Ria Gran, Author at 99signals https://www.99signals.com/author/ria-gran/ Sandeep Mallya's SEO and Marketing Blog Sat, 24 Feb 2024 16:15:34 +0000 en hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 https://www.99signals.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cropped-99signals-favicon-logo-150x150.png Ria Gran, Author at 99signals https://www.99signals.com/author/ria-gran/ 32 32 15 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Social Media Marketing https://www.99signals.com/google-chrome-extensions-social-media-marketing/ https://www.99signals.com/google-chrome-extensions-social-media-marketing/#respond Sat, 24 Feb 2024 16:15:28 +0000 https://www.99signals.com/?p=15133 Working smart is the new way to win. Start by checking out these 15 Chrome extensions that can help you operate on social media faster and better.

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15 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Social Media MarketingManaging a brand’s social media can be a tedious job with the amount of planning and creativity expected to do it well. The workload can get unnecessarily busy without tools and automations in place — taking out time to step back, look at the bigger picture, and improve on what’s not working.

Luckily, the Chrome Web Store has sourced a huge collection of extensions (or little helpers as we like to call it) that can significantly cut down the time you usually spend on tasks. Social media managers, for one, can surely benefit from productivity boosts with a little help from technology.

Working smart is the new way to win. Start by checking out these 15 Chrome extensions that can help you operate on social media faster and better.

Side note: Want to optimize your search rankings with Chrome extensions for SEO? Check out 25 Best Google Chrome Extensions for SEO.

Top 15 Chrome Extensions for Social Media Marketing

1. Any.do

Any.do Chrome Extension

Social media managers wear many hats — they’re a planner, a customer support officer, a community manager, and sometimes even more in small teams. What better way to stay on top of things than to create a list and tackle tasks one by one? The Any.do extension gives you a to-do list that you can easily pull up right from your browser window. With its default categories Today, Tomorrow, Upcoming, and Someday, it’s easy to remember everything that you have to do.

What We Like About It

The clean and straightforward interface makes it so easy to use. It also allows you to drag and drop tasks between categories, making it simple to reorganize when priorities change.

Add Any.do extension to Chrome

2. LastPass

LastPass Chrome Extension

LastPass is the smartest way to all the information you need to navigate across multiple social profiles. Aside from passwords, you can save login credentials, contacts, and even credit card details.

What We Like About It

Once installed, it detects input fields you have saved information for, allowing you to fill them in with one click.

Add LastPass extension to Chrome

3. Grammarly

Grammarly Chrome Extension

Social media managers know the risk of publishing a post only to find it’s grammatically faulty. It happens to all of us, but Grammarly minimizes that room for errors with a spelling and grammar checker you can add right on to your browser.

What We Like About It

Not only does this tool help us craft grammatically correct posts — the new update includes suggestions for concise writing, plus detection of your writing tone to make sure you stick to your brand’s voice.

Add Grammarly extension to Chrome

4. SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb Chrome Extension

We usually use SimilarWeb to find various sites in a niche for blog outreach, but the service’s Chrome extension proves to be extra helpful as it gives you quick insights on a site’s performance and marketing efforts.

With the extension installed, you can take a look at your competitors’ profiles and figure out where they’re directing most of their efforts and who they’re talking to.

What We Like About It

The extension loads valuable insights on a site in seconds. It provides data on a site’s engagement rates, audience location, and traffic sources.

Add SimilarWeb extension to Chrome

5. Reverso

Reverso Chrome Extension

If your social community is comprised of people from different parts of the world, it’s important to engage with them using the language they speak. Reverso works like Google Translate, but it does the job with context, making translations more accurate.

What We Like About It

Reverso also works on your English input by checking that it’s free from grammar and punctuation errors. Additionally, the extension currently supports more than 10 languages, from Japanese, German, Mandarin, and more.

Add Reverso extension to Chrome

6. RiteTag

RiteTag Chrome Extension

Hashtags increase a post’s discoverability, hence it’s crucial to select them carefully and not occupy the post with a bunch of random tags. RiteTag pulls up hashtag suggestions for you based on real-time hashtag engagement, so you only include tags that are relevant and effective.

What We Like About It

RiteTag provides hashtag suggestions for both text and images. When crafting a post, you only have to highlight your text or right-click on an image you’re attaching to the post and click ‘Generate Hashtags’ to get a list of hashtags you can incorporate to your post.

The extension works on popular social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Add RiteTag extension to Chrome

7. Drag

Drag Chrome Extension

Social media managers tend to have an overwhelming inbox on a daily basis, with emails containing output from graphic designers, new content requests from the marketing team, and customer inquiries to respond to. Drag transforms a busy inbox into a collaborative board that allows you to visually map your workflow right from Gmail.

What We Like About It

With Drag, you can start an empty board, drag emails into it, and form a Trello-like board with task statuses and progress. Team members can access shared boards and even start a real-time chat to get things done faster.

Add Drag extension to Chrome

8. Soapbox

Soapbox Chrome Extension

For small teams, video production for marketing usually stays in the back-burner due to lack of resources. Soapbox takes that problem away with a Chrome extension where you can easily record and edit videos without having to download any software.

What We Like About It

It’s great for support and explainer videos. You can record your face and the screen at the same time, and Soapbox will let you select how you want to split the video screen after recording. It also simplifies adding transitions and customizing your videos’ thumbnails with its no frills editor.

Add Soapbox extension to Chrome

9. Guru

Guru Chrome Extension

When you work with a team, it’s important to be on the same page with content guidelines such as structure, tone, and frequency. Most teams keep a document detailing these things, but it’s easy for these documents to get buried among piles of other files.

Guru allows you to instantly access any shared knowledge you need for a task. No more opening a new tab — simply pull up the sidebar and enter tags and keywords to find the document you need.

What We Like About It

Guru works faster than looking up a document on the Drive. You can add team members to your ‘Tribe’ and assign them as point persons for specific documents. You can then ask anyone a question on a document you’re trying to locate or verify. The interface is very intuitive and truly makes knowledge sharing a breeze.

Add Guru extension to Chrome

10. Planyway

Planyway Chrome Extension

Planyway is a Trello extension that integrates a Gantt chart and calendar to your boards. It is hands down the best platform to create a social media calendar in as it makes planning and managing your content easy as pie.

What We Like About It

It takes on Trello’s easy drag and drop function for both its calendar and Gantt chart function. It also allows you to sync your Google Calendar to a board so you can consider upcoming events when planning your posting schedule.

Add Planyway extension to Chrome

11. URL Shortener

URL Shortener Chrome Extension

Long URLs on your social posts can make them look hasty and unprofessional. A trusty shortener on your browser can not only help you work faster, but also add your brand to your links.

The URL Shortener extension allows you to add your own domain name, set expiration dates, and customize access to your links.

What We Like About It

A small but notable feature — it shortens links in a snap and automatically copies the shortened URL to clipboard. Saves you the back and forth you end up doing when you miss clicking the copy link button.

Add URL Shortener to Chrome

12. Piktab

Piktab Google Chrome Extension

Attaching quality visuals to your social media posts is a proven way to increase engagement. Social media managers then need to constantly be on the lookout for inspiration, and Piktab makes that easy.

With Piktab installed, new tabs open up a gallery of design ideas you can apply to any social media graphic. Just type in your keywords and get access to resources free for commercial use.

What We Like About It

Piktab gives you inspiration for graphics, videos, and even newsletter designs. It also pulls up high-definition stock photos and icons you can use to layout graphics for announcements or greetings.

Add Piktab extension to Chrome

13. Pablo

Pablo Chrome Extension

Now that you have a reliable resource for graphics and design inspiration, it’s time to make layouting quick. The Pablo extension for Chrome opens up a simple layout editor with templates for quotes, announcements, or promotions.

What We Like About It

Aside from 600k high-quality images that you can use as backgrounds for your social media graphics, Pablo is ready with a collection of quotes you can use for your weekly postings!

Get Pablo extension to Chrome

14. vidIQ

vidIQ Chrome Extension

vidIQ allows you to understand what’s working for high-ranking YouTube videos so you can apply it to your own. You can use the extension to assess any of your current videos and get insights on how to improve SEO friendliness and popularity, so as to not let any video content go to waste.

What We Like About It

Being able to see video tags for any video can help you understand how to go head to head with your competitors on YouTube. The extension is also completely free, which is amazing with the amount of information it provides!

Add vidIQ extension to Chrome

15. Flaunt

Flaunt Chrome Extension

Reporting for social media performance can be time-consuming especially when you work with more than one client. Like a trusty assistant, Flaunt makes reporting easier by generating intelligible reports out of screenshots of your campaign results.

What We Like About It

It cuts all the time it takes to compile data and generate tables. You only need to take screenshots and add short descriptions to performance points you want to see on your report. Flaunt takes cues from your ratings on the Awesomeness Meter for each screenshot to identify great points and aspects that can be improved on future campaigns.

Summary

We hope this list introduced you to smart solutions that can make managing social media less overwhelming. Check out the Chrome Web Store for more extensions made for productivity and discover tools suited to help you perform better with less effort.

If you liked this article, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 18 January 2020 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance, freshness, and comprehensiveness. 

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17 Best Online Advertising Tools for Marketers (Tried & Tested) https://www.99signals.com/best-online-advertising-tools/ https://www.99signals.com/best-online-advertising-tools/#comments Mon, 19 Feb 2024 12:51:56 +0000 https://www.99signals.com/?p=15510 Running PPC campaigns can require a lot of work, from research to analysis. Here are 18 tools to cover all that and make online advertising easier.

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17 of the Best Online Advertising Tools for Marketers (Tried & Tested)

Online marketers, especially those handling multiple accounts, are all too familiar with the tedious process of setting up and running campaigns in online advertising.

This continuous cycle involves extensive research, intricate design work, and in-depth analysis. As long as there’s a budget in place, the demands of these tasks seem never-ending.

However, just as seasoned sailors rely on modern navigation tools to make their voyages manageable, marketers have a treasure trove of online advertising and ad intelligence tools at their disposal.

In this article, we feature 17 of the most dependable online advertising tools you can use for running PPC campaigns. We break it down to phases, starting off with:

Keyword and Competitor Research Tools

Crucial to the setup is getting a grasp of the market, and that includes your audience and competitors. The more you know about your customers, the easier it becomes to reach them. This makes keyword research crucial and worthy of some focus and time before starting any campaign. Likewise, the more you know about your competitors, the better you get at outperforming them.

1. Semrush

Semrush

Semrush is an exceptional partner in building PPC campaigns with its powerful keyword research tools. Starting at $129.95 a month, the platform makes it easy to examine your competitors’ strategy and compare it to yours.

The best way to use Semrush for PPC is by using the data the Advertising Research Tool provides to get ahead of your advertising competitors. Using keywords you plan on targeting, you can discover competitors and study how they’re incorporating those keywords into their ad copies.

If you need ideas on keywords to target, the Keyword Magic Tool can generate keyword ideas by monthly search volume, search difficulty, cost-per-click data, and even competitive density.

The Domain Overview feature on Semrush is also great to use if you’re starting off with a list of your competitors’ websites. This feature can provide you paid traffic data on any domain, which can allow you to understand where you have a chance of outdoing them in terms of paid advertising. 

Another noteworthy online advertising tool within the Semrush platform is BuzzGuru — an all-in-one influencer marketing platform that helps brands manage their entire influencer marketing campaign cycle in one place. It offers a variety of features, including competitor intelligence, influencer discovery, reporting and analysis, and campaign management.

BuzzGuru

With BuzzGuru’s competitor intelligence feature, you can evaluate your competitors’ ad campaign budgets, perform market and trends analysis, and discover the influencers that leading brands work with. You can also learn about the preferred dates and time of promotion, and discover videos promoting or mentioning a particular website, app, or game.

Price: Starts at $129.95/mo

Get 2-week free access to Semrush Pro ($65 value)

Note: BuzzGuru is a part of the Semrush App Center. It costs $169/mo. Each app, plugin, and extension within the App Center is hand-picked by the Semrush team. The products are designed to seamlessly integrate with other Semrush services.

Try BuzzGuru for free

Related: Semrush vs Moz: Which is the Best SEO tool?

2. SpyFu

Spyfu is a competitive intelligence tool for online marketers.

Another tool you may consider for competitor research is SpyFu. Starting at $39 per month, you can run queries on the platform and gain a preview of your competitors’ paid advertising strategy.

Similar to Semrush, SpyFu allows you to see a list of keywords your competitors are targeting, as well as the various ads they’re running.

A great feature in SpyFu is its PPC Ad Rank Tracker, which intelligently shows you ranking progress and impression share on your most effective keywords. Using this data, you can get actionable insights and focus only on the ads that are bringing in results, which can help you spend your ad budget more effectively. 

Price: Starts at $39/mo

Related: SpyFu vs Which Competitor Analysis Tool is Better?

3. Google Keyword Planner

Google Ads - Keyword Planner

Google has a free keyword research tool that allows you to understand what your market is searching for. The Google Keyword Planner is free to use, and you can access it just by creating a Google Ads account. 

There are two ways you can use the Google Keyword Planner, which are:

  1. Find keywords: Enter words, phrases, or a URL related to your business and get keyword ideas that can help you reach your potential market;
  2. Get search volume and forecasts: See historical metrics for keywords you wish to target, as well forecasts for how they might perform in the future.

Both options take you to the Keyword Plan where you can filter suggestion results by language and even down to a particular town. In our opinion, the Google Keyword Planner’s strength is being a handy keyword research tool if you’re looking to run area-specific campaigns. Check out the article we wrote on maximizing this powerful tool in creating effective campaigns on Google Ads. 

Price: Free

4. Ahrefs

Last on the research tools list is Ahrefs, a paid toolset that starts at $99 a month, is mostly used for SEO, but is also a great aid for understanding your market’s language. The platform stores tons of industry data and presents them in a neat and accessible user interface. 

In our post on using the Google Keyword Planner to create effective ads, we also point out how low budget campaigns can fare better with the use of long-tailed keywords. With keywords composed of four words or more, you can target subtopics in your niche and improve your ads’ chances of appearing in related searches. 

Ahrefs has a feature called the Keyword Explorer, where you can type in a parent topic and generate a list of long-tailed keyword ideas from over 5 search engines, including YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, Yandex, and Baidu.

Price: Starts at $99/mo

Related: SEO Tools Showdown: Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz Pro vs SpyFu

Ad Creation Tools

Once you’ve figured out how your market is looking for your products or services through keyword and competitor research, it’s time to grab their attention with stunning ads that speak to them. For a small team, hiring a graphic designer for this task may be too costly. Luckily, a number of web-based solutions are available nowadays, and the ones we’re about to feature have free-to-use versions. 

1. Canva

Canva

Canva is a web-based tool you can use to easily create striking display ads. While it’s free to use with limited templates and features, the pro version starting at $9.95 per month allows you to resize your creations to any format – perfect if you’re looking to A/B test different ad sizes.

The best thing about Canva is that it helps you produce professional material in less time, and with less costs. Its web ads templates include sizes for Facebook, as well as skyscraper, rectangle, and leaderboard sizes for Google Ads. The templates are already very customizable in the free version, and you can upload your own assets for branded campaigns.

Price: Free; $9.95/mo for the pro version

2. Smart Ads Creator

WordStream Smart Ads Creator - Online Advertising Tools

Smart Ads Creator is a free design tool from online advertising advisor, WordStream. It’s completely free and quickly creates display ads for you from grabbing copy, colors, and images from a landing page you provide.

If you need to do a little more tweaking to the tool’s initial output, it allows you to upload more images and customize text, colors, and element positions. However, where it really proves itself as a timesaver is in its capability to automatically build ads for you in seven different standard sizes on the Google Display Network.

If you ask any graphic designer, it’s the manual resizing of assets that can take up so much time. Smart Ads Creator takes care of that, so you can focus on creating ads that attract.

Price: Free

3. Crello

Crello

Last on the designing tools list is Crello, a graphic design software featuring pre-made image and video templates for advertising on social media. The premium version is priced at $81 per year and includes over 25,000 professional looking templates, plus the capability to add your own brand elements to your creations.

Crello was created by Depositphotos, so the platform also comes with more than 60 million stock images you can use for your designs. If you use a lot of videos for advertising, its intuitive video editor allows you to cut a huge chunk of time usually spent editing promotional videos. It comes with video templates in various sizes, so you don’t have to manually readjust like you would on a traditional video editing platform. 

Price: Free; $9.99/mo for the pro plan (when priced monthly)

Landing Page Builders

Majority of advertisers waste their time and money on PPC because they can create ads that catch attention, but not landing pages that convert. How you structure your landing pages largely influence your conversion rates, hence it’s crucial to put thought into building them, and customize them for each audience you are targeting. Here are landing page builders that can make all that work a breeze.

1. Instapage

Instapage

Instapage is a leading landing page builder that helps marketers create more relevant advertising with less effort. It allows anyone, without any background in design or coding, to create professional sales pages and A/B test them regularly. Instapage offers a free trial and starts at $99 a month. 

Overall, it’s the ease of use that Instapage provides that makes it worth adding to your PPC toolkit. Its elegant and intuitive visual editor is a top feature for most of its users, as well as its use case page templates. Pages you can create in Instapage are also fully customizable, and can be integrated without the need for coding to any software you might be already using.

Price: Starts at $99/mo (Sign up for a 14-day free trial)

Related: Instapage Review: Landing Page Software for Agencies and Bloggers

2. Unbounce

Unbounce - Online Advertising Tools

Similar to Instapage is Unbounce, a landing page platform of choice for marketers for its ease of use. It has received praise from various agencies for becoming an indispensable tool in their PPC toolkit, offering value for money with its paid version starting at only $79 a month.

Like Instapage, Unbounce also boasts an intuitive drag-and-drop editor and over 100 use case templates. It’s also easy to integrate it with email platforms such as Mailchimp and AWeber, and analytics tools like Google Analytics. Given that Unbounce is more affordable than Instapage, it’s a good choice to go for if you’re a marketer who doesn’t need to collaborate with a team when creating campaigns.

Price: Starts at $79/mo

3. HubSpot Landing Page Builder

HubSpot Landing Page Builder

HubSpot has developed a variety of tools for marketing and sales, including a landing page tool packed with additional features to help you convert more customers. Its cheapest tier starts at $50 a month and already includes the landing page tool along with other features.

HubSpot has been a known leader in creating marketing solutions, hence, offering products that are versatile and cost-efficient. The starting tier is packed with capabilities such as email marketing, a simple CRM tool, analytics, and social media tracking – making it a powerful and complete tool for bigger teams looking for an all-in-one platform.

Because HubSpot is packed with so many features, it can admittedly be hard to navigate for beginners. HubSpot has thought this through by providing a good deal of resources and prompt customer service, which is another plus to using this great platform.

Price: Starts at $50/mo

Related: 15 Free HubSpot Tools and Resources Every Marketer Should Be Using

4. Leadpages

Leadpages - Landing Page Builder

Last in the post-click support tools list is Leadpages, another favorite among marketers for building landing pages that capture and convert. It’s the cheapest option among all the landing page builders we featured, starting at only $25 per month for its Standard plan.

Like the others, Leadpages provides everything you need in a landing page builder, such as a visual editor, plugins, and over 100 use case templates. Although its templates look less professional compared to the ones in Instapage and Unbounce, it’s a no-fuss builder, which is a great option if you only need a landing page and already use other platforms for analytics and CRM.

Price: Starts at $25/mo

Related: 7 Best Landing Page Builders to Increase Conversions

Reporting Automation Tools

Last, but definitely also a phase you want to do right, is analyzing your campaign’s performance. Marketers usually manage ad campaigns on various platforms, hence reporting and campaign management can be time-consuming. The following tools can aggregate all the information needed for reports and analysis, which can cut a significant amount of time usually spent on this last part of the PPC advertising cycle. 

1. Optmyzr

Optmyzr

Whether you manage campaigns for multiple clients or handle your own, Optmyzr is a PPC management tool that makes staying on top of all your campaigns way easier. It offers 3 pricing plans that start at $499 per month, which allows you to access all its core features, automations, as well as connect up to 25 ad accounts.  

Optmyzr was awarded Best PPC Management Software Suite at the 2018 U.S. Search Awards, and it’s no surprise with the platform’s ability to provide an in-depth evaluation of your campaigns on a weekly and monthly basis.

One key feature is its ability to provide useful information to optimize an ad account. On top of that, it can track a campaign’s quality score over time, allowing you to understand which parts of your optimization contributed to improvements in campaign performance. 

Price: Starts at $499/mo

2. Reporting Ninja

Reporting Ninja PPC Tool

Another tool that can aid analyzing campaign performance is Reporting Ninja, an easy-to-use PPC reporting tool that allows you to create custom reports and dashboards for Google Ads, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, and more. It offers 4 paid plans, starting at $20 per month, which allows you to generate up to 10 reports, as well as add up to 4 account managers. 

Reporting Ninja allows full customization of your reports with its editable templates and extensive widget library. Simply drag and drop blocks of information you need on the report editor to create reports for a client, or for you to analyze with ease.

Besides the widget library, you can also create your own metrics, charts, and apply custom filters that allows you to gain insight from figures that may not be available on your selected ad platform’s reporting dashboard.

Price: Starts at $20/mo

3. Marin

Marin Ad Software

Another tool great for marketers who manage multiple ad campaigns is Marin, a PPC management solution made for managing bids in campaigns with thousands of keywords. While it offers a free trial, the paid subscription starts at $499 per month and features predictive bidding, customizable reports, and cross-channel analytics. 

Marketers work with Marin for its three main features: the search feature, social feature, and display feature. This versatility allows you to aggregate all kinds of campaigns into one dashboard, making it easy to see which channels are performing better and track your spending each.

Its most compelling capability is its automated bidding, which is useful for campaigns where each penny adds up to thousands. This allows you to take care of other things, assured that your ads attract conversions at the best possible CPA.

Price: Starts at $499/mo

4. Supermetrics

Supermetrics Review

Supermetrics is an elegant one-stop solution for aggregating all your data into one place. With its Data Grabber starting at $19 a month, you can cut down a huge chunk of your time creating reports from data collected by different platforms, and see all you need in one Excel sheet.

The best part about Supermetrics is its flexibility – it offers separate products you can integrate with various data sources such as Google Sheets, BigQuery, and Google Data Studio. Additionally, in saying “all your marketing metrics in one place”, they really mean all, as in your PPC, SEO, and social data.

Price: Starts at $19/mo

Related: Supermetrics Review: Reporting Automation Tool for SEO, PPC, and Analytics

5. Adstage

Adstage

Like Supermetrics, Adstage is a data collection aid that can save marketers countless hours pulling and preparing data in spreadsheets. It also offers a variety of products that allow you to only pay for what you need, as well as product bundles if you need a suite of features to help you with managing your campaigns.

Adstage works incredibly for marketers who need to stay on top of a lot of campaigns. It makes reporting easy, and even allows automation for data sourcing. Although it’s fairly new in the market, it keeps up by offering integrations with modern data collecting platforms, such as Google Sheets and Data Studio.

Price: Starts at $119/mo

6. Google Analytics

Google Analytics

If you need an analytics tool that’s free, easy to use, but packs powerful features, Google Analytics is always available. Although it’s not possible to manage a campaign from the platform itself, it does provide a lot of tracking features that can help you run a detailed assessment of your PPC campaign’s performance, such as referral source and keyword tracking.

Price: Free

Over To You

Because online advertising can require creativity from planning to execution, simplifying your work process with tools can be greatly beneficial, as it can free up a lot of the time you spend ‘doing’ when you should be improving. Try taking a look at which tasks in online advertising are taking up most of your time and see if any of the tools we’ve featured work for you and your team.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 21 February 2020 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance, freshness, and comprehensiveness. 

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100 Social Media Marketing Statistics You Should Know https://www.99signals.com/social-media-marketing-statistics/ https://www.99signals.com/social-media-marketing-statistics/#comments Sun, 06 Jun 2021 17:58:14 +0000 https://www.99signals.com/?p=19724 With over 53% of the world's population on social media, it’s critical that your business has an effective social media strategy that helps you reach your intended audience. Here's a list of essential social media statistics so you know where to focus your marketing efforts and get the highest ROI.

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100 Social Media Marketing Statistics You Should Know

Over the recent years, the growth of social media has made it clear that these modern communication platforms should be part of any company’s primary marketing channels.

For many people, social media is used daily for entertainment, socialization, and even news consumption. It’s everywhere – and that’s a good thing for businesses seeking to grow.

With over 53% of the world’s population on social media, it’s critical that your business has an effective social media strategy that helps you reach your intended audience.

To help you get on track and plan your approach for the rest of the year, we’ve compiled a list of essential social media statistics so you know where to focus your marketing efforts and get the highest ROI.

Top 100 Social Media Marketing Statistics

General Social Media Statistics

1. Social media platforms gained 490 million users in 2020. (Hootsuite)

2. The countries that added the most social media users in 2020 were: China (+110 million), India (+78 million), the Philippines (+16 million), and Mexico (+11 million). (Hootsuite)

3. 98.8% of users access social media via a mobile device. (Hootsuite)

4. Young adults continue to be the generation with the highest use of social media and also the broadest access to smartphones. (Oberlo)

Social media users by generation - social media marketing statistics

Image Source: Oberlo

5. 44.8% of global internet users used social media to search for brand information in 2020. (Hootsuite)

6. Facebook remains the most widely used social media platform. (Pew Research Center)

Social Media Customer Behavior Statistics

7. The latest social media statistics in 2021 show that an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes are spent per day per person on social media. (Data Reportal)

8. 54% of social browsers use social media to research products. (GlobalWebIndex)

54% of social browsers use social media to research products.

9. 54% of Gen Z and 49% of Millenials say social media is their preferred channel for ad influence. (Pitney Bowes)

10. Answering a complaint on social media can increase customer advocacy by 25%. (Convince & Convert)

Answering a complaint on social media can increase customer advocacy by 25%.

11. 79% of consumers expect brands to respond within a day of reaching out over social media, but average brand response rates across all industries are lower than 25%. (Sprout Social)

Social response rates by industry - social media marketing statistics

Image Source: Sprout Social

12. 79% of people say that user-generated content on social media significantly impacts their purchasing decisions. (Stackla)

Facebook Statistics

13. Facebook had 1.84 billion daily active users in December 2020. (PR Newswire)

14. Facebook usage among teens is dropping gradually. While 71% of teens claimed to use the platform in 2015, the number has now dropped to 67%. (GlobalWebIndex)

15. Only 8.9% of Facebook’s audience is in the US. (Hootsuite)

16. 98.3% of Facebook users access the platform on mobile devices. (Statista)

17. 48.5% of B2B decision-makers use Facebook for research. (Hootsuite)

18. Videos drive the most ad clicks on Facebook. (DataBox)

Videos drive the most ad clicks on Facebook.

19. The average engagement rate for Facebook posts is 0.18%. (Hootsuite)

The average engagement rate for Facebook posts is 0.18%.

20. Facebook Live viewership increased by 50% this spring. (Facebook)

21. 36% of people get news from Facebook. (Digital News Report)

22. Facebook Stories have 500 million daily viewers. (TechCrunch)

23. 18.3% of U.S. adults made a purchase through Facebook in the last year. (Hootsuite)

24. The best time to post on Facebook is Wednesday at 11 AM and 1-2 PM. Sundays show the least amount of traffic. (Sprout Social)

Related: 27 Best Facebook Marketing Tools to Level Up Your Campaigns

Instagram Statistics

25. It is estimated that Instagram added 26.9 million users between 2016 and 2020 — almost double the incremental users expected for Twitter, and far more than any other social platform tracked. (eMarketer)

26. 67% of Gen Z and 57% of Millennials use the platform, in comparison to only 38% of Gen X. (GlobalWebIndex)

27. 36.2% of B2B decision-makers use Instagram to discover and research new products. (Hootsuite)

36.2% of B2B decision-makers use Instagram to discover and research new products.

28. 98% of marketers say Instagram is the most influential influencer marketing platform, which is 44% higher than Facebook. (Sprout Social)

Instagram Stats - Influencer Marketing

29. In late 2019, Instagram Stories had 500 million monthly active users. (Statista)

30. 90% of people on Instagram follow a business. (Instagram)

31. Average engagement rate for an Instagram post is 0.85% (but that goes up to 1.05% for carousel posts). (Hootsuite)

32. 83% of people use Instagram to discover new products and services and 87% said they took specific action, like making a purchase, after seeing product information. (Facebook for Business)

Instagram Stats 2021

Image Source: Facebook for Business

33. Mobile-shot Stories ads outperform studio-shot ads a whopping 63% of the time. (Instagram)

34. Stories Ads that draw attention to the CTA button drive more results 89% of the time. (Instagram)

35. The best times to post on Instagram are Wednesday at 11 AM and Friday between 10-11 AM. Sunday is the worst day for engagement. (Sprout Social)

The best times to post on Instagram are Wednesday at 11 AM and Friday between 10-11 AM. Sunday is the worst day for engagement.

Twitter Statistics

36. Twitter had more than 330 million monthly active users in Q1 of 2019. (Twitter)

37. Twitter user statistics show its users are influential and affluent. (Neil Schaffer)

38. Socially responsible ads on twitter perform 12% better than standard ads. (Magna)

Twitter Statistics 2021

Image Source: Magna

39. 93% of Twitter community members are open to brands getting involved in conversation, such as providing help and support. (Twitter)

40. 47% of American Twitter users prefer culturally relevant brands. (Business of Apps)

41. 85% of American small businesses find Twitter indispensable for customer service. Link clicks account for 92% of all user interaction with tweets. (HubSpot)

42. Average Twitter Ads ROI is 40% higher than other channels. (Twitter)

43. The best times to post on Twitter are Wednesday and Friday at 9 AM, and Saturday has the least engagement. (Sprout Social)

LinkedIn Statistics

44. LinkedIn has more than 722 million active users in 200 countries and regions worldwide. (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn Stats 2021

Image Source: LinkedIn

45. Among the 700+ million LinkedIn members, Europe has over 198 million users. (LinkedIn)

46. As of 2019, the platform had 90 million senior-level influencers. (LinkedIn)

47. LinkedIn is the top paid and organic social channel for B2B businesses. (Content Marketing Institute)

48. 55% of decision-makers use LinkedIn content to choose companies and organizations to work with. (LinkedIn)

49. 82% of B2B markers report finding the greatest success on LinkedIn. (LinkedIn Marketing Solutions)

50. LinkedIn SlideShare has over 80 million active users. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

51. For 94% of B2B marketers, LinkedIn is the first channel they use when they want to distribute content to various social media sites. (LinkedIn Marketing Solutions)

52. Using LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator leads to a +7% higher win rate when closing deals. (LinkedIn)

53. LinkedIn gets the most social media traffic from Facebook at 35.45%. Other social sites direct traffic to LinkedIn at 21.83% (YouTube), 15.90% (SlideShare), and 12.36% (Twitter). (SimilarWeb)

54. The best times to post on LinkedIn are 8-10 AM and 12 PM on Wednesdays, and 9 AM and 1-2 PM on Thursdays. Sunday is the worst day for engagement. (Sprout Social)

YouTube Statistics

55. YouTube is the second-largest search engine globally. (Alexa)

YouTube is the second-largest search engine globally.

56. 85% of U.S. teens were active on YouTube in 2019. (Statista)

YouTube Stats 2021

Source: Statista

57. YouTube accounts for more than 25% of total worldwide mobile traffic. (Sandvine)

58. 18-to-34-year-olds use YouTube to view video content on TV, 7.9% more often than basic cable, and 14.5% more often than premium cable. (Variety)

59. Video consumption is one of the most popular ways to consume content, with 85% of U.S. internet users accessing online video through YouTube at least once per week. (Semrush)

60. 37% of viewers ages 30 to 49 use YouTube as a news source. (Semrush)

61. Fashion and beauty-related content such as makeup and skincare tutorials, clothing hauls, and product recommendations are the most popular content on YouTube. (Semrush)

62. In 2019, 29% of marketers found that pre-roll skippable YouTube video ads were considered the most effective advertising form on Youtube. (Semrush)

63. Display ads are the most effective YouTube ad marketing strategy for 10% of marketers. (Semrush)

Related: 15 Best Marketing YouTube Channels (That Are Worth Subscribing To)

TikTok Statistics

64. In 2019, U.S. TikTok users spent more time on the app than any other social media site, with an average session duration of 10.85 minutes. (Statista)

65. By February 2019, TikTok hit 1 billion downloads, beating Instagram and Facebook in app stores. (Business Insider)

66. As of January 2021, TikTok has 689 million global active users. (Data Reportal)

67. 41% of global TikTok users are between the ages of 16 and 24. (GlobalWebIndex)

68. 90 percent of all TikTok users access the app on a daily basis. (Oberlo)

69. TikTok’s average engagement rate is high at all follower levels. (Influencer Marketing Hub)

TikTok Stats 2021

Image Source: Influencer Marketing Hub

70. TikTok is now offering ad credits for new brands advertising on the platform. There is a $300 ad credit and a $2000 ad credit. (TikTok)

Snapchat Statistics

71. 498 million people use Snapchat; 265 million use it every day. (Snapchat)

72. Snapchat reaches 75% of Millennials and Gen Z. (Snapchat)

73. 64% of companies are on Snapchat. (Adweek)

74. Snapchat users are 60% more likely to make impulse purchases. (Snapchat)

75. 46% of Snapchat users message brands after making a purchase. (Snapchat)

Snapchat Stats 2021

Source: Snapchat

76. 200 million users check Snap Maps daily. (TechCrunch)

77. 20% of Snapchat users check out Discover daily. (Snapchat)

78. Snapchat’s average revenue per user is $3.44. (Snapchat)

79. Snapchat ads can potentially reach 498.2 million people. (We Are Social)

Snapchat Stats - Snap Ads

Related: 10 Best Snapchat Accounts to Follow for Marketing Inspiration

Reddit Statistics

80. In 2020, Reddit had 52 million daily active users, up by 44% compared to recent years. (Reddit)

81. Reddit receives more than 50 billion+ monthly screen views. (Reddit)

82. Gen Z makes up 26% of Reddit Users. (Reddit)

Reddit Stats 2021

Source: Reddit

83. 44% of Reddit’s monthly active users access the site via mobile app or mobile browser. (Search Engine Journal)

84. Reddit is predominantly male. 15% of male internet users between 18 to 29 say they use Reddit. (Pew Research Center)

85. Of all technology enthusiasts online, 40% are active on Reddit, whereas 38% of all Redditors are passionate about technology (Reddit)

86. The visitors to Health and Fitness communities spend 15 times more time on subreddits. (Reddit)

87. 82% of Gen-Z people say they trust Reddit when it comes to learning more about products. (Reddit)

88. The most popular titles have more than 20 and less than 120 characters. (Foundation)

89. External links are the most appreciated type of content. (Foundation)

90. Mondays and weekends are the best times to post on Reddit. (X-cart)

Related: 25 Best Marketing Subreddits (That You Should Join Today)

Pinterest Statistics

91. Pinterest now has 459 million monthly active users. (Pinterest)

92. The number of Gen Z users grew by 40% between 2019 and 2020. (Pinterest)

93. Women aged 25-34 represent 30.4% of Pinterest’s ad audience. (Hootsuite)

Pinterest Stats 2021

Source: Pinterest

94. 82% of people use Pinterest on mobile. (Pinterest)

95. 95% of the top searches on Pinterest are unbranded. (Pinterest)

96. Pinners are 70% more likely to engage with product tags in scenes. (Pinterest)

97. Pins with “new” in overlay text lead to 9x higher aided awareness. (Pinterest)

98. Collection ads drive a 6-18% increase in total basket size. (Hootsuite)

99. 55% of people use Pinterest to shop and buy. (Social Pilot)

100. 87% of people on Pinterest have bought a product because of Pinterest, while 93% use Pinterest to plan a future purchase. (Social Pilot)

Conclusion

These social media marketing statistics can show you the state of the digital space today, where it might be going, and how you can ensure your business is continuously meeting customers where they want to be met.

Use these statistics to your advantage to understand what you need to do to effectively use social media for your business today.

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35 Email Marketing Stats to Shape Your Strategy https://www.99signals.com/email-marketing-stats/ https://www.99signals.com/email-marketing-stats/#respond Tue, 15 Sep 2020 16:41:27 +0000 https://www.99signals.com/?p=17687 No email campaign is perfect, but you can achieve progress when you strategize with data. Here are 35 email marketing stats you should know.

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35 Email Marketing Stats to Shape Your StrategyEven with the evolving landscape of digital marketing, email remains to be one of the most profitable and highly effective communication channels for businesses.

With The Data and Marketing Association (DMA) reporting that emails deliver an average ROI of $32, email simply has to be part of your campaigns, whether it’s for lead generation, customer success, or retention.

In this post, we round up 35 valuable email marketing statistics from around the web.

No email campaign is perfect, but constant progress can be achieved when you strategize with data.

35 Email Marketing Statistics

  1. There were an estimated 3.9 billion email users in the world in 2019 and this number is forecast to grow to 4.3 billion by 2023.
  2. Over 290 billion emails are sent and received each day, globally, per 2019 estimates.
  3. 16% of all emails get lost in transit and never make it to an inbox.
  4. The most opened emails are hobby-related, reported to have an open rate of 27.35%.
  5. The overall average open rate for email marketing is at 22.86%.
  6. The overall average CTR for email marketing is at 3.71%
  7. The average unsubscribe rate, according to the Mailchimp study, was 0.26%.
  8. 59% of marketers claim that email brings in the biggest ROI among all other channels.
  9. Conversion rates for emails are higher than social media, direct traffic, and search.
  10. In the last 12 months, marketers have seen a 78% increase in email engagement.
  11. 81% of businesses say that email is the main channel that drives customer acquisition for retention.
  12. 46% of email opens happen on a mobile device.
  13. 35% of business professionals read and respond to emails on a mobile device.
  14. 42.3% of consumers say they immediately delete an email if it isn’t optimized for mobile.
  15. 29% of all email mobile opens occur on Apple Mail, making it the most popular mobile client for reading emails. Gmail is a close runner-up with 27%.
  16. 93% of B2B marketers include email as a distribution channel for content.
  17. 83% of B2B companies distribute email newsletters as part of their content marketing campaigns.
  18. 40% of B2B marketers say newsletters are the most critical elements that will make or break their content marketing success.
  19. 64% of B2B marketers use a dedicated email marketing platform.
  20. 73% of millennials prefer to hear from businesses through email.
  21. 99% of consumers check their email every day.
  22. 80% of business professionals believe that email marketing can help improve customer retention.
  23. 60% of consumers prefer signing up for a brand’s email list for promotional offers compared to 20% who follow brands on social for deals.
  24. 59% of consumers claim that marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, while over 50% say that they end up buying from a marketing email.
  25. 56% of brands found that using an emoji in the email subject line results in a higher open rate.
  26. Personalized subject lines provide a 26% boost in open rates.
  27. 47% of recipients open emails based on subject lines alone.
  28. Marketers have found a 760% increase in revenue from segmenting email campaigns.
  29. 35% of marketers send out 3-5 emails per week.
  30. The top three email marketing platforms in terms of deliverability are: SendinBlue (95.4%), Mailjet (94.6%), and ActiveCampaign (90.2%).
  31. A/B testing the different parts of your emails can improve conversion rates by 49%.
  32. The average marketing email contains 434.48 words and takes 3.3 minutes to read.
  33. Emails sent on Tuesdays get the highest open rates of 18.3%.
  34. Thursdays and Fridays get the highest click-to-open rates of 14.4%.
  35. The three focus areas for marketers are advanced segmentation (for 47% of marketers), content personalization (37%), and behavioral targeting (39%).

General Email Marketing Stats

How does email perform as a marketing channel? 

  1. There were an estimated 3.9 billion email users in the world in 2019 and this number is forecast to grow to 4.3 billion by 2023. (Statista)
  2. Over 290 billion emails are sent and received each day, globally, per 2019 estimates. (Statista)
  3. 16% of all emails get lost in transit and never make it to an inbox. (Email Tool Tester)
  4. The most opened emails are hobby-related, reported to have an open rate of 27.35%. (Mailchimp)
  5. The overall average open rate for email marketing is at 22.86%. (SaleCycle)
  6. The overall average CTR for email marketing is at 3.71% (SaleCycle)
  7. The average unsubscribe rate, according to the MailChimp study, was 0.26%. (Mailchimp)
  8. 59% of marketers claim that email brings in the biggest ROI among all other channels. (Emma)
  9. Conversion rates for emails are higher than social media, direct traffic, and search. (Smart Insights)
  10. In the last 12 months, marketers have seen a 78% increase in email engagement. (Not Another State of Marketing)
  11. 81% of businesses say that email is the main channel that drives customer acquisition for retention. (Emarsys)

Related: Mailchimp vs ConvertKit: Which Email Marketing Tool is Better?

Mobile Email Marketing Stats

Smartphones have made us more connected than ever. Here are a few statistics on how mobile has changed the way we engage with emails.

  1. 46% of email opens happen on a mobile device. (Litmus)
  2. 35% of business professionals read and respond to emails on a mobile device. (Convince & Convert)
  3. 42.3% of consumers say they immediately delete an email if it isn’t optimized for mobile. (Backlinko)
  4. 29% of all email mobile opens occur on Apple Mail, making it the most popular mobile client for reading emails. Gmail is a close runner-up with 27%. (Campaign Monitor)

B2B Email Marketing Stats

As the preferred mode of communication in professional settings, email plays a vital role in many B2B marketing campaigns.

  1. 93% of B2B marketers include email as a distribution channel for content. (Content Marketing Institute)
  2. 83% of B2B companies distribute email newsletters as part of their content marketing campaigns. (Imaginepub.com)
  3. 40% of B2B marketers say newsletters are the most critical elements that will make or break their content marketing success. (Content Marketing Institute
  4. 64% of B2B marketers use a dedicated email marketing platform. (Content Marketing Institute)

B2C Email Marketing Stats

With consumers also preferring to be notified about businesses they follow through email, you may want to direct more of your efforts to this channel.

  1. 73% of millennials prefer to hear from businesses through email. (Adestra)
  2. 99% of consumers check their email every day. (DMA Insights
  3. 80% of business professionals believe that email marketing can help improve customer retention. (Emarsys
  4. 60% of consumers prefer signing up for a brand’s email list for promotional offers compared to 20% who follow brands on social for deals. (OptinMonster)
  5. 59% of consumers claim that marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, while over 50% say that they end up buying from a marketing email. (SaleCycle)

Related: 5 Unique Ways to Get More Email Subscribers for Your Blog

Email Marketing Best Practices

Spoiler alert: In 2023, personalization plays a great part in effectively communicating as a business. 

  1. 56% of brands found that using an emoji in the email subject line results in a higher open rate. (Forbes)
  2. Personalized subject lines provide a 26% boost in open rates. (Campaign Monitor)
  3. 47% of recipients open emails based on subject lines alone. (OptinMonster)
  4. Marketers have found a 760% increase in revenue from segmenting email campaigns. (Campaign Monitor
  5. 35% of marketers send out 3-5 emails per week. (Not Another State of Marketing
  6. The top three email marketing platforms in terms of deliverability are: Brevo (95.4%), Mailjet (94.6%), and ActiveCampaign (90.2%). (Email Tool Tester)
  7. A/B testing the different parts of your emails can improve conversion rates by 49%. (Campaign Monitor)
  8. The average marketing email contains 434.48 words and takes 3.3 minutes to read. (AWeber)
  9. Emails sent on Tuesdays get the highest open rates of 18.3%. (Campaign Monitor)
  10. Thursdays and Fridays get the highest click-to-open rates of 14.4%. (Campaign Monitor)
    35. The three focus areas for marketers are advanced segmentation (for 47% of marketers), content personalization (37%), and behavioral targeting (39%). (Email Marketing Census 2019)

In Summary

All in all, we can see that email should definitely be given a spot in any marketing campaign. There’s no better way to directly reach your customers and take control of your content. 

Another takeaway is the importance of optimizing emails for small screens as a vast majority of consumers switch to checking them on mobile devices. Optimizing for mobile includes keeping your messages direct and snappy, making CTAs conspicuous, and designing for readability.

Last, but definitely the step you want to do best – remembering that your customers are people with emotions. Email your customers like you would a friend, don’t be scared to drop emojis here and there, and segment your campaigns. Personalization goes a long way in 2023. When you’re stuck or unsure, A/B test and see what works well.

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How to Create Effective Ads with Google’s Keyword Planner https://www.99signals.com/google-keyword-planner-effective-ads/ https://www.99signals.com/google-keyword-planner-effective-ads/#comments Wed, 15 Jan 2020 16:17:39 +0000 https://www.99signals.com/?p=15086 The Keyword Planner in Google Ads is a free keyword research tool that can make writing good Google ads a breeze. In this article, we look into how effective Google Ads are written and share tips on how to build successful campaigns using Google’s built-in power tool.

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How to Create Effective Ads with Google's Keyword PlannerWith over 5.5 billion searches made on Google per day, there’s no question that the platform is the place we turn to for answers on just about everything. It’s only reasonable for a business seeking to grow to build presence on Google’s advertising platform, Google Ads (previously called Google AdWords), now that it’s become the fastest way to discover new things.

Google Ads is a powerful platform that can get your business seen worldwide on your own terms and budget. Consequently, the dashboard provides various information that, when analyzed right, can help a user make intelligent marketing decisions.

Google Ads Dashboard
A quick look at the Google Ads dashboard

The platform also comes with tools that can help a user maximize reach and budget. One of these is the Google Ads Keyword Planner which you can find under the Planning section of Tools & Settings.

Like any other keyword research tool, Google’s Keyword Planner can provide you with keyword ideas and search volume data to help design campaigns. What differentiates it is that it’s free as long as you have a Google Ads account set up, and because it’s a built-in feature, it only takes a few clicks to incorporate your keyword research results into your existing ad campaigns.

With the amount of information available in Google Ads, you may ask questions like, which of these metrics mean I’m running a successful campaign? What can I do to improve? All you need is in one Google Ads account.

In this article, we will break down the anatomy of an effective Google Ad and introduce ways to use information the Keyword Planner tool provides.

First off, let’s take a look at what comprises a good ad.

Writing Good Google Ads

How do we define successful ad campaigns and what elements do effective ads have in common? This section won’t discuss what impressions, CTRs, and conversion rates mean, but the ad attributes you need to keep in check to see those metrics perform well.

1. Concisely introduces a solution to a problem

Keyword: concisely. With the number of elements fighting for your audience’s attention on the internet and limited ad space on screens, it’s important for your ad copies to be crisp. Avoid redundancies, omit unnecessary phrases, and try to reduce wordiness without missing points that can grab your audience’s attention.

Additionally, Google has character limits for headlines and descriptions on text ads. A standard Google Ads text ad is made up of a headline and a two-line description. Well-crafted ads are able to highlight a product or service’s sellable points in only a few but highly relevant number of words.

2. Maximizes ad budget

Optimizing the following aspects can greatly help in maximizing your ad budget on Google:

• Clear customer targeting
• Keyword relevance
• Landing page quality

It is these three factors that make up an ad’s Quality Score – the higher it is, the lesser Google charges you per click.

You don’t want to blow thousands of dollars advertising luxury accommodations to budget travelers. They’re not part of your market, and even if you bid on general keywords in your industry, your audience will most likely leave your landing page as soon as they realize your offer is not what they’re looking for.

To make more bang for your buck, before setting up a campaign, first identify what your market needs, how they’re looking for it, and prioritize relevance from writing ad copies to building your landing page.

3. Generates quality clicks

Ultimately, what we want from our ad campaigns is to gain a good amount of impressions among our market, get people to click on our ad and find out more about what we’re offering, and get them to purchase, subscribe, donate, or sign-up. In short, an ad campaign is only effective when it leads users to the last step of the process — conversion.

That’s why it pays to speak your target audience’s language and identify searches you don’t want your ads to appear in.

One way to do this is to take time to list down keywords that can mean an entirely different thing from your offering and add them as negative keywords. For example, if you’re selling mouse traps, it can benefit you to add ‘electronic’ or ‘wireless’ as your negative keywords so your ads don’t show up in searches made by people looking for the computer accessory.

How to Use Google’s Keyword Planner Tool

It doesn’t take rocket science to hit all the three elements we just discussed, but it does require some careful research that you can perform on Google Ads’ free keyword research tool. Aside from getting search volume data and bid estimates, here are four tips on taking advantage of this service to come up with effective ad campaigns.

1. Know your audience’s search terms

In the Keyword Planner, you can either get keyword ideas or get search volume data for a set of keywords you have already identified.

Keyword Planner
Main tasks you can do on the Keyword Planner

Use these two features together to get a clear picture of your audience’s search language — the exact terms they use, the relevant words they omit, if there are terms they abbreviate, and if this language changes with the seasons.

Understanding how specific your audience gets when searching helps you craft concise ads. Ramp up your Quality Score by also incorporating their exact search terms not only on your ads, but also on your landing pages. People go for choices that sound like exact answers to their questions.

2. Narrow your market down

Using your knowledge on your audience’s search language, apply the 80/20 to your target locations to make more out of your budget.

Instead of starting a campaign targeted to various countries, use the Keyword Planner to estimate demand in cities, and start with the ones where demand for your offering is the highest. This gets you results faster and cheaper.

Google Ads Targeting 1

Google Ads Targeting 2

In our example above, microfiber mops seem to be more in demand in London than in Manchester. This could be the case for other cities in the UK as well. Getting a grasp of demand in other cities through the search volume data can help you focus your campaign to locations that can get you better results.

3. Get wise with your budget

Looking at competition levels and bid estimates for keywords can give you a grasp of how saturated your online market is with similar offerings. If you’re working with a small advertising budget in a highly saturated market, it can be discouraging to see bid estimates that are three times more than what you’re willing to pay for.

However, there’s a way around working with a small budget with the information available to you in the Keyword Planner. If you’re starting out with a limited amount, you’re better off bidding for low competition keywords that are still relevant to your offering. It can be difficult for your ads to rank higher than ads from advertisers with thousands to spare. The key is to compete with relevance.

Long-tail keywords or keywords that get more specific are rarely bid on very highly. Think up a few of these keywords, get search volume data on them, and you just might stumble on a few with a fairly high search volume per month. By finding opportunities to be relevant, you don’t waste budget on competition and you get a higher chance of your ads appearing on top of the results page.

4. Localize

With the capability to get data from specific locations, the Keyword Planner also provides opportunities to customize your ads for regional markets.

For example, a dress retailer may achieve an impressive conversion rate with an English text ad published in New York, but the same ad might not perform as well in a city where English is not the first language. Remember that you only have about 3 seconds to grab a potential customer’s attention, and you don’t want to spend that short time shooing them away with an ad they can’t understand.

Localize Google Ads

Localize Google Ads 2
Localize: A simple location switch can show the drastic difference in monthly search volume for the same keywords

With the Keyword Planner, we can get a grasp of differences in language and market needs just by switching up the location and trying out a combination of translations of existing ads. Again, this extra effort can add relevance points to an ad and improves its performance all in all.

Over to You

In summary, the key to successful Google ad campaigns is planning backed with reliable data. Using the Keyword Planner tool is free, easy, and can power up your campaigns when the data it provides is used right.

A successful Google Ads text ad is concise, relevant, and informative for its audience. Keep those ad attributes in mind when writing ads and you’re well on your way to seeing those conversions come in.

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