Holiday eCommerce Mistakes

The Holidays drive an absolutely absurd amount of traffic to major US retailers each year and with it, eCommerce purchases. But what happens if your retailer website has SEO and User Experience issues? What kinds of mistakes can a large company make that impact it’s ability to grow exponentially each Black Friday? Today, we will take a look at an eCommerce retail giant, Best Buy.

SEO Site Audit – BestBuy.Com

Best Buy is a multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in the United States. It offers a wide range of products, including electronics, appliances, and entertainment items, both online and through its brick-and-mortar stores. They also have an incredibly slow website…

Website Speed Issues

When I say slow, I mean like molasses. At least for the Crawler. Currently, they’re getting a 33 out of 100 for performance when using Google’s Page Speed Insights tool. This score, unacceptable in the eyes of Google, not only potentially impacts their ability to rank as well as they should but also their ability to get potential users to make purchases on their site. 

According to Google’s own internal testing data, for every second your site takes to load conversions can drop by 20%. Think about how much of an impact that could have on your sales.

But It Looks Like It Is Loading Fast…For Me?

Sometimes the Page Speed Insights tool will see websites load much slower than it seems to your own eyes. In this case, the crawler believes that the website takes ~9.3 seconds to load properly for a user. This is because so many files are loading in the background that piece together the entire site, that it causes the browser to go into overdrive trying to put it all together.

While a user may see it load faster, this slow speed for the crawler means it thinks the site probably gives the user a poor purchasing experience. This contextual understanding could negatively impact the ability for Best Buy to have the best possible rankings it could have, despite how big of an authority they are. 

So, What Causes This Slowdown?

JavaScript is complicated. While scripts help sites look beautiful and appear seamless in their flow, they make crawling and loading pages harder for Google and browsers. It takes a lot of energy to crawl through and properly understand how to put the page together, and often times, large files are used to build a site – while only part of the actual data in the file is needed.

In the above image we can see many warnings and errors that BestBuy.Com is receiving from Google’s Page Speed Insights tool. Much of this clearly shows the problems causing the slowdown on the website and what could be reworked or tooled to increase the speed and give both the user – and the bots – a better experience.

Words Are Important

One of the biggest mistakes we see time and time again among retailers is their inability to create unique, informative content about a product that isn’t just the boilerplate language given to them by the vendors and manufacturers they work with. Much of the time this language is missing valuable SEO that could help drive even more visibility and traffic.

Example: RokuTV

When a user looks for Roku TV on Google, in many cases they do not get Best Buy at the top of the search results because the website uses the same content created by the manufacturer for much of their on-page content. Missing from much of this content is the actual phrase, Roku TV. Because the manufacturer has created the copy, it instead frequently refers to it by the branded name, RokuTV. This is not how users typically search. Additionally, because they are using the same content as other retailers, it is harder for Google to understand which one of these retailers should rank for these searches.

A quick Google search shows that Target and Walmart are both using the exact same copy to describe the television – but they have purposely optimized their sites by splitting RokuTV into Roku TV. A smart SEO move. The closer you can get your site optimized, verbatim, to the keyword you are targeting, the better.

The Difference In Potential Search Volume Between RokuTV vs Roku TV

Ok…Why Does This Matter?

These SEO and User Experience missteps underline how critical it is to focus on the finer details of eCommerce. Overlooking something as basic as page load times or how customers search for products can lead to lost sales and diminished visibility. Even industry giants must pay attention to these aspects because, in the competitive world of online retail, the smallest missteps can have major consequences.

Grow Your eCommerce Sales

If you’re ready to identify and fix SEO mistakes holding your website back, or if you need help driving more traffic, leads, and sales for your business, contact Direct Online Marketing today for help in SEO services and eCommerce website design. Take advantage of a free site audit to uncover opportunities for growth and ensure your website is working as hard as you are to achieve your goals. Learn more about why Direct Online Marketing is the best digital marketing agency for B2B businesses, and Contact Us to get a free audit of your website!

The post What Is Wrong With My Website? – Holiday Edition appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Direct Online Marketing – The Lead B2B Digital Marketing Agency

Have you noticed how hard it is to get any actual human eyes on your B2B website? Have you tried writing blogs, building content, and paid for traffic only to see minimal – if any – success? Trust me, I know, it is is hard right now for B2b marketing. But, it doesn’t have to be…

At Direct Online Marketing (DOM), we pride ourselves on delivering exceptional digital marketing solutions that are custom-created specifically for B2B businesses. Our expertise, comprehensive services, and commitment to transparency have established us as the best digital marketing agency for B2B businesses, aiming to enhance their online presence and drive growth.

Our Expertise in B2B Marketing

Understanding the unique dynamics of B2B marketing is our approach’s core. We recognize the importance of targeting decision-makers, fostering long-term relationships, and generating high-quality leads. Our team is dedicated to developing strategies that address these specific needs. We make sure that our B2B clients achieve their business objectives.

Our Digital Marketing Services

We offer a wide range of services designed to cover all aspects of digital marketing:

Search Engine Optimization Services (SEO): Enhancing organic visibility and improving rankings for relevant keywords to attract qualified traffic.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising Services: Creating and managing targeted campaigns on platforms like Google Ads and LinkedIn to reach key decision-makers effectively.

Social Media Marketing Services: Developing tailored campaigns on platforms such as LinkedIn, where B2B engagement is most impactful.

Analytics and Reporting Services: Providing clear insights into campaign performance, making informed and logical decisions, and also offering full transparency.

“In the B2B sector, digital marketing is essential for connecting with decision-makers and fostering long-term relationships. By implementing targeted strategies, B2B companies can enhance their online presence, generate high-quality leads, and drive sustainable growth.” – Billy Wright, Lead Digital Marketing Strategist at Direct Online Marketing

Just Some Of the Industries We Serve

Our experience spans a diverse range of industries, allowing us to bring specialized knowledge to each project:

Digital Marketing For Healthcare: Implementing digital strategies that comply with industry regulations while effectively reaching healthcare professionals and organizations. Want to know more? Read this article about Why Direct Online Marketing is the Best Digital Marketing Agency for the Healthcare Industry.

Digital Marketing For Higher Education: Crafting campaigns that engage prospective students and academic professionals, helping to boost enrollment and engagement.

Digital Marketing For Ecommerce: Driving online sales through optimized digital marketing strategies custom made for the ecommerce sector.

Digital Marketing For SaaS & Technology Businesses: Promoting software solutions and technological innovations to targeted business audiences so B2B businesses grow leads.

Digital Marketing For Manufacturing Businesses: Connecting manufacturers with potential B2B clients through strategic online marketing efforts.

Digital Marketing For International Market Entry: Assisting businesses in entering and expanding within international markets through localized digital strategies.

Our diverse industry experience enables us to understand the unique challenges and opportunities within each sector, allowing us to create custom-made strategies that drive success.

Our Proven Track Record

Our success stories and reviews highlight why Direct Online Marketing is trusted by businesses across industries. We pride ourselves on delivering fantastic and realistic results that drive actual growth and ROI for our clients.

Google Partner Accreditation: As a proud Google Premier Partner, Direct Online Marketing meets the highest standards set by Google for campaign performance, client care, and account management. Learn more about our accreditation here.

Clutch Reviews: We, Direct Online Marketing, consistently receive high ratings on Clutch, a leading B2B ratings platform, for our exceptional service and results. Read our reviews and highlights on Clutch here.

G2 Reviews: Businesses have rated Direct Online Marketing highly on G2, praising our expertise and dedication to driving results. See what others are saying about us on G2 here.

Inc. Recognition: We here at Direct Online Marketing have been featured on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies, a testament to our commitment to excellence and innovation. Learn more about our profile on Inc. here.

These awards and reviews show our dedication to transparency, tracked success, and client satisfaction. They also show why businesses trust us to deliver as the best digital marketing agency for B2B businesses.

Commitment to Transparency

We believe in maintaining open communication with our clients. Our analytics reporting and regular updates allow clients to monitor progress and understand the impact of our efforts, fostering trust and collaboration.

Customized Digital Marketing Strategies

We take the time to understand each client’s unique goals, industry nuances, and target audience. This personalized approach ensures that our strategies are aligned with your business objectives, delivering results that matter.

Focus on Lead Generation

Generating high-quality leads is crucial for B2B success. Our integrated approach combines SEO, PPC, and social media marketing to create campaigns that drive qualified traffic and convert leads into long-term clients.

Industry Recognition

Our dedication to excellence has earned us recognition as a Premier Google Partner and a Facebook Marketing Partner, reflecting our commitment to staying at the forefront of digital marketing trends.

Your Digital Marketing Agency Partner for B2B Growth

At Direct Online Marketing, we are dedicated to empowering B2B businesses to thrive in competitive markets. Our expertise, tailored strategies, and transparent approach make us the best digital marketing agency for B2B businesses looking to grow and succeed.

The Best B2B Marketing Agency For Pittsburgh And Beyond

At Direct Online Marketing, we take pride in being the best digital marketing agency in Pittsburgh. Our team is dedicated to delivering measurable results through customized strategies that align with your business goals. Whether it’s SEO, PPC, or social media advertising, Direct Online Marketing focuses on driving ROI and creating sustainable growth for your brand. Transparency and innovation are at the core of everything we do, and we constantly stay ahead of industry trends to ensure our clients succeed in the ever-changing digital space. At Direct Online Marketing, we aim to provide exceptional service and results that speak for themselves.

The post Why Direct Online Marketing Is The Best Digital Marketing Agency For B2B Businesses appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

One of the (few) nice things about living in 2021 is the speed at which we can find out how big the previous year actually was for ecommerce when the year is barely over. Adobe, through its multi-pronged data sources in a variety of ecommerce roles, reports a 15% increase in ecommerce sales compared to last year. That was enough to make Cyber Monday 2020 the biggest day in e-shopping history. Maybe a few of those 10.8 billion dollars found their way to your business.

That’s Great, What Now?

It would be a shame to lose all that momentum now. The good news is that while there’s naturally a dip in sales volume after the holidays, it doesn’t have to slip away completely. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to keep the train moving and carry some of that energy into the new year.

New Year = Fresh Start

A new year means a new opportunity to promise ourselves that we’re going to do better than we did with our resolutions last year. You can harness that spirit in your own efforts by appealing specifically to that pervasive feeling of fresh new opportunities. Is there a way you can pivot the messaging in your digital ads to engage the hopeful side of your audience? Data shows that people are more excited about things that make their lives better, like getting more exercise, cleaning up more often, and increasing their skills. Appeal to that new year spirit and reap the rewards.

Get Your Message Out

One of the bonus benefits of an increase in digital shopping volume is an increase in shoppers. Not only that, but a lot of those sales you made at the end of the year were probably from repeat customers. You don’t need to let those opportunities pass you by. Make sure you’re retargeting in ways that will maximize your messaging for those reliable fans of your business. A new customer is a future loyal repeater—make them more likely to replicate their conversion by focusing your efforts on reminding them about how satisfied they were with their first experience.

If your own New Year’s Resolution includes making your own digital marketing better, let us help you kick the tires on your strategy and get moving in the right direction.

The post ECommerce in 2023: Keep Up the Good Work, But Don’t Stop Now (Updated November 2022) appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Learn how to setup and utilize Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotion extensions below, and make sure you utilize this paid search advertising add on this holiday season as you make it your best year yet.

Haven’t There Been Black Friday And Cyber Monday Promo Options In Google Ads For Years?

For years, you have been able to call out specific points about your holiday season sales using ad extensions, a far more efficient alternative to having to change your ads for each holiday you are running a special sale. Today, the application of these extensions hasn’t really changed, but the name in the Google Ads platform has evolved.

Instead of “Ad extensions,” today they are now referred to as “Promotion Extensions” or “Promotion Assets.”

New name, same general intention.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotion extensions can be shown on your responsive search ads from October 15 through December 15. In the event you want to narrow down the date ranges that those ads show, you can do so in the “advanced options” section of the settings.

In previous offerings from Google, the time frame for running these extensions was much smaller, normally just the week you would typically consider these types of deals… the last week of November or first week of December.

We’ve been huge fans of using promotion extensions for our clients for years because they serve as is a great way to show what you offer alongside your traditional ad text. Promotion Extensions may not be clickable, but they definitely make your ads take up more digital real estate, which is always a good thing.

How To Setup Black Friday And Cyber Monday Promotion Extensions In Google Ads

Setting up these promotion extensions for your Google Ads is pretty simple to complete. Below is a helpful, how to guide with pictures.

Before you get started, note that setting up Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotion extensions follows the same steps to complete.

1. Navigate to the “Ads & Assets” dropdown in your account dashboard, and click “Assets.”

2. Click the big blue “Plus” button at the top of your Assets list and choose the “Promotion” option.

3. Choose either the “Account”, “Campaign”, or “Ad group” level to add your promotion extension to your ads.

How do you know which is the right level to add your promotion to your ads? Here’s three easy examples to consider.

• Account: select this option if your promotion extension can be attached to every responsive search ad you are running. For instance, if your Black Friday or Cyber Monday offer is 20% off sitewide.
• Campaign: select this option if your promotion extension can be attached to a specific campaigns, but not every single campaign you have set up. For instance, if you are an auto parts retailer running a Black Friday or Cyber Monday special on accessories but not headlights.
• Ad Group: select this option if your promotion extension can be attached to specific ad groups in your campaign. Following the auto parts retailer example, adding a promotion extension to a particular ad group is the best option if your Black Friday or Cyber Monday special is on Ford parts and accessories but not Toyota parts and accessories.

4. Click the “Occasion” dropdown and select either “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday.”

Two important things to note here:

1. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just two of 35 occasions Google allows you to create a promotion extension for.
2. You can add promotions to an individual campaign. That said, any promotions will also be added to your account to be used across all of your Google Ads campaigns. This tip is so important that Google calls it out twice on the page, so make sure you pay attention.

5. After you complete the standard promotion extension form fields, don’t forget to review the URL options and Advanced options.

It’s always a good idea to give Google as much information as you can (or need) to have available for your promotions.  The “Promotions details” section pictured below is clearly visible as you scroll through. “URL options” and “Advanced options” are optional dropdowns but may provide important details for your potential customers looking to take advantage of your seasonal specials for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

6. Click “Apply” to complete and save setup of your Black Friday or Cyber Monday Promotion Extensions.

Our Favorite Black Friday And Cyber Monday Promotion Extensions Hack

Google really hit a home run by making these promotion extensions simple for advertisers. They are a quick and easy way for marketers like you to get the word out about your holiday sales without having to go back and edit hundreds of lines of ad text.

Less time wasted editing ad copy, more time spent figuring out how to make this holiday season your best year yet!

But… do you want to make your Black Friday and Cyber Monday ads even more powerful than simply adding promo extensions?

If you do (and seriously, why wouldn’t you?), publish your holiday promo extensions on ALL OF YOUR COUNTDOWN ADS. In our years of experience, leveraging these promotion extensions on these ad types together creates an amplified sense of urgency!

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is a real thing. Your customers have it, and this time of year is the perfect to take advantage of it.

If you are interested in learning more about what you should be doing for success during the holiday shopping season, be sure to check out any of the following links:

• DOMinate Black Friday Webinar (available on-demand)
• 30+ SEO tips for Holiday eCommerce
• 12 Profitable Holiday Marketing Ideas To Make This Your Best Year Yet

Alternatively, if you want to make sure your holiday campaigns are ready to roll before the season gets hectic, schedule a 1:1 consultation with one of our digital marketing experts so we can create a plan to help meet and exceed your goals for this season.

The post Black Friday & Cyber Monday: The Must Use Holiday Season Promotion Extensions appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Want to see a list of major retailers and their operating hours for Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2022? Click here.

Because of this major shift in retail to being closed on Thanksgiving and focusing more on driving sales online, specialty online retailers with a sophisticated digital advertising strategy have a unique opportunity this year to increase online sales and “compete against the big guys.”

Are you ready to make your holiday marketing campaigns this year your best ever? Great, let’s crush it!

Not exactly sure where to get started? Do you expect that once again Black Friday isn’t going to look the same as it has in previous years and want to make the most of your digital marketing efforts for your online store?

If yes, you may want to check out our Black Friday marketing ideas webinar on-demand.

What Black Friday Marketing Ideas Should You Expect In This Webinar?

Areas covered include:

• Free listings on Google Shopping and Microsoft Bing Shopping
• Removing friction from the online checkout process
• Setting up your retargeting campaigns for success NOW
• Optimizing product and category pages at scale
• Enticing people to buy with promotions
• Analyzing audience data to better plan your campaigns
• Leveraging Google’s new 0% commission Buy on Google marketplace
• Adjusting campaigns on the fly throughout the day (and the entire holiday season) to maximize ROAS

Want more? If you check the box for a 1-on-1 when you register to watch the webinar, a strategist will arrange a 15-minute call to discuss how you’re currently marketing and identify opportunities to optimize your efforts.

Click here to watch the Black Friday webinar on-demand!

The post How to DOMinate Black Friday Marketing appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Below you will find a nice even dozen of our favorite holiday marketing ideas for 2022. Consider these our free gifts to you in an effort to make this wonderful time of the year the most successful for your business.

Offer Some Limited Time Holiday Deals (Even If You’re In B2B)

Although Black Friday is looking less and less like the insane rugby scrum of years past, it is still “a thing” after the world of retail essentially canceled it in 2020 at the height of the global pandemic.

If there’s one thing we associate with Black Friday, it’s getting those amazing deals.

You might think this kind of strategy only makes sense with retail, but it can work for B2B marketing, too. Don’t forget that even though your office may be closed for the holidays, there are many companies that are open during the holidays because they are serving those who are traveling or taking time off. Aside from traditional consumer retail, other industries that regularly operate during holiday time periods include:

• Convenience Stores
• Emergency Healthcare
• Entertainment Venues (think movie theaters, sports arenas, etc.)
• Hospitals
• Hospitality
• Pharmacies
• Restaurants
• Travel and Transportation

For a few standout holiday marketing ideas, you could offer a discounted rate for one of the services you offer tailored to these specific industries. Or a coupon code that accomplishes the same thing. Just remember to make these offers redemptive. Instead of simply giving the deal away, offer it in exchange for completing a contact form, or gate it off with a form to capture some basic information.

If you identify these markets as high relevance for your products and services, prospective clients working during holidays will likely interested in your discounted services.

That’s what we call some “solid leads,” what about you?

Need to DOMinate Black Friday?
Watch This Webinar On-Demand.
Achieve Your Goals!

Setup A Google Performance Max Campaign

If you have an e-commerce site, there is no reason not to run Google Shopping ads. As far as holiday marketing ideas go, Google Shopping should be your bread and butter if you rely on digital channels to generate direct response sales.

However, in today’s modern digital advertising landscape, there is only one way to get your ads showing in Google Shopping… setup a Performance Max ad campaign in Google.

One of the things we’ve always liked the most about Google Shopping is that the ads are a combination of text search and visual ads. The user sees a picture of the item and also relevant information pulled from your feed by Google.

When it comes to setting up a Performance Max campaign so that your ads can be seen in Google Shopping, we are taking a more cautious approach. Instead of telling you to go all in on Performance Max, we strongly suggest running it with a “test and see” mindset.

If this is the first time you are hearing about Performance Max, or simply want to learn more about the basics of Performance Max campaigns before deciding to go all-in on them for your 2022 holiday campaigns, learn more by pressing play on the video below.

Like we said above, you should be taking a “test and see” approach to Performance Max campaigns. So, while you can still have some type of manual control over where your products are being shown, we recommend you continue to use it.

Along with that, if your feed is optimized, Google will be able to automatically pull information such as free shipping and place it in your Product Ads.

During the holiday shopping season, it is more important than ever to keep your feed as updated as possible. What do you think happens if someone clicks on an ad for a product, only to find out that you are sold out? They go somewhere else.

Don’t miss out on sales because of Google’s machine learning putting your products in front of the wrong buyers or because you have overlooked your feed management.

If you have doubts that your Performance Max campaign is ready for the holiday season – mind if we take a look with a complimentary PPC consultation?

Submit Your Product Feed For Free Clicks

At the beginning of the pandemic, we shared an important update Google made to it’s Shopping platform – online retailers could sell products for free through the platform.

Fast forward more than two years later… and those free to sell options are still available on the platform.

If you haven’t submitted your product feed to Google so that your products can be listed in free “Popular Products” search results like the one shown above – what are you waiting for?

Sure, we know these search results look awfully similar to the Google Shopping ads shown above, so how can you tell the difference?

Simple… shopping listings that are supported with advertising will always be labeled with “Sponsored” or “Ad” in the heading before the actual listing.

If you already use Google Merchant Center or Performance Max, you do not have to change a thing to receive these unpaid clicks. While the amount of impressions your products will receive for unpaid clicks will not be as high as if you were paying per click in Performance Max, this can still be a revenue generating strategy for the holiday shopping season.

Want to review your Merchant Center to see your unpaid clicks?
Learn How Here.

Change Up Your Ad Text

Customers are so used to seeing “50% Off. Order Now!” or “Great Deals!” Instead, show them what they want to see… specifically what it is you can offer them this holiday season.

So, be creative with your marketing campaigns!

If you sell gloves, use some copy that reads, “Baby, it’s Cold Outside! Warm Up with a New Pair of Gloves.”

If you sell products that are irrelevant to the cold season, no worries. You can still find ways to use the season to your advantage and inject a little “holiday spirit” in your campaigns.

Dynamic Search + Shopping = Re$ult$.
Learn How This Online Retailer
Improved Sales 115% During Busy Season.

Embrace Retargeting

When done right, retargeting can take your accounts to the next level when it comes to low-cost conversions.

This is the nice thing about retargeting: based on how your audiences are built, you can segment customers by intent.

If you have an audience for an informational page such as About Us, you know that there is some interest, but the customer is probably not ready to buy yet. You can tailor ads specifically for that audience with messaging to entice them to come back and learn more.

Along with that, if you have an audience for cart abandoners, you know there was intent to buy there – but something changed that. If you create ads that give the customer a reason to come back, you can create conversions from missed opportunities.

Learn more about our retargeting services if this isn’t already a part of your digital advertising plans for the holidays.

Lean On Email, Social, And Automation

Your messaging doesn’t need to slow down too much while you’re sipping eggnog, spinning the dreidel, lighting the candles, prepping for a fast, or ordering Chinese food with your dog.

And you don’t have to be on the stick (or at the keyboard, if you’re not a pilot) prepared to make a correction.

Most people aren’t going to be sitting in front of their computers or visiting their favorite websites for new content during the holidays. Rather, this is a perfect time to engage them where they are: on their phones, scrolling social media, and reading email.

The great news about those avenues is that you can write your social media and email marketing messages early, and then schedule them to roll out at predetermined times.

Just make sure nothing newsworthy happens that might make your subject lines or messaging seem tone-deaf.

Learn more about our social media advertising services if you may need a performance boost in these areas for the holidays.

List Holiday Sales Prominently

No one can participate in your sale if they don’t know it exists. To help boost your 2022 holiday sales, make sure your biggest promotions are front and center.

One of the best ways to do this is by incorporating your sale into your branded color design, using a holiday themed banner or other top-of-page display. This immediately makes the connection between your holiday promotions and the holiday shopping rush. Add a call to action and a link to your perfect gift products, or gift cards, and you’ll be ready to go.

Discounts should also be displayed prominently, especially around top selling products. In addition to displaying discounts on product cards and pages, special Black Friday deals, holiday specials, and gift guide call outs can be displayed both on your product pages and other holiday campaign landing pages.

Make It Easy To Convert

This is a year-round tip, but it’s especially important during the peak of the holiday shopping season.

Make sure each product on your landing page is designed with a clear purchasing path, which can be used on both desktop and mobile devices.

In the simplest instances, you can create a button that adds the product directly to the shopper’s cart. You can also display a sidebar with the current cart contents, allowing customers to see what they’ve chosen, and seamlessly check out when they’re ready.

For all your sales processes, the key is to minimize the steps it takes to purchase. The easier the conversion path, the fewer abandoned carts you’ll see all year.

Optimize Your Pages For Mobile Devices

According to Forbes, holiday spending on mobile reached $88 billion dollars last year. While the pandemic brought a lot of us in front of our bigger screens, mobile sales still increased as the calendar flipped closer to the big holidays.

Suffice it to say if your holiday landing pages aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing out on a huge consumer opportunity.

To optimize your seasonal landing pages for mobile:

• Make sure that the buttons are large enough to be seen and interacted with on smaller screens.
• Format holiday banners for mobile devices, keeping text size in mind.
• Don’t overload your mobile landing pages with too much text.
• Ensure that getting from products to checkout is simple, minimizing the number of “touches” between your product and cart pages.

Don’t Forget About Microsoft

Think Google is your only option when it comes to search engine advertising for your holiday marketing campaign? Think again. Microsoft can be one of those great holiday marketing ideas because it is an easy to deploy, high volume secondary platform to use to reach your target audience. Why would you want to pass up 20% of the search market?

Microsoft does not have the reach Google has, but it has an audience that has spending power. Microsoft’s search advertising solutions on Bing and across their entire network are great for reaching those that are not as tech-savvy (*cough* parents and grandparents *cough*) because they are less likely to use a browser, or a search engine, other than what Windows devices provide as the default.

Learn more about our Microsoft Ads account management services if this isn’t already a part of your digital advertising plans for the holidays.

Create A Sense Of Urgency

This is true for all product pages, all the time, but the holiday season is a fantastic time for retail sites because the urgency is already built-in!

What you can do is emphasize the timeliness of your sales on your site, reminding your customers that they need to act now if they want to surprise their special someone on time.

One of the best ways to do this is with the popular holiday countdown timer. You’ll see Amazon do this with their Cyber Monday deals, counting down the hours until each product special is gone forever—and it works.

Display your timer above the fold or along a sidebar, where your customers can easily see how much time they have left, and prepare to watch this be one of those holiday marketing ideas that will automatically push your holiday sails up!

Finally, Don’t Forget To Be Sincere

Your employees love each other, even if they fight like siblings sometimes. Your clients think you’re doing a great job, and you’re thankful for the ability to provide them with goods or services this time of year.

The holidays are also about love, acceptance, and gratitude. Don’t be afraid to show that side of yourself to the people who matter to you. We could all use a little more joy these days.

Don’t shy away from incorporating some of these timeless feelings and emotions that well up in the people who will consume the content you create for your holiday marketing strategy.

You might be surprised how far a little “I appreciate you” or “We understand what you’re going through” messaging can go in spreading more of that holiday cheer.

As the calendar year draws to a close, do you find yourself behind pace with your lead generation or sales goals? Even though the holidays are drawing close, there’s still time to meet, achieve, or exceed your goals. Contact us for a free consultation to learn how our digital marketing services can help you accomplish your best  year yet! 

The post 12 Profitable Holiday Marketing Ideas To Make This Your Best Year Yet appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Simply put, social commerce is the use of social media to drive sales.

It can be accomplished in a number of ways, including creating product pages on social networks, running ads with social media links, or even just including carousels to products on your posts. No matter how it’s done, the goal is always the same:

To get people to buy what you’re selling directly through your social media channels.

So does social commerce matter in the B2B world? The answer is a resounding yes! In fact, social commerce is becoming increasingly important for B2B companies as buyers become more reliant on social media to influence their purchasing decisions. Similar to writing in-depth blog content for your audience to bookmark or starting a digital marketing course for startups in your target industries, social commerce is another way to reach your customers on their time instead of in a place that is most convenient for you.

Here are a few examples of how social commerce can be used in B2B.

B2B Social Commerce Example 1: Create Product Pages

If you sell products that can be purchased online, creating product pages on social networks like Facebook and Instagram can help increase sales. By making it easy for potential customers to find your products and learn more about them, you can encourage more people to buy what you’re selling.

Creating product pages on sites like Facebook are just one way you can keep the train moving and carry your sales momentum online forward. Check out a few more of our best eCommerce tips for 2022.

B2B Use Case IRL: BulkBookstore

BulkBookstore.com is – you guessed it – an online retailer of bulk book orders to organizations like Duke University, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Hyatt Hotels. They keep a focus on serving the business community by not accepting orders from resellers, retailers, or individuals (unless you’re a teacher).

Their Facebook Shop is the third link across the navigation of their Facebook page. Their Facebook Shop functions almost exactly the same as the product listings on their website, featuring a product title, pricing, and description. To purchase an item, all their 10,300+ followers need to do is click the “view on website” button to be taken right to the product page on their website.

This is a high engagement platform for them to seriously boost the visibility of each new product on their site.

B2B Social Commerce Example 2: Run Ads With “Sign Up” Or “Buy” Buttons

Ads are a great way to promote your products or services on social media, and including links to your website or online store can help increase sales.

B2B Use Case IRL: Grade.us

Grade.us is a SaaS platform for online review management that was started in 2013. Today, it’s part of the Traject platform of digital marketing tools.

This may seem like a pretty standard practice today, but normally on platforms like LinkedIn you will find companies pointing the links in their ads to “Learn More” landing pages for gated resources, or to sign up for an upcoming webinar.

This tactic goes against the grain of what we would normally recommend on LinkedIn, but we are always interested in testing out new approaches to increasing free trial starts and driving down cost per acquisition.

This approach appears to do both.

Running LinkedIn Ads already? Thinking this might be a great way to get a performance boost? Before you go to “sign up” or “buy” ads, check out these 3 ways to boost your LinkedIn campaign performance.

B2B Social Commerce Example 3: Facebook Product Carousels

If you’re not ready to create product pages on social networks just yet, you can still use posts on Facebook to drive sales by creating carousels with links to your products. This makes it easy for potential customers to purchase what you’re selling with a simple click away from their social media feed.

Before you press publish on your first carousel though, make sure you know the best time to post it to Facebook.

B2B Use Case IRL: Quill’s “Fun Friday Finds”

Quill has been providing reliable service to its customers since 1956. We assume they haven’t been online that entire time. Over the past two years, they have been voted America’s Best Customer Service provider in the Office Supply Category by Newsweek and Statista.

As you can see, there are a number of ways that social commerce can be used in B2B. And as social media becomes increasingly important in the purchasing decisions of buyers, it’s only going to become more important for companies to start using social commerce. This carousel links to 9 different pages on their website – 8 products, and one to their Free Shipping page.

Over the past month, their social media team has been publishing carousels like this weekly. Prior to that, they had been creating about 1 carousel per month over the course of three months.

We don’t have an inside source at Quill to verify this was successful, but based on their increased usage, we’re willing to bet it was successful for them.

Ready To Start Trying Social Commerce For Your B2B Brand?

What do you think? Is social commerce something you’re going to start using in your B2B marketing?

Hopefully these examples were enough to get the brainstorming underway for you and your team.

Are you considering social commerce as a strategy to improve (or start) your digital marketing efforts? Unsure about whether to handle the campaigns in house or by working with an agency? Determine which marketing solution is right for you by checking out our In-House vs. Agency Partner webinar before learning more about our social media advertising services.

The post What is Social Commerce? Does It Matter In B2B? appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

What Are The CMA Awards?

Every year, the members of the CMA submit their picks for the best marketing efforts among the member organizations. The selected judges are all experts in their fields and are divided into a series of increasingly intense scrutiny from different groups of judges. Learn more about the judging process on the CMA awards website.

The CMA seeks to shape the future of marketing in Canada by promoting talented marketers, and the CMA awards are the perfect showcase. But wait, you might be wondering what the CMA is!

What Is The Canadian Marketing Association?

The CMA is “the voice of the marketing profession in Canada.” Since 1967, the CMA serves more than 400 corporate, not-for-profit, public, and post-secondary members, including Canada’s biggest brands like Check out their member directory for the full list.

What Is The CMA LinkedIn B2B Marketing Award?

While the nominees in every category might pique your interest, we’re going to focus on the tips we can get from the three winners of the LinkedIn B2B Marketing Award (an award that was sponsored by LinkedIn but encompasses all kinds of B2B marketing).

Gold Winner: EY’s Women Fast Forward Program

Link: EY’s Women Fast Forward Program

With the help of their marketing partners, EY amplified the voices of women and allies to inspire Canadian businesses to take action and drive meaningful progress towards gender equality.

From EY’s website: “At EY, we choose to challenge that gender equality is not a problem to solve, rather gender equality is the solution to business and society’s most complex challenges. The disproportionate impact #COVID19 of women in the Canadian workforce threatens to not only undo recent gender equity progress, but jeopardize future progress as well. How can we drive gender equality further, faster?”

DOM’s Take, from Nikki Powley, Director of Operations: “The EY Building a Better Working World – Woman. Fast Forward campaign is built to make an impact for women in the workforce and build a brighter future for young girls. This campaign was essential to drive awareness in Canadian businesses of gender equality and the impact of COVID-19 to working women. EY received a well-earned gold for the strategies presented. To launch even further, EY should continue to generate content that can be shared around the globe and turn ideas into action.”

Lead Generation Feeds Your Bottom Line.
Learn How We Helped Corporate Visions.

Silver Winner: Mackenzie Investments ETF Campaign

Link: Mackenzie Investments ETF Campaign

Mackenzie Investments provides a number of different types of ETF (exchange-traded fund). They developed a campaign to educate Canadian investors on the benefits of their “ETFs Made For Canadians by Canadians.”

From the Mackenzie Investments website: “As a Canadian-owned, global asset management firm we’ve been helping Canadian advisors deliver the best advice and investment solutions for over 50 years.  In a competitive ETF environment, our commitment has always been in Canada and to Canadians. When it comes to ETFs, our beliefs always remain at the core at what we do, supporting the Canadian financial industry, the advisors in it and investors who benefit from it. We provide a Canadian-domiciled suite of ETFs, engineered in Canada for the Canadian investor.”

DOM’s Take, from Senior Digital Marketing Strategist Jonathan Bentz: “Mackenzie’s messaging in their ETF campaign – ‘ETFs Made for Canadians by Canadians’ – may not be better exemplified in any digital marketing tactic than by reviewing their backlink profile. Over 50% of the domains linking to their main ETF page on their Canadian site come from a domain that also ends in the Canadian ccTLD (.ca). While so much of the financial market is focused on decentralizing and globalizing portfolios, this localized approach has earned them a 38% increase in ETF keyword terms on the first page of Google Canada over the last year. This was a smart campaign move to differentiate them that will result in long term visibility for their ETF products in Canada.”

A Bank Rebranded.
See How We Helped Them Double Conversions.

Bronze Winner: BMO’s Road to Recovery

Link: BMO’s Road to Recovery

Businesses are heavily focused on what life after COVID looks like. BMO asked a collection of experts what that return to semi-normalcy might look like for Canadian businesses in their Road to Recovery series.

From BMO’s website: “Businesses are turning their focus from weathering the COVID-19 pandemic back to growth. To help, we created a new content series of virtual events with experts in a number of different areas. 2020 has been nothing short of unpredictable, but it’s taught us a lot about ourselves and our organizations alike. Join us for a series of virtual events, where we unpack how 2020 has essentially changed the way we live and work forever. During each event we’ll compare pre-2020, what we’ve learned throughout 2020 and where these leaders think 2021 will take us. We’ll reflect on seven broad topics, to help you prepare for and successfully establish a future-ready organization.”

DOM’s Take, from Billy Wright, Digital Marketing Strategist: “I found the BMO Road To Recovery campaign fascinating as it helped provide insight into how businesses in Canada are realigning and reshaping the way they work following the pandemic. I think there are some missed opportunities for optimization here from an SEO and user experience perspective, however, specifically with on-page content and markup. I think applying the best standards for SEO can really help boost visibility for campaigns like this – especially when there are many businesses trying to promote how they deal with The New Normal at this time.”

Don’t Panic!
Check Out Our Crisis Response Guide.

What these winners show us is that, regardless of industry, we all have a responsibility to shepherd the continued excellence of the clients we serve. More importantly perhaps than that is our responsibility to our audiences to provide them with salient information, useful products, and sensible solutions. We’re all using the same internet, after all.

The post What B2B Pros Need To Know After Canadian Marketing’s Big Night appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Justin talks through recent changes in Google’s phrase match keywords with Keep Optimising host Chloe Thomas.

An excerpt:

“Google made an announcement back in February that phrase match keywords are going to start acting like modified broad keywords. Originally you only had broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative keywords. When modified broad was introduced, it was a good space between broad where you had a lot of wasted spend and phrase, that just didn’t get all the variations you were looking for.”

Listen to the whole podcast.

Justin also participated in a Google Ads Q&A available on YouTube.

July 2020 Google Shopping Listings

In 2020, Justin appeared on the podcast Keep Optimising presented by Chloe Thomas. Among topics like best SEO practices, Justin discussed how you can get your own free Google shopping listings. Google shopping results started out as a free Google feature in 2002 and began costing money in 2012. Google recently made them free again under certain circumstances, both as a gesture of goodwill for businesses suffering because of the COVID-19 pandemic and a strategic move against rival Amazon.

Three Quick Facts About Free Google Shopping Listings

1. Free is a Good Start. While the free listings from Google are a great way to start your campaign, don’t underestimate the value of putting some actual money behind them, too. We find that the opportunity for free click generation goes up if you are actively running a Google Shopping campaign supported by ad dollars. Every free click is great, of course, but to max out your free click opportunities you might want to consider allocating a little bit of budget to Google Shopping. It doesn’t take a lot to make a big impact (but it might–see below).
2. Popularity Comes at a Price. We’ve seen that the lower your volume of paid clicks, the higher your percentage of unpaid clicks. While this is simple math, that trend also indicates that Google is more likely to evenly distribute the paid vs. unpaid impressions initially, but then over time will be more likely to charge for the clicks for a more popular product.
3. Clickthrough Rate Varies Wildly. Sometimes you get what you pay for, and the free listings from Google can show clickthrough rates from less than 1% for some products to as high as a 7000% for others. That massive discrepancy is due to a lot of different factors, and many of them are simply beyond your control. The market, as ever, moves in mysterious ways.

You can listen in the embedded player, below, or visit the Keep Optimising website.

Also be sure to check out Chloe Thomas’s book, eCommerce Marketing: How to Get Traffic That BUYS to your Website.

To get more information on this topic, contact us today for a free consultation or learn more about our status as a Google Partner Agency before you reach out.

The post Podcast Appearances: Keep Optimising appeared first on Direct Online Marketing.

Offer Some Deals

Although Black Friday is looking less and less like the insane rugby scrum of years past, it is still A Thing. If there’s one thing we associate with Black Friday, it’s getting those amazing deals. You might think this kind of strategy only makes sense with retail, but it can work for digital marketers, too. You could offer a discounted rate for one of the services you offer. Or a coupon code that accomplishes the same thing; gate it off with a form and capture some information. If prospective clients are interested in your discounted services, that’s what we call a “solid lead.”

Be Clever, But Don’t Get Cute

Some brands, like Coca-Cola, can get away with big, fuzzy polar bears rolling around in the snow to sell their sugar drink (we call it pop in West Virginia). And when you have a hundred years of name recognition and you solidified how Santa Claus looks in marketing across the entire world for the rest of time, you can get cutesy, too. For the rest of us, just stick to the facts. Be clever as you like, but don’t get too sugary, and don’t try too hard to appeal to young people. That’s evergreen advice, and it’s extra important when toys and candy and cookies are on everybody’s mind.

Lean on Email and Automation 

Your messaging doesn’t need to slow down too much while you’re sipping eggnog, spinning the dreidel, lighting the candles, prepping for a fast, or ordering Chinese food with your dog. And you don’t have to be on the stick (or at the keyboard, if you’re not a pilot) prepared to make a correction. Most people aren’t going to be sitting in front of their computers or visiting their favorite websites for new content; rather, this is a perfect time to engage them where they are: scrolling social media and reading email. The great news about those avenues is that you can write your messages early and schedule them to roll out at predetermined times. Just make sure nothing newsworthy happens that might make your messaging seem tone-deaf.

Get Started Early

The holidays are a week away and you haven’t done anything yet! You haven’t planned anything! It’s okay, we’re digital marketers. Everything we do is last minute, right? No, of course not. You plan every single move you make down to a task list parceled out to each member of your team, long before anything is ever needed. 

Okay, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, if you’re lucky, and you have time to think about what you want to do. The truth of the matter is that the holidays are all about anticipation and the delight of the expected unknown. This is an opportunity for you to tease your audience with some of the cool content you plan to roll out or that coupon code we talked about earlier. You probably shouldn’t start teasing your Black Friday deals in July, but early is good.

It’s Okay to Be Sincere

Your employees love each other, even if they fight like siblings sometimes. Your clients think you’re doing a great job, and you’re thankful for the ability to provide them a service. The holidays are also about love, acceptance, and gratitude. Don’t be afraid to show that side of yourself to the people who matter to you. We could all use a little more joy in 2020. You might be surprised how far a little “I appreciate you” message can go in spreading more of that holiday cheer.

If you’d like to get some of that delicious holiday cheer of your own (or the digital marketing variety), get in touch with us today!

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