Thursday, July 28, 2016
Stop Collecting, FDA Tells Florida Blood Banks
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Sen. Tim Kaine's Record On Health Care: He's With Hillary
The Democrats' vice presidential nominee helped overhaul Virginia's mental health care system after the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech. He is for Obamacare, Medicaid expansion and Planned Parenthood.
Why “ad load” questions overtook Facebook's latest earnings call
Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
DNC: Room for Collaboration on Health Policy, Speakers Say
Find Success By Putting Your Digital Advertising to the A/B Test
Testing different variations is one of the quickest ways to learn, and Digital Advertising is no exception. When you begin talking about A/B testing, many of us get nervous and all sorts of possible catastrophes begin swimming around in our heads.
But the truth is, advertising is a quickly evolving tactic, and in order to gain momentum, testing has become a necessity. Whether your advertising is social, display, native or search, the key to better results and return on investment is testing.
To help you navigate the sometimes-confusing world of digital advertising testing, we've provided some helpful resources below.
What is A/B Testing?
An A/B Test is simply a test between two variants, a control and a variation, or as Google likes to call it, an experiment. Examples might include creating two different:
- Landing Pages
- Assets
- Ads
How to Approach an A/B Split
An A/B split needs to be shown to the exact same audience, during the same times of day, same days of the week and in the same areas in order for you to have a firm grasp on which variation is truly performing better.
It's important to have a firm grasp on your data set or audience so that you can split the information and create an equitable ad deliver. You'll find that most platforms have options for testing including, Google AdWords, Analytics Experiments, Optimizely and Unbounce.
Considerations for Length & Time of Testing
In order to measure success, you need to make sure you're giving you tests enough time to run. We typically recommend running tests at a minimum of 2 weeks with most tests running for 1 month.
Volume
How much data is required for you to have statistically significant results? If your program sees low volumes (clicks, impressions, conversions), you need to run longer tests. If you have a high volume account you can call tests much faster.
Seasonality
If you have drastic peaks and lows due to seasonality, I suggest finding the middle ground for testing. I never recommend testing during a seasonal low unless you dealing with a high volume account.
Day of Week/Month Activity
Make sure that both groups have equal coverage during your peak days and weeks. Again, try to avoid running tests during your low periods, especially if you see significant swings in CTR and conv. rates.
It's also essential to make sure that your test is going to have impact. Sometimes slight copy variations and image changes aren't going to tell you much. You want to make sure the variant has a very clear goal and hypothesis. For example, by changing a button from “Download” to “Get My Guide”, I'm hoping to see a 10% lift in conversions.
What Types of Digital Advertising A/B Tests Should You Try?
When we implement digital advertising tests, they are directly tied to helping to meet program goals. Depending on the goals for your digital advertising program, we recommend launching the following types of tests:
Message Testing:
Test your messaging simple ad variations such as:
- Length of Message
- Promotional based Messaging vs. Informational Based Message vs. Benefit Messaging
- Various Ad Extensions
Changing a single word within your message normally doesn't lead to strong insights so make sure there is substantial change.
Below you'll find a couple of examples where we have tested different messaging tactics for significant engagement improvements.
Promotional Based Text Ads Driving Significantly Higher CTR's Than Benefit Messaging:
Benefit Based Text Ad Driving Significantly Higher CTR's Than Information Messaging:
Landing Page Element Testing
Testing different elements on your landing pages can lead to surprising results. Whether it's the layout, form fields or buttons, it's always important to experiment.
Below you'll see a simple button label change driving a major improvement in lead volume!
Imagery Testing
For social posts, display channel and landing pages, it is always good to test a couple of contrasting images, themes and concepts.
Especially if you have multiple audience personas, you'll want to know what type of visuals and graphics resonate best with your audience. Do you need to be straighter forward, does humor resonate with your audience, and does your audience like to see the product? Are certain concepts better for social than display? You'll discover these answers via testing.
Here's an example of a test we ran for a social campaign. #FuranceFail had a humorous twist that resonated much better with our social audience.
Make Informed Testing Decisions
Again, make sure you're testing has purpose, a hypothesis and a goal. If you've put serious thought into your A/B tests you won't be disappointed. While the outcome may not have been desired, now you know and knowledge is power.
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Master the Multi-Channel Campaign [Free Digital Campaign Launch Kit]
Quick show of hands: Who loves spending oodles of time and energy on a task, only to find out someone else has been working on the same thing?
Nobody?
What about when you casually scope a project only to realize halfway through that it's going to require more time and resources than you originally thought?
No one again?
I'll stop - y'all know what I'm getting at: proper preparation is key to getting a campaign shipped with minimal friction. This means filling out a detailed brief and scoping the project from start to finish.
Are you thinking, “Ugh, what if I don't have a tried-and-true process? And now I have to make a brief from scratch - where am I going to find the time for that?” Well, fear not, my friends, we have just the thing for you.
It's a complete multi-channel campaign launch kit, and it's what we use at Unbounce for all our digital marketing campaigns.
Inside the Digital Campaign Launch Kit, you'll find the following items:
- Campaign projections worksheet
- Marketing brief template
- A start-to-finish process for launching multi-channel campaigns, including how to define roles, determine your target market and messaging, identify the campaign's objective, strategy, tactics and targets and get buy-in from stakeholders. Oh, and how to launch :)
Want to drive epic results and execute campaigns like a well-oiled machine?
For B2B Brands and Their Agencies, It's Time To Get Down To Business
So many things in the world are changing, literally as we speak. So why wouldn't the relationship between brands and their agencies change, too?
According to a study conducted by Forbes Insights and sponsored by Oracle Marketing Cloud, 60% of brand/agency executives say their roles and responsibilities have changed significantly over the past two years while another 48% of marketing executives say evolving brand and agency roles are making successful collaboration more difficult.
Mark Roberts, CMO of ShoreTel, says the shift in roles is noticeable. “Agency relationships have evolved dramatically over the last few years, primarily as they have explored how to become more strategic in the relationship and as marketing groups have struggled to keep up with the pace of change in technology.”
This Is Changing Everything
Data and analytics have changed the face of B2B marketing and the relationship between brands and agencies. But make no mistake about it. At the heart of these efforts is a drive to effectively gather and mine rich sources of customer data.
In fact, when asked to identify which area will see the greatest impact from more effective collaboration between brand and agency peers, the number one response among the survey respondents was capitalizing on customer data/analytics.
Kevin Koh, CEO of DDB Group Korea, says the coming together of all data is vital. “We are aware that a client will have their own data and their own opinions on what they believe will be best for their brand. But we will also have our own data. We need to collaborate together so that we can share the data and create campaigns and strategies that will create long-lasting impact.”
There is much work to be done though as 40% of respondents say their organizations don't effectively use customer data to create new marketing programs. And almost as many- 38%-don't effectively create and deliver timely content tailored to specific customer personas.
Enter Technology
Tech of course plays a major role considering many of the marketing technology tools live on the B2B brand side-such as the marketing automation system with prospect contact information. The agency will likely need access to the results of marketing campaigns, either directly or indirectly, but that doesn't mean they have to own and manage the tool.
There is a lot more to this story. Download Getting Down to Business B2B Brands & Agencies Working Together and learn how B2B brands and agencies are translating collaboration into engagement.
