Highlights

• Without quality leads, your marketing efforts mean nothing
• Learn the best lead generation tips for this year
• Get content marketing ideas to build into your strategy
• Plus, is anyone still watching videos? The answer may surprise you

Every marketing and sales strategy begins with one common goal: to generate leads. Leads are the lifeblood of B2B brands because without good leads in the marketing funnel, you have no:

• Potential customers to nurture and convert into paying clients
• Data to analyze and optimize your marketing and sales strategies
• Revenue to sustain and grow your business
• Feedback to improve your products or services based on customer needs
• Brand awareness and reputation in your target market

Your business could be offering a game-changing product or service, but without any leads, you may as well have nothing. Without a steady stream of high-quality leads your overall business growth will stagnate.

Experimenting with the following lead generation strategies will help attract leads and get your B2B brand noticed in 2024.

Use LinkedIn for ads and thought leadership

LinkedIn isn’t just a marketplace for jobs. It is a robust social media platform that can be a powerful marketing tool to build brand awareness and foster connections with potential customers.

If it isn’t already part of your marketing strategy, you should be using LinkedIn in the following ways:

Lead generation ads:

With LinkedIn lead gen ads, you have the opportunity to reach potential customers directly with highly segmented targeting.

Filter by professional demographics like job title, company, industry, title, or more traditional demographics. Utilize lead gen forms that auto-populate with profile data and measure the ROI of your campaign. Not only is this a great tactic for building brand awareness, but LinkedIn ads convert 3x more than other ad platforms.

Salesforce uses a lead gen ad to promote their annual State of Marketing Report to marketing professionals who may be interested in the topic. A user who clicks the ‘Download’ CTA is taken to a Lead Gen Form where the fields are auto-populated based on that user’s profile data.

B2B thought leadership content:

As a B2B marketer, fostering a connection with your target audience begins with building trust and credibility. One way to do that is to focus on thought leadership content posted on LinkedIn.

The content gives you a chance to educate readers on industry topics you’re knowledgeable about. It’s also a way to attract readers who are interested in specific topics and a powerful way to rack up more organic leads. Thought leadership content can be delivered in the form of a post, a video, a link to a report, blogs, and more.

Network security company Cloudflare used their LinkedIn page to post a video about DDoS attacks and how they can hurt companies. They assert themselves as experts in this topic while simultaneously touting their ability to help potential customers keep their own networks secure.

Use Meta ads to attract the right leads

Meta (formerly Facebook) remains a powerful platform for B2B lead generation due to its vast user base and sophisticated targeting options. Here’s how to leverage Meta ads:

Targeted lead generation ads:

Similar to LinkedIn, Meta lead gen ads allow you to collect leads directly on the platform through forms that auto-fill with users’ information. You can target potential leads based on job title, company size, industry, and other specific demographics, ensuring your ads reach the right audience at the right time.

Hootsuite uses a Meta ad to entice potential customers with a free demo of their social media monitoring tool.

Use content marketing to your advantage

To build brand awareness, increase traffic to your website, and attract potential customers, you’ll want to use tactics that get your name above the competition in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Creating marketing campaigns using compelling content can help you attract outbound leads and rank favorably on SERPs.

leading landing page builder

What kind of content is good for B2B campaigns? Here are some ways to create compelling content marketing campaigns:

• Case Studies: Detailed case studies show how your product or service has solved specific problems for other businesses and demonstrate how and why you have a successful offering. This builds credibility and shows potential leads how they might use your product or service.
• Webinars: Hosting webinars on relevant industry topics allows you to engage directly with your audience, showcase your expertise, and collect lead information from attendees. Webinars allow you to educate your audience in an interactive way; including a live Q&A section allows potential leads to engage with you and get a glimpse of what it might be like to be your customer.
• Guest Posting: Writing guest posts for reputable industry blogs or websites helps you reach a broader audience and positions you as a thought leader in your field.
• Podcasts: Many marketers are embracing podcasts as a great medium for conveying thought leadership content and having personal, entertaining, and meaningful conversations with other industry professionals. This is another way to build credibility and position yourself as an expert in your field.
• Videos: A recent survey found that 88% of B2B buyers have watched a video to learn about a company’s products or services. 97% of those viewers felt more receptive to hearing from a company’s sales team.

Spotify uses listener information to create one of the most famous content marketing campaigns we’ve seen in recent years—Spotify Wrapped.

At the end of every year, Spotify listeners get a personalized round-up of their most-listened music of the year. Their data and playlists are made to be shareable and, year after year, it creates a viral moment that everyone wants to get in on.

At Instapage, we love to feature our customer’s success stories on our own website.

Offer product trials and demos

Free trials and demos are powerful tools for reducing conversion friction and attracting more leads. They give potential customers a risk-free way to experience the benefits of your product or service firsthand and a compelling reason to pay for your product or service once the trial is over.

• Free trials: Offering a limited-time free trial allows potential customers to explore your product’s features and functionalities without any financial commitment. This hands-on experience can significantly increase the likelihood of conversion, especially if they are able to tap into the full range of functionalities and are able to see tangible benefits during the trial period.
• Product demos: Personalized product demos tailored to a potential customer’s specific needs can address their unique pain points and showcase how your product can provide a solution. In addition, they give potential customers face time with your brand, which can lead to a sense of trust and a willingness to commit.

Headspace offers a free trial of their meditation app and they succeed in conveying their value proposition, remaining transparent (they clearly list their pricing options), and using a direct CTA to guide the lead to the next step.

Get customers to refer you

Word of mouth can work wonders for your lead generation. Encourage your existing customers to refer your product or service to their network.

Consider implementing a referral program that incentivizes customers to refer your business to others. Offer rewards such as discounts, free products, or other perks for successful referrals.

Dropbox famously grew its user base through a referral program that offered additional storage space to both the referrer and the referred. This not only attracted new leads but also encouraged existing users to engage more with the product.

Encourage customers to leave you reviews

People rarely buy something without vetting the service first. Think of how many times you’ve looked at reviews for a restaurant, product, or service before engaging with it further. Ask your customers to leave positive reviews on third-party review sites as a way to build trust and attract new leads.

Review platforms like G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot are commonly referenced throughout the buying process. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on these platforms. Positive reviews can significantly influence a leads’ decision-making process and make conversions more likely.

Below is an example of a user’s review of Instapage, left on review site Capterra.

Create more videos

Videos are getting increasingly popular in the B2B space for brand awareness and lead generation.
Leverage the power of video to humanize your brand and get more eyeballs on your content. Two popular types of videos are:

• Explainer Videos: Create short, engaging videos that explain how your product or service works and the benefits it offers. These videos can be shared on your website, social media channels, in email campaigns, and on dedicated YouTube pages.
• Customer Testimonials: Showcase customer success stories through video testimonials. Seeing real customers speak positively and authentically about your product can be a powerful motivator for potential leads. Leads may see themselves in your customer’s shoes and may want to replicate their experience by committing to your brand.

Zendesk uses a simple, straightforward YouTube video featuring an employee giving a quick overview of their workforce management tools. This approach humanizes the brand and helps them appear welcoming.

Incorporate landing pages into your lead generation strategy

Generating leads is essential for the growth and sustainability of any B2B business. As part of your strategy, you should be thinking about the post-click experience. In other words, what happens once a potential lead clicks your ad, watches your video, listens to your podcast, and so on?

Creating custom, dedicated landing pages that match the messaging in your ad can have a tremendous impact on your conversion rates.

Payment-processing company Paystone recently ran a campaign incentivizing users to switch over to them because of their better value and for a chance to win Amazon gift cards. The copy, colors, and image used in the ad were replicated in the landing page, offering a great example of how to tie landing pages to relevant ads.

Instapage is a leading landing page builder that makes it easy to create and optimize landing pages without needing to hire additional resources. Instapage users love these intuitive features:

• An easy to use drag-and-drop interface
• Built-in data analytics
• AI content generation to help with headlines, buttons, and more
• The ability to experiment and optimize via A/B testing
• Insights to match copy to visitor-level data like keywords, firmographics, and demographics, and more!

Best of all, no coding is necessary, so you won’t need to rely on a developer.

Ready to start incorporating dedicated, custom-branded landing pages into your marketing strategy? Get started with a free 14-day trial of Instapage today.

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Highlights

• Learn what today’s biggest social media trends are
• Short form video content vs long form – what makes sense?
• Why every marketing team needs to prioritize authenticity
• Personalized, dedicated landing pages can extend the life of your social media campaigns – learn how

When it comes to social media marketing, the one thing you can count on is change. Social media algorithms and best practices are constantly and quickly evolving, with new social media trends emerging every year.

If you want your brand to stay relevant you need to get comfortable experimenting with social media trends.

In this article, we will explore the latest social media trends that will help you make an impact in 2024.

10 of the latest social media trends to finish strong in 2024

When thinking about your social media marketing strategy, it’s helpful to take a look at what others are doing.

What does the social media presence of the most memorable brands look like? What is working and resonating with audiences and what is falling flat and not getting engagement?

Let’s take a look at of-the-moment social media trends that will reach your target audience, increase engagement, and get people interacting with your content.

1. Influencers are using product placement

Influencer marketing, involving both macro and micro influencers, has become an essential social media strategy in the last decade. The influencer and social commerce economy is strong and is likely to remain that way for years to come.

Especially on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, influencers are able to create opportunities for consumers to connect and engage with the brands and products that they like.

Brands are leveraging influencers to promote products through strategic placements within their content in hopes of connecting with their target audience on a personal level. In fact, it has been reported that
25% of all marketers use influencer marketing as a strategy to promote their products or services on social media channels, turning to influencers more than webinars and virtual events.

For example, beauty brands frequently collaborate with popular beauty influencers who integrate product placements seamlessly into their makeup tutorials (or GRWM videos). This approach not only demonstrates the product in use but also leverages the influencer’s trust and authenticity with their online communities, resulting in higher user engagement and conversion rates.

2. AI integrations are popular

AI generated content is touching all aspects of our lives and marketing strategies, and social media is no exception. AI will play a significant role in social media, especially when it comes to content creation, customer service, and optimization.

Artificial Intelligence can analyze vast amounts of data to identify trends, preferences, and behaviors; it’s an important marketing tool that enables brands to create targeted, personalized, and high quality content.

One notable example is the use of AI-powered chatbots for customer service. Brands like Sephora and H&M utilize chatbots on their social media platforms (like messenger app Kik) to handle customer inquiries, recommend products, and even complete transactions. This not only improves customer satisfaction by providing immediate assistance but also frees up human resources for more complex tasks.

Additionally, AI tools can help optimize posting schedules, predict trending topics, and even suggest social media posts based on blogs or other content.

3. Non-linear storytelling is in

Non-linear storytelling techniques are becoming a go-to social media trend to engage audiences and create memorable content. Unlike traditional linear narratives, non-linear storytelling allows brands to present their stories in fragmented and interactive ways, encouraging users to piece together the narrative themselves.

Brands are creating multi-part stories (often presented as video content) on social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, giving users a “choose your own adventure” type of experience that can result in different paths or outcomes.

Brands like Nike have embraced non-linear storytelling by creating content that encourages user participation and sharing multiple different, but related assets on social media platforms.

During their “Dream Crazier” campaign, Nike showcased well-known figures who have taken risks and broken molds and invited Instagram users and others to share their own stories of overcoming challenges, which were then featured across Nike’s social media channels, creating a rich tapestry of interconnected personal narratives.

This type of content strategy helps reinforce brand identity while also acting as a social listening tool to understand consumer behavior and sentiments towards your brand.

4. Long-form videos are a hit

TikTok has been pushing longer videos—first with one-minute videos, then 10, and now even starting to test 30-minute uploads.

Short form videos used to dominate social media platforms. This shift towards longer form content indicates that there is a growing appetite for more in-depth and substantial content on social media.

Long-form videos provide an opportunity for more brands to dive deeper into storytelling, education, and entertainment.

For example, fitness influencers on Instagram and TikTok have started sharing full-length workout routines and nutrition guides, providing immense value to their followers and establishing themselves as authoritative figures in their niche.

This social media trend is also evident on platforms like YouTube, where educational channels like “CrashCourse” and “TED-Ed” thrive on long-form content that explains complex topics in an engaging manner. For brands, embracing long-form video content can mean more meaningful engagement and a stronger connection with their social media communities.

5. YouTube is still in the race

Don’t disregard your YouTube channel. While the short-form vertical video is still popular, the world’s second-most-visited website, YouTube, is nowhere near getting out of the fight and should continue to be part of your marketing efforts.

ÝouTube still has the highest average visit duration (00:20:09) and one of the lowest bounce rates (22%).

YouTube’s strength lies in its vast library of diverse content and its role as a search engine for videos. It makes sense for brands to leverage YouTube to host longer, evergreen content that continues to attract views long after it’s posted. Tutorials, product reviews, and behind-the-scenes videos are particularly effective on this social media platform.

For instance, tech brands often use YouTube to publish detailed product reviews and comparisons. Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), a prominent tech influencer, collaborates with brands to showcase the latest gadgets in comprehensive videos, driving substantial traffic and interest.

6. SEO is important in social media, too

SEO is not just for your website and landing pages. Optimizing your posts with keywords is more important than ever if you want your content to get discovered on search engines and social media explore options.

Social media users are looking for personal takes and experiences, which can be found with TikTok storytelling, honest reviews on Reddit, and other social strategies on multiple platforms.

To capitalize on this trend, brands should focus on incorporating relevant keywords and hashtags into their social media posts. Tools like Google Trends and social media analytics platforms can help identify popular keywords and topics that resonate with your target audience and can boost customer interactions.

For example, a travel brand can optimize their Instagram posts with hashtags like #TravelTips, #HiddenGems, and #TravelHacks, increasing the chances of their content being discovered by users searching for travel-related information.

Additionally, creating SEO-friendly descriptions for YouTube videos can enhance your visibility in search results, attracting a broader audience.

7. Behind-the-scenes content is all the rage

Social media communities search for authentic, unfiltered, and transparent content— behind-the-scenes content gives them just that. This trend allows brands to showcase the human side of their business, building trust and fostering a deeper connection with their target audience.

You can create behind-the-scenes content in multiple formats, forms, such as live streams, day-in-the-life videos, and sneak peeks of upcoming products. For example, fashion brands like Glossier often share behind-the-scenes footage of photo shoots, product development, and team activities, giving followers an insider look at the brand’s operations and culture.

This approach not only humanizes the brand but also creates a sense of exclusivity and anticipation among followers. By revealing the process and effort behind their products, brands can use social media to build stronger relationships with their audience and encourage loyalty.

8. Authentic content is the new hero

Authenticity on social media is crucial for defining brand identity and building trust and connections with audiences. Brands featuring authentic voices, from influencers to employees, shine against those that don’t.

In an era where consumers are increasingly skeptical of polished, overly-produced content and social media feeds, authenticity stands out.

Brands can achieve authenticity by sharing user generated content, showcasing real customer testimonials, and encouraging employees to create content that shows their experiences.

For example, Patagonia, known for its commitment to environmental sustainability, often features stories from employees and customers who are passionate about protecting the planet. This not only reinforces the brand’s values but also creates a genuine connection with like-minded consumers.

It’s important for brands to avoid overly scripted or staged content, as this screams “marketing” and discourages users from forming a true connection.

Instead, brands should focus on real, relatable moments that resonate with their audience’s everyday experiences and make for a more genuine social media feed. Authenticity in content helps build credibility and trust, which are essential for long-term brand loyalty.

9. Using playful content and pop-culture references gets you noticed

Experimenting with playful content on social media can make a brand more relatable and engaging. Brands that consistently find creative ways to tap into trending meme culture and pop-culture references often get noticed by many customers.

Brands should stay updated on the latest trends and cultural moments to effectively incorporate them into their social media content. Whether it’s participating in viral challenges, creating memes, or referencing popular TV shows and movies, playful content can capture attention and foster a sense of community among followers.

Wendy’s is famous for their playful and witty social media presence. The fast-food chain frequently engages with followers and other brands through humorous tweets, memes, and pop-culture references, creating a fun and approachable brand image.

This strategy not only entertains their audience but also encourages social sharing, increasing their reach, visibility, and engagement metrics.

10. Social media users love quality over quantity

In the ever-expanding world of social media, it’s tempting to be present on every platform all the time. However, spreading yourself too thin can dilute the quality of your content and diminish your brand’s impact. In 2024, social media marketers should focus on quality over quantity.

Be more selective with social media platforms. If you can’t create authentic content on all major platforms, pick the few that work for you and stick with them. For instance, if your brand thrives on visual content, focus on social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. If you excel at creating video content, prioritize YouTube and TikTok.

Creating high-quality, engaging content tailored to the strengths of each platform will yield better results than trying to maintain a presence everywhere. For example, a fashion brand can focus on Instagram for visually appealing posts, TikTok for short, engaging videos, and YouTube for in-depth fashion tutorials and lookbooks.

Reinforce your social media strategy with conversion-optimized landing pages

Brands need to create impactful social media strategies that resonate with their audience and drive engagement in 2024 and beyond.

However, effective social media campaigns should only be one part of your marketing strategy. To reinforce your brand’s messaging and continue to nurture potential customers, personalized landing pages can go a long way.

Branded, dedicated landing pages are a powerful way to continue the conversation that was started on social media and build more connections between users and your brand. Instapage is a leading, intuitive landing page builder that comes with:

• An easy to use drag-and-drop interface
• Built-in data analytics
• AI content generation to help with headlines, buttons, and more
• The ability to experiment and optimize via A/B testing
• Insights to match copy to visitor-level data like keywords, firmographics, and demographics, and more!

Extend the life and effectiveness of your social media campaigns with dedicated landing pages that increase conversions and create loyal customers.
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Most brands’ first advertising step is to try their luck with Google search ads.

And this is with good reason, Google processes more than 40,000 search queries every second, enticing advertisers and brands with increased visibility, high-intent traffic, and targeted reach.

Though Google ads campaigns are effective and popular, you must also ask yourself how much Google ads truly cost.

Let’s take a look at the real cost of online advertising with Google and how to get the most out of your advertising dollars.

What is the cost of Google search ads?

Advertisers who are accustomed to running Google ads (previously called Google Adwords) have noticed a change year over year: paid search advertising conversion rates have decreased while the cost of generating leads through search ads continues to increase.

This means the value of your ad campaign has gone down. You’re paying more for every lead that clicks on your Google ads, but conversion rates are decreasing.

Not really what you want to hear, right?

Google, which remains the largest paid search platform attributes this YoY increase in lead price to more competition and intensified monetization of Google SERPs.

Google ads pricing can cost upwards of $10,000 per month, with most advertisers paying $0.11-$0.50 per click on average for display ads or even more than $2.00 for search ads.

Advertisers must consider not only the actual cost of the ad but also what else can affect their ad budget.

Numerous factors can influence the cost of Google ads, including competitors, services, products, and industry. Understanding these and discovering ways to optimize your ad budget is important.

What factors determine your Google search ad cost?

A Google search ad does not come with one fixed cost anytime you want to begin an ad campaign. Numerous factors related to your Google ads determine what advertisers will pay at any given time, such as:

• Industry: The industry you’re in plays a major role in Google ads pricing. Highly competitive industries like legal, insurance, and finance tend to have much higher average costs per click (CPC) of $6-20 or more. Less competitive industries, like retail and travel, have lower average CPCs, around $1-2. The reason for this variance is that advertisers in competitive industries are competing for the same audience and have to spend more to get their attention and secure a conversion.
• Customer lifetime value: A higher CPC may be justified if acquiring a customer is worth a lot to your business. High customer lifetime values likely indicate that your ad budget will be able to cover a high CPC (like $50 or more). If you’re an advertiser who provides a high-value service, then you may fall into this scenario.
• Targeting and optimization: Carefully targeting your Google ads to the right audience and optimizing your campaigns is crucial to getting a high return on ad spend (ROAS). Poorly targeted or managed campaigns will drain your advertising budget pretty quickly.
• Average CPC: Google determines your average CPC even though you have set maximum bid limits. You will not always pay the maximum bid you set. High-quality ads that receive a high-quality score (based on ad content, relevant landing page, and overall landing page experience) typically have a lower average CPC than Google ads with a lower-quality score.
• Budget: Small businesses may spend $1,000-10,000/month on Google paid search campaigns, while large brands can spend millions running Google ads. It’s important to set an advertising budget that makes sense with your company’s goals but still allows you to bid on highly competitive keywords that you know your users search for. Your PPC campaigns should produce desirable search results while keeping your daily average budget in check, which you can track by maintaining a consistent budget report.

How to optimize your Google search ads to ensure your advertising dollars aren’t wasted

To maximize the cost of Google ads, you will want to take steps to properly set up your ad campaigns for success. We recommend taking the following steps every time you begin a campaign:

Add negative keywords

Negative keywords are an important aspect of your keyword strategy. Adding negative keywords prevents your Google ads from showing up in irrelevant searches. In other words, negative keywords are search terms for which you don’t want your ads to appear in search results.

Including negative keywords can save you money because it makes your campaign more targeted and attracts the highest-value users who are likely to convert since they are finding exactly what they are looking for.

If you own a flower shop, you may use phrases like “local flower store” in your campaign. However, if you do not offer arrangements for weddings and special occasions, you probably do not want to show up when people search for “wedding flower arrangements”, so you would add “-wedding flower arrangements” as a negative keyword in your keyword strategy.

Focus on long-tail keywords

To ensure you’re attracting the most qualified leads and reducing competition, target specific, longer search terms. Pinpointing what your leads need when they need it with multi-word phrases will increase your conversion rate and will keep your spending on Google ads on track.

Our flower shop in the example above would probably want to include long-tail keywords like “local flower shop near me”, “floral delivery near me”, “same day flower arrangements”, “Mother’s Day flowers near me”, “pink roses near me” and so on.

Don’t track vanity metrics

Avoid focusing on metrics that don’t directly impact your business goals. Be extra considerate of this if you provide regular reporting to executive-level stakeholders. If it does not matter to your bottom line, it probably is not worth tracking.

You’ll be much more efficient and successful if the metrics you track help you make informed, data-driven decisions that optimize your campaigns.

Vanity metrics can be measured and may be of interest to you, but ultimately have no significant effect on ROI or ROAS. Examples of vanity metrics include:

Focusing on actionable metrics like conversion rate, engagement rate, customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and churn rate is more helpful.

Optimize campaigns regularly

With online advertising, it’s important to continuously monitor and adjust your campaigns by analyzing data, refining keywords, and improving ad copy to maintain optimal performance. Enlist the help of a Google keyword planner, a PPC agency, a Google display network, or other resources that will help you reach your goals.

You’ll also want to consider that a Google ads auction will regularly occur and will influence your chances of a favorable ad placement. When a Google ad is eligible to appear for a search, it will go through an ad auction that will determine if it will receive the highest ad rank. The ad auction process is repeated for every Google search, so it’s normal that ad placement will fluctuate over the course of your campaign.

Automated bidding can help you win a higher position, especially if you’re using highly relevant keywords and ad content.

Utilize Google Analytics

Online advertising platforms typically give access to analytics tools that help you track your campaigns. Use a tool like Google Analytics to gain insights into user behavior, track your actionable metrics, and refine your targeting strategies for better results.

With Google Analytics, you can track your Google ads costs, and your ad spend, know what your ad rank is, and so much more.

Target specific audiences

Audiences are a powerful way to get the most out of Google ads campaigns. Using your audience as your primary focus, you’ll go after a type of person versus a type of search query.

Google separates audience targeting into four categories:

• Google’s segments: includes demographics, affinity segments, in-market segments, and life events
• Your data segments: includes website remarketing, app remarketing, social media remarketing, and similar audiences
• Custom segments: includes search term-based insights, types of websites people browse, types of apps people use
• Other options include combined segments and optimized targeting

With deeper audience targeting, you’re more likely to hit your conversion goals.

Improve Quality Score

Google’s Quality Score is a tool meant to give advertisers a sense of how well their ad quality compares to competitors’ Google ads. It uses a scale of 1 to 10 and tells you how relevant your ad and landing page are to someone searching for your keyword compared with advertisers.

For flower shops competing for the search term “Mother’s Day flowers near me”, a Quality Score would indicate what your user’s experience is like when searching for that term.
A Quality Score is calculated by weighing the expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.

Quality Score can be used as a general indicator of ads, keywords, or landing page elements that need to be improved.

Improve landing page experience

Advertisers may think that getting their ad right is the priority. However, it is crucial to create personalized, dedicated landing pages for each of your search ads so that you can increase your chances of conversion.

Google ads that have dedicated, message-matched landing pages increase the likelihood of turning ad clicks into conversions because they’re focused on specifically what your ad offers. On the other hand, ads that direct users to a product page or a homepage can confuse users and discourage them from taking a desired action.

A user who clicks on an ad from Forrester about a new research report that is available is taken to a landing page where they can preview the report and download it on the spot.
Had they been taken to Forrester’s homepage, they would have had to search for that specific report and risk downloading the wrong one or abandoning the site altogether before finding what they wanted.

Use the AdMap™ feature to keep your Google Ads costs down

We’ve learned that there are many factors that influence how much enterprises and small businesses spend on Google ads, and can agree that optimizing ad campaigns is a smart way to keep Google ads pricing down.

Instapage is a powerful landing page builder designed to drive conversions. It helps advertisers create dedicated landing pages for each of their Google ads. Beyond its ease and intuitiveness, Instapage offers a wide range of features to help advertisers visualize and optimize their campaigns.

AdMap™ provides a visual layout of the pre- and post-click stages of ad campaigns. With AdMap™, it’s easy to identify which ads and audiences are missing relevant landing pages and quickly solve the problem with personalized pages that are optimized for conversions.

You can see your campaigns, ad groups, and ads, create new pages, edit and update connected pages, and serve the best experience to the right audience at the right time.

Plus, Instapage’s AI content generator helps you scale your landing pages with AI-made headlines, paragraphs, and CTAs. You can automatically create variations for your pages so you can A/B test various elements to understand what resonates most with your audience.

And, you can create personalized experiences for different segments of your audience, offering highly-tailored content that speaks to the needs of your leads.

Get the most out of your Google ads budget by integrating with Instapage. Try before you buy with a 14-day free trial.

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One of the primary goals of all marketers is to get their brand noticed. Brand recognition increases traffic and converts customers.

And one of the most effective ways to do that is with PPC ads.

PPC ads, or pay-per-click ads, are a marketing strategy in which advertisers pay every single time a user clicks on one of their ads. Common forms of PPC ads include Google Ads, Meta Ads, and Bing Ads. The goal of the ads is to appear higher up on a search engine results page when a user types in a keyword.

PPC advertising is popular and effective because results tend to be quick, and marketers tend to see a high return on ad spend (ROAS). Its popularity can be seen in numbers – global ad spend was projected to be north of 600 billion dollars in 2023.

However, running successful campaigns requires proper PPC management, including optimizing keyword research, adjusting budgets, and performing competitive analysis.

Here, we will explore optimal PPC management techniques and specific aspects you should oversee throughout the life of your PPC campaigns.

What is PPC management?

Pay-Per-Click or PPC management refers to the strategies you use to oversee and optimize your PPC ad campaigns and includes supervising and managing the following aspects:

• Keyword analysis
• Audience research
• Ad targeting
• Ad creation
• Budget optimization and monitoring
• Landing page optimization
• Performance reporting
• Ongoing campaign optimization and testing

PPC management can be done by an expert dedicated to that role, via PPC management software, or even by hiring a digital marketing agency (or PPC management company) to manage your campaigns and other aspects of your marketing strategies. We’ll discuss this further later on in the article.

Why PPC management is important

Effective PPC management uses keyword analysis and channel strategy development and helps you gain the following advantages:

Improved ROAS and efficiency of PPC campaigns

Careful scrutiny of PPC campaigns allows you to make adjustments to optimize your campaign, effectively allowing you to improve your return on ad spend (ROAS) and to run more efficient campaigns.

The ability to gain complete control over PPC budgets and timing

PPC ads function by requiring advertisers to pay every time a user clicks their ad, right? Knowing that, it makes sense that advertisers would want to be especially conscious of their budgets and their keyword bidding strategies. The most effective way to do that is through PPC management.

Reaching highly targeted audiences and building remarketing audiences throughout the sales funnel

PPC campaigns typically help you reach the ideal audience; by properly managing campaigns, you can gain the insights needed to not only reach your target wherever they are browsing but also use remarketing strategies to meet your audience anywhere they are along their customer journey.

Faster results compared to traditional advertising tactics

Traditional advertising works, but it can take time to see favorable results, and it is challenging to get granular insights. With PPC ads, marketers can begin seeing results as quickly as the next day, with deep insights available after just a few months. Best results rely on PPC campaign management, including overseeing campaigns to see what’s working and what isn’t and adjusting budgets to favor the best ads.

Complementing SEO efforts with PPC campaign data helps you with keyword strategies and drives traffic to your SEO-optimized pages

Most marketers know that there isn’t one silver bullet that gets you all the incredible results you seek in one shot; usually it takes a combination of strategies to bring winning results to your campaigns. Using PPC campaigns in tandem with SEO efforts helps boost relevant keywords, optimize search engine results, and drive targeted traffic to SEO-optimized landing pages.

Extensive tracking and attribution capabilities allow you to accurately measure the impact of PPC campaigns

A PPC management strategy is incomplete without PPC reporting tools which give advertisers deep insights into the results of their campaigns; often, using a tool like Google Analytics helps you analyze the impact of your ad spend and make iterations where necessary, which leads to optimal results.

Opportunities for experimentation and optimization through A/B testing of ad variations

Fine-tuning any marketing strategy is a must, as advertisers learn plenty after publishing a campaign. You can test messaging, copy, ad placement, the efficacy of Bing ads versus Google ads, budget, and ad timing.

A/B testing various elements of your campaign can help you figure out which version works best so you can focus on that ad. Working with a PPC tool that allows for A/B testing and experimentation will drive far better results than just relying on intuition.

How to effectively manage your PPC account

PPC management takes expert skills and the ability to interpret and analyze many pieces of data.

As part of your PPC strategy, here are specific steps you should take to monitor and manage your own PPC campaigns to fully enjoy the advantages listed above.

Keyword analysis

Before you launch your PPC campaign, it’s important to conduct keyword research to ensure you’re bidding on the most relevant keywords (and you must continue to do so after you’ve launched your campaign). Pay-per-click ads can get pricey if you spend too much on unnecessary keywords, so you must examine your data and know which keywords and search terms are most applicable to your target audience.

Part of your keyword analysis will include assessing which negative keywords to include in your ad spend. Negative keywords are search terms and phrases for which you don’t want your ads to show up, and including them in your campaign can save money.

For example, if you are a bakery, you probably use a phrase like “cupcake shop” in your campaign. However, if you do not offer gluten-free items, you likely do not want to show up when people search “gluten-free cupcake shop”, so in your campaign, you would add “-gluten-free cupcake shop” as a negative keyword.

Keyword optimization tools and PPC management software like Google Ads, Semrush, and PPC Entourage can help you.

Audience research

Before spending money on ad campaigns, you want to know who you’re going after. Conducting audience research will help you understand the key demographics of your potential customers and will help you maximize your marketing efforts.

Audience research involves knowing information like age range, gender, and location, as well as behavior across sites. What websites are your target users visiting, and what are they interacting with on social media? By observing these behaviors, you will learn what your potential customers find valuable, what their preferences and interests are, and what they are most likely to engage with.

Google Analytics, Google Adwords Audience Insights, and social media tools like Meta’s Audience Insights can help you gather this information.

Ad targeting

Ad targeting is what happens as a result of conducting audience research. This is how advertisers focus on reaching their desired audience, which is based on demographics, psychographics, consumer behavior, and browsing insights.

When ad targeting, careful considerations should be made, such as:

• Delivering content consumers will care about
• Making your ads creative and appealing
• Avoiding bombarding your target audience with the same ad everywhere they go
• Using the right ad on the right platform (i.e., Meta versus Microsoft ads)
• Creating custom ads based on personalized customer data
• A/B testing different ad variations to see what is most captivating
• Tracking metrics to ensure you’re targeting correctly

We like this targeted ad from Slack because it is totally relatable for anyone who has ever had a job. At some point, most workers have felt that meetings are a time suck, a feeling that was exacerbated by the pandemic.

Slack is going after people who have felt that way by offering up a seemingly appealing and fun way to communicate that will result in less meetings. It is eye-catching, audience-appropriate , and delivers a value proposition in its message.

Ad creation

Once proper keyword analysis has been done, audience research has been conducted, and ad targeting is in place, the creative work begins. Putting the actual PPC ads together requires testing out various iterations of copy, design, CTAs, and ad placement.

By paying specific attention to the CTA versions used, advertisers can figure out which call-to-action gets the most clicks and use that data to optimize and get the most out of their monthly ad spend.

Sometimes, the difference between “Learn More ” and “Shop Now” is a higher ROAS.

Quip’s Meta ad uses the “Shop Now” CTA while the ad copy urges them to upgrade their brushing game.

Budget optimization and monitoring

When a PPC campaign has been turned on, constant monitoring is required to ensure you’re getting the most bang for your buck. Advertisers want to make sure each keyword they are bidding on falls within their company’s PPC ad spend budget. Their budget optimization strategy may also involve competitive analysis to understand other companies’ terms and phrases and bid on those critical keywords before someone else can get to them.

A tool like Adpulse can help marketers managing multiple campaigns see how much of their budget is allocated toward each campaign and can deliver insights and recommendations to optimize those campaigns.

Landing page optimization

Ideally, PPC ads will lead users to dedicated landing pages that match the messaging and the aesthetic of the ad they just clicked. Driving to a landing page versus a website page provides more value to audiences and helps increase conversions.

In addition to helping deliver more conversions, landing pages help marketing managers understand their customers better and track their journey after clicking on an ad.

That being said, landing page optimization is a must. If ads are adjusted due to A/B testing, budget optimization, or keyword analysis, then changes to a landing page must be made accordingly.

Quip’s landing page clearly demonstrates the product’s benefits and credibility (via reviews on Time, GQ, etc.), and it includes a CTA to purchase the product. The minimalistic approach is direct, not overwhelming, and easy to navigate.

Performance reporting

You’ll want to decide on a reporting cadence with stakeholders interested in your ad campaigns’ results. This may be weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Performance reporting is an important part of PPC management because it gives insight into what is working, helps align short-term and long-term goals with the company’s overall mission, and helps you attribute revenue and sales to specific ads and tactics.

Popular metrics to analyze in performance reporting include impressions, cost-per-click, click-through rate, conversion rate, and quality score. There are many PPC performance measurement tools on the market, including Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Spyfu, Adalysis, and Adespresso.

Ongoing campaign optimization and testing

A PPC campaign can have a long shelf life if it performs well and delivers the desired results. As long as you’re keeping your campaign running, you must continue to optimize and test to keep your ad relevant and to maximize efforts.

As part of your optimization efforts, you’ll want to set long-term goals, continue to monitor ad spend, plan long-term campaigns based on high-quality ads, create more landing pages, and continue keyword optimization strategies.

A/B tests can be valuable at any point in your ad campaign’s lifecycle, especially as consumer needs change.

PPC management – in house or with an agency?

PPC management requires focus, expertise, time, and dedication. Marketers may use an in-house advertising team to handle PPC management or they’ll hire a PPC management agency to get the job done.

A PPC management company is usually a digital marketing agency that specializes in PPC campaign management. They can offer guidance on SEO and search engine tactics, relevant keywords, budget allocation, long-term strategy, and so on. Based on data analysis, especially regarding metrics like cost-per-click and cost-per-acquisition, a PPC management agency can make financially sound recommendations that can save money in the long run.

It is wholly possible to manage PPC campaigns on your own or with an in-house advertising team as long as you’re prepared for plenty of trial and error and potential financial mistakes along the way. PPC management tools will help you be more effective, so invest in the right tech stack before you launch any digital ad campaign.

Budget can be a factor when deciding whether to use a PPC management company or handle it on your own, so be sure to clearly understand your budget allocation before getting started.

Using PPC Management Software like Instapage AdMap™

Instapage is a powerful landing page builder that helps marketers secure more conversions. But it doesn’t just stop at landing pages. Instapage AdMap™ helps PPC marketers to contextually visualize their advertising funnel and create personalized, optimized post-click landing pages that resonate with audiences.

With AdMap, advertisers can align their page experiences and ads with an easy-to-use point-and-click interface. Advertisers use AdMap to:

• Import account details from your ad platform and generate a Postclick Score to evaluate ad-to-page relevancy
• Visualize campaigns, ad groups, and ads within Instapage to figure out where personalized pages may be useful
• Create new pages using the AdMap flow and seamlessly connect each ad in a campaign to a relevant post-click landing page
• Make quick edits and updates to post-click pages that match changes made to ads
• Automatically sync ad mapping updates between the ad network and Instapage
• Deliver a custom experience in real-time to the right audience for each ad in a campaign

No other platform offers this technology, which makes Instapage a popular choice for marketers who want to create a seamless user experience between landing pages and ad campaigns. Plus, advertisers who use AdMap tend to see a higher advertising ROAS than those who don’t. Try it for yourself for free for 14 days.

See the Instapage Enterprise Plan in Action.

Demo includes AdMap™, Personalization, AMP,

Global Blocks, heatmaps & more.

I WANT A DEMO

Once you’ve optimized landing pages, message-matched them with your ads, and set up your conversion funnel, the exciting part starts: watching traffic roll in and seeing advertising conversions. And if you want this process to work like clockwork, you need to regularly audit your landing pages.

Without understanding how your page is doing, you won’t be able to optimize landing pages for best results, so learning how to audit your pages properly is a critical component of your strategy.

Let’s look at how you should audit your landing page performance and what metrics you need to consider.

How to calculate landing page conversion rate

The main goal of landing pages is to convert your target audience into customers, so it makes sense that conversion rates will be a key metric to track when you are auditing your page.

So, what is conversion rate?

A conversion rate represents the percentage of visitors to landing pages who complete a desired action, such as filling out a form, making a purchase, requesting a demo, clicking a call-to-action button, and so on.

To calculate your landing page conversion rate, you would use the following formula:

Conversion Rate (CVR) = (Total Conversions ÷ Total Visitors) x 100

For example, if 10,000 visitors came to your landing page and 500 of them completed and submitted a form, then your CVR would be 5%.

And this might prompt you to think, “Is that a good conversion rate? What should my conversion rate be?” The answer to that is not quite black and white.

First and foremost, any improvement in CVR is a win. If you started with a 2% CVR and landing page optimization led to a 5% CVR, then that’s a great example of a successful CVR.

However, you may need to figure out how you stack up against the competition.

Recent data shows that Google Ads see an average conversion rate of 4.45%, while Facebook Ads see a conversion rate of 7.44% on average across 11 industries.

How to measure landing page success: 6 additional landing page metrics to track

When auditing the performance of your landing pages, conversion rates are a key metric, but there are several other metrics that you should consider while you’re auditing. Below are six landing page metrics that are important to track.

1. Bounce rate

Marketers who track website visits are familiar with bounce rates, which refers to the percentage of your target audience who leave your website without taking action. When website visitors leave (bounce from) your site, they don’t convert, so keeping them on your page can help increase your conversion rate.

You are likely using your landing page for a specific conversion goal, so you’ll want to optimize your page to ensure that fewer people are bouncing and more people are taking the desired action.

Typically, bounce rate is calculated by analyzing the number of sessions involving only one of your pages. That formula looks like this:

Bounce rate = (Total number of single-session visits ÷ Total number of website visits) x 100

To get more specific about your landing page, you can divide the total number of non-converting sessions (sessions that do not lead to a second page) by the total number of landing page visits.

Landing page bounce rate = (Total number of non-converting sessions ÷ Total number of landing page visits) x 100

So, if 10,000 people visit your landing page and 9,000 of them leave your page without taking any action, your bounce rate will be 90%.

According to recent data, landing pages see an average bounce rate of 70-90%.

2. Pageviews

The pageviews metric measures how many pages are viewed and/or loaded in a session and includes repeated views of a page. Marketers analyze this metric in any audit, but it is best used alongside other metrics that paint a larger picture of your landing page’s story.

The reason pageviews shouldn’t be a standalone metric is because anytime a user lands on a page and refreshes that page, each instance is counted as a pageview.

Many marketers use tools like Google Analytics to easily and quickly track pageviews. When analyzing this metric for your landing page, it’s helpful to also track the number of unique visitors so you can understand how many of your pageviews are credited to new traffic.

3. Sessions by source

Most marketing campaigns involve several touchpoints – you may be running paid social media ads, YouTube videos, display ads, a blog post, and email marketing that all point back to your landing page.

Understanding the source of your leads goes a long way in improving landing page performance. For example, suppose you know that most of your leads are coming by way of social media ads but almost none are coming as a result of your emails. In that case, you can optimize by increasing social media ad spend and pumping the breaks on future emails.

Track sessions by source to get these insights. This tells you where your landing page traffic is coming from and can easily be found in Google Analytics.

Knowing what is and isn’t working is critical in increasing landing page conversions.

4. Cost per conversion

Generating leads is only part of the story when it comes to landing page best practices and conversion rate optimization. It is also important to understand how much each conversion is costing you.

Cost Per Conversion (CPC) measures how much it costs to convert a lead into a customer. To measure this, you take the total cost of your marketing campaign and the total number of conversions resulting from that campaign. The formula looks like this:

Cost Per Conversion (CPC) = Total cost of marketing campaign ÷ Total number of conversions

For example, if your marketing campaign for your landing page cost you $5,000 and you were able to convert 500 new customers, then your CPC is $10.

You want to keep an eye on your CPC because if it is getting too expensive to convert a customer, then you will need to adjust your strategies. Likewise, if your CPC goes up over time, then you’ll want to figure out how to lower the cost back down.

5. Form abandonment

Your landing page elements likely include a form that ideally will be completed by visitors. If you want to know if your landing page form is doing its job of collecting lead information, then form abandonment is an important metric to keep an eye on.

Form abandonment refers to a user interacting with a form – they clicked on it, or filled it out – but did not complete the form all the way. As the name implies, this metric tracks people who abandoned your form.

Note that this is not the same as bounce rate, where visitors leave your landing page without completing an action. In this case, visitors have begun to complete the form but have not finished it.

If your form abandonment rate is high, it’s important to look into why.

Do you have slow loading pages? Do you have longer landing pages that require a lot of scrolling? Do you have unnecessary elements that are getting in the way of form completion? Are your landing page message and call-to-action clear and obvious? Do you ask too much in your form or don’t link to your privacy policy to assure visitors that their information is safe?

Understanding user behavior is crucial, and too many form drop-offs may indicate that your landing page form needs optimization.

6. Return vs. New visitors

To further understand user behavior and build good landing page optimization practices, looking at your number of return visitors versus new visitors is a good idea.

Returning visitors are users who have been to your website before, while new visitors are those who are landing on your site for the first time.

If you have a high volume of visitors returning to your landing page, that’s not necessarily bad. Something captivated their attention and caused them to return, but why didn’t they convert the first time?

What is the landing page experience like for them? Digging into these insights can help you adjust your messaging, your page load speed, and how you convey your value proposition so that you might achieve conversions more quickly and more often.

When looking at your new visitors, if the number of new visitors per week is low or declining, you will need to look at your entire marketing campaign.

• What is performing, and what needs to be improved?
• How can you get more potential customers over to your landing page?
• Is your landing page search engine optimized?
• Have you considered mobile optimization?
• Do you need to dial up or dial down any ad spend?

Understanding who is visiting and who is not visiting your landing page can help you optimize your landing page elements and bring the right ratio of return visitors to new visitors.

How to use GA4’s Performance Max Campaign to analyze your landing page

Using the right tools to understand your customer journey can go a long way in delivering the insights you need to optimize your landing pages.

Many marketers choose to use Google Analytics because it is user-friendly and covers a lot of ground. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) gives marketers more access to in-depth reports and analysis capabilities, including user engagement metrics such as time spent on the page, bounce rate, conversion rate, and more.

Performance Max is a campaign type in GA4. It is a goal-based campaign that allows marketers to access all of their Google Ads inventory in one single campaign. It is designed to deliver more conversions across Google’s channels, such as YouTube, Display, Search, and more.

Performance Max uses Google AI to help you meet your specific ad goals. For example, if you have a specific CPC goal, Google AI will bid and optimize your budget, audience, creatives, attribution, and more to help you achieve your goal.

A Performance Max campaign may be a great choice if you want to find more conversions and get deep insights as you perform your landing page audit.

To set up and get the most out of a Performance Max campaign, you will need to use conversion tracking and up-to-date remarketing lists.

In GA4, Performance Max campaigns can be tied to sales, leads, traffic, and store visit objectives. You can also create a campaign without a goal’s guidance.

One of the more commonly used Performance Max campaigns is to drive online sales or generate leads, which likely aligns with the goals of your landing page.

GA4 allows you to set the parameters of your campaign, including your bidding preferences, bidding strategy, target location, campaign language, and more. GA4 will even automatically generate creative assets for your campaign.

If you are using a Performance Max campaign for your landing page, you will benefit from creating custom reports that focus on landing page performance. These reports will be critical in auditing and optimizing your landing page for best results.

Because Performance Max is simply a type of campaign within GA4, you will follow the same process for accessing your custom reports as you do with other Google Analytics campaign types.

Access reports by signing in to Google Analytics, clicking Campaigns, and then Insights & reports.

Learn more about Performance Max campaigns by watching Google’s video:

How to analyze landing page data and reports in the Instapage dashboard

Instapage is a powerful landing page platform designed to maximize your advertising conversions. When using Instapage, marketers have access to landing page data such as traffic, traffic source, conversion rates, and more.

The landing page platform also allows you to run heat maps on your landing page to understand where your landing page’s most valuable real estate is and how visitors interact with it.

Watch this video to learn how understanding your heat maps can help you increase landing page conversions:

Take it one step further by A/B testing your pages to see which messages, designs, form placements, and more work best.

The insights gained from Instapage’s visual data reports can be immensely valuable when auditing your landing page and making adjustments to maximize performance.

To access the analytics dashboard from your dashboard’s Landing Pages tab, click on the three dots and select ‘Analytics’.

Here, you can see performance metrics for desktop and mobile users. You can also apply filters, see results for a custom date range, and connect your Google Ads account.

A performance graph gives you a snapshot of your visitors, conversions, and bounce rate over a given period of time, so you can quickly analyze whether your landing page is on the right track. You can even download your report in .txt, .csv, or .xlsx format.

If you’re using Google Analytics and want advanced metrics, you can customize and add scripts to your landing page using Instapage.

You can also use custom codes to track conversions triggered by button clicks, form submissions, and thank you page clicks, and attribute conversions to A/B test variations. Learn more about custom codes here.

Improving landing page performance

Page speed, landing page design, landing page content, and messaging are all important for a successful landing page. However, knowing how to properly audit your landing page and use the right metrics to dig into performance can help you optimize conversions and get the best results from your campaign.

Instapage not only helps you build beautiful, powerful landing pages but also gives you the tools to analyze your pages’ performance and experiment with ways to improve them.

Working as a marketer in the current climate requires being agile, adaptable, and analytical. Instapage makes it easy for you to succeed in marketing and create landing pages that bring real results to your business. Get started with a 14-day free trial and watch the conversions roll in.

See the Instapage Enterprise Plan in Action.

Demo includes AdMap™, Personalization, AMP,

Global Blocks, heatmaps & more.

I WANT A DEMO

The main goal of your landing page is to drive conversions—ideally, you are trying to convert prospects into customers. However, not everyone who visits your landing page or website is ready to convert.

Many potential subscribers may not be ready to buy what you are selling, but want to stay engaged and connected with you before they make the definitive decision of converting. They may be willing to give you their email address in exchange for time, thus qualifying them as leads.

A lead is just a future conversion that hasn’t happened yet. To ensure that the lead does eventually convert, you’ll need to nurture those leads with an email newsletter.

So, what does a successful newsletter look like?

In this article, we’ll discuss what an email newsletter is, how email marketing works, and best practices for creating effective email newsletters.

What is an email newsletter?

An email newsletter is a regularly scheduled email sent to newsletter subscribers who have opted in (via a signup form) to receive communication from your brand, including updates, news, stories, articles, offers, and more valuable information.

The purpose of email newsletters is to keep subscribers informed and engaged, with the general goal of building a relationship and cultivating a community with your target audience.

It’s not just an email. Newsletters are an essential part of email marketing strategies, as they provide a way to promote products or services, create brand awareness, and engage with your community beyond your website and social media platforms.

For example, The Washington Post uses its daily newsletter, The Post Most, to showcase trending website articles that other readers are loving.

By offering its email subscribers a sampling of the type of content they can expect to find on the publication’s website, they hope to entice readers to become paid subscribers.

How do email marketing campaigns help nurture audiences?

Regularly sending communications to your email subscribers (without flooding their inboxes) helps keep your brand top of mind and gives you the chance to position yourself as a thought leader in your space.

Newsletter content is not solely about selling to your audience—it’s about helping your readers understand the voice of your brand. Newsletters (starting with your subject lines!) are a place to have discussions with subscribers, asking questions, telling stories, and helping them relate to your brand to build a loyal following that eventually leads to a conversion or sale.

For creators, newsletters are appealing because they typically deliver a high ROAS. They are cheap to make and send and tend to pay off, reportedly seeing an estimated ROI of $40 for every $1 spent.

Know what to say: Define your email newsletter goals and guidelines

As with any marketing strategy, email marketing requires thought behind what each email newsletter will entail. To maintain consistency with each email newsletter you’ll send, you must define your goals and guidelines.

Before you create an email, ask yourself questions like:

• Where will my email signup forms live?
• What do I want to accomplish with this newsletter? Will this newsletter be another avenue for monetization?
• When do I want to send my newsletter?
• What do I want my email frequency to be?
• How can I use my subject lines to hook newsletter subscribers from the start?
• What will the tone of my newsletter be?
• Will my newsletter feature curated content or original content?
• What is the unique value proposition I can offer in my newsletter versus others in my industry?
• How will I segment audiences?
• Do I want to use my newsletter to increase my website traffic?
• What key performance indicators will I use to measure the success of my email marketing campaign?

The most successful email newsletters create a lasting impression with attention-grabbing, thought-provoking, and interesting (and quick) to-read content. They are not too sales-driven, impersonal, or corporate. And their subject lines succeed in setting expectations.

When you figure out what resonates with your leads and how you want to portray your brand through your email messaging, you can use that as a foundation or template to build your newsletter time after time.

Once you start consistently sending out your email newsletter, you can analyze your campaign metrics and understand where iterations can be made – perhaps your monthly cadence is not enough and a weekly newsletter will perform better. Maybe an earlier- or later-in-the-day send time will result in a better click through rate. Perhaps your subject lines are too long and are misleading your audience.

Let’s dive deeper into your email marketing strategy.

How to develop an email marketing strategy for a newsletter

After identifying your goals and your KPIs, here’s what you need to do to develop a comprehensive email newsletter strategy:

• Choose an email management system. The right email marketing tools can make a big difference in the success of your campaigns. Email marketing software can run the gamut from informal to sophisticated, depending on your budget and your needs (if you’re just getting started, a free version of email marketing tools might be worth trying). An email management system will ideally enable you to plan and organize your content (similar to an editorial calendar), deploy your content to your distribution lists, and give you insights into the performance of your email campaign.

  Think you can get by without an email service provider? Before you decide that this is something you’d rather take on on your own, understand that email marketing software makes it more likely that your newsletter will actually end up in your subscribers’ inboxes instead of in spam and gives you a reliable way to be consistent with your sends. An email service provider can offer peace of mind, especially if you have a large number of subscribers on your lists.

• Provide value every time. Think of how many emails we all receive on a daily basis. Our inboxes are saturated. If people are taking their time to complete signup forms, you want to ensure your newsletter content is worth their time and will help them somehow.

  Because you are ultimately trying to drive conversions, you should create an email that includes call-to-action buttons to nurture your lead further down your funnel. We recommend connecting all email offers with a dedicated landing page that has cohesive messaging and allows your readers to get what they need quickly and effectively.

This Salesforce Marketing newsletter aims to educate readers on how to grow customer journeys, with more information available in a downloadable guide.

Clicking the email newsletter CTA for the guide brings the reader to a dedicated landing page where they see the same messaging about those customer relationships and can easily find the CTA button to download the guide. Plus, additional related CTAs give readers even more opportunities to convert.

• Segment your audience. Email segmentation is important because you want your readers to see the right message at the right time. When you segment your audience, you can create an email that is more targeted and increase your potential ROAS.

  Various factors can affect how your email will perform and you can use these factors to build your distribution lists. Segmentation factors include:

  – Demographics
  – Geographic location
  – Consumer behavior
  – Buyer personas
  – Stage of the funnel/customer journey
  – B2B or B2C

• Run A/B tests. Think of your newsletter content, especially in the beginning stages, as an experiment. Iterations are key. To figure out what is working and what can be improved, keep every detail in mind.

  Did you use the most engaging subject line? Are you showcasing your most dynamic content? Are your readers using both desktop and mobile devices? Trying out a different subject line, different layout, or bolder design, making sure to optimize for mobile devices, and testing out different high quality content are all ways to experiment and figure out what resonates most with your target audience.

  Using an email marketing tool that allows you to A/B test will give you the deep insights you need to maximize performance of your campaigns.

• Track your metrics.Once you create a newsletter, it’s time to get down to business. Tracking your KPIs and making changes to your email newsletter content based on data will help you create highly effective campaigns.

  Specifically, metrics like open rate, click through rates, number of clicks, number of subscribers, completed sign up forms, and more will give you an idea of what your readers are finding most engaging.

10 email marketing newsletter examples from DTC and SaaS brands

Here are 10 email newsletters that provide valuable content to their subscriber list:

1. Welcome email newsletter

Food52 is a website that curates recipes, home goods, and crafts for anyone who likes to be in the kitchen. When new subscribers sign up, they are greeted with a welcome email that outlines what they can expect from Food52 and offers a discount code to use in their shop.

This email newsletter does a good job of immediately making the reader feel like they are part of the community and enticing them to convert into a paying customer.

2. Speaking to the right subscriber list

In this example of an email newsletter from Buffer, the copy is clearly written for a specific segment of their target market. Using slang like ‘stan’ and a pop culture reference to Zendaya make it clear that the audience for this newsletter skews younger and shows that Buffer creators have done their due diligence to create a newsletter that resonates.

We also like that they include a breakdown of what to expect in that day’s newsletter.

3. Thought-leadership content

SEO experts at Moz understand that despite the fact that people are so busy, they need to stay in the know. Especially when it comes to something as ever-changing as optimal SEO practices.

They created their semi-monthly email newsletter called Moz Top 10 to share the 10 most valuable articles about SEO and online marketing that they source from around the web. By offering high-quality thought-leadership content, they hope to gain the trust of their readers and convert them into loyal customers.

4. Mobile-friendly news

A lot of people wake up, grab their phone, and start reading emails before they’ve even had their morning cup of coffee.
Marketing Brew wanted to create an email newsletter that capitalizes on that by serving industry news and updates on a daily basis. The fact that their designs are easily viewable on mobile devices makes it highly likely that readers will commit to that email newsletter every day, regardless of where they are.

5. Blog round-up

Want to get more eyes on that well-crafted blog post you wrote? A weekly newsletter rounding up recently published articles from your website is a good way to ensure that your readers don’t miss any valuable content.

Grammarly employs this tactic with their email newsletter, which also includes writing tips, grammar facts, and more. And, from their very first welcome email, they make sure to stick to their brand ethos mixing grammar lessons with a good dose of humor.

6. Daily content

Not every email newsletter will benefit from having a daily cadence. For many companies, that volume of email sends can backfire, feeling too spammy for readers and getting too overwhelming to manage for creators.

The Skimm gets it right. They provide a highly popular daily newsletter that curates top news stories of interest to readers. It is an effective email campaign that educates people about what’s going on in the world while building a reputation as a credible, reliable source for daily news. Plus, it’s equally skimmable on desktop or mobile devices.

7. Leading with visuals

The marketers over at The New York Times know what they’re doing. Whether it’s delivering news, introducing fun ways to exercise our brains, or helping us decide what to make for dinner, they know how to attract new subscribers with one successful email campaign after another.

With The New York Times Cooking newsletter, they let images do the talking. Large, vibrant photos of drool-worthy dishes are accompanied by recipes and anecdotes that leave readers eager for more.

8. The reader chooses the cadence

People turn to TechCrunch as a dependable source for important tech news. And they have plenty of news to share. Knowing that, they offer 10 newsletters to opt into, some with a daily cadence, some with a weekly cadence, and all tailored to a specific topic (think fintech, crypto, or morning updates).

This puts readers in control of the content they will receive and makes the experience feel more personalized, which is a smart way for the publication to communicate their general approach to interacting with their subscribers.

9. Mixing business with pleasure

Bloomscape is a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand that uses their newsletter to support their ecommerce business. They send plants directly to their customers’ doorsteps and use their newsletter as an opportunity to educate them on how to become better plant owners while also introducing new and available products that are for sale.

Their email campaign is done in a visually appealing and easy-to-digest way, keeping potential and existing customers coming back for more.

10. Bottom-of-the-funnel content

General Assembly is a company that offers next-level tech training for careers in software engineering, UX design, and more. Their email campaigns move engaged subscribers to the last stage of the funnel, where they can purchase a seat to an upcoming event.

In addition to offering industry expertise and educational content, they lay out titles, dates, and times for upcoming events and make it simple for readers to register for them. This strategy works well for subscribers who are consistently engaged and interact with your content regularly.

Dedicated landing pages that maximize your newsletter campaigns

As you contemplate your own email newsletter, remember to take your time. There are a lot of factors that play into whether someone will fill out your email subscription form and take the first step to becoming a loyal customer. Whether they come from your social media accounts, website, or paid ads, your goal is to keep them in your ecosystem by serving valuable information.

You may aim to focus on a specific niche, get existing content out to more eyeballs, or increase your ecommerce business, and choosing the right tools can help you meet your goals.

It’s good to remember that a successful newsletter often has dedicated landing pages as part of the strategy, as landing pages reinforce your message and can be that extra push in driving a conversion.

Instapage is the most powerful landing page builder on the market, with high-valued features like a drag and drop editor, pre-existing templates, an analytics dashboard, an AI content generator, and in-app A/B testing.

Instapage users love the ability to conduct A/B testing with Instapage Experiments. It is an intuitive feature that allows users to test variations of their landing page elements to understand what resonates best with their visitors. With Instapage Experiments, users can:

• Access heatmaps that provide a visual image of scroll depths, mouse movement, and on-page clicks. Using heatmaps, you can track your visitors’ behavior and improve element placement on your landing page accordingly



• Rewrite headlines and page copy using an AI generator based on the existing text, target audience, product description, and recommendations from API
• Compare elements like on-page videos, images, or text to see which is most engaging
• View deep A/B analytics in an easy-to-use dashboard

See more successful campaigns when you pair your emails with Instapage landing pages. Start a 14-day free trial of Instapage today.

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Marketing teams spend a great deal of time coming up with strategic approaches to increase engagement and campaign conversion rates. Strategies include digital marketing, omnichannel marketing, direct marketing, social media marketing, integrated marketing, and more.

In this article, we will delve into integrated marketing – what it is, why it is important to marketing teams, and how to implement an integrated marketing strategy for your campaigns.

What is integrated marketing?

Integrated marketing is a strategy that aligns all marketing channels to deliver a consistent message across all customer touchpoints. It aims to provide a seamless experience and avoid mixed messaging or a disjointed brand voice. Rather, integrated marketing campaigns have the same tone and same direction across all channels.

This marketing approach ensures that every aspect of your campaigns, including digital ads, print ads, PR tactics, blog posts, social media posts, and even TV commercials all share consistent messaging.

In 2017, the New York Times launched a campaign centered around one message: “The Truth is Hard”. Their integrated marketing strategy used multiple channels (a combination of billboards, video ads, social media posts, and print ads) but conveyed the same message—they are an organization based on integrity and that it takes a lot of work to deliver the truth.

The strategy resulted in the publication increasing their subscriber base and improving the public’s perception of them as a credible news source.

Why is an integrated marketing strategy important?

According to a recent report, 62% of business buyers feel like they are getting mixed messages from companies. Marketing leaders combat that by using customer data to personalize, optimize, and differentiate their marketing campaigns, ultimately communicating unified messages that seem to speak for their company as a whole. They do this by choosing an integrated marketing approach.

Integrated marketing works and multiple factors tell us why:

1. Brand recognition and trust: By delivering a consistent message across various platforms, you can increase brand recognition and trust with your target audience
2. Reaching more audiences: Using multiple channels, such as advertising, public relations, direct marketing, and social media, broadens your reach, helps you pull in new customers, and ensures you’re hitting your target demographic
3. Better results: As the approach ensures all marketing efforts are aligned, and various channels are working towards the same goals, you’re likely to increase customer interactions, deliver a better customer experience, and overall enjoy better campaign success
4. Cost-effective: Integrated marketing campaigns tend to be more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods, as they eliminate the need for separate campaigns on different channels; your entire campaign can use similar creative assets on all your channels
5. More collaboration: The method encourages collaboration and teamwork between different departments and brings channel managers together to meet marketing needs
6. Diversity: You can reach different demographics through various channels, ensuring that a diverse audience hears your message and feels connected to your brand

Difference between integrated marketing and integrated marketing communication

Let’s take a look at the subtle differences between integrated marketing as a whole and the more granular communications aspect of integrated marketing.

Key elements of integrated marketing campaigns

As you develop your integrated marketing strategy, you will consider various channels that will serve as your communication tools for your entire campaign.

There are six key elements in most multi-channel approaches, but please keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive, and there may be other channels you can opt to use.

1. Advertising
2. Sales Promotion
3. Personal Selling
4. Direct Marketing
5. Public Relations
6. Consistency and Complementary Use of Media

You’ll want to use a mix of channels in order to reach the widest possible audience and to identify your most effective channels. If one channel is not delivering the results you’d like, you can add new elements to the mix, A/B test your current elements or remove the element altogether.

Integrated marketing strategies and best practices

The best integrated marketing campaigns start with intention and are constantly analyzed to ensure they’re providing a positive customer experience and are delivering desired results.

Marketing teams who aim for successful integrated marketing campaigns should consider the following best practices:

1. Define goals: Determine the goals of your campaign to help focus on what you want to achieve. It’s always best to set benchmarks for your integrated marketing campaigns to help understand what success will look like for you and how well or how poorly you are meeting your goals.
2. Choose your marketing channels: Select the most effective channels for your product or service to reach your target audience and make sure your marketing messages are aligned across the different channels.
3. Craft buyer personas: Understand your target demographic’s needs and preferences to tailor your message accordingly; correctly addressing the needs of your buyer personas can go a long way in a customer’s brand loyalty and increased engagement.
4. Create a compelling Idea: Create a memorable and engaging idea that ties back to your brand values—you’re more likely to be remembered when you are authentic, loyal to your brand ethos, and focused on integrated campaigns that communicate an aligned message.
5. Align your marketing materials: Ensure all marketing activities are consistent with your brand’s message and values. Your content elements should have the same direction—use the same tone, and use similar ads across all channels to make sure your brand’s message remains consistent.
6. Use content personalized for each channel: Tailor your content to the strengths of each marketing channel to maximize impact. For example, a TV ad should focus more on visual images, whereas a print ad should emphasize copy— a billboard should quickly capture someone’s attention with bold design and copy, whereas a landing page should be optimized for SEO and conversions. There will be overlap between your channels, but be mindful about what goes where.
7. Monitor KPIs: Establish metrics to track the success of your campaign and make data-driven decisions. Key performance indicators such as traffic, engagement, top content, lead generation, and sales can provide important insights that help you make decisions that will ultimately impact your bottom line.
8. Iterate and improve: Continuously monitor and adjust your campaigns based on performance data to optimize results. This gives you an opportunity to better understand your customer’s journey and how you can best meet their needs.
9. Collaborate internally: Break down silos between teams to ensure a unified approach to marketing—meet with channel managers, align on a strategy and a main marketing message, collaborate on creative assets, and time the activation of your assets appropriately. Integrated marketing campaigns require input from all stakeholders to work.

7 successful integrated marketing campaign examples

1. Think Small by Volkswagen

Towards the end of the 1950s Volkswagen was struggling to sell its Beetle model. In the US, the trend was leaning towards sleek, stylish cars, which the Beetle was not.

VW’s ad agency DDB crafted a simple ad campaign that positioned the VW Beetle as a small, dependable car and a bold, smart choice for American consumers.

The message was simple, and it worked.

After a successful run in print ads and newspapers, they adapted the campaign for TV ads, billboards, and radio commercials, turning it into a highly successful integrated marketing campaign.

2. Microsoft and Carlsberg campaign

Few things surprise and delight users more than an unexpected pairing. The connection between Microsoft and Carlsberg, a massive beer brand, is not obvious. However, they pulled off a successful integrated marketing campaign in 2017.

Microsoft teamed up with Carlsberg to promote its AI capabilities by showing how the technology was being used to brew new beer flavors. The normally lengthy process that requires humans to physically taste samples was taken on by Microsoft’s AI technology, which was able to detect new flavors almost instantly and brew new beer.

The integrated marketing campaign included ads that were run on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and in print publications like the Financial Times.

3. Waze’s “On the Road” campaign

Waze partnered with the New York Times to create an interactive campaign that was based on real data from the app.

The campaign was centered around the fact that in 2017, Americans had driven 1.3% more than they had in 2016, and it wanted to uncover where they were driving and why.

Along with the New York Times, an interactive page was created where users could answer quiz-like questions and uncover interesting data points.

The graphics were catchy, and the content was informative, interesting, and easily shareable across multiple channels.

4. Chicago’s Field Museum campaign

In 2018, the Chicago Field Museum wanted to create a holistic marketing campaign to promote their new exhibit focused on mummies.

They used a mix of traditional advertising, like billboards with social media posts and videos showing patrons interacting with the exhibits.

The campaign was successful in generating interest and bringing people to the museum to check out the exhibits.

5. O2’s “Be more dog” campaign

O2 is a mobile network in the UK that was experiencing some tough competition from rival networks like EE, who had secured a big name like Kevin Bacon to appear in their ads.

To gain market share and captivate new and current customers, they knew they needed a successful integrated marketing campaign.

They creatively used humor as the basis for their campaign, and it paid off in a big way.

They launched a campaign featuring a cat – known for being a moody, low-energy creature—deciding to live life more like a dog (more enthusiastically). By embracing a dog’s life, the message is that people who embrace technology can get more out of life, too.

Ads were shown on YouTube, in TV spots, and in outdoor and digital apps.

It was a unique campaign, and it worked.

6. Budweiser Superbowl campaign

It was the year 2000, and people everywhere could be heard saying “Whassup” to anyone who would listen. Raise your hand if you know what we’re talking about.

The phrase was a result of a smashingly successful integrated marketing campaign by Budweiser, originally airing at the Superbowl that year. It showed friends calling each other and greeting each other by saying “Whassup” over and over again while enjoying a Budweiser.

It was so catchy and so well-received that it quickly made its way into pop culture and stayed there for quite some time, attracting hordes of people to Budweiser’s website to learn how they could say “Whassup” in more than 30 languages.

7. Wells Fargo’s “Re-Established” campaign

In 2017 through 2019, Wells Fargo, the third largest bank in the world, was hit with fraud claims and was looking to rebrand itself as a way to win back confidence with its loyal customers as well as new customers.

They decided to use an integrated marketing strategy to help sway the perception of its audience.

Their strategic approach was to show how their innovative technology and personalized experiences differentiated them from other competitors.

Using video, traditional advertising, and social posts, they highlighted their financial services and their strengths and ultimately regained the trust of their target audience.

Landing pages optimized for integrated marketing campaign strategies

Landing pages are an important component of well-rounded integrated marketing campaigns. With an intuitive drag and drop builder, near instant page loads, reusable blocks, and hundreds of ready-made templates, Instapage makes building landing pages a fantastic experience.

Learn how Instapage can help you create beautiful, conversion-optimized landing pages in minutes. Start your 14-day trial.

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