Digital Marketing: Strategies & Tactics To Grow Your Website

Have you ever made it to the end of an article online and seen “From Around Web” or “Recommended Content?” Usually the headlines are incredibly shocking, and the images eye-catching. Often they’re just plain weird.

Those are probably OutBrain ads, or Taboola ads – OutBrain’s main competitor. Technically though, they aren’t ads. They can’t be ads. OutBrain is a “content discovery platform” that specializes in putting paid links where readers are looking for something else to read.

OutBrain/Taboola ads are underused by advertisers because they are new, a bit odd, and hard to do well. They are neither ads nor the result of PR…so they don’t really fit into a typical online marketing model.

But they are cheap and give you normally expensive access to premium online publishers, and they appear exactly when readers are looking for something else to click on.

Back in 2014, when OutBrain was just getting started, I ran a few experiments, which I share below. In revisiting the platform, I had hoped that it would have matured over the course of 5 years, but it’s still basically the same.

Here’s guide to OutBrain Ads, how they work, along with a few examples.

[Read more…] about How To Advertise On OutBrain: My Experience & 4 Ideas for Advertising With OutBrain

Want to build brand awareness with a compelling video ad campaign, but lack the financial resources to land a traditional TV spot? YouTube advertising offers a compelling platform to reach a spirited online audience.

*Editor’s note – This post is by ShivarWeb staff. I’ve also written posts on using YouTube Analytics, optimizing your YouTube channel, using YouTube data to inform your marketing, and even how to scrape YouTube tags for research. I’ve also done a podcast episode on YouTube SEO.

Run through Google Ads, YouTube video advertising campaigns, called TrueView, can be tailored to control costs while precisely targeting your ideal audience. During this overview, we’ll take a look at the essential elements of launching a TrueView campaign, while also offer tips to improve your campaign’s effectiveness.

We’ll also touch on using text-based ads rather than (or in addition to) videos to promote your products or services. [Read more…] about Beginner’s Guide To Advertising on YouTube Effectively

Reddit has generated 8 billion page views from nearly 234 million unique monthly visitors. It has thousands of targeted communities organized around every conceivable topic. It’s the largest, most influential and most engaged community/platform/website on the entire Internet. It’s the self-proclaimed Front Page of The Internet – and the home of the Internet’s tastemakers with the people most likely to talk and voice opinions.

Reddit has cheap traffic. It has tons of very targeted ad inventory.

Based on stats alone, it should be a marketer’s dream…but marketers (still) aren’t really showing up like you’d expect. There are a lot of reasons for this – from it’s raucous and controversial reputation to its ugly interface to its odd subculture. It’s also not a safe, censored, walled garden like Facebook, and doesn’t have the mass culture buzz of Twitter. You may think advertising on Reddit is an uphill battle and not worth it – just like all too many of the advertisers out there.

Editor’s Note – This post was originally published in 2013 and was completely revised in 2018 (though most of what was true in 2013 about Reddit still is). Enjoy!

The fact that so many advertisers ignore Reddit represents a huge opportunity. Reddit is a wide-open platform for advertisers willing to spend time doing Reddit advertising correctly.

That’s because (compared to Google Ads or Facebook Ads) no one knows how to advertise on Reddit.

And often the advertisers who think they know how to advertise on Reddit… don’t actually know how to do it well (and often end up hurting their brands in the process). Back in 2013, The Atlantic & HubSpot wrote about this issue….and it’s even more true today in a world of Fake News, bot networks, tracking pixels, ad blocking, and new advertising options.

With everyone else failing on or ignoring the opportunity – those who can do it well stand to benefit even more. Reddit needs advertisers – and is working to make their ad platform even better. They did a huge redesign in 2018 with new tools, and they are continually improving. And the audience keeps growing month after month.

Now again, there are still no shortcuts to Reddit. The businesses that succeed are the ones who will do research, read the full manual, run test campaigns and scale up appropriately.

I did my first Reddit ad campaign back in 2013. I’ve never become or claim to be an “expert” but I do repeatedly go back to the platform for my properties and clients for targeted campaigns.

Here’s a walk-through of best practices on how to set up your campaign, my experience with a short, targeted campaign, and some ideas that I’d love to see other advertisers test and report on plus some next steps for how you can try Reddit out now.

[Read more…] about How To Advertise On Reddit: My Experience & 9 Ideas for Advertising on Reddit

Amazon is the behemoth of online retail. No matter what your eCommerce marketing plan is – you will have to consider Amazon at some point.

For online storeowners, Amazon is both a competitor and a partner. Through the Marketplace / FBA / Seller programs, Amazon allows nearly anyone to use their website & brand as an eCommerce platform.

But the nearly anyone cannot be ignored. That means that both you and your direct competitor are fighting on rented land. Amazon is happy to give you an edge – for a price – and that comes in the form of Sponsored Products.

Sponsored Products allow you to buy space at the top of Amazon search results & category listings. You only pay when someone clicks your ad.

Amazon Sponsored Product ads are similar in concept to every other PPC platform, but are very different in practice due to the fact that they live 100% on Amazon’s platform.

Since they are proprietary to Amazon’s platform & limited to Amazon sellers – Amazon Sponsored Product ads are a bit of a black box.

Unlike Google Ads or Facebook Ads which have tons of free material on getting started and improving your campaigns, reliable information on Amazon PPC ads is hard to come by.

I’ve never run an Amazon PPC campaign, but I do read *a lot* of posts as part of my newsletter research. To help you get started in a successful direction, here are the key concepts, resources and tools for Amazon Sponsored Product campaigns on the Internet. [Read more…] about How To Use Amazon Sponsored Product PPC Ads Successfully

My marketing philosophy is to do something very different, really well, for a specific audience. It’s the “Blue Ocean Strategy” in business school jargon.

There’s no sense in ruthlessly competing over a small bit of marketing space when there’s plenty of room if you simply specialize and do something a bit differently.

This website is in the digital marketing “space” where every single one of my competitors uses Google Ads & Facebook Ads to attract visitors – which makes total sense.

However, instead of bidding on those networks (and spending hours optimizing & competing with PPC specialists), I’ve tried experimenting with other channels like advertising on Reddit, doing content discovery on Outbrain – and old school SEO off-page ideas.

But what about advertising in print? Like – a magazine. People obviously still read them – plenty are still in business. And it may very well be the case that since so much time and focus for websites is spent on online advertising – print might be a good idea. It’s counter-intuitive & very ironic for a digital marketing blog, but I figured I’d have a go at it even though I had no idea what I was doing.

I thought learning the process might be worthwhile…and even if my cost per visitor was really high – I’d get a really cool blog post & lots of lessons out of it. Besides, surely a print ad would drive some visitors (I thought). Here’s my experiment on how to buy a print ad, what to consider to make it a success, and what to really look at when allocating budget between print ads vs. online ads.

[Read more…] about How To Pay $560 for 5 Website Visits (ie, How to Buy a Print Ad)

Quora Ads are one of the myriad options for advertising online. Like eBay, Reddit, and LinkedIn, Quora is one of those Web 2.0 properties that feels like it should be dated but remains surprisingly relevant.

In fact, while Quora itself has been around since 2009, Quora’s self-serve Ad Platform only rolled out in 2016.

Quora has 300 million active users and some interesting reasons to advertise.

Why Use Quora Ads

First, you have access to both social data and search intent.

Like Pinterest and Reddit, you can reach people based on demographic and psychographic data AND you can reach people who are actively searching for answers OR you can layer both to run hyper-targeted campaigns to people who are both your target customer and actively researching.

Second, you have access to lots of qualified organic traffic. Quora has plenty of internal usage. But their organic search traffic is their secret weapon.

Due to their brand and the enormous amount of content, they rank well in Google & Bing for highly qualified search terms. I’ve written how you can use Quora for “barnacle” SEO and content.

But – that approach requires work. With Quora Ads, you can pay to jump to the front of the line. Advertise on pages that rank well for target keywords.

Third, you get to define best practices & deal with lower competition.

Every big brand and agency is on Google & Facebook. Best practices and budgets are well-defined. Quora requires more work and thought to succeed.

I’ll share my experience in this post, but my main takeaway is that there is no “right” answer. Quora is still wide-open and open for testing & experimentation. If you have more time/skills than budget, Quora is a great place to go.

How To Setup Quora Ads

Quora has done an excellent job with self-service ads. The platform is straightforward and comes with a surprisingly useful email course.

To get started, all you need is some basic business information.

Within your Ads Manager Dashboard, you can Manage Ads, set up a Quora Pixel, manage your retargeting audiences, and set up email reports.

Whether you set up an ad campaign or not, I highly suggest that you immediately implement your Pixel, dabble with Audiences and set up a couple curated Email Reports.

Quora has a familiar menu of retargeting audiences. The standard setup is for Website Traffic.

In the next step, you’ll setup your Quora Pixel to tag visitors. You can also pre-segment your Website Traffic to make retargeting a bit easier.

If you have a lot of educational content on your site, I would start with that segment. Quora is a common research tool, especially with high-consideration purchases. If you can reach users doing intensive research across platforms, you’ll be less likely to lose them.

Additionally, once you’ve built an audience, you can create a Lookalike Audience.

This feature is huge because you can reasonably expand your reach across Quora to reach someone who you *know* is familiar with your brand.

Remember how I mentioned that Quora is a hybrid between social & search? This is where that power comes in.

For example, imagine you are recruiting entry-level engineers out of college.

You have the ability to tag visitors to your site, and then reach them throughout Quora whenever they are asking career-related questions.

Plus – you’ll get insight into the types of questions that your audience asks. This feeds back into a successful content strategy based on data that *only you* have access to.

Lastly, if you have permission, you can upload a list of current contacts to rebuild your existing customers within Quora.

It’s a lot of work, but for high consideration campaigns, it’s worthwhile.

Like any & all retargeting strategies – Audiences can be creepy, invasive, and sometimes illegal in the European Union without explicit consent.

Most people either consent or live in jurisdictions that do not require explicit consent. These tools do exist and are worthwhile for many businesses. Retargeting is here to stay. The key is to keep it classy. Time, thoughtfulness, and testing create the best outcome for advertisers, publishers, and customers.

Email Reporting is straightforward. But I would readjust the settings  the way you like so that you actually view the reports rather than automatically deleting them.

Now you’ll need to set your Quora Pixel, which is the snippet that “fires” on your webpage to track website visitors.

The setup depends on your website, but you’ll need to place it wherever you have your Google Analytics tag.

Now you can get started on a campaign! Head to Manage Ads and select your objective.

If you select Conversions, you’ll need to select a conversion type to pass to your Quora Pixel. You’ll also have to manually tag any actions (like Add to Cart).

Conversion Tracking is accurate and can be worthwhile. But unless you are running large campaigns, some of this Conversion Tracking might not be worth the effort.

For my campaigns (and most advertisers), I use the Traffic objective. But I also tag all of my ads so that I can track conversions within my existing Google Analytics setup.

Once you’ve created your Campaign objectives, you’ll need to set up a new Ad Set.

Ad Sets each have their own targeting and bids. After setting up an Ad Set, you’ll write individual Ads for each ad set.

But Ad Sets are where the fun really happens.

You have 4 primary targeting methods. I’ll cover each below. But the short version is that you can do –

• Topic Targeting – Target content that falls within a category regardless of user interest.
• Question Targeting – Target specific questions on Quora regardless of topic or user.
• Audience Targeting – Target your audiences everywhere on Quora (see above).
• Interest Targeting – Target people who are interested in a topic regardless of content.

After that, you can choose several secondary targeting methods. You can focus your ads by Location or Device. You can also exclude specific questions or audiences (ie, people who have successfully purchased from your site).

Topic and Question Targeting are my favorite options. They both target based on content, not the user.

When you are looking to expand reach or target based on intent – this is the option that you should use. Topic Targeting lets you quickly target a bunch of questions quickly.

The key to Topic Targeting is to provide Quora with a relevant but broad set of keywords. There’s a bit of an art to it, but be sure to play around with different combinations before committing to a set of Topics.

Additionally, make sure you manually explore those Topics to vet the questions, the likely audience, and related Topics that you are missing.

But if you have time, the best targeting option is Suggested Questions.

With this option, you can advertise with specific ads on specific questions.

From a pure data perspective, this targeting option is the only place to get Weekly Views stats for Quora questions, which can help your content marketing efforts separate from any paid campaigns.

Interest Targeting targets the user rather than the content that they are looking at. This option is great for casting a wide-net to reach your audience everywhere on Quora.

However, note that you’ll reach them even when they are looking at irrelevant questions. This option is great to layer with other options (like exclude questions). Be careful using it alone though.

There are also options for targeting an existing audience and also a Broad Topic option.

After selecting your targeting with exclusions and bids set, you’ll need to create your actual ads.

Quora provides lots of space and encourages “content-like” ads. They want complete sentences that are relevant to your targeting. They are not great for hard-sells, but pair *very* well with custom landing pages or educational content.

Be sure to add UTM parameters to your landing page URL to effectively track visits throughout Google Analytics.

That’s how you setup Quora ads. But keep in mind that the magic is in customized ads, landing pages, targeting and constantly improving each metric.

That said – how do Quora ads perform “out in the wild”? I’ve run a few campaigns for myself and for clients. Here are the results of my most recent campaign.

My Experience with Quora Ads

Now, I almost exclusively use Question Targeting for my Quora ads. I also commit to spending probably too much time on research for my small campaigns (although some of that research gets re-used for content campaigns).

The campaign highlighted below was a fairly small content promotion campaign. I had a new piece of content that I wanted to promote without traditional, manual outreach.

I found several questions that aligned with the content. I devoted around $100 for promotion.

This campaign aligned with the common takeaways from my Quora campaigns.

• The impressions were high for such a niche topic – and surprisingly consistent day-to-day.
• The CTR was uncommonly high for online ads.
• Conversions were solid.
• Cost per click was a bit higher than expected, but nowhere near Google Ads territory.

Additionally, I did not have to filter or account for a lot of spam (I’m looking at you, Google Display and Facebook…).

My numbers in Google Analytics lined up perfectly with Quora. The engagement was high and as I’d hoped.

All in all, this (and all my campaigns) go back to the same general takeaways for Quora Ads.

• Quora Ads are hard to roll out “at scale” but are very effective with the right amount of time devoted to set up & research.
• They are great for high consideration ads and great to reach new, smart audiences.
• You have to have the right website content to provide good, engaging landing pages.
• Often small campaigns are worthwhile simply for the data.

In many ways, they remind me of both Pinterest and Reddit Ads. They aren’t for everyone, but certainly a solid opportunity for the right advertisers.

Next Steps

Quora Ads are not for everyone. There’s not a ton of inventory. To do it well, you really need to spend some time on your research and ad setup.

However, in an increasingly crowded and expensive online ad market, the market represents a solid opportunity.

At the very least, you should go set up an account and grab the Quora Pixel to build an audience.

From there, you can reach you existing users on yet another platform. You can expand your reach based on small tests and the time you have to research interests.

If you found this article useful, please link, share or bookmark. Happy advertising!

So you have a website and you are really anxious to get visitors to your site. You have three main tactics to get visitors to your website.

You can either –

• Tell your network about it (ie, word of mouth, social media)
• Try to be there when other people are asking about you (ie, search engine optimization)
• Just advertise your website to people who might be interested.

Advertising is by far the fastest and most scalable right away, but it’s hard to do right – even if you have the budget.

Here’s how to advertise your website online effectively in 5 steps.

[Read more…] about How To Advertise Your Website Online Effectively in 5 Steps

Word of mouth has always been one of the most powerful tools businesses have at their disposal to increase conversions and generate leads. But, since word of mouth is as much a phenomena as it is an actual method for driving sales to your business, it’s rather difficult to achieve at scale. You can’t just make people spread the word.

Now, it’s not uncommon for you to develop a loyal following that’s eager to share your business, especially if you offer quality services or products. Unfortunately, this advocacy can only take you as far as that person’s network.

Enter Yelp. Yelp is basically a word of mouth megaphone online. Your business’ page on Yelp provides essential information about your business, including real reviews from your customers.

Now, what people are saying about your business can extend far beyond their network, and everyone viewing your page on Yelp will be able to see what your customers are saying about you.

This is an exceptionally powerful tool for you to leverage. But, succeeding as an advertiser on Yelp isn’t quite as simple as claiming your business page and paying for ads. Before jumping in, there are several things you’ll need to consider.

Today, we’ll dive into everything you need to know about Yelp, how it relates to your business and the different ways you may be able to use Yelp as a tool to drive new business through your doors. [Read more…] about How To Advertise on Yelp Effectively

The digital marketing landscape is evolving quicker than ever before. While print and more traditional mediums still have their place, those who want to take their platforms to the next level need to embrace the new digital landscape. And no platforms are more influential to your business than the social media, including Snapchat.

Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter are common social media vehicles to advertise. However, because Snapchat is so new, many businesses don’t know how or don’t want to leverage the platform to their advantage. And I think that’s a great mistake on their end.

By explicitly targeting specific demographics and meaningfully engaging with them, Snapchat offers a variety of tangible benefits to growing your business.

Scroll through to learn more about Snapchat and how to advertise on Snapchat, one of the most popular social media networks in the world. [Read more…] about How To Advertise on Snapchat Effectively

The odds are that if you’ve been scouring the web for a deal, you’ve come across Groupon. In recent years, Groupon has become a touchstone for people who are looking for great deals on quality services, products, and more. And advertising your business on Groupon can put you in touch with the millions of people who use the platform each day.

Honestly, Groupon is one of the least utilized advertising platforms around. Using this eCommerce platform means that you won’t have to compete as much with competitors for advertising real estate. And utilizing it efficiently can help attract repeat customers, increase brand recognition, and make more profit along the way.

So, save some paper and embrace the era of digital couponing we’re all living in right now. Here’s how you can advertise your business or brand on Groupon. [Read more…] about How To Advertise on Groupon Effectively

Zillow is one of the leading real estate websites. It allows owners or agents to list homes for sale or rent. On the other side of things, users can search listings and view approximate property values. These services are free.

You might wonder how Zillow offers so much valuable information at no cost. The company, which is owned by Zillow Group, an organization that also owns Trulia, RealEstate.com, Naked Apartments, hotpads, Out East and StreetEasy, charges for ad sales. Agents, brokers, lenders, property managers, builders or brand advertisers can advertise on Zillow. Here’s how to do it. [Read more…] about How To Advertise On Zillow Effectively

Pinterest was launched in 2010 and has grown to at least 200 million monthly active users in 2017. The social sharing platform is designed to help people discover information on the internet. Just creating an account on Pinterest can draw viewers to your brand.

Pinning content from your own website puts it in front of a new audience. Even pinning other people’s content can draw followers to your Pinterest account. You can get useful analytics data from your account. Optimizing the SEO of your Pinterest boards can boost their organic search rankings in Google. And, all of these strategies are free.

The platform began experimenting with monetizing certain pins in 2014, initiating an effective way for companies to advertise. Nowadays, advertisers can create Promoted Pins, which show up alongside all of the other pins on the page. In this image, you can see that the pin that says “Get 500% more traffic” indicates that it’s promoted by Pinterest in the description below it:

In this case, Pinterest is using its platform to advertise tips for businesses. It’s always encouraging to see a company using its own advertising services. That’s one way to know that the system works.

[Read more…] about How To Advertise On Pinterest Effectively

For much of the 20th century, radio was a dominant advertising platform. Every operation from the nation’s largest companies to small and mid-sized local businesses allocated much of their advertising budgets towards advertising on the radio each year.

Radio has always provided effective opportunities to build a brand or drive awareness about a product or service. Compared to print or television ads, they’re also more affordable.

Plus, the radio remains the only advertising medium that’s inherently portable. Through radio, you can reach people at home, and while they’re away. Other avenues, such as print, digital, or television, require that the user is paying attention, either to a screen or what’s on a page.

Of course, radio ads weren’t without their flaws. They were expensive, they were virtually impossible to track or determine an ROI on, and people would often switch stations to avoid hearing ads in the first place.

As new advertising products become available, traditional radio advertising grows continually less popular. For many businesses, radio advertising isn’t a strong fit for their advertising needs anymore.

While the popularity of traditional radio has declined, a new way to listen to the radio has breathed new life into the industry and restored radio’s usefulness as an advertising medium.

Internet radio solves many of the problems that were inherent in traditional radio advertising. It’s affordable, it’s highly targeted, and it’s easier to track, and it may make a useful addition to your advertising portfolio. Of the internet radio providers, Pandora is by far the largest, and most compelling for advertisers of all sizes.

Whether you’re a national brand, a mid-sized company, or a local business that’s looking to reach a specific type of customer in your area, Pandora has ad products that are geared to your needs and may work well for your business.

This raises the question of how to advertise on Pandora. Today, we’ll cover the ins and outs of how you can advertise on this popular platform, and the different products Pandora offers. [Read more…] about How to Advertise on Pandora Effectively

eBay is one of the oldest and most well established online marketplaces. With millions of active users, it can be an important sales channel for your eCommerce business, regardless of the industry you’re in.

While eBay has been thought of by many as a marketplace that connects individuals, akin to a sort of digital yard sale, the climate has certainly changed in recent years.

eBay has been able to successfully shake the connotation that it’s a forum for used merchandise, collectibles, and heavily discounted new merchandise. In doing so, they’ve been able to diversify their customer and seller bases.

Today, many of the largest retailers and manufacturers in the country use eBay. For many businesses, it has become a particularly lucrative way to sell their products.

Not only has eBay become a powerful sales tool for these businesses, but it’s also one of the cheapest marketplaces for sellers to move their products. Compared to other powerful marketplaces like Amazon, eBay fees are typically 25% less for sellers.

In 2017, eBay opened up a whole new world to their network of sellers: advertising. Their unique set of advertising tools has made it easier than ever for sellers to reach the customers who are prepared to make a purchase.

But, before you can use these advertising tools to maximize your sales, you’ll need to learn how these tools work, and what makes them different from other advertising options you may have on different marketplaces.

Today, we’ll cover the ins and outs of how to advertise on eBay to increase sales. Whether you’re an individual looking to sell a few items quickly, or you’re a brand or distributor looking to establish a presence on eBay, we’ll cover everything you need to know. [Read more…] about How to Advertise on eBay Effectively