Category: Articles

Practical applications of emerging DTC trends for e-commerce brands: A deep dive

Posted on by Arham Khan

In our previous article DTC Trends 2024, we compiled a comprehensive overview of the top 10 DTC trends in 2024, highlighting significant shifts and opportunities within the e-commerce ecosystem. Today, we delve into the practical applications of those trends and deep dive into emerging DTC brands leveraging these trends to the T.

If you are a DTC brand marketer keen on levelling up with the key players in e-commerce, here’s a list of 2024 trends, their practical applications and a coveted list of e-commerce brands acing those trends.

1. Collaboration is key

Generating brand awareness has been a significant challenge for new e-commerce businesses. To resolve this, e-commerce brands have increasingly leveraged UGC/Influencer collaborations to boost their reach.
One outstanding example of a direct-to-consumer brand collaboration with an influencer is e.l.f cosmetics x Jennifer Coolidge. The campaign was built around the popularity of the HBO series; The White Lotus actress Jennifer Coolidge’s character Tanya McQuoid. Elf Cosmetics released a limited-edition Dirty Pillows Lip Kit, which included lipstick, lip liner, and a compact mirror. The kit was promoted on social media with the hashtag #elfDirtyPilllows, along with some influencer posts and in-store displays.

UGC/influencer collaborations like these, as well as brand collaborations, allow DTC brands to tap into each other’s customer bases and create unique offerings that appeal to a broader audience.

Practical application:

If you are an e-commerce brand, you can make the most of this trend by actively seeking partnerships with complementary brands or influencers in your niche, to expand your reach and tap into new customer bases. Brands that resort to influencer/content creator collaborations and co-branded initiatives to create unique offerings; manage to successfully tap into new customer bases and create a niche for themselves in the marketplace.

Another example of a successful DTC brand X influencer collaboration is when Gymshark partnered with athlete Whitney Simmons to create a workout clothing line tailored to her fitness routines, combining Simmons’ influence with Gymshark’s expertise in activewear.

Tool recommendation: Aspire.IO or GRIN

Platforms like Aspire.IO and GRIN enable brands to manage and scale influencer marketing efficiently. DTC brands can utilise AspireIQ or GRIN to identify influencers, automate collaborations, and track the impact of influencer campaigns on brand growth.

2. Personalisation for customer experience

Personalised marketing practices to enhance consumer experiences are another pivotal trend this year. Consumer-facing brands are focusing on creating personalised shopping experiences for consumers based on previous shopping, search, and browsing history.
Popular health-tech company Fitbit for instance, utilises user data to curate and offer personalised workout plans and nutrition recommendations through its app, enhancing the overall fitness experience for its users.

Practical application:

To leverage this trend, you can use consumer data and insights to create tailored shopping experiences for your users. You can now enhance your website by using smart landing pages and dynamically customising content based on user behaviour, preferences, and location.

Simply invest in AI-powered tools to automate personalised recommendations and messaging to your target group.

Another ace example of personalised marketing is the DTC skincare brand Curology, which provides customised skincare formulations based on customers’ skin concerns and goals, leveraging AI algorithms to analyse user data and offer tailored skincare solutions.

Tool recommendation: Optimizely or Segment

Optimizely helps brands with A/B testing and personalising user experiences on websites, whilst Segment collects user data to provide insights that can personalise customer interactions across every channel.

3. Tech stacks and AI-optimised consumer experiences

Generative AI and technological tools that help reduce manual workloads, automate repetitive tasks and leverage zero and first-party data are becoming increasingly popular among DTC brands.
Leveraging this trend, Fashion brand Stitch Fix does a good job of using AI to personalise their consumer’s shopping experience. The brand employs machine learning algorithms to analyse customer preferences and provides personalised clothing recommendations, improving the consumer’s overall experience.

Practical application:

Integrate advanced technology stacks and AI solutions to streamline operations and enhance customer experiences. To optimise efficiency, you can explore tools like Tableau and Google Analytics for data analytics, inventory management, and customer relationship management.

Tool recommendation: Salesforce Commerce Cloud or Adobe Experience Cloud

Salesforce Commerce Cloud also offers AI-powered solutions that can help brands personalise shopping experiences and streamline operations, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Adobe Experience Cloud also provides tools for data management, targeted marketing, and customer journey analytics.

4. Diversified branding

DTC brands didn’t always believe in upper-funnel spending but the same has now changed! Brands now understand that investing in brand awareness can help reduce CPAs and improve ROAS amongst other long-term metrics over time.
Whilst ‘ugly ads that don’t look like ads work’ is still a valid war cry in DTC advertising, 2024 has seen DTC brands move away from generic aesthetics and create unique brand identities. E-commerce brands are now embracing unique brand designs​ by strongly associating themselves with their brand’s values.

Practical application:

You can create a strong brand identity for your brand by embracing brand marketing that allows you to differentiate your brand in a crowded market. You can also use social media to invite your users to participate in your brand campaigns by sharing their experiences; to inculcate a sense of brand loyalty amongst your consumers.

One standout example of this is my LOLA, a feminine care brand that leveraged deep learning and upper funnel branding through programmatic efforts. By focusing on display advertising in specific geographical areas and targeting their primary demographic efficiently, my LOLA achieved a significant 30% increase in point-of-sale (POS) sales, showcasing the effectiveness of their brand awareness campaigns and unique branding approach.

Tool recommendation: Canva or Adobe Creative Cloud

Canva is a popular tool that helps brands create distinct visual content easily and helps enhance social media presence and ad creatives. Adobe Creative Cloud offers comprehensive tools for professional-grade design, video, and web content that can establish a unique brand identity.

5. Going global

Thanks to e-commerce platforms that have made international selling easier than ever​; DTC brands are now expanding beyond domestic markets. This global expansion has opened up new growth avenues whilst also allowing brands to tap into emerging markets.

Practical application:

By embracing global expansion, your e-commerce brand can also reach new customers and increase its market share. Just like the health brand Peloton managed to expand its reach beyond the US market by launching in international markets like the UK and Canada, offering its connected fitness products and digital content to a global audience.

Tool recommendation: Shopify Plus or BigCommerce Enterprise

Shopify Plus and BigCommerce Enterprise offer multi-currency support and help streamline international operations, making them ideal for DTC brands looking to expand globally without compromising user experience.

6. Traditional retailers testing DTC

With the changing consumer preferences​​ and growing popularity of e-comm marketing, traditional retailers are now embracing the DTC model or acquiring DTC brands. This shift allows them to appeal to different customer segments and expand their market share.
Apparel retailer Nordstrom made this shift and acquired e-commerce brands like Bonobos and Casper, allowing them to operate within its stores and reach a wider audience through its established retail network.

Practical application:

If you are a traditional retailer, then by embracing the DTC model your brand can also leverage building direct relationships with its customers.

Just the way health and wellness retailer GNC, recently embraced the DTC model and launched a direct-to-consumer website to complement its brick-and-mortar stores, offering a seamless shopping experience and personalised product recommendations to online customers.

Tool recommendation: Magento Commerce

Tools like Magento Commerce, for instance, support omnichannel solutions that allow traditional retailers to integrate e-commerce seamlessly into their existing operations, thus helping traditional retail brands effectively and seamlessly adopt the DTC model.

7. Product diversification

DTC brands are diversifying their product lines to mitigate risk and stay competitive. This involves expanding personalisation options or venturing into complementary product categories.
For instance, the men’s grooming brand Dollar Shave Club has done a great job of embracing this DTC trend. Originally disrupting the shaving industry with its subscription-based razor service, Dollar Shave Club has since expanded its product offerings to include grooming products such as shaving cream, aftershave, and skincare items. This expansion allows Dollar Shave Club to cater to the broader grooming needs of its customer base and increase customer lifetime value.

Practical application:

If you are an e-commerce brand you can also leverage product diversification by expanding and venturing into complementary product categories. This will allow your brand to appeal to a broader audience and reduce your reliance on a single product or category.

Just like the mattresses brand Casper expanded its product line to include pillows, bedding, bed frames, and even dog beds. By offering a comprehensive sleep ecosystem, Casper has strengthened its brand presence and diversified its revenue streams within the sleep industry.

Tool recommendation: PIM (Product Information Management) systems like Akeneo or Salsify

Tools like Akeneo help manage product information across multiple channels, ensuring accurate and consistent product details, which is crucial when diversifying product lines.

8. Subscription-based models

The subscription-based model is an already established DTC trend, that helps e-commerce brands as part of their customer retention strategy. However, 2024 has seen a significant push for this model; especially with the growing popularity of health tech!
A brand called Hims, offers subscription-based telemedicine services for men’s health issues, providing a convenient and discreet way for customers to access medical treatments and prescriptions.

Practical application:

If you own an e-commerce brand; not just in a beauty, health tech or healthcare but even if you are a fashion/apparel brand; you can still build customer loyalty and a steady revenue stream by offering product subscriptions. Just as the fashion retailer Rent the Runway offers subscription plans for designer clothing rentals, allowing customers to access a rotating wardrobe of high-end fashion items for a monthly fee.

Tool recommendation: ReCharge or Subbly

ReCharge and Subbly both specialise in managing subscription services, offering seamless integrations for recurring billing and customer retention, crucial for subscription-based e-commerce.

9. Augmented Reality for enhanced consumer experiences

The use of Augmented Reality (AR) in marketing is part of a broader trend where brands leverage digital tools to create immersive, engaging and personalised shopping experiences for their customers.
The use of AR helps consumers visualise themselves using the products before purchasing, which significantly impacts their buying decisions. Just the way, beauty brand Sephora integrates AR technology into its mobile app, allowing users to virtually try on makeup products and experiment with different looks before making a purchase.

Practical Application:

By leveraging the AR DTC trend for your brand; you can also create immersive digital shopping experiences for your consumers and thus stand out in a crowded marketplace.

Tool recommendation: ARKit or Vuforia

ARKit and Vuforia are both great tools brands can use to create augmented reality experiences that can be integrated into apps or websites, enhancing your brand’s online shopping experience by allowing your customers to visualise products in real time.

10. The rise of social commerce

As new platforms and technologies emerge, social commerce will continue to thrive in 2024 and beyond. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest now facilitate online shopping, and paid advertising campaigns on these platforms are becoming increasingly popular.

Practical application:

If you are an E-commerce brand, you must invest in social media channels where your customers are active.

Just as Fyi! An e-comm brand has leveraged this DTC trend by prioritising a seamless shopping experience on Instagram, utilising the platform’s checkout features to encourage purchases directly within the app. Their strategy includes engaging visual content and influencer collaborations, making the shopping experience quick and integrated.

Tool recommendation: Sprout Social or Hootsuite

Tools like Hootsuite facilitate managing social media interactions and campaigns, streamline content scheduling, and monitor social commerce metrics, helping brands optimise their sales strategies on social platforms.

To sum up, in this article we’ve delved deep into the top ten DTC trends for 2024, offering actionable insights for e-commerce brands aiming to leverage these developments. By embracing influencer collaborations, personalisation to optimise consumer experience, advanced tech stacks, and diversified branding, we believe DTC brands like yours can significantly enhance their market presence.

We have also listed tools like AspireIQ, Optimizely, Salesforce, and Shopify Plus amongst others that will enable effective strategy implementation, and ensure your brand is adapting to the changing consumer demands.

We’ve also listed trends like subscription models, employing technologies like AR and social commerce platforms to help position your DTC brand at the forefront of innovation and customer engagement.

Top 10 direct-to-consumer trends: A comprehensive guide for savvy founders in 2024

Posted on by Arham Khan

The direct-to-consumer marketing model first emerged in the mid-2010s, with the popularity of easy-to-ship items like skincare, makeup, and fashion. In the post-pandemic climate, however, the DTC model truly soared, driven by advancements in tech and significant changes in consumer shopping habits. Today, higher-priced and more complex items like smart home technology, food, beverages, and health tech are also succeeding in the DTC paradigm. With evolving consumer behaviours, the DTC landscape has already seen substantial growth this year and the industry is expected to see more excitement in the second half of 2024.

Like most things, the DTC landscape is being shaped by evolving consumer preferences and innovative marketing strategies. It’s no longer just about selling directly to consumers; it’s about creating unique and personalised experiences that resonate with target audiences. As we step into Q3 of 2024, let’s look at the latest DTC trends and practices that seem to be shaping up the DTC market. Tech stacks, personalised marketing, and consumer behaviour trends are proving to be key elements in this evolving landscape.

1. Collaboration is key

Generating awareness remains a significant challenge for new businesses. DTC brands are increasingly leveraging collaborations to boost their reach. For example, Solo Stove, a fire pit and grill manufacturer, collaborated with Outer, an outdoor furniture company, to enhance their exposure. UGC/influencer collaborations, as well as brand collaborations, allow DTC brands to tap into each other’s customer bases and create unique offerings that appeal to a broader audience.

2. Personalisation for customer experience

Personalisation and personalised marketing practices are a pivotal trend this year in the DTC sector. Brands are focusing on creating tailored shopping experiences for consumers based on previous shopping, search, and browsing history. For example, smart landing pages now adjust content based on the user’s physical location. According to the Salesforce Consumer report, 80% of customers believe the experience a brand provides is just as important as the quality of its products and services.

3. Tech stacks and AI-optimised consumer experiences

Technological tools that help reduce manual workloads, automate repetitive tasks, and leverage zero and first-party data are becoming increasingly popular among DTC stores. Generative AI is also enhancing customer experiences, with 81% of customers expecting faster service as technology advances, and 73% expecting better personalisation. The integration of these technologies into e-commerce tech stacks allows for more seamless and efficient operations and consequently better consumer experiences.

4. Diversified branding

DTC brands didn’t always believe in brand marketing, the same has now changed! Whilst ‘ugly ads that don’t look like ads’ is still a valid war cry in DTC advertising, 2024 will see DTC brands moving away from generic aesthetics and creating unique brand identities.
The shift from bland, pastel-themed branding to more varied and adventurous designs helps with brand recognition/awareness and allows brands to connect with their specific target audiences more effectively. Embracing brand marketing allows brands to differentiate themselves in a crowded market and create a strong brand identity.

5. Going global

Facilitated by e-commerce platforms that have made international selling easier than ever; DTC brands are now expanding beyond domestic markets. This global expansion has opened up new growth avenues whilst also allowing brands to tap into emerging markets. By embracing global expansion, DTC brands are now keen on reaching new customers to increase their market share.

6. Traditional retailers testing DTC

Traditional retailers are embracing DTC models or acquiring DTC brands to align themselves with the changing consumer preferences. This shift allows them to appeal to different customer segments and expand their market share. By leveraging DTC models, traditional retailers are keen on building direct relationships with their customers and offer unique products and services.

7. Product diversification

DTC brands are diversifying their product lines to mitigate risk and stay competitive. This involves expanding personalisation options or venturing into complementary product categories. For example, Burrow, which started with modular couches, now offers a variety of home items. Product diversification allows brands to appeal to a broader audience and reduce their reliance on a single product or category. Another trend that is about to be massive this year.

8. Subscription-based models

Subscription-based models are an already established, customer retention strategy for DTC brands but 2024 will see a significant push for this model. Many e-commerce companies are planning to offer product subscriptions in the near future as they provide a steady stream of recurring revenue and help build customer loyalty.

9. Augmented Reality for enhanced consumer experiences

Augmented Reality (AR) is becoming increasingly popular among marketers and the same is true for DTC brands. The use of AR to enhance consumer experiences and to help consumers visualise products before purchasing can significantly impact their buying decisions. By leveraging AR, DTC brands are creating immersive shopping experiences which is helping them stand out in a crowded marketplace.

10. The rise of social commerce

Social commerce is set to continue its upward trend as more consumers turn to social media platforms for their shopping needs. Nearly 98% of online shoppers plan to make at least one purchase on social media, according to Sprout Social. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest now facilitate online shopping, and paid advertising campaigns on these platforms are becoming increasingly popular. It’s crucial for ecommerce businesses to invest in social media channels where their customers are active. As new platforms and technologies emerge, social commerce will continue to thrive in 2024 and beyond.

In conclusion—as the DTC space matures and the competition heats up; the direct-to-consumer (DTC) landscape in e-commerce promises to only get more exciting.

The e-commerce trends shaping the DTC ecosystem encompass—collaborative efforts to expand brand reach, personalised marketing strategies enhancing consumer experiences, and the integration of advanced technology stacks and AI for streamlined operations. Diversified branding strategies are also emerging, facilitating unique brand identities amidst a competitive DTC market. Moreover, global expansion initiatives and the adoption of subscription-based models are also set to reshape the e-commerce business models. Augmented Reality (AR) is revolutionising consumer engagement, while social commerce continues to soar.

Delving deeper into these trends; we’ve decided to put together the practical applications of each trend and detail the requisite strategies you can employ for effective execution in this ever-evolving DTC world.

  1. Collaborative partnerships: You can make the most of this trend by actively seeking partnerships with complementary brands to expand your reach and tap into new customer bases. Resort to influencer/content creator collaborations and co-branded initiatives to create unique offerings.
  2. Personalised marketing: Brands can leverage consumer data to create tailored shopping experiences. Implement dynamic content on your website and socials based on user behaviour and preferences. Invest in AI-powered tools to automate personalised recommendations and messaging.
  3. Tech Integration: Adopt advanced technology stacks and AI solutions to streamline operations and enhance customer experiences. Explore tools like Tableau and Google Analytics for data analytics, inventory management, and customer relationship management to optimise efficiency.
  4. Branding Differentiation: Resort to brand marketing to develop a distinctive brand identity that resonates with your target audience. Embrace creative branding strategies that set you apart from competitors, fostering brand recognition and loyalty.
  5. Global Expansion: Expand into international markets using e-commerce platforms that facilitate seamless cross-border selling. Conduct market research to identify new opportunities and adapt your strategy to local preferences and regulations.
  6. Subscription Models: Implement subscription-based offerings to foster customer loyalty and generate recurring revenue; if you haven’t already. Provide incentives such as discounts or exclusive access to incentivise sign-ups and retention.
  7. Augmented Reality Integration: Use AR technology to create immersive shopping experiences that allow consumers to visualise products before purchase. DTC brands like HiSmile and Glossier have done a great job of using AR. You too can invest in AR tools and applications to enhance engagement and drive conversions.
  8. Social Commerce Strategies: Capitalise on social commerce by optimising your presence on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Utilise paid advertising campaigns and shoppable posts to drive traffic and sales.

By actively implementing these actionable insights, DTC brands can stay ahead of the curve and drive growth by capitalising on the trends we’ve listed in this article.

Shopify vs. WooCommerce: Which e-commerce platform is better?

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

Shopify and WooCommerce are two of the world’s most popular eCommerce platforms, between them boasting 5 million users who generate billions of dollars a year. But with key differences between the platforms, which is right for your eCommerce business?

Setup and UX

Shopify is geared much more toward the public, while WooCommerce has been created with designers and programmers in mind. WooCommerce entails a far steeper learning curve for business owners, whereas Shopify guides you automatically through a step-by-step setup process, at the end of which you’ll have a fully functioning eCommerce site.

Shopify’s dashboard is easy to navigate. It’s intuitive to add new products, not least because of the simple guide advising you on what details to add. WooCommerce’s dashboard is also easy to navigate and add products to, but since it’s not a subscription-based platform you’ll need to perform some integrations before you can get underway:

  • purchasing a domain name
  • finding a hosting account
  • installing WordPress
  • finding and installing a WordPress theme

These integrations are better performed by someone confident with the platform and who knows what plugins to use.

Design and themes

When you sign up for Shopify you get immediate access to over 70 free themes, as well as several paid themes, all of which are visually striking and easy to implement. There’s also a ton of design elements to explore. You might choose to purchase a theme from the Shopify store for a one-off fee.

Over at WooCommerce are hundreds of themes and designs, which can be automatically programmed to be mobile-responsive. However, with WooCommerce it takes longer to ensure your website’s design is clear and easily navigable, because every plugin has its own unique user experience to learn. On the other hand, WooCommerce is the best platform if you’re looking for a more custom layout for your eCommerce site—as long as you have the requisite time and money for its development.

Costs

Shopify has a 14-day free trial period, after which you’ll need to pay a monthly subscription fee. Its Basic package is $29 a month, its medium Shopify package is $79 a month, and its top-of-the-range Advanced package is $299 a month. All plan prices are paid annually, and include web hosting and SSL, the standard technology for keeping your internet connection secure and safeguarding any sensitive data. If you want your own domain name without your URL containing the brand name (such as Shopify), you’ll need to pay an additional $14 a year.

With Shopify, the entry-level package allows two users per account, along with unlimited product and storage space. However, it doesn’t include the use of in-platform third-party tools and add-ons. And remember, with Shopify there’s a sliding scale for transaction fees. With the Basic package you’re charged a flat fee of 2% for all transactions, while the range-topping Advanced package entails a flat fee of only 0.5% on transactions. Depending on the sales volume you’re processing, it might be worth upping your package to retain more of the overhead profit on your offerings.

Meanwhile, WooCommerce offers a free initial service, but you’ll need to pay for additional services like SSL certifications, domain names and one of the many WordPress hosting accounts. Costs for these services vary from $5 to $30. Purchasing a domain name costs an average $9 a year. Depending on how you mix and match your third-party apps for WooCommerce, you can create a website at a fairly low cost, although bear in mind you may find yourself needing to pay for several extensions in the future, like SEO plugins.

Support

While Shopify and WooCommerce both offer support, Shopify’s is much better. Shopify has a 24/7 customer service team, able to give you a fixed solution to your problem by virtue of the fact it operates on a closed platform. This results in better-documented user errors. On the other hand, as an open platform WooCommerce allows anyone to integrate add-ons, but this means the support team simply can’t have a predetermined solution for every lodged issue.

SEO

SEO is vital for making your eCommerce website discoverable on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). Shopify has a builtin SEO plugin and helps with basic practices, like web copy and metadata. It’s also important to note that Shopify sites load faster than WooCommerce sites, and site speed is an important SEO ranking signal. However, because it’s integrated with WordPress, which is designed specifically for blogging, WooCommerce is easier than Shopify when it comes to altering URLs, alt tags, body content, meta descriptions and lots of other on-page elements.

Dropshipping

When starting an eCommerce website you need to ensure your customers are actually receiving what they ordered. This means integrating delivery vendors into your site. Shopify has several popular options, the costs of which vary, as well as its own monthly membership fees or one-off costs for dropshipping—although then you’re limited to the platform’s own plugins. Whereas with WooCommerce you can browse hundreds of options and decide what you need. For example, if you’re a small business with only one or two deliveries a month, the best choice will be per-item delivery as opposed to a monthly subscription.

Shopify vs WooCommerce: which should you choose?

Shopify is incredibly easy to use from the beginning, and enables you to optimise your website for search within hours. It’s a more complete package than WooCommerce for business owners with neither the time nor inclination to learn more technical skills. However, Shopify is less customisable than WooCommerce because it’s a closed platform.

WooCommerce has become the behemoth of eCommerce platforms it is today because it’s basic but customisable, meaning you can build a more creative interface. Of course, creativity entails the cost of hiring a developer, which offsets the fact that WooCommerce is free in itself.  WooCommerce is suggested automatically when you register an account with WordPress, giving new users an easy route to getting started. However, WooCommerce is perhaps less intuitive than Shopify—or at least requires more development experience—so you may need to devote more time to building your online store than you would with Shopify.

Shopify is the eCommerce platform for you if you want:

  • a myriad of integration options
  • lots of easy-to-use apps and features
  • an all-in-one platform that gets everything running quickly
  • a helpful and enthusiastic support team ready to assist you with any problems

…Whereas WooCommerce will be right for you if you:

  • already have a WordPress website or plan to create one
  • are particularly focused on ranking well for SEO on Google’s SERPs
  • want to take more control of your eCommerce store or have the time to pore over its design details
  • are especially interested in finding a platform that’s highly adaptable and can be scaled up by magnitudes

Choosing between Shopify and WooCommerce depends on your budget, objectives, your target audience, the experience of who’s building your website, and who will be editing and managing it. Both platforms are fantastic at what they do, and as long as you understand the inherent limitations of whichever you opt for, you’ll have an aesthetic and intuitive eCommerce website going live in no time at all!

Webflow vs. WordPress: Which website builder is better?

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

There are so many website builders to choose from, but most of our clients use either Webflow or WordPress. Despite having similar functionality, they’re markedly different products—which is why today we’re comparing the two so you can see which is right for your business.

Webflow… is easier to set up

As a cloud-based all-in-one SaaS product, Webflow has everything you need to get your website live.

It’s easy to get your account set up: simply follow the step-by-step tutorial. A short survey will assess your level of coding experience, asking you a few questions about your knowledge of CSS and HTML. Then the Webflow bot walks you through using the tool, highlighting the most important areas you’ll need to know about and what they do. You can click to read more, or start building your site when you’re ready to go.

WordPress entails a clunkier setup, not least because it won’t be hosting your website as part of a package and therefore you’ll need to find and pay separately for a host and domain—and identifying a suitable host can be tricky.

Once you have your host, you download WordPress as a one-size-fits-all version which comes with instructions for installation described as ‘basic’—although many non-developers might feel otherwise.

While many web hosts offer WordPress installer tools to simplify the process, it’s never going to be as easy or seamless as an all-in-one package like Webflow.

WordPress… is free (in its basic form)

WordPress is an open-source web platform, so it’s free to use—technically. But you still have to pay a third party to use WordPress—for hosting, domain name, and usually plugins and templates (which WordPress calls themes). This is assuming you don’t have a web developer to design and build your site from scratch—but of course, dev time is also far from free!

Your total expenditure for a WordPress website can creep up if you’re after something more than basic, because of the associated costs:

  • custom domain: $10–$30 a year
  • hosting provider: $2–$15 a month
  • preset theme: some are free, some cost up to $200 a month—or alternatively, you may wish to go all-out and hire a designer
  • plugins: many are free, but premium plugins cost $40–$200

To be clear, Webflow isn’t free either, but one upside to the platform is that you pay for everything you need to build and host your website in a handy monthly package. The price you pay depends on the tier of the package, but you’ll always know upfront what it’s going to cost:

  • Basic package: $14 a month, billed annually
  • Standard eCommerce package: $29 a month, billed annually
  • Business package: $39 a month, billed annually
  • Advanced eCommerce package: $212 a month, billed annually

Webflow billing is split into two categories: Your site and Workspace—but as the Workspace is where you build and manage websites, the latter billing category is mainly for consultants working on multiple website projects at once.

Webflow… is more accessible to non-developers

If you’ve never built a website before, Webflow will ease you in—especially if you’re a designer or content manager, as the platform is visually oriented and requires almost zero code.

If you’re not using a preset template, you’ll build using drag-and-drop building blocks called containers to construct the various sections of your website. Within these containers are elements, like headings, buttons and images, which you style using classes.

With Webflow, the code is still there, and you can access it if you want, but you can build and manage your website without ever having to look at it, too. But if you tried building a WordPress site without a preset theme and no coding experience, you’d probably never get the thing off the ground. However, as WordPress’s preset themes are fairly inflexible, you’ll get more out of them if you know at least a little HTML. You can integrate a visual drag-and-drop design builder plugin like Elementor on WordPress—making it work more like Webflow, incidentally—but you’d need to pay for the plugin package, which is where the endeavour might start getting pricey.

WordPress… is better for blog hosting

There’s a reason so many blogs are hosted on WordPress: that was the platform’s original raison d’être when it was launched back in 2003.

WordPress is incredibly easy to work with when it comes to blogging. With its Gutenberg editor you can build blogs using blocks, which contain text and other media. It’s a simple and intuitive system.

While Webflow does have a CMS package, it can’t hold a candle to WordPress. Its editor isn’t the easiest to use, and it lacks many of WordPress’s advanced features, such as the comments section, and the ability to categorise and add multiple tags to posts. Webflow just isn’t built with content-driven businesses in mind—which is totally fine if that’s not what you’re about, although even then it’s worth bearing in mind in case you want to build out your blog in the future.

Webflow… offers customer support

Because you’re paying a monthly fee for Webflow, you benefit from new features, continual product improvements and customer support, the latter being especially handy if you don’t have in-house developers to call on when something goes wrong.

WordPress, on the other hand, is an open-source platform, so there’s no customer support available. That being said, the platform’s been going so long that a raft of free resources has accumulated on easily accessible websites like WPBeginner, although naturally nothing compares to realtime assistance from a dedicated customer support team as you’ll enjoy with Webflow.

WordPress… caters better to marketers

If you have a team of marketers who will be working on your website daily, WordPress is the platform for you, not least because it can handle an unlimited number of users.

Webflow enables you to edit on-page, which is a nice touch, whereas on WordPress you always need to make changes to pages via the CMS dashboard. But generally, Webflow simply isn’t built to support the level of activity possible on WordPress. With its CMS package you can have up to three ‘guest editors’, but the free and Basic packages don’t allow any editors whatsoever, meaning you’ll also be working from a single login. With the most expensive package you can have up to 10 editors. (Technically you can have more if you opt for a custom plan, but that’s when things start getting seriously pricey.) Even the nomenclature of guest editors speaks to the fact that Webflow considers marketers from within the company using the CMS as ‘guests’ to the website.

The two platforms’ different approaches to SEO optimisation also reflect their target users. Much of the SEO performance on Webflow is generated automatically, negating most of the manual work. You simply define a pattern using things like title tags and meta descriptions, then all pages in that collection will use that pattern to generate SEO settings automatically. This setup suits designers who don’t want to be thinking about writing metatags and other SEO-related tasks.

Meanwhile, over on WordPress is the Yoast plugin, which is either free or $99 annually for the premium version. This caters far more for marketers, because rather than doing anything automatically Yoast highlights keywords and guides you to create higher-quality content that’s as SEO-friendly as possible.

Webflow… offers more design freedom

Webflow is aimed at those with little or even no coding experience, often visually oriented designers and marketers who don’t want to be limited by code. Webflow therefore gives you a lot of freedom to design your website. You have the same level of customisation on WordPress too, of course, but if you’re not confident with coding then you’ll need a developer’s help to realise your vision.

Because of this setup, Webflow has far fewer preset templates than WordPress—1,000 vs 10,000 respectively. WordPress’s templates are out-of-the-box, whereas with Webflow’s templates you need to want total control and freedom over designing your website yourself.

Making changes to your Webflow design is easier post-build than on WordPress. Webflow utilises classes to style elements, such as headings, buttons and images, and you name each class—Big heading, Medium heading, Small heading, for example. Then if you want the text to be bigger for all your Big headings, you simply search for the class in the righthand menu, where you can make changes to its size, spacing and layout. These alterations are then applied automatically across all elements using that class. You can do this with CSS in WordPress, but the platform doesn’t offer no-code design tweaks unless you integrate a visual drag-and-drop design plugin.

WordPress… integrates better with other tools

WordPress is specifically designed to be used with plugins, and at present there are 60,000 available. WordPress plugins make integrations native: you don’t need to leave the platform to add them—simply go to the plugin menu on the dashboard and browse the thousands of options. Installation is performed with a single click!

In contrast, the premise of Webflow is that you have everything you need ready to go in a single handy package—no need to integrate any add-ons. You can still pull other tools into your Webflow website using code snippets, whereby you embed code into the backend of your site—but since Webflow’s strength lies in the fact you barely need code to manage your site, these code snippets are a workaround at best. Moreover, you’ll need to work with the third-party software separately, as it won’t be fully integrated into Webflow.

Webflow vs WordPress: which should you choose?

Webflow is the website builder for you if:

  • whoever’s building your site has little to no coding experience
  • you want to get your website up and running fast and with minimal effort
  • you’re new to website building and would benefit from customer support
  • you want to be able to make custom design changes to your website without having to call on a developer

…Whereas WordPress will be right for you if:

  • you have coding experience or the budget to hire a web developer
  • you have an existing tech stack you want to integrate into your website
  • you have a team of editors or marketers who will be contributing regularly
  • you want to host a blog or plan to frequently add new content pages to your site

Choosing between Webflow and WordPress depends on your budget, objectives, the experience of who’s building your website, what you plan to use the website for, and who will be editing and managing it. Both platforms are fantastic at what they do, and as long as you understand the inherent limitations of whichever you opt for, you’ll have a fabulous and SEO-worthy website going live in no time at all!

Top 5 AI tools to enhance your marketing

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

You’d be hard-pressed to find any company, big or small, that’s not either using or at least considering AI tools to promote its brand and business—if only because that’s what the competition’s doing. But with so many tools to choose from, it can be tough knowing where to start. That’s why today I’ve collated the 5 best AI tools which have helped our clients reap immense rewards—and in rapid time.

An AI marketing tool is simply any platform or software that draws on AI to automate decisions based on your customer data, then analyses it and implements it according to your business goals and current market trends.

The goal of using such a tool is pretty much universal: anticipate the buyer’s next move—sometimes even before they know it themselves. This is all done in real time, and with no human supervision or intervention necessary. It’s this capacity to automate decisions at lightning speed that makes AI marketing tools formidable and game-changing. They crunch unimaginably large chunks of information from email, social media and the internet at large to bridge the gap between data and the actionable solutions you need to enhance your sales and marketing campaigns.

There are endless AI marketing tools to choose from, and it can feel overwhelming even trying to research them. So let me offer you a cheat sheet—the 5 finest AI marketing tools with which I’ve had firsthand experience of generating epic results for clients.

1) Flick

Price

7-day free trial, then:

  • Solo: £11 a month
  • Pro: £24 a month
  • Agency: £55 a month

Standout features

  • Post scheduling
  • AI idea brainstorming
  • Autosuggested hashtags
  • On-brand AI caption writing
  • Hashtag Search and Manager

Flick AI Social Media Assistant is a powerful tool designed to help marketers streamline the brainstorming, writing, and planning of their social media content. And by virtue of its 7-day free trial, users can create engaging and entirely on-brand content more easily than ever.

With Flick you can ideate around distinct content concepts, arrange and schedule your posts with a single click, and turn lengthy pieces into bitesized nuggets ready for sharing. And with Flick’s autosuggested hashtags and Hashtag Search and Manager, you’ve got every base covered when it comes to effective content management and visibility enhancement.

Flick is simple to set up, and even offers 24/7 support. It’s trusted by over 100,000 brands, marketers and content creators worldwide, who love how the tool saves them time, boosts their results, and improves their social media presence.

2) Phrasee

Price: Custom quote

Standout features

  • Dynamic content
  • Predictive analytics
  • Engagement metrics
  • Content management

Phrasee’s focus is brand language optimisation—that is, enhancing the language companies use for their brands online. Phrasee utilises a natural language generation system and machine learning algorithm to produce copy not only for socials but also for email and even push notifications. The result? Human-sounding copy that’s both effective and on-brand.

Phrasee is already turning heads in major places, counting Virgin and Domino’s among its fast-expanding client base.

3) GrowthBar

Price

  • Standard: $29 a month
  • Pro: $79 a month
  • Agency: $129 a month

Standout features

  • SEO
  • Meta generator
  • AI blogging tools
  • Paragraph generator

GrowthBar automates content generation using GPT-3, the first AI technology to pass the Turing test—that is, a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human. GrowthBar suggests links, images, keywords, word count—and that barely scratches the surface. It’s capable of providing extensive backlinks and creating outlines for blogs. There’s also a Chrome extension.

4) Optimove

Price: Custom quote

Standout features

  • A/B testing
  • Campaign insights
  • Hypersegmentation
  • Multichannel tracking

Optimove is a customer data platform packed with AI-based marketing functions. It helps collect data from a multitude of platforms to form a unified view in one handy dashboard, where you can analyse your information, share it with your team, and leverage it to execute more precise marketing strategies.

Optimove uses a proprietary AI tool called Optibot, which scours all your customer data to generate actionable insights. Optibot can suggest which of your campaigns aren’t worth continuing with based on loss, and inform you when customers are potentially being exposed to excessive company comms.

Optimove must be doing something right, counting among its clients John Hardy, Sweaty Betty and the New York Racing Association.

5) Jasper

Price

  • Starter (20k words): $40 a month
  • Boss Mode (50k words) $82 a month

Standout features

  • Machine learning
  • Plagiarism checker
  • Content generation
  • Tone of voice settings
  • Customisable templates

Previously called Conversion.ai, Jasper is an advanced AI marketing tool designed to create high-quality ad copy, emails, articles, landing pages and social media posts. Like GrowthBar it draws on GPT-3 to produce human-sounding text, and comes with built-in templates for PAS, AIDA, BAB and FtB. All you need to do is insert your brand or product name, and voilà!—on-brand copy, ready to go.

And as if that weren’t enough, if you’re an eCommerce brand you can even use Jasper to create product descriptions whether in meta or bullet point form, all at the click of a button.

What are the benefits of using an AI marketing tool?

Creating realtime personalisation

Today’s customers expect you to know what they want. This is an area where AI marketing tools come into their own, empowering you to adapt your sales and marketing strategy to generate a personalised experience for any given customer. Using predictive analysis, AI gains an exponentially better understanding of each individual shopper’s behaviours and buying habits. Imagine that power—being able to guide a customer to exactly the product that best suits their preferences, and at the precise time they want it most.

Automating tricky decisions

Data is everything in modern marketing, so being able to automate the gathering, analysis and implementation of your data is beyond powerful. For example, you can ascertain with great accuracy how your audience would react to a message before even having to launch it. Think of how many headaches that’s going to save you.

Increasing ROI

AI tools enable marketers to maximise the amount of information they produce while minimising the costs of other campaigns. At the same time they offer deep customer insights, and throw light on what your customers really want. What’s more, with AI tools you can group warm leads and guide them to move forward in the buying journey, ultimately boosting your odds of making a sale—and transforming ROI for your business.

Saving time and money

Every business owner is on the lookout to save money on their marketing campaigns. So while an AI marketing tool may be a sizeable investment to begin with, it pays dividends by cutting heaps of costs down the road. With an AI tool in your arsenal you can work faster and more efficiently, because you’re no longer having to pay staff to do the majority of the manual work. Instead of hiring a full team you can just recruit people for those tasks that absolutely can’t be performed without human supervision. And ultimately, AI massively reduces the chance of human error, too.

If you haven’t invested in AI marketing tools yet—the time is now

AI itself is nothing new—for years companies have been looking for ways to apply automation to accelerate their processes, streamline their systems, and draw ever more actionable insights to boost revenue. What is new is the power of these up-and-coming technologies—and the fact that investing in AI is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. So as a business, it’s vital to become conversant with AI marketing tools to stay ahead of the competition. In no time at all you’ll be honing a prosperous and futureproof brand.

How do Google’s Performance Max campaigns work?

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

What sets Performance Max apart from other types of Google Ads campaign is automation, which Google uses to produce ads based on the creative assets you provide. But how does Performance Max optimally combine these assets to maximise campaign performance?

Unlike other types of Google Ads campaign, Performance Max automates target and delivery according to the data you feed into it. It’s also differentiated from other campaign types by its eligibility to run across all of Google’s inventory, able to serve in any placement filled by Search, Display, Gmail, YouTube and Discovery campaigns.

What controls do I have with Performance Max?

When you set up your Performance Max campaign, you choose your objective depending on your goals, and have the option to connect your product feeds and store locations.

Budget and bidding

To begin you set your budget and select your bidding strategy, whose options include maximum value and maximum conversions. You can also set a maximum CPA or target value or conversion, enabling you to leverage Target CPA and Target ROAS strategies.

Location, language and scheduling

Performance Max isn’t currently supported by Google Ads Editor, so setting up its targeting is a little more fiddly than with most campaigns. If you’re looking to include multiple locations, you can hit Enter another location, which expands to include a space, then hit Advanced search, which enables you to bulk-import locations. From there you can select your languages, ad schedule and campaign run dates.

Advanced URL options

Google defines its own final URLs by default unless you toggle that option off. It’s worth noting that if you permit Google to send traffic to whatever links it sees fit, you can exclude links as well. You can also add tracking templates.

Setting up asset groups

Next you’ll be directed to set up an asset group, which is effectively an ad, and so named because it acts like an asset to all platforms. It’s similar to a responsive display asset. You can create as many asset groups as you like.

Automated targeting

Each campaign has only one set of targeting—so no ad groups. You can select audiences to give Google insight into who to target, and it will automatically show your ads to those users most likely to convert for your goals. Then you can accelerate optimisation by providing audience signals. This means your campaigns may not be delivered only to those audiences—rather, Google uses the audiences you provide to generate signals, and uses that data to identify similar customers who are also likely to exhibit the same interests and behaviours.

Ad extensions

Finally you add your extensions. You can opt to use existing account-level sitelink extensions, or instead select and create specific sitelinks for your Performance Max campaigns, which suggest extension formats based on your goals. For example, if your primary goal is lead generation, the campaign suggests you create a lead form extension. You can also add callouts, snippets, call extensions, and price and promo extensions.

What does a Performance Max campaign include?

Performance Max reporting is currently somewhat limited. Advertisers can report broadly on campaign performance as they can with any other campaign, but matters become more opaque when it comes to granular analytical breakdown.

At present there are three general types of performance you can report on:

  • top-level campaign performance
  • performance by hour of day, weekday, or hour and weekday combined
  • location performance—and if you’re advertising a chain, your store report is available based on location extensions

However, there are still several things you can’t report on. For example, while you can add multiple asset groups (ads), it’s not currently possible to report on performance by asset group. For instance, you can report on performance by responsive display ad, but you can’t break that performance down by individual asset in any meaningful way. And in fact, with Performance Max you can’t even take that initial step of breaking down performance by asset group.

Furthermore, at the moment there’s no information given on targeting. Remember, the targeting parameters provided are used as indicators to identify other potential customers in-market—so those audiences provided won’t necessarily be used as targets, but rather as a means of identifying qualifiers and indicators to find other likely prospects. That means ultimately there’s no way of knowing who actually sees your ads—no reporting on keyword, audience or demographic. It’s therefore not possible to add exclusions for these factors. You also can’t report on device performance or make exclusions accordingly.

Is Performance Max worth it?

As a marketer I have to say that some aspects of Performance Max still feel novel even now, like URL expansion and autogenerated video assets. That’s fun! Other elements feel more familiar, like responsive ads and conversion-only bidding.

In my experience Performance Max performs well, driving a lot of volume for our numerous eCommerce clients here at Pixated. On the flipside, if you’re a lead generation company then I don’t recommend Performance Max unless you’ve got sophisticated tracking in place (and have the capability in-house to use it and interpret its output).

Furthermore, Performance Max isn’t worth trying full stop unless you’re prepared to spend at least $50 a day for at least a month, although really you want to be looking more toward $100 a day. Otherwise you’re unlikely to generate enough data and learning for the format to work as it’s designed to.

For inspiration, check out a case study shared by Google outlining how online lender MoneyMe leveraged Performance Max to the max, boosting conversions by 22%, increasing revenue from newly funded loans by $800k, and reducing overall CPA by 20% across the account.

If you’re an eCommerce brand, don’t wait to find out whether Performance Max could be right for your business model—the time is now! Just be prepared to set aside an adequate budget to generate the data Google needs to learn and optimise your campaigns.

Top 6 AI tools that marketers should know about

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

Today, large and small businesses use cutting-edge AI marketing tools to promote their brands and grow their enterprises through artificial intelligence (AI). With AI marketing tools, automated decisions can be made based on analysed data and interpreted against current market trends. They can predict consumers’ next actions in real time without human involvement, making them incredibly powerful for businesses.

AI-based marketing tools are vital for bloggers, e-commerce entrepreneurs, and affiliate marketers alike. Therefore, you will be able to develop and implement a more effective marketing strategy, which will assist you in meeting your goals more effectively.

To maintain a competitive edge in this rapidly evolving marketplace, staying current on the top AI areas in marketing is essential. This article will explore some of the best tools available for these areas, providing you with valuable information to maximise the potential of AI marketing in your organisation.

AI-Powered Analytics

AI analytics tools are technology-driven solutions designed to collect, analyse, and interpret data related to marketing efforts. Businesses can use them to gain insights into marketing campaigns, customer behaviour, and overall performance. This enables businesses to make data-driven decisions and optimise their marketing strategies.

By leveraging these tools, businesses can gain a competitive edge and stay ahead of the curve in an increasingly data-driven world. A good example of such a tool is SEMrush, which is used for AI analytics.

SEMrush

SEMrush is a renowned name in the field of marketing. They offer a range of digital marketing tools that can help businesses optimise their marketing strategies, improve their online presence, and gain insights into their competitors’ strategies. Their platform includes tools for search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, content marketing, social media marketing, and competitive analysis.

Moreover, SEMrush provides various AI-powered tools such as the content outline builder, SEO Writing Assistant, and ImpactHero. These tools can assist in improving online presence by identifying gaps in content and providing insights for optimizations. By utilising their suite of tools, businesses can stay ahead of the competition in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

AI Email Marketing

AI email marketing refers to using artificial intelligence-powered tools and technologies to enhance various aspects of email marketing campaigns. AI-based email marketing can optimise email marketing campaigns’ construction, administration, and optimisation to make them more efficient and effective, resulting in stronger connections with audiences and higher conversion rates.

Overall, these tools enable marketers to create more targeted, personalised, and timely communications, resulting in stronger connections with their target audience and higher conversion rates.

Twilio SendGrid

Twilio SendGrid provides a suite of tools for developing effective email marketing campaigns. These include email automation, sign-up forms, email testing, email design, email templates, and email statistics. In addition, they provide an email API with SMYP service, email validation, deliverability insights, dynamic templates, and email integration.

It employs AI in three key areas:

  • Validation of email addresses: The real-time API examines your list to detect and prevent invalid email addresses, keeping your list clean and lowering bounce rates.
  • Neural protection: This improves your deliverability rates by identifying potentially dangerous transmission patterns. The AI examines outgoing messages to identify ways in which you harm your reputation with ISPs.
  • Deliverability insights: The AI analyses your real-time metrics and email performance to provide suggestions for enhancing email deliverability.

AI Graphic Designing

Effective visual representation of campaigns is crucial for lead generation and prospecting in marketing. AI-powered graphic design solutions assist in developing, editing, and optimising visual material. These tools leverage artificial intelligence to automate various aspects of graphic design, making the design process simpler and more efficient for experienced designers and non-experts.

By streamlining and improving the design process, these tools enable the creation of visually alluring and effective graphics that can facilitate better engagement with the target audience and help achieve marketing objectives. DALL is one such AI-powered graphic design tool that we will explore.

DALL-E

Among the most popular tools in creating graphics is DALL-E. The DALL-E AI from OpenAI can create unique pictures based on written descriptions. It is a creative tool that combines natural language processing and image generation, allowing it to generate original visualisations based on user input.

While DALL-E isn’t free ($15 for 115 credits), it’s a great way to quickly and easily create engaging photos for use in social media, email marketing, and advertising. In addition, you may load an existing picture to use as a template.

AI Copywriting

Next up, we have our AI-generated copywriting. Artificial intelligence copywriting solutions use Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning models to streamline the writing, editing, and publishing processes.

These resources make copywriting less time-consuming and more accessible, empowering writers of all skill levels to produce excellent content for use in marketing campaigns, blogs, social media posts, and other contexts. Two of the most popular tools for creating marketing copy are ChatGPT and Jasper. There is no denying that these tools have garnered headlines in the copywriting world. Now let’s dive into each tool in more detail:

ChatGPT

OpenAI created ChatGPT, an AI-powered text generation model that can understand and generate conversational-like text. Here are some of the ways that ChatGPT can help with marketing copywriting:

  • Write copy: ChatGPT can be used to write full pieces of marketing copy, including blog posts, website copy, and email marketing campaigns. This saves time and creates high-quality content.
  • Edit and refine copy: ChatGPT can also be used to edit and refine marketing copy. This can be helpful for copywriters who want to make sure that their copy is clear, concise, and persuasive.
  • Generate ideas: ChatGPT can be used to generate new ideas for marketing copy. Copywriters who are stuck or who are looking for new methods can benefit from this resource.approach a campaign.
  • Brainstorm headlines and taglines: ChatGPT can be used to brainstorm headlines and taglines for marketing campaigns. It can be a time-consuming task, but ChatGPT can help to speed up the process and generate more creative ideas.

In general, ChatGPT can improve the marketing copywriting process. By using ChatGPT, copywriters can save time, generate new ideas, and create more effective marketing campaigns.

Jasper AI

Jasper AI and ChatGPT are both AI-powered language models, but separate entities develop them and have unique use cases. Conversion.ai has developed Jasper AI, formerly known as Jarvis. It is a copywriting tool designed to assist businesses and individuals in producing high-quality content for a variety of purposes.

Jasper helps in creating marketing copy by using a combination of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning algorithms to analyse and understand the brand’s voice, target audience, and marketing objectives. Jasper AI provides users with content templates and prompts, speeding up the process of content creation and sparing them time. Here’s how Jasper can assist in creating different types of marketing copy:

  • Social media posts
  • Email marketing campaigns
  • Landing pages
  • Blog posts
  • Case studies
  • Press releases

Overall, Jasper helps in creating marketing copy by leveraging its AI-powered capabilities to understand your brand’s voice, audience, and goals.

AI Video & Audio Editing

To assist in the production of audio and video marketing materials, an essential category is the use of AI-powered video and audio editing applications. This collection of applications simplifies the production, modification, and optimization of audio and video content. Through the use of these applications, editing and producing video and audio content becomes more accessible and efficient. This allows professionals and non-experts alike to craft high-quality videos and audio files for various purposes, including marketing materials, podcasts, and social media postings. Finally, these tools prove to be of great use for enhancing the effectiveness and reach of audio and video marketing materials.

Synthesia

Synthesia is an AI-powered video creation platform that can help you save time and money when creating videos in multiple languages. Over 50 video templates and 70 AI avatars are available in Synthesia, so you never have to repeat the same templates.

You can use Synthesia for your business in the following ways:

  • Train your employees with educational content.
  • Produce synthetic media in large quantities.
  • Replace voiceover actors with it.
  • Use it for HR onboarding.
  • Enhance your video marketing.

However, using these tools raises security concerns, particularly when dealing with sensitive marketing data. Using a VPN can solve this problem. By using a VPN, marketers can ensure the security and privacy of their data and prevent unauthorised access to it. A VPN encrypts all data being transmitted and creates a secure connection. This means that even if a third party intercepts the data, it will be unreadable. To ensure maximum security, choosing a reputable VPN service suitable for marketers who want to use AI tools securely is important.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence has vastly transformed the marketing industry, providing businesses of all sizes access to advanced AI marketing tools to enhance their brand and expand their operations. These AI marketing tools leverage AI technology to make automated decisions based on analysed data and current market trends. By utilising AI-powered analytics, email marketing, graphic design, and copywriting tools, businesses can gain actionable insights into their marketing campaigns, strengthen their marketing strategies, and create visually appealing graphics that improve marketing outcomes.

The evolving landscape requires businesses to incorporate AI-powered marketing tools into their strategy to stay ahead of the curve in a data-driven world, make data-driven decisions, and execute a successful marketing strategy. AI-powered marketing tools enable businesses to gain a competitive advantage, enhance their online presence, and improve their conversion rates, leading to a better return on investment.

How do Facebook’s Advantage+ campaigns work?

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

If you’ve set up a Facebook ads campaign recently, you might have noticed a campaign option called Advantage+. This streamlines Facebook’s proven processes by following recommended settings. But if you haven’t seen this option yet, today we explore Advantage+: how it works, and both its benefits and drawbacks.

Advantage+ campaigns, Facebook’s new model for conversion campaigns, have made it easier than ever to get the results you need. By allowing Facebook to automatically select tailored campaign settings on your behalf, like bidding strategy and optimisation methods, they’ve massively reduced the amount of manual input required.

Unlike traditional conversion campaigns on Facebook ads, an Advantage+ campaign merges the campaign, ad set and ad creation stages into a single stage, and encourages advertisers to utilise Dynamic Ads.

While Advantage+ Campaigns aren’t currently available to all advertisers, Facebook is rolling them out to more and more worldwide. They look set to eventually replace the existing manual creation process entirely.

How do I set up an Advantage+ campaign?

You can set up an Advantage+ campaign in Facebook’s Ads Managers. Hit Create a campaign, and choose Conversions as your campaign objective. If you’re a selected advertiser with access to this relatively new feature, you’ll be presented with the option of an Advantage+ campaign. Then Facebook will prompt you to complete the usual setup stages: campaign name, ad copy, ad set targeting. Of course, this is far fewer steps than normal, as Advantage+ is geared toward Facebook ads novices.

What are the benefits of an Advantage+ campaign?

There are three primary ways in which using an Advantage+ campaign could benefit your business, especially if you’re a newbie when it comes to Facebook marketing:

  • It’s recommended by Facebook, with preset parameters depending on the nature of your business
  • It’s streamlined, with a simplified setup enabling advertisers to create a campaign in far fewer steps than normal
  • It’s tried and tested, the result of Facebook having helped countless businesses produce high-performing conversion campaigns through Advantage+’s optimised settings

If you’re inexperienced with Facebook ads or lacking in confidence, Advantage+ is a godsend, with its easy campaign creation process and minimal manual work required to get your ads up and running.

What are the drawbacks of an Advantage+ campaign?

While an Advantage+ campaign simplifies the conversion campaign creation process, they’ll be of little interest to those advertisers seeking to have a lot more input. For example, many won’t be keen on Facebook automatically choosing the optimisation method for them, as this loss of freedom could ultimately prove detrimental to their marketing goals. What’s more, the one-window setup isn’t ideal for those who want to create their campaigns in stages, rather than in one big chunk.

Is an Advantage+ campaign right for me?

Advantage+ campaigns are aimed at those who are beginners when it comes to Facebook ads, enabling these users to skip the more fiddly stages. The flipside of this accessibility is that they’re of little use to anyone looking to refine their settings manually based on their goals or experience. Nevertheless, it’s brilliant to finally see them as an option on Facebook’s Ads Manager, where a simplified all-in-one campaign creation process has been long sought after by less experienced advertisers.

The top 5 social metrics businesses must track

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

Social media metrics are vital to your marketing strategy. But of the countless metrics you could track, which should you track? These are the top 5 that have helped my own clients find success time and again.

Your social metrics enable you to take a deep dive into your channels’ performance, gain insights into what your audience really thinks about your brand and business, and understand how to improve those perceptions.

However, with the seemingless endless number of metrics available, it can be hard knowing where to start. That’s why today I’ve laid out the 5 most powerful metrics to track for your social media marketing, as evidenced by the stellar results and immense successes enjoyed by my own clients.

1) Likes and Comments

Having a big following is a great start, absolutely—but ultimately it doesn’t mean much if your audience isn’t interacting with your content. Measuring how often users like and comment on your posts is crucial, not least because it comprises both qualitative data (likes) and quantitative data (comments), both of which you can leverage in different ways to improve your content and shape it around what your audience wants to see.

2) Impressions

Social media impressions measure how many users were exposed to your content. This matters because it gives you an insight into just how far your ad spend can actually go, and therefore can inform future paid ad spending to help you maximise your budget.

That being said, even if paid ads aren’t part of your current marketing strategy, you might still want to look at impressions—they can also teach you about what kind of content is resonating most with your audience. On that note, remember that each platform measures impressions differently. An impression on Twitter is when a user sees a tweet, whereas on Facebook it’s when they see a paid ad onscreen. On Instagram it’s when a user views a piece of content, and on TikTok there’s actually no metric called impressions, although of course for the purpose of your own data you could count a video view as an impression.

3) Lead generation

Lead generation is when you attract prospects to your business and nurture them to boost their interest in your brand, with a view to converting them into customers. Marketers use social media to generate leads by creating compelling and irresistible content that attracts and delights audiences in equal measure. Measuring lead generation actually entails tracking other metrics, like web traffic, lead quality, and conversion rates from your social channels. For example, a significant amount of web traffic coming from Facebook highlights that your Facebook presence in particular is a good source of lead generation.

4) Sales or revenue

Most social media platforms that offer monetisation schemes are transparent in how much you can earn from them as a marketer. That makes it easy to track precisely how well your activity is translating into sales or revenue.

5) Web traffic

If you’re reading this, your business probably relies at least somewhat on web traffic—so measuring it is imperative. For example, you might track pageviews across your Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest profiles to measure how much of your web traffic is coming from organic social media.

Top 3 tools for tracking social metrics

1) HubSpot

Price: Free trial, then $800–$3,600 for the Marketing Hub

HubSpot monitors both your web traffic and brand mentions across social media. Its accessible dashboard follows the customer lifecycle, automatically tracks engagements, and makes it easier than ever to schedule posts.

2) NetBase Quid

Price: $300–$1,000 a month

NetBase Quid enables you to quickly identify emerging trends to make better-informed decisions and increase ROI. It provides realtime analytics on conversations involving your brand worldwide, and helps you scope out the main drivers of these conversations all across social media.

3) Google Analytics

Price: Free

Google Analytics collates data from across your app and website to better understand your customer journey. It includes privacy controls like cookieless measurement, as well as advanced conversion and behavioural modelling.

A brief learning period—and a lifetime of brand growth thereafter

Your social metrics are key to knowing how your brand’s social media profiles are performing with regard to your predetermined marketing goals. They’re essential for growing your business and continually enhancing its public image. Invest some time in understanding how they work and which would be most valuable to track, and soon you’ll be enjoying greater brand visibility and happier customers than ever.

Webflow review: A website builder for website designers

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

A few years ago, web design platforms that we now think of as more traditional like Drupal and WordPress were flying high. Then their hegemony was usurped by free and eminently accessible website builders like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace. Then Webflow came along, a brilliant compromise between modern and traditional. It’s a website builder, sure, but it brings levels of power and customisation usually reserved for those platforms suited only to reasonably accomplished web designers, like WordPress. That makes Webflow perfect for users who don’t have the time or knowledge to get into the code at the backend but still need a platform that can be fully tailored to their needs.

There are two ways of using Webflow:

  • Designing and hosting your website on the platform, and using Editor to update it
  • Designing your website on the platform, then exporting the code and hosting and editing it on your own server space.

Most users choose to design and host on Webflow, simply because websites built on the platform are more reliable when hosted on its own servers. They’re also easier to update, because you have access both to a CMS and to Webflow Editor, neither of which is available when you self-host. Those who do choose to export the code to their own server space tend to be professional website developers, experienced and confident in updating and editing via code rather than via a CMS.

Webflow: key features

  • Multiple payment options including Stripe, PayPal and Apple Pay
  • Parallax scrolling, and a whole host of other multi-step animations and microinteractions
  • Automatic tax and VAT calculations at the checkout, saving you hours of time inputting different tax brackets and amending VAT costs
  • Facebook Store and Instagram Shop integration so you can cross-sell between your site and your social channels, as well as run smarter marketing campaigns
  • SEO control, not just giving you basic capabilities like creating image alt text, targeting keywords, and editing metadata, but also enabling you to autogenerate sitemaps and customisable 301 redirects

Webflow: user experience

Editor
Once you’ve completed the easy-to-understand tutorial and chosen a template, you enter Webflow Editor, which is packed with design options. The platform usefully breaks the process down into what Webflow calls the box model: think of every element of your site as sitting in its own separate box, and then all the boxes are stacked on top of each other to create the final layout. This makes it easier to visualise what you want.

Template design
Webflow comes with over 100 templates, 40 of which are free, so you’re sure to find one perfect for your brand. You can preview designs before making a decision, and explore which support dynamic content. Every template is fully responsive, automatically adapting to different screen sizes, and comes with a description outlining what type of site it’s best for and what design options are available to you. Premium templates range from $19 to $149. All of Webflow’s templates, free and premium, can hold their own against those of Squarespace when it comes to aesthetic, responsiveness and customisation.

Backups and security
Webflow provides automatic backups so you can restore your site to the last save point if something goes wrong. It also comes with a free SSL certificate, which helps protect your site, and shows visitors they can trust it with their personal data.

Help and support

Webflow doesn’t enable you to contact help directly. There’s no phone number or live chat—the only way to get in touch is via email. That being said, Webflow University is an online resource stuffed with guides on how to use the platform. There’s also the community forum where users can seek help and advice for specific issues or just share their experiences. No matter your difficulty, there’s almost certainly someone who’s gone through that problem themselves—and resolved it!

Webflow isn’t perfect—but it surpasses the needs of its specific target audience

Webflow isn’t the easiest platform, but it most certainly stands out when it comes to design. It feels simultaneously advanced and accessible, because there’s no end to your customisation possibilities, and yet you don’t need to be a coding maestro to fully leverage its capabilities. Webflow’s templates are well designed and fully optimised for mobile, and cover a range of industries—although you may need to draw on some third-party integrations to get it looking exactly how you want. With total control over every aspect of your website’s design and access to stunning animation effects, you’re well positioned to manifest the site of your dreams.

Webflow isn’t suitable for beginners, who would get much more out of intuitive and easily accessible website builders like Divi and Elementor, which still leave a lot of leeway for creativity. But it’s ideal for web designers looking to build detailed sites without need for coding expertise. It’s also great for users who have previously only used builders like Weebly but now want more control over the look and feel of their site.

Ultimately, of course, no matter what website builder you end up choosing, just make sure you’re confident in using it. Utilise all the guides and resources on offer, tap into the potential of the community forum, and watch as many tutorial videos as you need to get conversant with your new platform!

Shopify review: Arguably the best e-commerce platform on the market

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that caters equally well to both beginners and experienced website builders, bringing together all the tools a business owner needs to create an online shop. It has an easy-to-use backend, a variety of payment processing solutions, and a wide assortment of themes you can use to customise your store. Shopify even comes with Liquid, its own templating language, ideal for those who love tinkering with code to ensure their store totally represents their brand and conveys their message.

Shopify is hosted on the company’s own servers, meaning you don’t need to install software or buy any separate hosting packages to use it. You just build your online store using your web browser, and there are even mobile apps to manage it on the go. You can also expand your store’s functionality by adding apps from the Shopify marketplace.

Shopify: key features

  • CSS and HTML options for those confident in coding
  • Online editor enabling you to customise your store with ease
  • Built-in email solutions for reaching out to customers direct
  • App for Android and iOS for managing your store wherever you are
  • Vouchers and discount codes to maximise your odds of making a sale
  • Abandoned cart recovery to boost your chances of converting customers
  • Range of mobile-responsive themes, including both free and paid options
  • SEO capabilities including control over your redirects, metadata and sitemap URLs
  • Git integration for more advanced developers to manage workflow and version control
  • One-click theme duplication, allowing you to update and preview pages before they go live
  • Blog where you can develop your inbound marketing strategy and showcase your thought leadership
  • Social media integration to seamlessly meld your public-facing platforms with your online store
  • Reporting and analytics covering sales, customer behaviours, search data, marketing insights and abandoned cart stats
  • Global selling options, including both direct and wholesale transactions and the ability to sell in person through point-of-sale integrations using a dedicated app
  • Shipping functionality, enabling you to offer overnight delivery, package pickups, shipping insurance, shipment tracking, international shipping and discounts on shipping costs
  • Marketing tools enabling you to nurture customers over time, including audience insights, customer segmentation and chat functionality, through which customers can contact you direct with their queries
  • Secure checkout where you can accept orders and take payments where you sell online—in fact, Spotify is the market leader in this area to the point that WordPress plugin developers are now replicating it for WooCommerce
  • Shopify Payments, which accepts a range of credit cards, has its own fraud protection capabilities, and can be connected to the payment processing on your other channels both online and off- if you wish to expand your store’s potential

Shopify: pros and cons

Pros

  • Dozens of apps
  • Point-of-sale tools
  • Easy management
  • Product categories
  • Tax calculation tools
  • Multi-currency selling
  • Multi-language hosting
  • Shopify Shipping service
  • Plans for every kind of store
  • Email marketing capabilities
  • Variety of payment gateways
  • Abandoned cart functionality
  • Accessible layout for beginners
  • Seamless drag-and-drop builder
  • Responsive and flexible templates
  • Shopify-managed hosting and security

Cons

  • Relatively high transaction fees on cheaper plans
  • Rudimentary reporting and analytics on cheaper plans
  • Only a handful of free themes compared to other builders
  • Some store functionalities only improved by installing apps
  • Custom changes require some knowledge of its templating language Liquid

Shopify: user experience

Ease of use
Shopify is clean, sleek and intuitive, built specifically for beginners but just as useful to experienced website builders confident in producing a modern and dynamic online store from scratch. It’s also easy to merge your store with your omnichannel sales environment through accelerated payments, buy buttons for social media and Facebook and Instagram integrations. Linking out to other places like eBay, Etsy, Pinterest and Amazon does require third-party apps, but it’s still relatively straightforward.

Online store design
The Shopify interface has become increasingly user-friendly in recent years, and now its Online Store 2.0 solution gives you access to a convenient drag-and-drop builder whereby you can add and move blocks and sections around in seconds. If you’re looking for a more advanced design solution, it’s worth reaching out to an experienced developer or established agency, as the page builders provided by some of Shopify’s competitors like Wix and Squarespace are poor for eCommerce. That being said, the fact your online store can be created entirely without code makes Shopify an obvious choice for beginners who just want to get their shop up and running.

Product management
You can sell both physical and digital goods with Shopify, adding products one at a time or using a CSV file to upload data in bulk. Add photos and videos to your product pages, alt text for your images to enhance your SEO ranking, and even 3D models depending on your theme. Shopify doesn’t crop images on your behalf, so be sure to either upload your media in the right size or use the built-in photo editor to adjust them before publishing.

Inventory management
Shopify supports multichannel selling across every plan, and it’s easy to manage stock and orders no matter which channel you’re using. Track and transfer inventory across locations, and sync everything within your store. Just be aware that you may be limited in the scope of your inventory management unless you integrate additional apps. For example, you won’t be able to manage dropshipping orders unless you install an app.

Help and support

Shopify has a comprehensive approach to customer support. The Shopify Support team are available 24/7 via phone, email and live chat, and there’s an abundance of FAQs and resource articles in over 20 languages to explore, although they don’t include many visual insights into how to use your admin interface. That being said, you can sign up for Shopify courses to access a more thorough education in using the platform.

For supported themes, Shopify Support can actually make code updates and customisations—for free! What’s more, most popular apps have automatic installation and free installation support courtesy of the app developers, so you don’t need to worry about development costs when scaling your business. And finally, don’t underestimate the power of the community forums—they’re inhabited by experts ready and willing to help out anyone who’s run into a problem with their online store. You can even hire a certified Shopify Expert through the website!

No matter your industry or expertise, Shopify’s got you covered

Shopify is endlessly flexible and adaptable, empowering business owners around the world to sell both physical and digital goods and grow their companies, often with unprecedented ease. Of course that’s not to say Shopify doesn’t have a few downsides—unlocking some of its functionalities can be expensive, especially when you account for the additional transaction fees on some of its plans—but it’s intuitive, comprehensive, and rich in features. And what kind of price can you put on that accessibility and peace of mind?

WooCommerce review: The DIYer’s e-commerce platform

Posted on by Lily Lofthouse

WooCommerce is an eCommerce platform that gives business owners a lot of freedom to customise their online stores. A free plugin on WordPress, it’s not ideal for beginners because users need to be able to handle the technical side of the site—but if you’re a confident website builder then WooCommerce brings a raft of benefits!

WooCommerce: key features

    • Stock level control
    • Hundreds of plugins
    • WordPress integration
    • Total control over data
    • Mobile-friendly structure
    • Adjustable taxes and shipping rates
    • Unlimited products and product categories
    • Free extension for Facebook Ads and Facebook Shops
    • Built-in WooCommerce Payments—and you can easily integrate other gateways like Stripe and PayPal via free plugins

WooCommerce: user experience

Ease of use
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, not a subscription-based solution like Shopify. That means you’ll need some experience in setting up a web server, redirecting a domain to that server, and installing WordPress and ensuring it’s operational. And you’ll need to complete a few simple tasks before you can starting building your online store with it:

  • Get a domain name
  • Install WordPress
  • Sign up for a hosting account
  • Find and install a WordPress theme

Then you can install the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress website and get building!

To make things easier if you’re not an expert but still feel confident enough to give WooCommerce a go, consider bringing on board a specialised WordPress hosting company to take care of the domain and installation, leaving you to focus solely on WooCommerce.

It’s also important to note that WooCommerce doesn’t come with any ‘design’ as such—it’s all handled via a WordPress theme of your choice. That being said, it’s still relatively easy because WooCommerce works with pretty much all themes on the market. All you need to do is find one that suits your brand and install it on the site.

As soon as you install and activate the WooCommerce plugin you’ll see the onscreen setup wizard, which guides you through each element in turn. It enables you to define the parameters of your store and get everything neatly configured, so tax, shipping, inventory, currency and payment gateways are ready when you go live.

Payment processing
With WooCommerce you can embed Stripe and PayPal in your online store, then process transactions conveniently without directing shoppers to a third-party checkout page. Both payment processors are reliable and efficient, and most WooCommerce stores run smoothly with those alone. You don’t even need a merchant bank account to get things up and running. But if you would like to try out a different service, you can integrate a plethora of other alternative payment processing solutions, most of which are simple plugins. It’s even possible to go beyond online selling, by leveraging the WooCommerce POS plugin for in-store transactions. This accommodates a range of providers offering in-person card-processing functionalities.

Once you’ve identified the gateway that’s right for you, simply install its add-on and connect the service to your merchant bank account. Now you can handle transactions on your online store without having to pay WooCommerce a penny, although note that the payment processors will charge you. The fees differ from one provider to another.

SEO
WooCommerce takes full advantage of the fact that WordPress is primarily a content creation platform, renowned by SEO experts for giving business owners the best chance to rank well for keywords. WooCommerce provides more SEO-specific options than other eCommerce platforms simply because it’s built on top of WordPress.

Security
Technically there aren’t any security measures included with the WooCommerce plugin. As it runs on WordPress, most of the responsibility for security falls to you. For example, you need to ensure your hosting company has secure servers, and configure your site’s security plugins and two-factor authentication. You also need to source your own SSL certificate, although you can usually get this through your hosting provider, sometimes even for free.

 

Help and support

Since WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin, you can get a lot of support simply by exploring the latter’s community forums. But there’s also a dedicated WooCommerce team who will do their best to answer your queries and solve your problems.

Enjoy full control of your eCommerce store with WooCommerce

WooCommerce gives business owners access to thousands of site designs, as well as thousands of plugins which enable them to extend their stores’ functionality. As long as you don’t mind investing half a day into setting up your site, and you’re confident in handling most or all of it solo (unless you’ve brought an expert or specialist company on board to do it for you), WooCommerce is a fabulous and flexible platform that can open up a whole world of eCommerce possibilities, and empower you to grow your business like never before!