Featuring an average open rate that can be eight times higher and an audience that requires a broad opt-in policy, it’s no wonder that transactional emails have sparked your curiosity. You’re probably here because you’re looking for transactional email best practices—the rules on what you can—and can’t—do in a transactional email, and you’ve come to the right place.   Let’s dig in:   What Is a Transactional Email? Let’s start with the groundwork. If you haven’t read Dave Cacioppo’s post on The Art of the Transactional Email yet, click on […]

There are certainly some industries ripe to produce the razzle dazzle social media content that we love to see in our newsfeeds—the beautiful models, game-winning statistics, new movie releases, breaking news headlines. While you might think the inspiration for content may come easier in a fast-paced, highly visible, large corporation or adorable, mission-based nonprofit, it doesn’t mean social media can’t be an effective player in your marketing line-up.   Let me start off by saying “boring” is a completely subjective judgement. There is no such business that will appeal to […]

Improving website accessibility can seem like a never-ending and always-challenging process. Mostly because, it is. It’s the collision of two complex worlds – legislation and web development – coupled with the realities of people with disabilities, which can be misunderstood unless you know first-hand what it’s like to live with a disability. The content on your website is also frequently changing, so it’s not a one-time optimization project. That’s where website accessibility statements can come in handy.   Before we dive in, if you need an overview on website accessibility, […]

Running successful, effective paid media strategies across Paid Search (Google/Bing), Paid Social (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc), and online display can be a challenging task for anyone, even marketers with tons of time. For marketers tasked with dozens of items, it becomes exponentially more difficult even for the most savvy and experienced digital marketer to keep up. Using marketing automation to enhance digital paid media campaigns can create new layers of efficiency and create a more integrated strategic approach. Here are four tricks for how you can leverage marketing automation […]

emfluence rounded up another year of marketing success at the 2019 Fountain Awards on March 7th at the 2016 Main Event Space. The Fountain Awards, which are co-hosted by the ANA Business Marketing Association of Kansas City and the Kansas City Chapter of the American Marketing Association, feature results-oriented marketing work from agencies and brands across the greater Kansas City metro.   Featuring categories honoring work for both B2B and B2C oriented brands, The Fountain Awards gathers entries from dozens of marketers, all of whom are competing for the clout […]

The digital landscape for how you market your business and connect with customers at a local level is extremely important. As more local businesses create a stronger presence leveraging local search, reviews, and social media connections, it can become a more challenging task for businesses with multiple locations to manage. In order to compete with smaller businesses in all of your locations, you will need to create a concentrated and efficient local social media strategy.     Why is Localized Social Marketing So Important for Multi-Location Brands? In their latest […]

In some significant news out of the Ads wing of Google HQ last week, it was announced that Google Ads will be sunsetting the Average Position metric. If you’re surprised (like I was) you can relax for now – the change isn’t coming until September. Surprised as I was, upon reflection the change makes a lot of sense. Below I’ll explain the “why” behind the move, as well as metrics to pay attention to moving forward.   Why Did Google Ads Get Rid of Average Position? From my first day […]

“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s use mine,” former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale emfluence partners with our customers on a breadth of digital marketing initiatives, from website development and SEO to email strategy and delivery. In every engagement, we encourage customers to establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). In Business to Business marketing, with longer, complex sales cycles, the right KPIs provide early indications of success and can raise early alerts that it’s time to recalibrate the marketing if a campaign appears […]

If you work in higher education marketing and your job requires any of the following: new student recruitment current student interactions graduate student communications   Then I am writing this blog post just for you (but wait – if you don’t work in higher education and your job doesn’t require any of the above, you’ll probably still get some great ideas from the rest of this blog. Stick around!).   We’re about to dive into the world of influencer marketing and how you can integrate this tactic into your own […]

You’ve done it! Your campaigns are scheduled and targeted, and ad groups are aligned to your offerings with carefully crafted keywords and ad copy. Time to sit back and watch the results come in, right?   Not so fast! No campaign is ready to go without a full array of Ad Extensions. Ad Extensions are add-ons to your ad copy that can increase your performance, including through improved clickthrough rate and higher likelihood of conversion. Simply put, ads with more information that make use of more pixels tend to perform […]

GIF usage continues to flood every corner of the Internet, and while their popularity can be attributed to the fact that they inject more fun into our content, marketers can also utilize them to better engage their readers.

What’s now, new and next in social media for marketers?   In the ever-evolving world of social media – from platforms to platform enhancements – the landscape is looking great for marketers in 2019. Let’s consider five new social media tactics to try in 2019.   Tune and Improve Your Facebook Ad Targeting Ad targeting via Facebook got a great upgrade this year with the introduction of household income by U.S. ZIP code. In simple terms, this means for any given zip code, there’s an average income per household marketers […]

Email Marketing Benchmarks 2018: Part Two With peak email season behind us and a fresh year of metrics on the horizon, it’s time to take a look at how email marketing campaigns performed for the second half of 2018.   If this is your first Email Marketing Benchmarks Report, welcome to the emfluence Marketing Platform’s twice-yearly review of email marketing metrics compile by our users across the globe. In each report, you can evaluate email marketing benchmarks by industries, audience types, and messaging styles. Use these numbers to benchmark your […]

Latest Ranking Factors and Organic Search Trends How to appear organically in Google search is a constantly evolving process. New features appearing directly in search results, more results page real estate going to ads, and continuous algorithm updates keep marketers on their toes. Let’s look at the SEO trends to watch for in 2019.   7 Important SEO Trends in 2019 Machine learning / RankBrain Intent based content and keywords Featured snippets Crawler optimization Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E-A-T) JSON-LD schema Site usability   1. Machine learning / RankBrain From […]

“Alexa, read my emails…”   Email is one of the most widely used forms of digital communication. With 54% of consumers using a voice assistant at least once a day, it’s no surprise that virtual assistants are implementing the ability to read emails.   Last December, Alexa lead the charge by announcing that consumers can now check their email using Alexa’s new capabilities to read and delete emails in a Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail, or Live.com inbox. Using this new Alexa function, consumers can access the ability to have their emails […]

Want to make your content marketing tasks a bit easier in 2019? Start the year off fresh with a content inventory.   Wait, What’s a Content Inventory? Let’s start with definitions. In its basic form, a content inventory is a list of content items created for your brand—this could be anything from blog posts to website pages, whitepapers, infographics, case studies, testimonials, or other types of content you’re creating for your audience—and a recording of where that asset has been published.   The idea behind a content inventory is that […]

emfluence is delighted to welcome Joe Ramsey to the role of Customer Success Director! In this role, Joe will be responsible for nurturing long-term relationships with our emfluence Marketing Platform and emfluence agency customers. We’re excited to have him dig into goals and metrics—and even more excited for our customers to work with him on their individual measures of success.   Joe joins us with more than 20 years of marketing and support leadership across B2B and B2C companies. He has overseen marketing strategies in financial, telecommunications, and technology industries, […]

As a digital marketing agency, our mission is to provide our clients with the tools they need to effectively reach their audiences online. We specialize in services such as email marketing, SEO, and web design to help bring your company directly to your customers on a channel they are comfortable with. Much to our excitement, our hard work has recently been noted by ratings and review firm Clutch, who has included us in their directory of B2B agencies as a one of the top digital marketing companies!   Clutch is […]

Early on in my career, my peers and I focused a lot on individual keyword bids. If Cost Per Action was too high, lower your bids. If you want a higher volume of traffic, increase your bids! With the increasing availability and sophistication of Bid Automation (which I’ll cover in a later post), I focus very little on individual keyword bids anymore. A Max Cost Per Click by Keyword simply doesn’t matter that much anymore, and a big reason for that is the ability to apply bid adjustments by Audience. […]

If you have Gmail, then your inbox just got more visual! You may have noticed that Google has made some updates to their Gmail Promotions Tab recently that allow for marketers to display their deals and discounts in a way that may have a better chance at grabbing subscriber’s attention.   Visuals for Your Gmail Promo Tab This update is also geared to adding value in an efficient way to your subscriber’s inbox. Here’s how the update works: Gmail already uses machine learning to identify what it considers to be […]

Your website and email strategies support each other. One of your website tasks is growing your email list – with email signup forms, gated content, etc. – while your targeted email campaigns drive traffic, engagement and transactions back on the website. Without mutual support and close integration, they’re not as successful.   To give you some examples – here are 10 specific ways they can integrate to grow your audience, drive more impact and create efficiency.   Automated Content Distribution If you have regular communications going out with the same […]

As marketers, one of the biggest challenges we face is proving the ROI of our marketing initiatives. Marketing has evolved. More and more, marketing should be viewed as an investment in business growth rather than an expense that is a “cost of doing business.” The data we can collect from our marketing efforts, both online and offline, can help us to provide more and more insight into the ROI of our marketing initiatives.   How do we make that transition from marketing as an expense to marketing as an investment […]

We’re all about easy—this running list is designed to be your go-to cheat sheet for the latest email designs by the numbers. Bookmark this page as you plan out your next email campaigns.   What’s the Best Width for an Email? If you want a safe bet, shoot for 600 pixels. 600 pixels is the standard width for email, and while there are exceptions (including options that allow for up to 960 pixels), 600px will keep you well within the bounds of the majority of inboxes. If you want to […]

You know the stereotype: in a number of organizations, Marketing is a cost center. It’s the department of pretty pictures and branding campaigns. The department where budget goes to disappear.   But marketers, we know that’s not true. We’re measuring, we’re influencing, and we’re driving in tons of opportunity. The problem isn’t that we’re a cost center; it’s that we’re not very good at telling our impact story.   The good news is we can beat the perception of Marketing as a cost center by better using our CRM systems—all […]

Don’t have email addresses for everyone on your marketing list? Try adding LinkedIn Sponsored InMail as a touchpoint to your next campaign. How Does LinkedIn Sponsored InMail Work? Sponsored InMail offers a great way to digitally reach prospects outside of the email inbox. Sponsored InMail delivers a message you create—much like a standard LinkedIn message—to the LinkedIn inbox of your selection or your targeting. It’s like sending an email to someone, except you don’t have to have that person’s email address for the message to reach them. Setting Goals for […]

Re-building websites costs money and time. The trick to approval is justifying the expense. It has been my experience that rarely is the decision to rebuild a website up to one person. That being said, since different internal team members will need to be excited and inspired by the idea to rebuild, you will want to share different customized ROI stories. It would be smart to start with crafting a few ways that you see the website redesign benefiting the company and then tell the right story to the right […]

On November 1st, I will be a part of a 3 person panel at SEMPO Cities KC on the topic of Exploding ROI with Paid Search. As a precursor to this presentation (note to self: work on this presentation!), I wanted to share a few thoughts on what is working in Paid Search…and Paid Social. The reality of online advertising, in my opinion, is that getting yourself stuck in one channel is similar to the idea of putting too much of your investments into a single stock or group of […]