Youtube, with its two billion and more users per month, is one of the most popular social networks in the world and therefore a key tool for reaching a wider audience to which to make your brand known.

Google Ads can also be used on Youtube to reach new audiences, to publicize one’s products and services, and to expand the visibility of one’s brand. But how do they work?

What are Youtube ads?
Youtube Ads are visual and sound ads that run for a few seconds before, during or after a video. This type of Ads is done through Google Ads.

Google Ads on Youtube Ads are perfect for:

• Achieve your business goals more easily: increase sales, increase traffic to your site, promote brand awareness
• Intercept an audience more in line with your business propositions
• Accurately measure the results (views, clicks, site access…) resulting from your promotional activities

The types of Youtube Ads
Google provides you with a large number of formats to set up eye-catching Youtube ads that will capture the attention of your audience.

• Display Ads: selectable image or animation that appears to the right of the featured video when browsing from desktop. The size for this type of ad is 300×250 or 300×60 pixels. Animations can appear for a maximum of 30 seconds. The maximum size is 150 KB. Supported file formats are: JPG, GIF, PNG and HTML5.
• Ignoreable in-stream announcements: are played automatically before, during or after the start of a video. The user can decide whether to stop them after 5 seconds or let them continue to conclusion (duration between 12 seconds and 6 minutes). These ads must be uploaded to Youtube in MP4 format. The preferred format is 1080p but 720p is also acceptable.
• In-stream ads that cannot be ignored: they are played automatically before the start of a video, after or during, and cannot be interrupted by the user. The latter can only let them continue until the duration (maximum 15/20 seconds depending on the country) or exit the video. Therefore, one must use those 15 seconds to persuade the user through a punchy call-to-action
• Bumper ads: consist of short ads – maximum duration 6 seconds – fine-tuned to capture attention in a short time. They contain a punchy message that is easy to remember. They can be broadcast before, after or during a video, on a desktop or mobile device. The maximum file size is 1 GB. MP4, MPEG, AVI, ASF, Quicktime formats can be applied.
• Video discovery ads: reach users on Youtube while they are intent on discovering new content. They can have different aspects depending on the formats hosted by content publishers. When a user clicks on the preview, the ad plays on Youtube or the preview page
• Outstream ads: can appear on tablets and devices, and are designed to encourage interaction by users. They are designed to increase a brand’s visibility outside of Youtube.
• Sponsored tabs: ads that appear in videos viewed by the user, in the form of popups with a call-to-action. These kinds of ads are displayed for only a few seconds. If they want to explore further, users can click on the item in the upper right corner of the video. They can appear on both mobile and desktop devices. They are primarily useful for advertising one’s products and services in a targeted manner. JPEG, GIF and PNG files are accepted.
• Overlay ads: semi-transparent banner that appears at the bottom of a video. Appears as a text box or clickable image. Appears only for desktop users.

How to create a Youtube Ads video campaign
When you create a new video campaign in your Google Ads account, you must select one of the following goals:

• Sales
• Lead
• Website traffic
• Product and brand consideration
• Brand awareness and coverage

From the objective comes the campaign subtype you can activate, i.e., the ad format to use to maximize the success of the objectives. “Generate conversions” for example is appropriate for campaigns aimed at directly increasing sales.

To optimize a Youtube Ads campaign you need to determine how to effectively use the budget you have. You must then determine what is the goal you want to pursue, for example:

• make your ad viewable
• get clicks on the ad
• get conversions from the site

The platform provides targeting features to target your ads to the kind of audience most likely to receive them, based on, for example:

• language spoken
• specific location
• specific interests

In addition, exclusions can be set so that ads do not appear associated with sensitive content. Ads are usually approved within a day.

Ads can be organized into groups in order to achieve better targeting. Users can be distinguished by:

• demographics (e.g., age, gender, income, marital status, etc.).
• Audience segments (groupings based on interests, demographics, intentions)

Now we are ready to launch our campaign! To proceed, we need to decide which campaign sub-model to adopt from the available ones:

• Custom video campaign: recommended when you want to run an in-stream video campaign. You can enable bumper ads, video-discovery (which appear in Youtube searches) and ignorable ads
• Outstream: video ads posted outside of Youtube – usually without audio – ideal for increasing one’s visibility
• Sequence of ads: showing a series of videos in the desired order to promote one’s products
• Shopping (“trueView for shopping”): letting users know about your products by providing information that incentivizes purchases
• Generate conversions (“trueView for action”):allow users to increase conversions through featured CTAs, overlays for text, and end screen
• In-stream non-ignored: publish in-stream ads that cannot be ignored

The post Youtube Ads: guide to ads appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Google Ads Editor is a tool made available to simplify the management of Google Ads campaigns, especially when you need to manage a large number of ads and campaigns.

It is a very suitable platform for search engine marketing professionals who want to improve their efficiency in managing online ads.

Google Ads Editor is a downloadable tool that allows you to make changes offline and synchronize them as soon as you are online.

Google Ads Editor: what is it for?
Google Ads Editor is a tool that allows you to manage advertising associated with the search, video and display ad network by making collective changes offline.

Google Ads Editor boasts a very intuitive and efficient interface that enhances the ad campaign administration experience.

As an application, it can be downloaded to work offline and make changes, without having to open the browser. It is therefore possible to work offline, optimizing your work time even when you do not have an internet connection. As soon as you are online, the results will be synchronized.

The more ads and advertising campaigns we have to manage, the more time this tool will save.

In the platform we can access multiple accounts at the same time without having to log in and out of each one. In this way, problems affecting the accounts can be intuitively identified.

Through the analysis of parameters such as clicks, cost, placement, we can estimate the effectiveness of campaigns in terms of conversions.

Working with this platform requires downloading one or more accounts, making offline changes and uploading them to Google Ads. Once the installation is done, a Google Ads account must be downloaded.

Google Ads Editor: the benefits
To download the platform, go to the Google Ads Editor page.

To use Google Ads Editor, you need to synchronize it with your Google Ads administrator account by clicking on the “+Add” button.

Google Ads Editor is a platform that allows you to:

• make collective changes in less time
• collaborate with others to allow you to review campaigns and propose changes
• view statistics for individual campaigns or for specific subsets
• edit multiple accounts simultaneously
• move elements or copy them between multiple campaigns
• find text within ads
• restore changes as you change campaigns
• fine-tune draft changes before uploading them
• work offline as well

Google Ads Editor provides various functions:

• Account: where to choose the account from which to operate
• View changes: view the changes made and check that they do not cause conflicts
• Download recent changes: view and operate on the latest changes made online
• View statistics: download statistics and analyze them

Upload changes: transfer the changes made to the account

The sidebar provides editing options for:

• Campaign name
• Start date
• Strategy
• Budget
• Status
• Targeting

You can make collective changes by clicking on the “Make Multiple Changes” tab at the top left of the screen. You can paste them directly from an Excel sheet or manually via the “Arrow Down” item to display a menu of possible changes.

The Google Ads editor provides various options for creating video campaigns such as:

• Content exclusions: prevent the ad from appearing on certain sites.
• Bidding strategy: define manual cost per view.
• Modify Video ID, URL, status.
• Choose the image associated with the video:

Google Ads Editor: functions.
Scrolling through the options made available in the Menu, one can find both basic and advanced functions. Possible modifications include:

• Audience segments with flexible coverage
• URL monitoring
• Custom parameters
• Dynamic ad changes.

Adaptable display ads containing images, logos and descriptions are also present.

We can also set custom rules to be notified when errors are recorded in the campaign. And the benefits don’t stop there. Updates to the platform are released periodically, which certainly make it perform better and better.

Image selector
Simplifies the selection of images.

Ad Extensions
A range of ad extensions to add to your campaigns

TrueView video
Allows you to create and manage TrueView campaigns. TrueView ads allow you to get leads from the Google and Youtube network. The platform provides various options for editing ads, such as changing the title, managing sponsored ads, creating ads for video campaigns, and inserting call-to-actions.

IP Address Exclusion.
Allows you to exclude or edit certain IP addresses.

Search Term Report
Allows you to view and download reports for search terms for quick checks.

Collective Changes
Allows you to apply changes to various types of ads.

With the previous version we would have had to make the changes on each account, one at a time. Instead, this way instead we can change campaigns and keywords and even URLs only on those where we decide to act. We can add reverse match keywords on ads and campaigns.

Find Duplicates
Allows us to identify duplicate keywords that can lower the quality score. This tool allows us to do this right away and sort them by certain types of criteria. We can act on both ad groups and campaigns.

Import and export campaign data
Allows you to download data and campaigns in CSV files.

Advanced search
Allows you to quickly find specific words using special filters. It is also possible to save criteria for use at other times.

Get recent changes
Allows you to review changes before publishing them. You can also download a list of changes made in a given period.

View Statistics
Allows you to view various KPIs such as performance, attribution, conversions, competitor metrics, etc.

Offline Editing
Allows you to synchronize changes when you are online at a later time. Also you can export the information and share it with other people.

Google Ads Editor provides many interesting functions to optimize the work of SEM Specialists and improve the performance of advertising campaigns.

The post Google Ads Editor: what it is and how it helps you work better appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Being a Google Partner allows one to display the relevant badge that attests to accrued skills, provides reassurance to principals about the quality of services offered, and generates trust useful in finding new clients.

Why become a Google Partner?
Many agencies and freelancers aspire to become certified in order to confirm their expertise in running Adwords pay per click advertising campaigns on behalf of their clients. In fact, you should know that something like less than 15 percent of agencies running Google Ads campaigns are certified as Google Partners, proving that this is far from a given condition.

All the more reason then, being in possession of the Google Partner badge confirms the professional capabilities of those who have it.

How to become a Google Partner?
Agencies that consistently offer promotion services on Google Ads can enroll in the Google Partners program and obtain certifications, training resources, awards, and technical assistance. Access the partners program here.

Therefore, they must have a PPC specialist on staff who has the skills to create and manage Ads campaigns, both on the search and display networks.

Joining the Google Partners program allows them to put in place a stronger partnership and offer their clients more guarantee of efficiency and results, allows them to represent their skills and reach new business opportunities through increased visibility.

In fact, a Google Partner is a figure marked by unquestionable authority, since its qualities are recognized by Google itself.

Requirements for joining Google Partner
To join Google Partner, an agency or professional must have:

• at least one certified PPC expert (who has taken three exams to use the platform)
• meet a minimum spending threshold within 90 days, meaning they manage campaigns with some continuity on behalf of clients. Each area of specialization requires a minimum spend of at least US$10,000.00 within the last 90 days.
• Meet quality standards set by Google (a minimum optimization score of 70 percent).

Each Google Ads administrator account registered for Google Partners must have at least 50 percent Google Ads-certified Account Strategist and at least one certification in each product area that contemplates campaign spend.

Recognition of the Google Partner qualification then is contingent on passing a series of exams – aimed at demonstrating competency – and managing a certain volume of Google Ads spend campaigns. Once this qualification is obtained, a badge (banner) is issued by Google that can be displayed by the agency on the website, advertising materials, presentation cards, etc.

This qualification allows experts to demonstrate their specific expertise on certain areas of advertising promotion.

This category is distinguished by several factors:

• Customer growth: ability of partners to grow their existing customers and acquire new ones, measured by the increase in annual ad spend and the ad spend of first-time Google Ads customers
• Customer retention: ability to sustain customer business, measured by the percentage of customers retained from year to year
• Product diversification: ability to invest in different results-focused products measured by the percentage of spend related to display, app, video and Shopping ads for each calendar year
• Annual advertising spend: investment in Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform, based on spend on managed accounts each calendar year

Program Changes
Starting in February 2022, to qualify as a Premier Partner, companies must have fulfilled the requirements for the Partner badge and join the top 3 percent of participating companies in each country.

The Google Partner badge certifies that the agency has passed certification exams on Google Ads products, stays up-to-date on industry news, and manages campaigns in compliance with the standards set by Google.

Google Ads partners can specialize in certain disciplines:

• Display Advertising: creating ads on the Google Display network at the high visual impact capable of reaching potential customers on more than 650,000 apps and two million websites.
• Video Advertising: ability to create and deploy videos on Youtube
• Google Shopping: place products on Google search (thus related to ecommerce), set up Google Shopping campaigns and create inventory on Merchant Center
• Search-associated advertising: create and optimize ads that appear on Google search

Google Partners – The exams to pass
Google Shopping
Exam consisting of 63 questions to be answered within 90 minutes, achieving a minimum score of 80%
Display Advertising
Exam of 100 questions to be answered within 120 minutes, achieving a minimum score of 80%.

Research-associated advertising
Exam of 100 questions to be answered within 120 minutes, achieving a minimum score of 80%.

Video advertisement
Exam composed of 74 questions to be answered within 90 minutes, achieving a minimum score of 80%

Mobile advertising
Exam of 70 questions to be answered within 90 minutes, achieving a minimum score of 80%.

Becoming a Google Partner: what benefits?
Agencies recognized as Google Partners offer several benefits to their clients:

access to ongoing training and continuing education provided by the Academy for Ads
direct assistance from Google
assurance that campaigns are supervised to comply with Google’s standards and convey confidence to clients
automatic application of promotional offers
The Google Partner badge demonstrates that the professional has the most up-to-date information on Google Ads and allows them to stand out from the competition.

Google Partners receive several resources from Google including:

• certifications on Skillshop, a training platform on Google Ads that provides self-study courses at no cost
• insights on diversity and inclusion
• technical support via phone, chat and email for technical issues
• informational reports
• quarterly insights on tools, resources, program news
• advanced training on Google Ads products to learn more about the features of the offerings
• invitations to quarterly Google Partners Rewards challenges.
• monetary credits that are automatically applied to eligible accounts at no cost
• invitations to events for managers
• Google makes available, in addition to the dedicated online program for Partners (Academy On Air) live streaming insights into Google’s features, as well as success stories that help to better understand personal and team skills.

The post Google Partners: what it is and what benefits it offers appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Taking care of your customers is not simply a figure of speech, but a real strategy crucial to reducing customer defections and increasing the profitability of your business.

What is customer retention?
Customer retention is an expression that indicates a company’s ability to retain its customers over a given period of time through a series of relationships over the long term. Therefore, this quality indicates the ability to retain, retain, the customers already acquired, preventing them, for example, from buying from competitors on subsequent occasions.

Customer retention includes those strategies that aim to incentivize the continued purchase of products and services over time and entice customers to increase their level of spending. These strategies thus aim to increase the return in sales (ROI) from each customer already acquired. Very often these techniques are not even very expensive, making their implementation easily sustainable and definitely cost-effective.

Marketing promotion techniques, often also making use of digital channels, are of great importance in improving and increasing ties with one’s audience in order to stimulate emotions and considerations useful for loyalty processes. A satisfied customer can contribute, in addition to directly through purchases, to producing positive brand signals such as reviews and word of mouth, ultimately increasing the company’s revenue. In contrast, a customer who feels neglected tends first and foremost not to buy repeatedly and eventually to externalize his or her negative judgment. Nurturing customer liking is therefore critical to both preserving and increasing one’s business volume.

Examples of customer retention activities:

• associating a free gift with a sale
• checking that the delivery of the order arrives within the agreed time frame
• spontaneously propose solutions such as discounts or free purchases in response to problems in delivery
• staying in periodic contact with emails and newsletters to communicate news and bargains

Why customer retention is critical
In fact, retaining new customers is more expensive than keeping existing ones with you. Improving your company’s customer retention, therefore, is a goal that allows you to increase your overall revenue and the revenue for each individual customer.

Customer retention activities make it possible to increase customer lifetime value (CLV), the value of each customer over time, and to revitalize normally inactive customers who therefore do not contribute to overall turnover. This increases their loyalty to the brand and increases the profitability of each business offer undertaken.

Fundamental turns out to be ensuring customer satisfaction, as when it is lacking the customer feels an incentive to turn to other suppliers.

Activities that aim to forge an emotional or cost-effective bond with the customer make it possible to boost loyalty and increase the likelihood of continuing to do business with them. Even simply thanking a customer for a purchase is a good economic way to make them feel close and special, not simply a number on the balance sheet.

Maintaining the relationships already established is a goal that goes through customer care and psychological practices. That is why it is very important to monitor customer satisfaction with questionnaires, reviews, quizzes, online forms, emails, requesting feedback on one’s services, so as to have data on the quality of one’s services and to make customers feel that they are always being followed.

What are the customer retention activities?
Among the main activities there customer retention we have cross selling (recommending products to the customer that complement the value or functionality of those already acquired) and up selling (recommending a higher-end product or service to the customer in exchange for a greater benefit).

Discount programs and 3X2 offers are examples of initiatives designed to instill in the consumer the idea of convenience in buying from the same supplier again and again. A customer who is satisfied with the terms they are given and with the quality of the products and services obtained is more likely to speak well of the brand to others, generating positive word of mouth

Customer retention activities must therefore be repeated over time so that they produce results not only in the immediate term. An example might be discounts for purchasing a given quantity of products.

You must also aim to build loyalty among your customers so that they have the perception that they are being treated more advantageously or appreciatively than their competitors would, that they constitute someone special to the brand, whom the brand intends to reward for the loyalty they receive.

How to increase and improve customer retention?
Each company, of course, depending on the kind of products it provides, its tone of voice, and the kind of industry, can make use of different channels to stimulate the retention of its audience. For example, it may find it more advantageous to make use of newsletters to signal offers and special occasions as well as to stimulate engagement around the Facebook page.

We can, for example, make use of the company’s CRM to keep track of each customer’s birthday, the date of the first purchase, to provide on each given occasion a discount on products that we know the person in question likes. Using specific information about each customer-for example, obtained through surveys filled out when providing loyalty cards-we can fine-tune personalized communications that take into account each person’s specific preferences and purchasing tendencies.

More generally, all activities aimed at increasing consumer satisfaction can fall under customer retention, when they help increase the reach and frequency of purchases by acquired customers. Improving the browsing user experience, for example, entices consumers to continue using the same site and not turn to those of competitors. If they are problems that affect the navigation of the ecommerce, solving them from a technical standpoint increases the chances that the user will complete their purchases and make more.

Customers treated with consideration also can become brand ambassadors, individuals who spontaneously spread news of the company’s activities and produce content that amplifies brand visibility.

Providing all the relevant information to one’s products allows one to dispel the potential customer’s perplexities and route him or her on a path of satisfied purchases. In the case especially of new customers who are still unfamiliar with our brand, we need to provide for all the information needs underlying a bond of trust such as:

• VAT number and registered office (to show that we are a trustworthy company)
• clarification of return and warranty arrangements
• contact methods (phone, email, etc.) to ensure that we can be contacted in case of problems

It is also important to monitor the success that such customer retention activities elicit to ascertain whether we are moving in the right direction.

We can, for example, track clicks on links in emails and newsletters to ascertain whether they lead to additional purchases than would normally be the case. In this way we can estimate the returns attributable to specific customer retention activities.

The post Customer retention: what it is and how to increase it appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

New Callout features have arrived on Facebook Ads: already active on some accounts, they will allow users to highlight in the ads some useful information (such as “Free Shipping”, “Payment Options” and “Returns Policy”) with the aim of increasing the CTR of the ads and thus increase our beloved ROAS.

As you continue reading, you will discover the main improvements of this implementation and how to use them to improve your ads.

What are callouts for Facebook Ads
Callout Extensions are clickable words in the ad to highlight exclusive offers or conditions dedicated to your potential customers. They are really very similar to the callouts found in Google Ads.

Giving a few examples, we can talk about free shipping or 24-hour customer service, or home installation of your appliance. When customers see your ads, they get detailed information about your business, products and services.

After noticing on some accounts the very first tests by Facebook as early as the first weeks of November 2021, it seems that in the last week the platform has further opened the trial to other accounts, confirming Meta’s intention to integrate this new feature on all advertising accounts in a short time. The Facebook team guarantees that once you enter the information you decide to submit it will “automatically adapt Callout publishing to allow your ads to get the best possible results.”

How they work
As much as this new implementation is in its infancy and the real impact it will have will be all to be seen, what can be said right off the bat is that this new feature attempts (after the recent loss of data due to Apple’s iOS 14 update) to improve the performance of e-commerce businesses that invest in advertising on the platform. For now, it will only be possible to view the new Callouts in the Facebook news feed and on mobile devices.

On what types of Campaigns can the new Callouts be used?
Currently, the new Callouts are only available in “Traffic” and “Conversions” campaigns.
What is expected from Meta (as has been the case with Google Ads for quite some time now) is that this ability to insert useful information will be expanded, giving the opportunity for other, non-e-commerce businesses to be able to find (or manually insert) suitable levers that can help increase conversions based on their goals.

Where are the Callouts located in the ad creation?
If you are working on an ad account where this option has already been activated you will find the Callouts available under the text and description fields, just before the Call to Action.

If it is not yet visible on your account you just have to be patient, this new feature is coming to all accounts: often it is enough to duplicate an old ad to see this new possibility appear out of nowhere.

How to use Facebook Ads Callouts: every company has its own needs
For now, there are three Callouts proposed by Meta: “Free Shipping,” “Payment Options,” and “Return Policy.” There is no real correct methodology for using Callouts: depending on the specifics of the company you are sponsoring, I recommend using the Callouts best suited to bring out their features.

If you’re working on an e-commerce that doesn’t offer “Free Shipping” or offers it at a very high charge I would avoid using that type of Callout, same for “Payment Options” and “Return Policy.” The only really important thing is to make an ethical use of it to avoid penalties from the platform and a bad response from the users, in the long run a mendacious communication never pays off.

How to set up Callouts
To set up Callouts all you need to do is click on the “Create Callout” button, at which point a window will open where you will find the three options we have talked about so far.

As we said there are three options (“Free Shipping,” “Payment Options,” and “Return Policy”) and they can be used freely with no strings attached. Depending on the communication you want to offer you can decide to use one, two or all of them.

Free Shipping
Choosing “Free Shipping” without giving further specifications will only display this generic message. For those who want to go into detail, it is also possible to communicate the delivery time of the shipment: you can select from a minimum of 1 day up to a maximum of 6 weeks.

If, on the other hand, you need to inform that Free Shipping is applicable to orders above a certain economic amount just select the next item and set the correct economic value.

Payment Options
With Payment Options it will be possible to inform the user about some of the payment methods accepted by e-commerce. This Callout will help reassure the user that during checkout they will be able to choose from several internationally recognized payment types. By clicking on the window it will be possible to select the payment methods in this list:

• Affirm
• Afterpay
• Amazon Pay
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• Klarna
• PayPal

Returns Policy
In the last currently selectable Callout you can inform the user about the company’s returns policy: you can indicate whether returns are free or not and how long you can return the purchased product. The selectable time frame is fully editable, widening or narrowing the period as necessary.

Again, this is a very useful Callout to encourage the user when purchasing, especially if the time period for returns is very long. If it is not possible to offer a free return service we recommend not selecting this item.

The post Callouts for Facebook Ads: what they are, how they work, and how to use them appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Google Shopping, as the name implies, is a type of advertisement or rather type of campaign present in Google’s search engine that specializes in the search and comparison of products therefore totally dedicated in proposing to users products to buy.

Over time, it has proven to be a very useful tool in responding to users’ purchasing needs due to its focus on that area. Google has also dedicated a specific section to it in the shopping button.

It is not simply an online marketplace but a true Google tool available for product promotion.

Companies through the inclusion of products in the merchant center through a feed (xml file usually), can have their website continuously communicate with the Google ADS platform and thus the shopping itself.

Google Shopping: how it works
Google Shopping is a Google Ads platform within which merchants do not place text or illustrated ads but the standardized data that allows them to report to Google information pertaining to the products they are selling. It is a comparative product search engine popular in more than 40 countries.

Thanks to Google Shopping’s product listing (listing), products can achieve significant visibility by climbing the serp and appearing to potential customers even before they access the sellers’ website. It goes without saying that these are very useful tools for increasing the chances of sales, along with SEO that aims to make websites more visible from an organic traffic perspective.

A Google Shopping ad consists of:

• an image
• a product title
• the price
• the name of the retailer

any retailer-specific information such as shipping costs or reviews
By optimizing this information, people doing related searches will see product images, their titles and prices. The user who becomes intrigued by your ad and clicks on it will come to your site to make a purchase, and Google will charge you for the cost of the click.

Retailers send feeds containing information about products for sale to Google Shopping. Uploading the data is free; sellers only pay when someone clicks or if they make a purchase from the website they arrived at via the featured link. This allows Google to show up-to-date information about products for sale.

Selling on Google Shopping obviously offers the advantage of having the world’s largest search engine at their own. Buyers then can rely on Big G’s reputation and thus lower their unconscious defenses to buying.

Google Shopping is a tool that presents a clean, direct and no-frills interface to the sale. In fact, you can rely on all the elements that catch the eye and facilitate sales such as images, price, and highlighted text

Google Shopping Smart
Smart Shopping campaigns allow, through the use of artificial intelligence, to increase the visibility of their ads, increase conversions and reach more people.

This platform makes it possible to show ads in line with users’ needs, and the cost of the ads is calculated using the Pay Per Click mechanism.

This mode relies on self-learning artificial intelligence to deliver ads on different networks, such as Google’s Search Network, Google Display Network, YouTube, and Gmail. The platform relies on product and ad feeds, showing the ads with the best performance.

In one’s Google Ads account, one can create up to 100 Smart Shopping campaigns that are activated or paused. Ads are presented on general search results pages and any other platforms.

Smart Shopping campaigns make use of Shopping ads, locally available product ads, and display ads.

An intelligent Shopping campaign makes use of product data provided by feeds and uses it to generate Shopping ads automatically designed to best meet customer needs.

How to improve campaigns on Google Shopping
Google Shopping is a platform that, when used correctly, allows you to intercept traffic that is easy to convert. Google works automatically in creating ads, so our job is to put it in a position to create the clearest and most beneficial ads possible in terms of conversions.

However, it is not a simple platform, and it needs consultants who are experienced and can set up the whole strategy correctly.

Our client portfolio includes the largest Italian ecommerce companies.

If you want to start now with Google Shopping campaigns contact us.

The post Google Shopping: what it is and how best to set it up appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

Taking care of your customers is not simply a figure of speech, but a real strategy crucial to reducing customer defections and increasing the profitability of your business.

What is customer retention?
Customer retention is an expression that indicates a company’s ability to retain its customers over a given period of time through a series of relationships over the long term. Therefore, this quality indicates the ability to retain, retain, customers already acquired, preventing them from buying from competitors on subsequent occasions, for example.

Customer retention includes those strategies that aim to incentivize the continued purchase of products and services over time and entice customers to increase their level of spending. These strategies thus aim to increase the return in sales (ROI) from each customer already acquired. Very often these techniques are not even very expensive, making their implementation easily sustainable and definitely cost-effective.

Marketing promotion techniques, often also making use of digital channels, are of great importance in improving and increasing ties with one’s audience in order to stimulate emotions and considerations useful for loyalty processes. A satisfied customer can contribute, in addition to directly through purchases, to producing positive brand signals such as reviews and word of mouth, ultimately increasing the company’s revenue. In contrast, a customer who feels neglected tends first and foremost not to buy repeatedly and eventually to externalize his or her negative judgment. Nurturing customer liking is therefore critical to both preserving and increasing one’s business volume.

Examples of customer retention activities:

• associating a free gift with a sale
• checking that the delivery of the order arrives within the agreed time frame
• spontaneously propose solutions such as discounts or free purchases in response to problems in delivery
• staying in regular contact with emails and newsletters to communicate news and bargains

Why customer retention is critical
In fact, retaining new customers is more expensive than keeping existing ones with you. Improving your company’s customer retention, therefore, is a goal that allows you to increase your overall revenue and the revenue for each individual customer.

Customer retention activities make it possible to increase customer lifetime value (CLV), the value of each customer over time, and to revitalize normally inactive customers who therefore do not contribute to overall turnover. This increases their loyalty to the brand and increases the profitability of each business offer undertaken.

Fundamental turns out to be ensuring customer satisfaction, since when it is lacking the customer feels an incentive to turn to other suppliers.

Activities that aim to forge an emotional or cost-effective bond with the customer make it possible to boost loyalty and increase the likelihood of continuing to do business with them. Even simply thanking a customer for a purchase is a good economic way to make them feel close and special, not simply a number on the balance sheet.

Maintaining relationships already established is a goal that goes through customer care and psychological practices. That is why it is very important to monitor customer satisfaction with questionnaires, reviews, quizzes, online forms, emails, requesting feedback on one’s services, so as to have data on the quality of one’s services and to make customers feel that they are always being followed.

What are the customer retention activities?
Among the main activities there customer retention we have cross selling (recommending products to the customer that complement the value or functionality of those already acquired) and up selling (recommending a higher-end product or service to the customer in exchange for a greater benefit).

Discount programs and 3X2 offers are examples of initiatives designed to instill in the consumer the idea of convenience in buying from the same supplier again and again. A customer who is satisfied with the terms they are given and with the quality of the products and services obtained is more likely to speak well of the brand to others, generating positive word of mouth

Customer retention activities must therefore be repeated over time so that they produce results not only in the immediate term. An example might be discounts for purchasing a given quantity of products.

You must also aim to build loyalty among your customers so that they have the perception that they are being treated more advantageously or appreciatively than their competitors would, that they constitute someone special to the brand, whom the brand intends to reward for the loyalty they receive.

How to increase and improve customer retention?
Each company, of course, depending on the kind of products it provides, its tone of voice, and the kind of industry, can make use of different channels to stimulate the retention of its audience. For example, it may find it more advantageous to make use of newsletters to signal offers and special occasions as well as to stimulate engagement around the Facebook page.

We can, for example, make use of the company’s CRM to keep track of each customer’s birthday, the date of the first purchase, to provide on each given occasion a discount on products that we know the person in question likes. Using specific information about each customer-for example, obtained through surveys filled out when providing loyalty cards-we can fine-tune personalized communications that take into account each person’s specific preferences and purchasing tendencies.

More generally, all activities aimed at increasing consumer satisfaction can fall under customer retention, when they help increase the reach and frequency of purchases by acquired customers. Improving the browsing user experience for example entices consumers to continue to use the same site and not turn to those of competitors. If they are problems that affect the navigation of the ecommerce, solving them from a technical standpoint increases the chances that the user will complete their purchases and make more.

Customers treated with consideration also can become brand ambassadors, individuals who spontaneously spread news of the company’s activities and produce content that amplifies brand visibility.

Providing all the relevant information to one’s products allows one to dispel the potential customer’s perplexities and route them on a path of satisfied purchases. In the case especially of new customers who are still unfamiliar with our brand, we need to provide for all the information needs underlying a bond of trust such as:

• VAT number and registered office (to show that we are a trustworthy company)
• clarification of return and warranty arrangements
• contact methods (phone, email, etc.) to ensure that we can be contacted in case of problems

It is also important to monitor the success that such customer retention activities elicit to ascertain whether we are moving in the right direction.

We can, for example, track clicks on links in emails and newsletters to ascertain whether they lead to additional purchases than would normally be the case. In this way we can estimate the returns attributable to specific customer retention activities.

Customer retention rate (CRR) is one of the indicators most often used in customer loyalty analysis to give an idea of customer loyalty over a given period. It indicates the percentage of customers who buy multiple times in certain time frame.

It is given as the percentage ratio of the number of customers acquired at the end of the period examined minus those acquired in that period.

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Netflix opens up to advertisers and creates Netflix ADS. Starting now, in fact, Netflix will begin offering an advertising-supported subscription tier for 6.99 euros per month starting Nov. 4 in an effort to increase the number of subscribers. Until a few months ago, with crisis and recession behind us, Netflix experienced a downturn that many people juxtaposed with the cost of the package.

So they came up with the idea of creating a package that cost less but with sponsorships inside. And just like that comes one of the most interesting tools of 2022 for advertisers.

What is Netflix Ads
Netflix Ads is a system of advertisements within the well-known streaming video service Netflix, which gives advertisers the opportunity to sponsor companies through commercials, but exclusively aimed at subscribers with the basic plan that includes advertising.

Italy is one of 12 countries that will have access to the “Basic with Ads” monthly subscription, which is limited to 720p video quality, a reduced series catalog, and no ability to download videos to the device.

The addition of ads will save users 2 euros per month compared to the “Basic” package (7.99 euros per month), which has no ads and allows subscribers to download videos. Netflix also offers a “Standard” plan (12.99 euros) that allows 1080p streaming and a 4k-enabled “Premium” package (17.99 euros).

Greg Peters, chief product officer at Netflix, said the hope is that the ads will increase the number of subscribers.

“We firmly believe that a lower price point aimed at consumers with good incremental monetization of ads will allow us to both increase membership and create really significant incremental revenue and profit streams over time,” he said during a recent media call.

How advertising works on Netflix
Netflix said it aims for about 4 to 5 minutes of ads per hour with 15- to 30-second ads before and during videos.

When asked how the company would deploy mid-roll ads without interrupting the narrative flow, Peters said Netflix is using algorithms and its “in-house content coding teams to find those natural breakpoints so we can run the ad.”

Why Netflix Ads came about
Netflix first reported the inclusion of ads earlier this year after the revelation that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022.

The problem Netflix identified at the time was twofold: the company was running out of households in which to expand and faced increased competition.

In addition to adding advertising, Netflix said it would initiate a crackdown on account sharing to increase the number of active subscriptions.

Just a couple of years ago, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that advertising was unlikely for Netflix , saying that “advertising looks easy until you get into it.”

The sudden need for advertising forced Netflix to move quickly by creating an advertising sales division and incorporating advertising technology into its service.

To do this, Netflix tapped Jeremi Gorman, a former executive at social media company Snap, as president of global advertising, who last week praised the company for building its advertising product in just six months.

Netflix has partnered with Microsoft for technology to deliver its ads, along with user verification companies Double Verify and Integral Ad Science.

Where there are ads, there is data collection, but Netflix said it is trying to keep the amount of data it collects fairly light, initially only using date of birth and gender to help target its ads demographically.

Mostly, it seems Netflix wants to make the content of the ads relevant, showing the example of the makeup and hair product ads delivered during the series Emily in Paris.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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