targets and converts potential shoppers at precisely the right time is essential.

Suppose brands better understood how consumers use each channel (whether to purchase or research). In that case, they could put additional resources into the conversion point—or any other point that pushes the customer to convert and buy the item).

Brands need to track data and make more informed decisions based on it. There are five key touchpoint areas worth considering: awareness, engagement, trial, conversion, and loyalty—the two most important of conversion and loyalty. Why? Conversions drive new business while loyalty drives repeat business.

Not every touchpoint will create conversions or even drive conversions to the right touchpoint, so they may either not need any attention or may need more attention than ever before. Additional data does not equate to better decision making, so understanding that while you may have more KPIs (or key performance indicators), it is critical to focus on the ones that drive your growth and customers’ experiences. An experienced digital marketing agency can assist you with this very thing.

Besides, omnichannel marketing relies on holistic approaches to measure success.

So, when your brand starts thinking about omnichannel retail marketing, or if you have questions, concerns, or circumstances you would like to discuss, Digilant is here to help. For over ten years, Digilant has helped digital marketing agencies and brands with omnichannel digital advertising strategies that are data-driven, actionable, and effective. Digilant’s success is due to continual innovation to help its clients with purpose-built solutions tailored to their needs. So, do hesitate. Contact Digilant today!

Recovery from a slowdown presents new opportunities for legacy and disruptive brands alike.

Earlier this year, advertisers were forced to change how they look at their omnichannel marketing strategy. Leaning into agency and technology partners, advertisers have been pushed to ask tough questions and make difficult decisions when it comes to advertising investments. Through conversations with our own clients, at brands and agencies, we found that there is no conclusive answer to questions concerning how to safely invest advertising dollars, but we did find that there were some quick wins to be had for advertisers who are willing to shift their strategy to join the momentum behind digital adoption.

Now, the question is: in the face of unprecedented change, can advertisers ramp back up after the recent slowdown?

The answer is yes. When advertisers are acutely challenged to engage and convert consumers, the core elements of your omnichannel marketing strategy matter more than ever.

We’ve taken a look at how a strategic channel and tactic mix can be practically applied to get your brands on-track for maximum success during the final quarter of 2020. For recommendations and considerations, keep reading.

Look to consumer insights to fuel your omnichannel marketing strategy

If you want to engage your audience, meet them where they are. And, with over four billion people staying home worldwide, consumers’ behavior and media consumption habits are changing rapidly. While we don’t know how or when the crisis will resolve, we have early insight into how consumer needs and behaviors may evolve as they seek to regain a sense of balance. To date, we’ve identified three consumer behavior patterns since the onset of COVID-19: streaming, app usage, and online shopping.

Streaming

Video streaming subscriptions and usage have surged, with 40% more time spent consuming and higher volumes of new subscriber requests among popular platforms according to a recent report by eMarkter.

In-App Usage

Digital-savvy consumers have gravitated towards apps that meet the needs of their temporary indoor lifestyles, largely in the entertainment, e-commerce, social, and messaging categories. This has resulted in 40% YOY growth in mobile app usage according to Conviva.

Online Presence

Time spent consuming content on the Internet is up +34%, according to eMarketer, while our nation’s e-commerce system is being pushed to its limits with increased online shopping, largely in grocery and household sectors

Realign your omnichcannel strategy with current business challenges.

Each company has unique goals. But overall, we’ve seen businesses’ marketing impacted in three distinct ways by COVID-19 — and they don’t always progress directly from one to another.

Find ways to get better results from your digital ads.

• Pause lowest-performing tactics or audiences.
• Test higher engagement and lower CPA ad units like high-impact or native.

Focus on your most valuable customers.

• Adjust audience targeting to prioritize people who are most likely to take action.
• Adjust ad scheduling and pacing to reflect most optimal time and dayparts for engagement.

Make sure your updated offerings show up in your creative.

• Use dynamic creative where applicable to drive performance with limited budgets.
• Update ad creatives to reflect changes in available products or services, limited hours, special terms or conditions like “senior hours,” etc.

Focus on your business and lean on digital media partners to help with your digital ads.

• Ask your digital media partner if there is MORE they can do for you. Whether that’s helping you redefine your target audience or make quick updates to ad creative.
• Utilize planning tools that save you time so you can quickly optimize bids and budgets.

Make the most of existing customers.

• Repurpose user-generated content in your digital advertising campaigns to capture consumers’ attention and engage them in a non-intrusive way. Consumers are 2.4x more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to content created by brands.
• Target past converters, drive higher engagement and utilize direct mailing lists via CRM Onboarding. Look-a-like targeting allows advertisers to reach users whose behavior mirrors that of their most loyal customers.

Use automation to match your approach with changing customer behavior.

• Follow the changing customer journey to inform where you should increase spend and where you can safely dial back spend.
• If you have concerns over your ads surrounding questionable content, consider creating a blocklist of any concerning keywords surrounding worrisome or controversial current events. 48% of consumers report that they would avoid a brand that appears next to undesirable content or fake news.

Align your campaigns to your goals and priorities.

• To reflect business priorities, ensure that credit is given across customer touchpoints with data-driven attribution or non-last-click attribution. Digilant can help.
• Allocate budget towards surging channels such as CTV & Social: Screen time is on the rise and ad is streaming TV and social consumption.

The public health, political, and social upheaval of 2020 has been the ultimate test of character for advertisers. They have been charged with showing resilience and allyship – by revisiting priorities and pivoting digital marketing strategies to connect with consumers in new ways. In recent months we’ve learned that now is not the time for advertisers to sit still and wait for things to return to normal. Here’s what else we’ve learned since March 2020.

Habits triggered by COVID-19 are continuing during the re-opening of local, state, and national economies – these new behaviors are expected to remain well past re-opening.

• Spending more on media doesn’t always yield better results. Media investments of any amount only pay off when you invest in the right omnichannel marketing strategy.
• Rapid response capabilities are becoming table stakes for advertising partners and in-house teams – and for good reason. The ability to quickly pivot digital media targeting, update messaging and creative quickly will result in closing or widening the gap between consumers and brands.
• A resurgence of demand for non-essential products and services as economies re-open isn’t enough to drive brand growth. How you differentiate your brand in the eyes of consumers will determine whether you grow faster or slower than the competition.

As an omnichannel digital services company that always trusts data over a hunch, we have evolved our approach media campaigns on behalf of our clients during this uncertain time. Our nimble approach to our client’s business has given us insight into what’s resonating with consumers and what isn’t. If you’re interested in ramping up your omnichannel marketing strategy to close the year strong, contact us today!

Marketing analytics is the practice of using technology, applications, and methods to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. The practice can also measure the impact of individual marketing initiatives or efforts, such as advertising campaigns, emails, content, and social media posts. Essentially, marketing analytics analyzes, tracks, and measures the performance of overall campaigns and efforts according to predefined metrics. For instance, a company can use sales revenue attributed to an advertising campaign about a promotion to measure its performance.

With many organizations using a mix of traditional and digital media, marketing analytics methods and tools have been able to combine performance data across multiple advertising sources. This performance data provides marketing analytics benefits related to not only assessing the effectiveness of current efforts but also providing insights about future decisions. Integrated performance data that is easily accessible from a single tool can provide both macro and micro views, allowing marketers to make strategic decisions on advertising spend based on a larger picture.

Summary of Marketing Analytics Benefits

Besides providing marketers and executives with an overall picture of campaign performance, marketing analytics provides the following advantages:

• Perform A/B tests on various creative elements, such as copy and content, call to actions, images, and designs.
• Pinpoint what types of creative messages are working and which ones are not. This can also be identified according to different audiences or market segments.
• Identify trends among various promotional campaigns, promotional programs, products/services, media consumption behaviors, and audience or market sentiments.
• Provide data on the return on investment (ROI) for specific campaigns and individual marketing efforts, such as webinars and live events.
• Measure growth trends and changes in audience behaviors, such as shifts towards responding to email and social media versus print or television advertising.
• Help predict the results of future campaigns or individual marketing efforts.
• Identify areas for improvement or market opportunities.
• Help shape overall marketing strategies and determine when shifts in strategies are necessary.
• Monitor consumer behaviors and responsiveness.

Identifying and Using the Right Tools

To reap the rewards of marketing analytics benefits, each company or organization often has to experiment with different tools and methods to get it “right.” Outlining the organization’s goals, what needs to be measured, and why, can provide a solid blueprint for finding the optimal tools. Some analytics tools have free versions or features for marketers to try out before upgrading to paid versions. For instance, Moz’s keyword tool has a free version that lets copywriters and content strategists perform basic keyword research for blog posts and other forms of digital content. The Pro or paid version expands available features to advanced SEO research and tracking.

Other tools like HubSpot and Domo reveal trends and performance across various digital channels, such as web and landing pages, emails, and online content. From a centralized dashboard, marketers can view overall performance trends for blog posts, email campaigns, and landing pages. Performance metrics are also available for individual pieces of content, web pages, and emails. Comparisons can be made according to specific periods, such as year-to-year, month-to-month, rolling 90-day or quarterly stretches. Tools like HubSpot can provide complete content management or customer management systems, integrating both current and potential customer contact information.

Analytics tools, such as SEMRush, can provide marketers with comprehensive comparisons between leading competitors. Companies can see how internal web pages and advertising campaigns are ranking in relation to competitors that may be targeting the same keywords and similar audiences. Comparison tools can also help identify content or keyword opportunities that marketers may have previously overlooked.

Regardless of the set of tools a company chooses, there are a variety of ways to approach the objective of leveraging marketing analytics benefits. While some companies choose to handle everything in-house, many organizations use the services of digital advertising and analytics partners, like Digilant to help maximize ROIs on advertising budgets. Since Digilant specializes in omnichannel marketing and analytics and is made up of veteran specialists, we can lend institutional knowledge and critical and unbiased perspective of advertising performance to in-house teams.

Digilant can complete audits of digital advertising efforts and build custom analytics dashboards to connect and visualize advertising data in a single view. Reports and visualizations can easily be shared and interpreted by your team and key stakeholders and can save you precious time and resources by eliminating manual work and the need for expensive data storage, preparation, and visualization tools. 

Now is the time to start reaping the rewards of marketing analytics benefits. To get a complete view of your current marketing and advertising initiatives and to identify opportunities to get more out of your advertising investments, contact us today.