The Blackwell Playbook

You may be capturing leads left and right, but are those leads qualified? Consider adding a simple question to your lead capture form to instantly get key data on your lead. With the help of automation programs, you can instantly sort your leads in your CRM based on this qualification. Just be advised that you […]

To build your audience, look at your competitors’ followers on social media. Not only will you potentially find qualified leads, but also, you can gain some insights into the market and their interest. Knowing what type of content these followers already like will help you better target your ads and connect with your prospective customers.

Retarget your frequent customers with a custom audience in your email marketing program or ad manager. When you have a new offering, run a campaign that targets this audience. Those who feel invested in or excited about your company are much more likely to engage when new products or offers become available.

If you’re trying to rank for a certain keyword or phrase, ensure that you include it in the first paragraph of your content. A good rule of thumb is to keep it within the first 100 words. Aim to have it reflect the title of the content as well, and work any keyword phrases or […]

Focus your Google AdWords on the goal you want to achieve. For example, to drive more traffic to your site, use cost-per-click (CPC) bidding. To get more impressions of your ads, use cost-per-view (CPV) bidding. Remember to keep your conversion rate in mind so that you bid an appropriate amount.

YouTube videos are great sources of qualified leads because the audience is already interested and engaged. Link to your call-to-action (CTA), whether it’s an email signup, free download, or other offer, in the description of your YouTube video. You could even add a graphic referencing the link in the video itself. TIP: Use Bitly to […]

Your job applicants are great sources of leads. They’re interested in your company, so be sure to add them to your mailing list. Post jobs on multiple platforms, such as LinkedIn and Indeed. You can even create a custom audience for qualified applicants who may be interested in future jobs at your company. Never create […]

If your partners offer similar products, don’t be afraid of losing business to them: Promote their offerings as complementary to your own. You can provide value to your audience by showing that you’re interested in helping them solve their problems. Just be sure to have your partners do the same! A rising tide floats all […]

Choose your apps screenshots carefully. When deciding whether or not to download your app, your audience is looking at these visuals for examples of how the app works, as well as its quality. Consider using A/B testing to see which screenshot variation performs better. And be sure to update the screenshots regularly!

Offer a daily deal or flash sale on your product. You can use a service such as AppSumo or ThatDailyDeal.com to easily get new customers who might not otherwise discover your product. Offering discounts on a short-term basis is a great tactic because it builds excitement about your company and quickly converts leads into customers […]

Host a giveaway for a product or service that complements yours. Be sure to collect email addresses from people in order to have people enter the contest! Selecting complementary products is a great way to further target your audience as you see what your leads and followers are interested in.

A great tactic to boost engagement is to let your audience go behind the scenes. One interesting email campaign idea is to share the tools that you use in your business. People love reading about tech and productivity, so these emails enjoy a high open rate and help your customers find value in your emails.

Twitter is a great source of events and holidays that you might not have thought of, whether it’s a commemorative day or a fun social media holiday such as #PizzaDay. Event targeting tunes into these events with content that can be included under the associated event tag.

It’s easy to have title tag issues that can really impair your search rankings. Use Google Search Console or a plugin such as Yoast to check your title tags and ensure that they are keyword-rich and properly formatted for each page.

When looking at your social media analytics, be sure to take a deep dive into which type of posts have the highest engagement — meaning clicks, shares, and comments (and views, for videos). Then, use those results to inform future content strategies.

Use the tool Start A Fire to help your audience discover complementary content. Start a Fire recommends related links to your social shares and is a great way to highlight other stories in your content marketing pipeline.

Most search engine traffic comes from the top three results on any given search engine research page (SERP). That’s true even if you’re not ranked in the first SERP. Aim to be within the top 3 results on whichever SERP you rank.

Google allows you to target audiences who show an affinity for certain product categories so that you can show your ads to them while they’re browsing — even if they’re not directly searching for your target keywords.

Never be afraid to retweet others’ content, especially if they offer complementary services and products. You can even see good results from retweeting news articles and blogs that connect to your company’s themes and brand initiatives. You can add a plug for your own offerings that ties into something the linked content discusses.

While ebooks and online courses are time-honored rewards for filling out a lead capture form, you can also offer access to an exclusive interview with an industry celebrity that your audience will find value in. Remember, your audience wants to feel included — tap into that fear of missing out (FOMO) and offer them special […]

Use high-quality, royalty-free images to help your pages rank higher in search engines. Google favors content that’s mixed with images. Just be sure that you add alternative text, aka alt text, to each one!

Previous customers are a great audience because they’re already familiar with your company’s offerings. Reach out to them with special offers, such as a welcome-back discount or an exclusive sale. Often, you’ll find that they’ll not only purchase more, they’ll spend more than they did the first time. If your product is something that they’re […]

If someone mentions your company online but doesn’t link to your site, that’s a lost opportunity. Use a tool like Buzzsomo to track conversations about your company name, then encourage those linkless posts to link to your business. You can even offer an incentive to do so, such as a 10% off coupon.

Google now offers callout extensions, which are brief text snippets that draw out specific benefits or features of your advertised service. You can include up to 4 callouts of up to 25 characters. Using callouts can help improve your clickthrough rate (CTR) by adding context to your ads.

A/B testing isn’t just for emails! Use it on your product page to evaluate whether or not your promo code is actually getting you results. If you’re not seeing an increase in conversions, the promo code might just be losing your money. A/B testing in which you evaluate the presence of the promo code can […]

Users will often leave your site if it can’t load within 3 seconds. Use caching to pre-load CSS and other assets that drag down your site load time. There are many great plugins to help you achieve this. Remember, a quick-loading site is a site that converts!

If you send out content through Slideshare, spice up your presentations with inspirational quotes — ideally from people in your field. You can then reach out to that person and ask that they share the presentation. Including this type of engaging content makes your presentation fresher and more relatable.

Always include an email signup form during your checkout process. It can be as simple as a checkbox that says, “Receive emails from us.” Your customers are already interested in your brand if they’re making a purchase, so they’re primed to join your mailing list. Many even expect to do so, in hopes of getting […]

Some IPs are known to host spammy sites, and sites served from these IPs have a lower reputation, and therefore lower search engine rankings. Ensure that you are hosting with a legitimate provider who can serve your site from a well-reputed IP.

Put enticing content, such as an ebook, online course, or other helpful resource behind a “gate,” which can be a mailing list sign up form, social share button, or lead capture form. People will rarely give you their email address for free, but if you offer something valuable to them, they will be much more […]

Always invest in high-quality product images or screenshots for ad visuals — a blurry, pixelated image is a huge turnoff for buyers. Consider hiring a professional photographer to take photos of your products, or invest in a compelling video ad.

Give an incentive for both customers who refer you and the people they refer. For example, you can give both people a discount or credit on their account, rather than just rewarding the person who refers. You’re much more likely to get both referrals and buy-ins.

Social proof loses a bit of its “proof” if you just copy and paste content. The great thing about tweets praising your company is that they can be embedded in your site or blog! Do this to provide real proof of your customers’ appreciation for your products and services.

Be sure that you’re timing your emails appropriately — and keeping time zone differences in mind! You might also consider segmenting your list according to ideal times and days for different parts of your audience. For example, people who work 9 to 5 Monday through Friday tend to check their personal email before and after […]

Sliders initially seem like great ways to highlight several products or initiatives at once, but they can drag down your page load times and they often don’t look good on mobile, which is how most of your audience is going to visit your site. Instead, choose one strong image and CTA and leverage different landing […]

Don’t forget to send an email to get people excited about your next product launch! A simple teaser email that doesn’t give away too many details builds hype and encourages your audience to talk about your company.

If you’re using influencers, be sure to devote someone to help manage their efforts and ensure that they stay in line with your marketing goals. Someone who is good at both project management and marketing would be an ideal candidate.

Get the wisdom of the crowd in deciding what to cover next in your blog or email newsletter. Your audience loves to feel included and special. You might even consider soliciting their industry advice or the story of how they use your product, then feature the best quotes in your upcoming content.

Everyone has a Black Friday sale, but does everyone have a National Pizza Day sale or a Small Business Saturday discount? Look for ways to offer regular, creative sales during the off-season. Even minor discounts or free shipping can encourage people to buy outside the holiday season.

Your audience wants to feel special, valued, and “in the know.” Write ad copy that speaks to these desires, offers high status or value (such as an exclusive gift or how-to video), or that taps into people’s fear of missing out (FOMO) as a means of encouraging them to engage and buy.

SlideShare is a way of presenting content in a more digestible form than a long blog post or video. Many B2B companies find it particularly effective as a means of content marketing, because SlideShares are easily shareable and tied to LinkedIn.

Avoid using language so generic and broad that people won’t connect with it. Instead, tap into people’s regional lingo and national pride. You can reference famous landmarks, artifacts, or artwork, or use regional slang or references that are appropriate for your target audience.

Offer variable rewards that make your audience’s engagement with your copany into more of a game. For example, some companies will even include games on their page in which you can win a certain discount code or free gift. People find games of chance addictive  — tap into this to get them addicted to your […]

Many sales reps feel like they need to schedule demos to move leads through the funnel. However, it’s often more effective to let people play on their own, nudge them toward upgrading or buying, and be there for any questions or concerns. Try offering a free trial that gives leads the freedom to experiment on […]

The most engaging subject lines are those that focus on engaging the audience. A great way to do this is to ask questions, whether rhetorical or otherwise. Use second person and toss in an emoji for a modern, inquisitive subject line that encourages people to open your email.

Rather than simply listing all your products’ or services’ features and benefits, try telling the story of how the product, service, or your company came to be, or offer a behind-the-scenes view into your company. People respond well to stories that let them feel connected or like they’re getting the inside scoop.

If customers find that their card isn’t accepted, they’ll likely only try once more before abandoning their cart. Often, this can be as simple as a mistyped card number or zip code. It’s important to minimize their stress and make it easier for them to try again — especially on mobile. Don’t make customers log […]

Anywhere between  60% and 80% of online shopping carts are abandoned. Often, customers will balk at what they perceive to be too many steps or unnecessary information. Avoid the temptation to require logins or collect extra information from them during checkout, and try to condense the purchase process into no more than two pages, if […]

If one of your users or customers is mentioned in a post, let them know — and be sure to follow up whrn the post is liked or otherwise engaged with. This in turn helps keep that user engaged.

The hero section of your website plays a large role in your bounce and conversion rates. Don’t let a bad hero image or content drag you down. A/B test your design and CTA to ensure that you’re using the best options for your target audience!

When you need a very niche persona, you’ll need to use multiple criteria for targeting. Aim to layer psychographic, geographic, and other data to achieve an optimized target audience. Remember, casting too wide a net is less effective and can cost you more money in the long run.

An image says a thousand words — so be sure you choose a good one! A strong, high-quality image is great to include in the hero section of your landing page, but avoid one that’s too distracting or flashy. Choose one that frames your CTA and enforces your brand message.

If your pricing page has a high bounce rate, you should figure out what the culprit is. Are potential customers put off or confused by your prices? Do they want a trial period or introductory rate? Use an on-page Qualaroo survey to learn exactly what people are balking at.

Want to break out of your geographic area? Beta-test your product in a new region or country before going all in. The feedback you get from beta-testing is invaluable for planning your strategy to expand your market to a new geographic area.

If you want to improve your clickthrough rate (CTR) on your Twitter ads, consider eliminating the image from the ad. This shifts the audience’s focus to your call-to-action rather than distracting them with the image. 

If you’ve encountered a blogger who’s relevant in your industry but no longer publishes new content, inquire as to whether you can purchase their mailing list and roll it into yours.

Never assume that a user can easily navigate your user interface, especially if your design isn’t intuitive. While it’s always a good idea to put human-centered design (HCD) into practice, you should also add labels and descriptions to help the user understand what they’re doing on your site or app. And never trick users into […]

Use a viral referral widget to incentivize social sharing of your content by offering rewards to those who do. If your page is already converting, you can double your conversion rate by encouraging people to share with their network — with no extra work required on your behalf.

Don’t skimp on your website’s “About” page! This is a great opportunity to communicate your brand to people and share your company story. By creating an emotional connection with your audience, you can help encourage engagement with your company. Avoid sales-y language on this page: be fresh and relatable.

If you’re finding that a lot of your emails aren’t being opened, try asking for your leads’ “work email” in your lead capture form. People tend to check work email more often than their personal email, and askng for a work email also helps give your product or offering a professional sense in your audience’s […]

An exit intent popup can sometimes be counterproductive if it doesn’t offer immediate value to the user. Try using it to offer high-value related content to the user. This can be a great way to enhance your content marketing strategy while boosting your site visitor retention rates.

Your audience already has a list of their preferred sources of news and resources, so target those sources’ followers to help refine your targeting. Look at major publishers in your industry and follow people who follow their pages.

Try developing your email pipelines for specific product purchase. You can then retarget customers with related or complementary products. Doing this shows the customer that you appreciate them and their business, and can boost your customers’ lifetime value (LTV)!

MuckRack is a site where you can find journalists who specialize in your industry and pitch story ideas to them. If these journalists have established connections with editors, you could be looking at a large platform for your story to be told.

Offer a free consultation to potential customers. You could help them figure out a solution to a business problem, then offer your product as the tool. Aim to build trust and demonstrate that you care about their pain points. Even if they don’t buy right then, they’ll remember the consultation when they’re ready to buy […]

Carousel Ads cost 30-50% lower cost per conversion and 20-30% lower than cost per click than single-link ads and 20-30% lower cost per click. That’s because users are more likely to engage with carousel ads. Take a creative approach in which the carousel tells a story or illustrates the use of the product.

After their initial purchase, there is a 27% chance that customers will return for another purchase. After the second visit, this likelihood increases to 54%. One effective tactic for encouraging customers to return for that second purchase is to send them a coupon for a discount of their next purchase. The increased customer lifetime value […]

Social posts and profiles are great for raising brand awareness and engaging with your audience, but it can be challenging to deep link from social to your product pages, for examples. Try deep linking from product install pages, in-app pages, or individual tweets to help drive traffic to the specialized pages on your site.

Make live video part of your social media marketing strategy. Your audience will enjoy the chance to feel special and included in your behind-the-scenes content, surprise interview, or other fun content. Live video boosts engagement and helps get users excited about the brand, while leveraging the fear of missing out (FOMO) to encourage brand loyalty […]

Use Google Shopping ads to include your product’s price and description right there in search results. When people know the price before clicking, they’re actually more like to click — especially if you’re offering a good deal!

Whenever you publish videos or audio-based content such as podcasts, always offer a transcription. This boosts engagement with your content for people who prefer to read or those who are hearing-impaired. Plus, you’ll get keyword-rich content that can boost your page’s search results ranking.

Twitter’s Lead Generation Cards offer a thank you message and encourage signups whenever someone retweets your content. Anyone who retweets your content is already interested in hearing from you, so these cards are an effective means of striking while the iron is hot!

Always indicate when an offer is for a limited time or if you are running low on quantity. People hate missing out, and giving them a sense of urgency encourages them to buy on impulse. You might even consider constantly running some sort of limited-time discount on a particular product so that your audience feels […]

Avoid being too restrictive with your form inputs. Restricting phone numbers to a certain format or limiting the number of characters for a city name can be frustrating when people are met with errors or can’t complete the form. By offering a flexible, forgiving interface, you can remove hurdles that might prevent people from completing […]

If you’re uncertain how much a discount actually converts, why not A/B test it? A bigger discount doesn’t necessarily convert more, and you might be losing out on potential revenue. Test two different discounts (e.g. 20 percent vs. 50 percent) and then base your special offer on the winning strategy.

Increase the size of your website’s search bar to improve the user experience and convince your visitors to spend more time on your site. Plus, many people prefer to search themselves rather than navigate a site. The quicker they get to your products, the more likely they are to buy!

Wouldn’t it be great if you could capture leads with your existing ads? With Facebook, you can. The social media platform will auto-fill your form with information from the user’s profile. This tactic helps you remove hurdles to your audience joining your mailing list.

Don’t forget to let your current subscribers know when a new product drops or something trends in your store or on your site! Keep your audience in the loop with email marketing that taps into your current happenings and re-engage previous buyers.

Your audience gets hundreds of sales pitches per day. Stand out from the crowd by being unique! Focus on your company’s story or give your audience a behind-the-scenes look into your business. Creating an emotional connection with your customers is the key to lasting success.

For longtime, regular, or premium customers, offering priority customer support can be a great incentive to upgrade or an effective means of building customer loyalty. You’ll find that providing higher tiers of support is well worth the expense in terms of the increased customer lifetime value (LTV) and good reputation that your company will gain.

Edit the display URL using Google AdWords to feature your keywords. Doing so can help boost the effectiveness of your ads without altering the structure of your site. Plus, you can feature “pretty URLs” that are more appealing to people viewing your ads.

If you have users create passwords, ensure that they provide their email address and other key lead information before thinking of a password. Requesting a password too soon can be an impediment to completing the form or other processes, so design your user experience to minimize the work needed to create a password.

Enter into an arrangement with influencers in which you each promote the other’s content. Choose your influencers carefully — you want people with followers who align with your target audience. Then, build an arrangement in which you each share posts that will resonate with your current followers, with a hint of whatever product or service […]

Use the concept of visual hierarchy to make your user interface more intuitive and encourage engagement. Your website design should compellingly use colors, typography, layout, and icons to facilitate their navigation of your site. Remember, the less the user has to think, the more likely they are to engage with your company.

If you’re launching a marketplace site, you need suppliers. However, you’ll likely be short on suppliers when you’re starting out. Rent or buy a small amount of inventory to get your marketplace established.

Are you losing your users on the checkout page? You might want to reevaluate the user experience on that page. Remember, keep it simple: don’t ask for unnecessary information, and make it obvious what fields need to be filled out. Use compelling, streamlined design to drive people to hit that “Place Order” button.

Each page of your website should have a clear, keyword-rich title that’s also not clunky or overly long. Choose something exciting yet descriptive, and make sure there’s a consistent theme or phrase among all your pages. Consider A/B testing your page titles to see which option better drives conversions.

If you’re waiting for your own photos to arrive, use stock images in the meanwhile. Avoid ones that are obviously stock photos — they tend to be overexposed, posed, or generally fake-looking. Natural-looking photos will perform better and make an emotional connection with your reader. You can find stock photos for free on sites like […]

Use Facebook’s Audience Network for retargeting/remarketing campaigns. This program shows ads in approved partner apps and websites rather than on Facebook itself. This can be a great way to reach your existing audience in new ways or expand your market.

The time users spend on your page is an important SEO metric. Search engines rank pages with more time spent higher than others. To increase read time, make your content easier to read. Use buckets of text (1-2) sentences to help the reader flow through the entire page, rather than large, intimidating blocks of text.

Social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn allow you to pin a post. Use this space to feature your intro video, your latest giving campaign, your email signup, a testimonial…anything that you don’t want users to have to scroll to find.

Target your audiences according to their interests that relate to your product’s or service’s category. For example, if you sell luxury bags, target those who like “fashion” as well as those who are searching for “luxury bag.”

People are selective about what they share on social media. If you want people to share your content, give them a powerful incentive to do so. Send a thank you message and give them a reward when their referral helps drive a conversion. Both the sharer and the person they referred will be more likely […]

Did you know that Google AdWords now permits 30 more characters for a subheading? Use this space to provide additional details about your product, highlight a special offer, or even offer a (brief) testimonial. This extra context can help entice people to click.

A lot of your users are busy people who might be interested in your articles but don’t have time to read at the moment. Offer to send the article to them by PDF. This is a great opportunity to capture their email address through your content marketing pipeline. Ideally, you would place a button that […]

Quora is a social networking platform that emphasizes questions people ask and answer. It’s a great place to advertise with longform content that can directly address your target audience’s pain points. With high traffic and well-defined interests, Quora users are a great place to market your product or service.

Always link new posts on your blog to older, relevant posts. Be selective in which blog posts you link so that readers will be motivated to continue following the links through your content pipeline. This is a great way to boost read times on your site and build a relationship with the user.

If you’re a B2B business, offer a free consultation to your first-time customers. This not only builds trust with them, but also gives you valuable insights into their pain points and interests, which can guide you in your future marketing campaigns

Some keywords might be costing you money. Look at the Dimensions panel in Google AdWords to see which search phrases are getting you clicks but no conversions, then add those keywords as negatives to your campaign so that you’re not spending money on phrases that don’t convert. Hyperfocusing your keyword targeting can help you get […]

People love free stuff, so be sure that you entice them to sign up for your mailing list by offering them a high-value, free resource, such as an e-book, worksheet, or how-to guide. Highlight the offer in your emails or social media channels and lead people to a landing page devoted exclusively to this free […]

People tend to check work email more often than they do personal email. But what do you do if you don’t have someone’s work email address? Use any of the range of tools, such as Rapportive/Connectifier/Clearbit Connect, to predict company emails. Or, if you notice that a company uses a specific format, e.g. FirstName.LastName@Company.com, you […]

Casting too wide of net means you won’t catch quality fish, as it were. Make your target audience specific to ensure that you can reach qualified leads. To help with this, be explicit in identifying whom your product is for. While you may exclude some leads, the people who are most likely interested in your […]

If you have a lot of great content, why confine it to your site? Look for similar sites that could be partners and syndicate or cross-post your content. You’ll get access to their followers and also improve your SEO ranking for your articles! Just be sure to identify the canonical link.

Facebook allows you to target people who live or work near your business with local ads. Be sure to choose “Call Now” or “Get Directions” as your CTA to encourage users to get in touch or swing by!

Nostalgia is a powerful motivator for purchases because it taps into people’s sentimental side and reminds them of pleasant memories. You can tap into nostalgia by referring to times past or classic films, or even by asking your audience to reminisce about grade school or their parents or grandparents, for example.

An ‘exit intent’ popup appears when users are clicking away from the site, but you can also promote your mailing list via a message that pops up after the user has been on your page for a certain number of seconds. These pop-ups tend to work for more users, whereas exit intent popups might not […]

If you have a blog or landing page that features a video, be sure that you place it prominently high up on the page to help boost the page’s search engine ranking. Add a bit of descriptive text to introduce the video and be sure to make captions available!

Clunky, large carousels can be distracting or even slow down your page, but if used effectively, they can be a great use of real estate. Keep carousel images simple and powerful, and use simple text descriptions or CTA buttons rather than long captions.

If your users are lingering on your landing, pricing, or products page without making a purchase or otherwise converting, they’re likely confused about something. Want to know what it is? Use a Qualaroo time-delayed survey that’s triggered after a user has been on the page for a certain number of seconds, then gather their feedback […]

As people near the end of something, they become eager to finish — this is the Goal Gradient Effect. Give your users a visual indicator of progress, whether it’s through the checkout or signup process or a punch card that gets them a free product after spending a certain amount.

Trying setting a high budget and a modest cost-per-action (CPA) in your bid to allow you to leverage ad inventory days to increase your reach.

Always ensure that your call-to-action (CTA) is prominent and unobscured by other page elements. One best practice is to center align a large button and keep plenty of whitespace around it. Also, be sure that the button is a contrasting or complementary color with easy-to-read text!

If you have long-term customers or clients, consider setting aside time for review or followup calls with them. Not only will this demonstrate that you care about their experience and appreciate their business, but it’s also a great source of data and feedback to guide your business growth.

Few things strike fear in the Internet’s heart like a checkout page or form that gives no indication that things went through successfully. Ensure that you have a thank you message in place to confirm that the transaction or submission was successful! This not only prevents duplicates that cost you money and make a bad […]

If someone shares your content and someone else likes it, be sure to let the original sharer know! Be selective with this tactic, especially if someone gets a lot of likes on their share.

Customize your surveys to the user’s feedback by using branching logic. You can use Qualaroo or SurveyMonkey to achieve this. For example, you can ask further questions if someone says they have used a specific product, or drill deeper if they indicate dissatisfaction. You can even roll email signup fields into your survey to capture […]

While you should shorten your checkout or signup process as much as possible, it’s also helpful to provide a visual indication of the user’s progress so that they don’t abandon halfway through. This can also be a psychological motivator to finish the process.

Look to see who’s following companies or influencers that relate to your products or services — especially if they’re major brands. Then, target that audience in your advertising campaigns and engage with them on social media.

oCPM (optimized Cost Per Mille) bidding at the Ad Set level on Facebook helps the platform to optimize the impressions to work within your budget. Good benchmarks for your audience are greater than 1 million users per day with at least 25 conversions per day. Facebook cannot effectively optimize smaller audiences.

Round up all your top-performing products on one page, then promote them through retargeting as well as to new users who like to get a sense of your company’s “best of.” You might even consider running a special on those products to help drive conversions and make customers feel like they’re part of the in-group.

If you’re targeting a certain geographic area with your social media ads, make sure that you tag a location in any posts that are part of the campaign — even if it’s your own store! Plus, Facebook prioritizes such posts, which can improve your reach.

There are few things more frustrating for users than when they think they’ve filled out a form and click submit only to see a list of errors they’ve made. Even worse is when the form wipes all the information they’ve entered. Many users will simply abandon the process at that point. Use inline validation such […]

Offer exclusive, interesting content or downloads for the low price of a user’s email address as a great way to capture leads. Few people will give out their email address readily, but if they perceive that they’ll gain access to helpful how-tos, secret knowledge, or other high-value content, they’re usually more than happy to enter […]

If you offer high-end products or services, be sure that you’re not wasting ad dollars on targeting people whose income doesn’t permit them to purchase from you. When creating your ad audience, use income data to define your scope. However, be sure to not set it too high and exclude those who might indulge in […]

Instead of asking for confirmation to complete a process, offer an undo option. Users like to feel like they’re in control and can correct any mistakes, but if they didn’t make any mistakes, being asked to confirm can be annoying and might even derail their completion of the process.

If you’ve got the page real estate, use powerful images and videos — even audio — to command your audience’s attention. You can even boost their engagement through games and other interactive elements.

Set up Google Alerts or other monitoring systems to be alerted when new blogs are published in your niche so that you can engage with them. They might even follow your blog and backlink to it!

If you offer a service, always offer customers a discount for paying on an annual basis, whether it’s a lump sum payment or a discounted monthly rate on the basis of a yearly contract. This encourages customers to sign up and boosts your retention rate.

B2B companies can build a relationship with their customers by providing useful education and training. Use an email drip sequence to entice your audience to sign up for a free email-course. Once they complete the course, you can promote your product or service.

Tag your industry’s influencers in content inspired by them or whenever you’re developing partner content. (But don’t overdo it!) They may even share your content to their audience, thus increasing your reach.

Use the number available, whether it’s seats in a webinar or the amount of product left, to entice people to buy before it’s “sold out.” You can also offer limited-time sales or discounts. Your audience will perceive that the product or service is scarce, rare, and therefore valuable, and are more likely to convert.

Use a special character such as a colon or dash to add a keyword to your social media profiles. This also boosts your SEO by helping users searching for your industry or service to come upon your profile.

If you’re placing your logo or a single image in an ad, consider adding a light pattern to the background using a program like Canva. Choose a pattern that matches the tone and audience of your ad. This gives it a professional look and draws the eye’s attention.

Try running ads on networks with niche audiences rather than competing on a broader scale. These ads are more likely to net you qualified leads. Plus, directly targeting your niche helps you optimize your ad spending.

Create an advice blog article and tag or link to an influencer. Focus on offering advice in your niche. They may link back to your site, but even if they do not, you’re still offering value to your audience and supporting your content marketing pipeline.

Consider using a script to allow only work email addresses to be added in your lead capture forms, thereby increasing your chances of having your emails be opened and read. This also discourages users from giving throwaway accounts.

Use the best practices of graphic design to get your users to pay attention to the key elements of your page, e.g. your call-to-action (CTA) button. For example, use contrasting or complementary colors, lots of white space, and clean, easy-to-read fonts.

Use your paid ads to assess your best-performing keywords, then use those for organic search by creating content, such as blogs and PDFs, that targets those keywords. You should also use them in your pages’ titles and meta descriptions.

Be sure to link to your website or landing page in the bio of your profile on sites such as Instagram. You can also use a service such as Linktree or lnk.bio to create a landing page especially for your social media profiles. Encourage all members of your team to follow suit.

Target your audience with keywords that relate to your offering’s category. For example, if you offer a luxury product or service, use keywords that relate to people interested in other luxury products or services. You can also target keywords for related products or services that your target audience is likely buying.

If you’re releasing a beta, make it invite-only to ensure that you have quality users evaluating your product. You can also offer rewards for these users, as well as if they refer other users. This can help make your beta go viral and build a community invested in your product.

The concept of social proof holds that people want to see that other people like them have benefited from your product or service. Never be afraid to ask previous customers or clients for testimonials of their experience. Ideally, you have them submit them through a verified portal or post on their own profiles so that […]

Although pop-up windows and dialogs can sometimes be very effective, some users might be put off by them. Avoid using them unless you have a very strong call-to-action (CTA) that’s supported by the content the user is reading. Otherwise, consider using a subtle CTA modal pop-up or interactive element, such as via a chatbot.

Enhance your content with professional-quality images. Low-resolution, pixelated, or badly lit images do nothing to help your brand reputation and may even harm it. People are also more likely to share articles with good images. Use free sites like Pixabay or Unsplash to get great images, or invest in Shutterstock or Adobe Stock. Or better […]

If you’re running an online community or marketplace, populate it with fake accounts — or enlist a bunch of friends — to give it some activity and entice new people to join.

People have come to expect seasonal discounts, so don’t skip those! Think about creative ways to discount your offerings, whether it’s offering a flash sale on your product or a discount for customers who buy your service on an annual basis.

Customer requests are always something to consider for future iterations of your product or service. When you do implement a request, always email the customer(s) who requested it to let them know. Most customers never hear back from companies that take their advice into account, so doing so sets you apart and boosts your retention […]

Consider making your webinars premium, i.e. available to paying customers only. This boosts your retention rate by helping your customers feel valued and special — plus, they may gain a better understanding of how to use your product or service. For your nonpaying customers and leads, email them to invite them to webinar if they […]

If you’ve received positive reviews on Yelp, Amazon, Facebook, or in local news media, be sure to link to those from your site or highlight them in your social media. If your market is oversaturated, these can be a great addition to your social proof. You can also copy the reviews into your ad copy.

While menus help keep your site tidy, many users don’t click on dropdowns. Make important navigation options open and obvious for your users to boost conversions and help them spend more time on your site..

Rather than immediately handing your audience a call-to-action (CTA), gently lead them to it. By the same token, don’t bombard your users with pop-ups and forms. Let them read your content, watch your videos, and get a sense of who you are. Never underestimate the appeal of a free trial to build your user’s appetite […]

If you notice that a certain gender is not performing well with your ads, remove that gender from your target audience in order to optimize your ad spending.

A landing page with too many choices may, ironically, lead to zero action. This is due to a phenomenon called choice paralysis, in which your audience feels like it will take too much effort to make a decision or figure something out. If you must list a lot of choices, e.g. service plans, highlight the […]

If users don’t qualify for your product or service, lead them to an affiliate and capture money from them that way. You can recommend related products through an affiliate program or use your business partnerships as a passthrough.

Quora, the Internet’s leading Q&A social network, has more than 80 million users per month. If you’re targeting keywords, answer questions that use those keywords with copy that subtly promotes your company. If your responses are high-quality, they’ll be ranked highly in search results and perhaps even featured in the Quora Digest.

When your users mention other users, be sure that you have an alert system in place. This tactic helps build community and encourages retention by helping your users feel connected and validated.

It’s easy to add a favicon and gives a little something extra to your website. Plus, if people bookmark your site, they’ll see your logo rather than a generic globe or bookmark icon, boosting your brand awareness.

Stand out about the bevy of apps in mobile devices’ app stores by optimizing your list. Be sure to write great content that’s packed with keywords and format your title accordingly.

Minimize the number of fields in your form and watch your responses increase in number. Only ask for essential information and make the form easy and fun to fill out. The less effort required, the more likely that a user will complete the process. Remember, if you need other information, you can always get it […]

People like to feel in charge, and they like the idea of customization and personalization. If you’re able to offer this through your product or service, whether it’s a customized service plan or a mix-and-match product, go for it. You’ll stand out from your competition and boost customer loyalty. You can also use language in […]

Accept guest authors on your blog to expand your readership and build your reputation in your industry’s community. You can also offer to write for their blog in exchange. By establishing such content partnerships, you can grow your audience.

People love hearing other people’s stories, so if you have a previous customer or client with a really good story, ask their permission to use that as a longform testimonial. A story-driven testimonial is much more likely to be read and have a lasting impact on a prospective customer or client.

Look for links that are branded through Bit.ly or HootSuite, especially if they’re guest posts, and follow the breadcrumbs to find potential content partners or backlink providers. You should also consider using branded links yourself!

Focus on your product’s durability in your ad copy. People are used to the concept of planned obsolescence, so seeing a product that makes them think they won’t have to replace the thing in a year can be very appealing to them.

Different sources of traffic are correlated with different measures of leads’ intent to buy. If you’re remarketing, remember that weak calls-to-action (CTAs) can actually backfire. Stay strong! By the same token, a fresh lead or someone who knows nothing of your company will respond poorly to an overzealous CTA, so be more subtle with those […]

Rather than having your blog post’s title as your URL, use your target keywords to compose your slug. This is a great way to make your URL both “pretty” and SEO-friendly. Plus, if someone pastes the link in their post, the anchor text will drive related keyword traffic to your content!

A Qualaroo survey allows you to send followup surveys that are customized by what someone said or how they responded in the original survey. This method lets you evaluate your customers’ responses and gain further information needed to market your campaign, or go in-depth with qualified customers who want to give you further feedback.

No matter what action users take on your site, it’s important to provide them with confirmation that their entry or action went through successfully. Include a brief thank you at the end of every form or registration to assure the user.

It’s rumored that Google uses any public Whois information in your registration to assess the trustworthiness of a website. To that end, it’s helpful to make your Whois listing public to boost your SEO and build your customers’ trust.

Don’t forget to post daily on your social media accounts! There is so much content out there that yours will quickly be lost, and your audience with it, if you don’t regularly post and engage on these networks. 

Did you know that you can A/B test the content and format of your social posts? Try testing the tone of your posts (formal versus conversational), different images, or whether videos or still images perform better. Tip: Use Bit.ly to track link performance for each post in order to compare.

Poll your influencers, then report the results. This also encourages them to give you backlinks and social proof. Anything you can do to build your engagement with your influencers is a great tactic to grow your audience.

Always add target keywords to the title, description, and even the filename of any video that you upload to YouTube. This helps improve your search rankings and easily communicates to users what your video is about.

Use a time-delayed or exit intent popup to offer an exclusive, personalized demo for your users. The element of surprise can work here to drive people directly to your offer.  Part of your bounce rate is due to people simply not having any avenue to learn more — a demo offer can help sustain their […]

Use a Qualaroo NPS Survey to assess how likely your customers and clients are to recommend you to your friends. You can ask both new visitors based on their first impression and return visitors. Followup to ask for the reason for their score.

Target the people who follow an influencer in your industry or field. You can run ads that target audiences who are interested in these influencers in order to better reach qualified leads.

If you’re preparing a SlideShare or other presentation, consider including quotes from influencers. This adds relatability to your content and gives you an excuse to reach out to those influencers and notify them that you’ve quoted them.  They may just share the presentation and boost your audience!

Divide you content by themes that appeal to your various target personas. Once you’ve amassed a lot of content, you can republish the themes as new articles or use the themes to organize your blog section.  This also boosts SEO by providing headers and backlinks among your articles.

Only allow contributors to your blog via invite. This can raise the bar for content quality and encourage contributors to refer new contributors. Your select contributors will feel special and be more likely to be contribute. This is also a great way to build up influencers in your industry!

In your ad copy, focus on how new and innovative your product or service is. Customers like to feel like they’ve got the latest, snazziest thing, so play that up in your advertising. You can also use time-oriented language to make people feel like there’s something new for them even if your product or service […]

In your referral system, ensure that the links you use for referrals are deep linked within an app install journey. That way, you can get app installs and referrals at the same time. Branch.io is a good tool to achieve this.

Add a sidebar widget to your site or platform to show trending items, whether they’re products, blog articles, or user plans. That way, even if users land on a page that doesn’t interest them, they’ll see your other products or content.. Plus, people like to feel like they’re in-the-know and special, so they’re more likely […]

Wherever you use your logo on your website or platform, make it link to the home page to provide consistency, aid navigation, and meet web design best practices.

If you have a good sense of the demographics and psychographics of your current customer base, use those characteristics to build an audience to target. Parameters might include interests, geographic location, age, mobile device, and so on. Use your successful customer definition to expand your audience to include new yet similar people.

Get valuable data on your customers’ and clients’ experience by sending an email link to a SurveyMonkey or Qualaroo survey. Follow up with respondents to make them feel heard, and put their recommendations into action. You can also send out an email listing the improvements or make a post on your blog.

Don’t be afraid to target your ads on a specific, geography-based level, especially if you have brick-and-mortar locations or only provide services in a certain area. Reaching people outside your geographic area is a waste of ad spending and can be frustrating for users who simply can’t access your services.

Did you know that you can exclude sites from showing your ads? If you don’t want to advertise your offerings on certain sites, you can identify categories you’d like for your ads to not show on.

The number of hashtags you should use on a post varies by your industry, audience, and platform, but you should test and track results to determine the optimal number of hashtags to use. Remember to use more hashtags for discoverability than branded ones!

You can use deep links to transmit data from one app to another and thereby ensure that users don’t lose the content they were looking at. This technology enables you to offer personalized onboarding or shopping, , port data from one app to the other, and feature recommended products.

Your app store page is a landing page, so treat it as such, with keyword-rich copy, optimized titles and descriptions, and powerful imagery.

You can also refine your audience according to their income levels in order to market your budget plans or luxury plans accordingly. If you have exclusively luxury products, you’ll want to only target people with an income level that would make qualified leads.

Sites like HARO are databases of sources for journalists. If you become registered as a source on one of these sites, you could be availble to chat with a journalist for a story in your business’ niche. Doing so can get your name out there and build backlinks to your content.

After your customer or client comes on board, send a welcome email that includes a quick intro or tips for success through your product or service. This email shows that you care and can help get customers and clients excited to take full advantage of your offering.

Host a Twitter chat to get your audience engaged, inspire new followers, and build up influencers. . Be sure that you find a relevant, timely topic to chat about, then promote, promote, promote. Advertise the chat with compelling images and if possible, a sense of expertise and authority. Then, ask open-ended questions during the chat […]

When you’re doing keyword research, look at which keywords your competitors are targeting. Target similar keywords, with some specific qualifiers to highlight what makes your offering special.

Use customized ads in retargeting to show related products based on customers’ previous purchases. This makes them more likely to buy again because they feel acknowledged and are seeing products that connect to their previous purchases.

Be sure to feature your top-priority keyword in the title and meta description of your pages. Just be sure to make the title and description relevant to the page’s content, and keep it clear and concise.

Retarget social media leads with a custom-built audience that pulls in their preference data. This can help streamline your advertising and provide a personalized experience for your customers.

Be sure to focus on your product’s features in your ad copy. What makes your product unique? Highlight that. Make your features a selling point.

Use an anchoring price to suggest that customers are getting a better rate on a product. You may have seen this done by slashing through the “regular price” and listing a sale price. You can do this all the time to show your customers that you’re giving them great value.

Many users sign up for your service or download your app, then never use it. Get these users back on track by sending them an email with the necessary steps to reactivate their account or get the most out of your service. Leverage your existing content to create a guide for them, and include links […]

If your blog post doesn’t perform well, it may actually hurt your overall blog’s search ranking. Consider deleting the post and replacing it with an optimized version to drive new traffic.

If you’re evaluating changes in your business model, such as offering a yearly rate versus a monthly one, you can A/B test the concept with your ad copy. See which model performs better in your ad copy in order to better assess which option resonates more with your audience.

Did you know that you can define a Twitter audience based on keywords that users include in your bio? The tool Blockspring allows you to automate the process by gathering information from platforms such as  Meetup, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more, then comparing it to people’s Twitter handles to help you build a database of users […]

If your qualified leads are people of a certain seniority level in their workplace, why not use their job title as a means of limiting your target audience? Consider drawing upon LinkedIn data, which tends to be more accurate, as a way of defining your audience.

Use surveys to determine why one variant in your A/B testing did or did not convert. If you change the format of your call-to-action (CTA), a follow-up survey can ask users what they thought of it. By knowing the actual reasons why users are or are not responding to your content or design, you can […]

If you’re not sure if an app is right for you, or if it’s worth your time to develop a platform, you can A/B test ad copy propositioning different platforms and see which option better resonates with your audience.

Limit choice for your users to better drive conversions. Too many choices can be daunting and even paralyzing, so by offering only a few choices that tap into your target audience’s needs, you can lead your users to the best choice for them.

Look at the keywords that your competitors use, then use those keywords to develop your own advertising campaigns. You might even find keywords that you hadn’t thought of. By using your competitors’ strengths to your advantage, you can better target your desired audience.

A new platform or app can be intimidating, so find a way to offer your customers a step-by-step guide or helpful tips to navigating it. Develop an onboarding system that incorporates FAQs, a “getting started” guide, and anything else that might be helpful for new users. This will help encourage users to keep using your […]

While high-quality stock photos are a great addition to your ads, you might also consider vector graphics that give your content a little something different. Look for sleek, interesting graphics that illustrate your company’s product or service.

Look for the authors of your competitors’ blog, and see where else they are publishing. Not only could their other platforms be a great place for you to guest post, but you can also see about developing a guest authorship relationship with them!

Set Pokémon Go’s Lures for your brick-and-mortar locations to entice customers to come near your place of business. This is ideal for food and beverage businesses who can help fuel hungry/thirsty Pokémon Go players.

List the per-unit price of your product or service to make it seem like a great deal. This also helps customers feel like they’re getting more bang for their buck. Even if you’re charging for a service on an annual basis, highlight the monthly price so that customers can think about it in terms of […]

If you hit a milestone, such as a new product, X number of years in business, or a certain number of customers, use that as a pitch for journalists who might be interested in featuring your accomplishment in industry news.

If you need to collect email addresses or garner signups, consider offering an e-book that’s accessible only if users provide their information. Make it relevant to their interests and take an authoritative approach that affirms your role as an industry leader.

Everyone is very busy these days, so it can be very effective to advertise your product or service’s time-saving qualities to your audience. Highlight that in your ad copy. You can even give estimates of the amount of time people will save by using your product or service.

Create a personalized landing page for people who come upon your content from a referral or social share. You could include the social profile of the person who referred them, as well as an incentive to sign up or purchase. These landing pages are a a great place to offer new user promo codes or […]

The concept of perceived value is reflected in the axiom that “you get what you pay for.” Thus, many customers assume that if they pay a little more, they’ll get something of higher quality. Consider boosting your prices a bit so that customers feel like they’ll be getting a high-status product or service.

Use browser notifications to alert your customers to new products, updates, or abandoned cart reminders. A service like Pushcrew can help you achieve this. These notifications are more likely to be seen and read than emails.

Get customers to buy in one step at a time. Rather than asking them to commit to receiving emails, plus downloading your e-book, plus registering for your product or service all at once, give them choices in piecemeal fashion and encourage them to sign up one bit at a time.

Encourage your existing customers to refer friends by offering an incentive, such as a free trial, exclusive discount, or other reward. Your users will be more likely to refer and share, and word of your generosity will quickly spread and motivate people to sign up.

Place your best content behind a lead capture form, sign up page, or other information-gathering portal, so that users will give you their information in exchange for knowledge or advice. Just be sure to tease the authoritative, useful content that they’ll get if they complete the process!

Video ads for app installs are relatively affordable and can quickly and compellingly communicate information to users. Use screen captures or motion graphics to demonstrate an app’s capability, then post on Instagram or other channels where videos automatically play.

Show your customers how many other customers have purchased a product to build trust and demonstrate your product’s popularity. This technique also has the effect of tapping into customers’ need to be part of the crowd.

Offer an email drip sequence that functions as an online course. You can send topical, authoritative content to your audience on a schedule of your choosing (once a day for seven days or once a week for six weeks are good options) to encourage engagement with your brand. Work in subtle promotion of your product […]

To err is human — and your human users will make mistakes. However you can help them fix those mistakes will improve their user experience. Don’t make your forms so rigid that they can’t easily fix incorrect entries, and offer the option to change their email address, name, password, and other personal information in their […]

If your ad audience isn’t having the effect you want, try narrowing its scope. Broad audiences tend to underperform. A good rule of thumb is to narrow (or expand) so that your target audience is 1 million users.

You know that live chat helps encourage engagement with your business and moves your customers through the funnel, but how can you get your users to start a live chat? Offer an incentive, such as a coupon, if they do a live chat with your representatives. (Just be sure that you have the staff to […]

Have lots of white space in your web content. Break up long paragraphs into shorter ones, and use bullet points whenever possible. This tactic improves readability and thus lowers your bounce rate. Plus, it’s better for SEO!

Create a landing page for your app to build hype and serve as a countdown to launch. This page can double as a means for your beta testers to leave feedback. You can use this landing page in your email and social promo for your app.

Facebook allows you to retarget your site visitors, and you can filter your audience by the time they spent on the site. Aim to reach users who spent a lot of time on your page but did not convert. They’re interested, but perhaps got pulled away or meant to make a purchase later. Facebook can […]

Video content is not only a great way to showcase your product and build awareness of your brand, but also a way to reach a new audience through platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Instagram. Consider making explainer or how-to videos, behind-the-scenes clips, or brief interviews to highlight your product.

If your product or service lends itself to sharing, consider leveraging that sharing as a means of incentivizing people to do so. Limit the functionality of the product or service until people share it on social media.

You don’t have to write all the content yourself! Curate content and organize by collections or “best-of” lists, then send out content on a regular schedule. Be sure that you tag or link to the curated content’s authors.

Widen your ad audience to include similar countries to the one in which you’re usually advertising. Be sure to include any spelling differences or cultural variations to accommodate new countries in your audience. 

Emphasize ease of use in your ad copy. People like to feel like products, whether physical products or apps, are convenient and will make their life easier. So, whether your product saves time, is ergonomic, or has automatic or convenience features, highlight those in your advertising.

Services such as SumoMe and Welcome Mat’s offer an ‘Instant Landing Page’ that locks the page unless users sign up. You can use this on gated content or on a campaign page where you want to ensure that you capture signups. Consider A/B testing content and design to find a winning combination.

OptiMonk is an on-site retargeting tool that allows you to track your users’ behavior on your site and predict their intent to leave the page. You can send targeted offers to them before they leave the page, thereby decreasing your bounce rate and increasing conversions.

Add a “click to tweet” button to your posts that auto-tweets out a quote or soundbite from your article. Some variations of this tactic allow users to instantly generate a tweet from any sentences in your article. By making it easy for users to share your content, you can help grow your audience and encourage […]

If you offer a wide range of products, target your ads to a specific product or category rather than doing catch-all advertising. Use a specific, narrow-audience campaign for each of your products or categories.

Send new or prospective users an email with testimonials, videos, or infographics showing how other customers have used your product or service. Especially if your leads have bounced or dragged their feet in signing up, you can put their minds at ease about any concerns they had about your product.

Highlight the Unique Selling Points (USPs) of your product or service above the fold of your landing page or product page. Use large font so that visitors can instantly assess whether your offering is of interest to them and don’t become frustrated searching for information.

If you have a referral system in place: When one of your users’ friends signs up for the platform, send the user an email letting them know that they missed out on the reward for a referral. This can incentivize the user to share with other people in the future.

Always send your ad traffic to a page that’s tailored to the content of the ad. It makes sense to have multiple landing pages, one for each of your active campaigns. Few things are more frustrating for users than when they click on an ad and then have to search for information about the product […]

If some of your regular users or visitors haven’t been around for the past 30-60 days, send them an email reminder to check out what’s new on your site. Retaining these customers boosts your overall sales and retention, plus they are easier to retarget than other users.

Don’t forget to have a clear call-to-action to pay for a subscription or upgrade once a free trial has concluded. Send an email with a button that makes it easy for users to convert. You can send them to a landing page where they can immediately input their payment information and perhaps give brief feedback.

Use strong, persuasive, and clear language in your calls-to-action (CTAs). Give your audience a sense of action and accomplishment. For example, instead of having a button that says, “Click here to learn more about our product,” use something compelling and to-the-point, e.g. “Get it now”

Build a knowledge base filled with tutorials and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), and place a prominent link to it in your site navigation. This should cut down on the number of customer support requests you receive, and it also demonstrates that you care about your customers.

Use a promoted pin on Pinterest to drive signups for your webinar. Pinterest has a huge user base. Create a pin with actionable content or a compelling quote, then link it to your webinar signup page.

If you’re a B2B company, you should define your audience according to their business behaviors. For example, on Twitter, you can narrow down by company size and age, industry and occupational category, and sales revenue.

When laying out your landing page, position an image of a person or character so that it appears they are looking at your call-to-action (CTA). This helps direct your user’s attention to the CTA and encourages them to click.

In your ads and web copy, focus on your product’s benefits, rather than its features. Customers grow tired of laundry lists of features, but they’re more likely to respond favorably if they sense that the product has some sort of benefit, such as convenience, to them.

Recommend content, products, or services to users based on their previous actions on your site. This can lead users down a rabbit hole of discovering your other offerings and spending more time on your site. They’ll also be much more likely to convert when they see things tailored to their interests!

Having a dedicated account manager sounds like a great idea, but what happens when too many clients need something at once? Train your entire support and sales team to help anyone, thus improving your customer satisfaction rate.

Is your campaign doing significantly better on mobile than on desktop — or vice versa? Consider isolating the campaign to one or the other rather than splitting your ad spend. This tactic improves the efficiency of your ad dollars.

Look for content that links to multiple competitors. This tend to be roundup or “best of” listicles or reviews. Reach out to the publisher and inquire about your company being included in the post. Better yet, offer a guest post that lists your competitors as well as yourself! If the content is high-value, it’s a […]

To reach new and different audience segments, increase your bid above the recommended level. This might unlock new groups who would not otherwise see your ad.

Email your most valuable users or customers with some sort of bonus or reward. This can increase referrals, as well as good word-of-mouth. Phrase the email in terms of a competition, perhaps on the basis of number of social shares or time spent on your platform. Once it takes off, you can announce the competition […]

The average cart abandonment rate is about 68 percent. Many users put an item in their shopping cart then leave without completing checkout. There are a number of reasons for this: users may find the checkout process cumbersome, they may balk at shipping costs, they may simply get distracted and leave your site. Always follow […]

If you’ve been regularly limiting content or features to registered users, consider opening up the doors to some of your content to all users. This may also improve your number of qualified users because people will be more likely to sign up out of genuine interest.

If you’re thinking about creating landing pages in other languages, A/B test first to see if it’s necessary. Sometimes, English-language content performs better with multi-lingual audiences, even internationally.

Don’t be too formal when requesting email addresses. Casual, friendly language might get you further. Let your users feel like you’re having a conversation with them rather than demanding their personal information.

You really can’t reassure your customers enough. Give them a money-back guarantee or warranty, highlight your return policy, and let them know about your support system. Worried customers are much less likely to convert.

If you’re a B2B company, you should emphasize the solutions that you can offer other businesses with your product or service. Can you save them time? Fix their process? Help them be more efficient? Focus on that, and be assertive and confident rather than boring them with the fine print.

Use deep linking to seamlessly blend the user’s experience from their browser to the app store to the app. Users don’t want to lose the content they were looking at before they clicked on your app store link, so ensure that their content will carry through to the app, once it’s installed!

Use natural, casual photos of your product in action, rather than ultra-sleek, over-produced photos that make your product seem too show-y. Users like to imagine what the product will look like for them.

Use an exit intent popup to increase the time that your users spend on the page. You can use the pop-up to collect emails and promise more great content.

Fold testimonials into your marketing campaign. Focus on stories that emphasize lesser-known features or showcase unique scenarios in which your offering saved the day. Some of your audience may not have realized the full potential of your product or service, and a testimonial can help show them the way!

Define your audience persona by their job title to help you reach the most qualified leads. This doesn’t work as well in some industries in which titles are very generic or where people wear multiple hats, but it’s still a great start to zeroing in on the stakeholders and decision-makers who can help you win […]

In the skyscraper technique, you find great content and write your own version, then recruit backlinks. This is a great way to pick up traffic for a given topic, then provide search engines with a better option than the current top-ranking content.

Should you do Direct Sponsored Content or Text Ads on LinkedIn? If you’re not sure, you can A/B test different ad formats to see which one resonates better with your audience.

Become a trusted, authoritative user in a forum or question-oriented community, then link to your company in your signature. Users are much more likely to click on the link in your sig if you’re providing valuable content to the community.

If your users connect your social accounts to your service or platform, you’ll have access to valuable data. However, getting users to connect can be challenging. To incentivize it, offer a small discount or reward if they connect their social account.

Reddit is a vibrant community in which people share links, post images, and ask questions. You can create a subreddit that surrounds your topic or industry, and use it to cultivate a community of users who can build up your brand’s reputation. Even if your company’s name is in the name of the subreddit, you […]

The Twitter App Card is an interactive ad format that permits your audience to respond to your call-to-action (CTA) right there from their timeline. This can include app installs, image previews, retweets, and more.

Make your Instagram bio strategic and compelling. Provide an engaging bio that briefly summarizes what you can do for your customers or clients and conclude with a strong call-to-action (CTA). Use a link shortener to direct people to your landing page.

The last thing you want is for users to land on your site, then immediately hit the Back button to return to Google. Google might even penalize you for this. If you link to high-value sites from your site, users will be more likely to click on those when exiting, which helps boost your search […]

When it comes to web hosting, you get what you pay for. Invest in better web hosting to reduce your page load times, ensure that your site stays up, and boost your security — all of which can improve your search engine ranking.

Offer a discount or coupon to your website’s first-time visitors. The element of surprise might just spur them into quick conversion. Plus, you’ll come off as being appreciative of your customers, which helps boost your brand’s reputation.

A “welcome mat” is a full-screen call-to-action. This can be an effective way of driving email signups, but can also be obnoxious, so use it with care. First-time visitors will likely be driven away because the welcome mat will prevent them from seeing your offerings and content. However, the welcome mat can be very effective […]

People get tired of reading the same old ad copy. Mix it up with a dose of humor, even surrealism. Channel the major auto insurance companies’ ridiculous ads that use wild characters and scenarios. You can also use compelling imagery, e.g. “Durable enough to survive a tornado” or “Powerful enough to fight the Minotaur.”

Emphasize not only the novelty of your product or service, but also any new features or offerings. People like to feel like they’re getting first crack at something, so let them know that they can be the first to try out your new stuff.

Use a survey provider such as Qualaroo or SurveyMonkey to quickly query your website visitors and collect their email addresses. You can get more qualified leads by asking a few brief questions and concluding with your call-to-action (CTA) to register for your newsletter or special discounts.

Use a bit of humor in your email subject lines to increase open rates. Try using puns or other wordplay, or incorporate a classic joke. 

People are visual creatures, so be sure that you don’t leave it all to your marketing copy. Use compelling, high-quality images to illustrate your products and services, and consider reducing the word count in favor of prioritizing images.

If you’re running a platform for your users, enable them to import their contacts from their phone or social media networks. This is not only convenient for them, but can drive further sign ups.

If you’re retargeting, cap the number of impressions an individual user gets. You don’t want to waste your ad dollars reaching the same people again and again, especially because many first-time users will reengage upon initial retargeting.

Always reply to people engaging with your content on Twitter, and retweet their content that mentions you (when applicable and positive, of course). It’s easy to just “like” all the comments, but you’ll build your brand’s reputation and gain more followers if you engage with them.

Surprise your followers with a free gift. This can improve your retention rate and perhaps even surprise users into making a purchase that they wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s because your customers like to feel valued, and they are more likely to engage with a brand that they think cares about them.

Recycle your original content by highlighting its popularity. You can repost a line from the article with an introduction such as “In case you missed it…” or “54% of our followers loved this blog from last week!”

Moving leads through the sales funnel requires you to nurture them, and a good way to do that is to provide them with high-value content that supports their use of your product or service. Consider offering instructional videos or other multimedia content that shows them the ropes or provides helpful tips. Collect email addresses in […]

Port your mailing list into Facebook and create a lookalike audience to help expand your target audience. Layer the comparison to see where the optimal level of audience similarity is, e.g. a 2% lookalike (excluding 1%) or a 3% lookalike (excluding 1% & 2%).

No matter how close your mobile app is to your web version, there will be differences. To improve your retention rate, offer users a brief tutorial or navigation on how to use the mobile app, and build in reminders to use the mobile app when people access your regular site through their mobile device.

Make your subjects short and snappy, with a conversational approach. Rather than unwieldy, boring subject lines such as “Open this email for exciting news” or “We have a major update,” use something like, “Be in the know” or “Get the scoop.”

Use large rectangle ads (recommended dimensions 336×280 pixels) on the Google Display Network to encourage user interaction. Because people read left to right, horizontally oriented  (landscape) ads perform better than tall or square ads.

Because most websites targeting U.S. customers are hosted on servers in the U.S., international visitors may experience slow loading times. Use Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to make copies of your content available at different locations around the world. Your users can have the content served from a location convenient to them, which reduces their load […]

Recruit influencers in your industry or topic to provide testimonials or endorsements of your product or service, then post those on your website. This is a great form of social proof that will give your marketing an authoritative edge.

If you created a useful widget, plugin, or app, create a landing page dedicated to it. Start a marketing campaign designed to promote it, and send paid traffic directly to the page, with a call-to-action (CTA) to install or configure the goody.

If you’re speaking or tabling at an event or conference, give viewers a number that they can text to instantly sign up for your mailing list. . By asking them to sign up in a situation where you’re establishing and affirming your authority, you’re able to easily build a list of qualified, engaged leads.

Your audience is more likely to trust an outside party’s recommendation for your offering than to take your own word for it at face value. This is where influencers come in. Get influential people in your industry to speak about your product or service on your behalf.

To re-hook customers who haven’t purchased in a while or who let their subscription expire or cancel, offer a discount or free month or other incentive to bring them back. Many people simply get busy or distracted and need a reminder about your company. A “welcome back” offer can remind them of the good experience […]

Use deep links in your ads to direct users to the content described in the ad. This creates a frustration-free navigation experience for your audience. Just be sure that you create a compelling landing page to match the ad copy!

If you’re a B2B company, you likely have certain companies or industries you want to target. You can refine your ad audience by where people work to ensure that you reach only the most qualified leads.

Identify your best performing audience and show them ads for products and services that they may not have seen yet. You can piggyback on the success of previous campaigns.

On LinkedIn, you can target both public and private groups on the platform with your content. This enables you to hone in on a specific audience that’s already tailored to your industry!

Use emails to promote upgrades to your subscribers or customers. People tend to feel a strong sense of ownership over things in their possession, so an upgrade email taps into their psychology to want to keep the thing that they have. Plus, the idea of upgrading connotes a feeling of specialness and having a “premium” […]

Rather than giving a laundry list of features and benefits on your landing page, tell your audience what outcomes they can expect by using your products or services. Will they enjoy more time in their day? Better hair? A cleaner house? Focus on what they’ll get, rather than what your offering includes.

Deep down, everyone is afraid of failing, being embarrassed, losing possessions or opportunities, or missing out. Tap into this with subject lines and blog titles that make people think, “I’d better read that.” Examples: “Top 10 Mistakes You Make in a Job Interview” and “The 5 Worst Ways to Start a Business.”

Drive your existing email subscribers to YouTube by linking to your latest videos in your email marketing campaign. The best types of video content to include are behind-the-scenes videos, explainer videos, or other immersive content that can complement your email copy. Save the testimonial videos or promo spots for your landing pages.

Many pricing pages are boring — plain Jane charts or lists with a bunch of numbers. Spice it up and drive conversions by adding social proof. You can feature testimonials, whether written or videos, or embed content from social networks such as Facebook or Yelp. You can also feature the logos of happy clients with […]

Never be afraid to tap into emotions — especially around the holidays! Craft ads that resonate with emotional themes, such as family, inspiration, or nostalgia, and express that your company can make an emotional connection with your customers via your product or service.

Social media network’s native algorithms never show your content to everyone who follows your page. Use the Edgar tool to reschedule old social content to reach people who may have missed it the first time you published.

Offer exclusive content and discounts via email to your Most Valuable Customers (MVCs). These people are especially likely to recommend you to people in their personal networks, and offering them extra goodies might just seal the deal!

Direct potential customers to a landing page that offers a beginner’s guide or quick orientation to your company. This drives conversions because customers don’t become frustrated that they can’t find the information they’re searching for, and they don’t get distracted by other content on your site.

Ideally, you should have a distinct landing page for each ad campaign, so that when your audience clicks on your ad, they reach a page with messaging, content, and imagery that carries over from the ad. Sending someone to your homepage opens them up to distraction or confusion and makes it less likely that they’ll […]

Angle for keywords for major events in your area or industry to potentially reach a new audience. Create ads that target people who follow or engage with these keywords.

While Facebook and Twitter favor shorter videos, YouTube videos perform better if they are longer, because Google considers longer viewing time a sign of good engagement. Plus, the longer they watch a video, users tend to go down a rabbit hole watching related content from your channel.

One core segment of your retargeting efforts should be people who made one purchase but haven’t purchased since. Use ads to show them products that complement the ones that they purchase, or suggest to them that they shop for gifts. This tactic resonates with customers who are pleased with their purchase but simply haven’t made […]

Use multifunctional controls in your user interface (UI) to decrease clutter and improve navigation. Remember, the UI should put the user first! Think about what would make the UI design and functionality cleanest and simplest for your customers.

If your target audience is likely to frequent a certain section of a site (e.g. the “Technology” section”, you can set site placement targeting Google AdSense to ensure that your ad appears where people are likely to see it.

Only 60 characters appear in the titles of Google search result listing, so make sure that your page titles are within this limit so that they are not cut off. This makes it more likely that people will click on your listing.

If your company has done research that may be of use to other people (think about survey results relating to an industry topic), or has unique data about the use of your product or service that highlights an industry trend, pitch journalists and public relations (PR) professionals with these facts. They may find it interesting […]

Tease your email audience with mysterious subject lines that imply that your followers will gain access to a secret or get an exclusive scoop if they open the email. While the subject lines don’t necessarily need to be vague, they should be intriguing, e.g. “You don’t want to miss this…”

If you quote or otherwise cite industry influencers in your blog or other content, be sure that you let them know. Drop them a line and invite them to read/comment on/share the post.

While marketing is ultimately about promoting your business, you should still approach your creative assets from the perspective of what you can provide your customers. Put their needs first and add value, whether it’s high-value content in your marketing or value in terms of the pricing that you offer them.

If your users engage with someone who’s followed by an influencer, send them an email or other alert telling them as such. This provides users with validation that they’re connected to important people on your platform.

Banners on your website or platform can be distracting, so use them sparingly. A good use for a banner can be to highlight a useful tool on your website, such as an ROI calculator or color palette generator. This is more likely to stand out to users than a generic banner advertising one of your […]

Most of your followers won’t see what you post in their feed. It’s an unfortunate fact of the social media algorithms. Plus, some of your newer followers may have never had a chance to see your best old content. Regularly re-release and promote your top-performing content to reach a wider audience.

Use Google’s AdWords Editor to set up a “mobile app install” campaign. You simply tell Google the location of your app, set a budget, and Google AdWords advertises your app install to users and makes it easy for them to visit your app store link.

Your website may look neat, but have you looked under the hood? Clean code helps boost your SEO. Common things to look for include empty <a> tags, misplaced or extra <div> tags, and incorrect heading structure. You might also have “junk” code from certain plugins or addons. Clean this up and watch your search result […]

Don’t forget to set up ads targeting keywords that directly describe what you’re selling! If you have a brick-and-mortar location or serve people in a certain geographic area, you may also consider localizing your keywords so that searches such as “computer repair near me” turn up your business in search results.

If your video content involves someone talking to the viewer or a “how-to” guide of some kind, start your video by teasing content at the end of the video. This tactic encourages viewers to finish watching the video. The longer a viewer spends on your video, the better it will rank on YouTube.

If you’re trying to get people to sign up for your mailing list or otherwise give you information, consider offering a free gift or entrance in a giveaway to encourage people to register.

Google Correlate allows you to use primary keywords to generate longtail keyword phrases that you can target in your SEO. It works by finding related searches and determining auto-completes, similar to those you might see when doing a Google search yourself.

Target your desktop users with a pop-up or widget that encourages users to “Call Now” as its call-to-action (CTA). With some programs, this can be configured to automatically connect your audience to your business’s phone system, making it easier for prospective or current customers to get in touch.

If you’re in publishing, connect with the founders of similar publications and feature them in interviews or Q&As in your publications. This will encourage cross-pollination of your respective audiences.

Be as direct as possible in ad copy — don’t beat around the bush! When editing, cut out any extra words and use active, rather than passive, language.

Make your subject lines happy and excited. Focus on hyping up sales, new products, or important company news and use engaging, cheerful tone. (But don’t go overboard with the exclamation points.)

Use your social media management platform and the native insights from each platform to determine the best time to post, then schedule your content accordingly. This tactic makes your content have a better chance of reaching more people.

Hacker News is a social network focusing on computers, technology, and entrepreneurship. If your company falls within this realm, you can use Hacker News to connect with potential influencers. Tip: Ask for feedback when making posts rather than directly promoting or being “sales-y.”

It’s never too late to do market research on your current mailing list subscribers. Send them a “personality assessment” or “preferences quiz” to get insights into what makes them tick. Offer a small incentive, such as a discount code, if they participate.

People want products and services with instant gratification and a quick speed. Phrase your offerings in terms of time: how little time it takes, how much time they’ll save, how quickly they can expect a response.

Offer a discount in your welcome email to new subscribers. Many people won’t expect to be given a discount so quickly, so the element of surprise might spur them to take action!

Rather than simply taking users’ responses in a survey and concluding with a thank you, offer them the results of the survey. Let them know before they start that they’ll be able to see how other people answered. This tactic encourages users to complete the survey and give you valuable feedback.

Use the native landing page builder offered by your email service provider to save time and resources in getting your mailing list signup page live. This way, you can evaluate the need to design your own page. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Use alternative text, also called “alt text,” for any non-decorative image on your site. This not only boosts your accessibility score for users with visual impairments, but also helps your SEO by providing additional context for the search engine crawlers to figure out the content and meaning of your page.

A flash sale is a special event (usually a significant discount or buy-one-get-one offer) that’s available for a limited time and is offered with little warning. This tactic creates a sense of urgency that encourages customers to act before it’s too late. Don’t give a lot of advance notice for a flash sale, but be […]

People love checklists, especially if they’re also in your industry. Create content in the form of checklists that will help your users put their own ideas into action, then place this content behind an email sign up form.

Emphasize urgency in your ad copy to encourage customers to buy now. You can focus on a product going out of stock soon, a sale ending soon, or a limited number available to make customers feel compelled to make an impulse buy.

Monitor question-oriented sites such as Quora and Reddit to find questions related to your topic or industry. Then, provide high-value answers and subtle links to your content. This tactic establishes you as a thought leader and helps you connect with potential leads.

If you have gated content such as an ebook hidden behind an email signup form, offer a preview of the content to entice users to sign up. Many users will wonder if the content is really worth giving up their personal information. Prove that it is by giving them the first page or so for […]

Use an email drip sequence to offer top tips in your industry. Buffer it with quotes from influencers and data from your own research, if applicable.

Reach out to your most valuable customers and have them write blog posts describing their accomplishments with your product. They’ll be more likely to refer the product, plus they’ll share the content with their personal networks, which brings more traffic to you.

If you have a limited budget, your best bet when advertising on Facebook is to configure your ad spending for website visits, rather than any other call-to-action (CTA). This helps optimize spending to get users to your homepage.

Establish partnerships with affiliates and take a cut of their profits. Your affiliates essentially sell items on your platform, whether your products or dropshipped items, and you collect a portion of the revenue they generate.

Whenever you need a pick-me-up on sales, toss out a discount as your call-to-action for your social media ads or on the homepage of your website. New users will feel like they lucked out with a sale, and regular customers will feel spoiled, which boosts your retention rate.

Add a call-to-action (CTA) to your YouTube videos to direct traffic back to your homepage or blog. This could be an annotation link, a link in the video description, or a direct reference in the script or captions of the video. This way, if users stumble upon your content via YouTube, they’ll have an easy […]

If you’re running a platform, recommend content to users based on whom they follow and engage with. This helps boost retention by continuing to provide users with relevant, high-value content.

Track down the sites that are continually giving your competitors backlinks. This may be a review site or industry blog. Reach out to the publisher with your own high-quality content to encourage them to create backlinks to your site. Tip: infographics and data are always good ideas to pitch to publishers.

Rather than listing all your product’s technological features in a boring fashion, simply emphasize your product’s cutting-edge, state-of-the-art quality in your ad copy. Customers like to feel like they’re getting the best of the best, so let them feel that way by emphasizing your offering’s high-tech quality.

Recruiting new talent? Require applicants to test-drive your product. You’ll get better-qualified applicants who better understand your product, and even if they don’t finish the application process, you’ll have potential new users.

Minimize the number of fields in your forms, especially if it’s the first form a user sees. Remember, you can always get more information from your users later, whether through an onboarding process or a followup survey. But the fewer fields in the initial form, the more likely a user is to complete it.

If you have something for users to download, such as an app,  incentivize it by offering a discount or reward. For example, if a lot of your users simply visit the mobile website and you’d rather they use your app, give them a free first month if they use the app.

Raven Tools can help you find thin content on your site and increase the word count. Low-word-count content doesn’t rank well in search engines and provides little value to your users.

Keep your blog post introductions short and direct. As they say in journalism, don’t “bury the lede.” Use your top-ranking keyword phrase in the first paragraph and get right to the point in expressing the overall topic of the blog.

If you’d like your landing page to increase conversion, consider asking for a phone number rather than email. This doesn’t always work, because people can be reluctant to give their phone number, but when you do get a phone number, you’re much likely to convert the lead. Ask for a phone number if leads are […]

Initial welcome emails produce 320% more revenue per email than your standard marketing email. Make it count with a personalized welcome message from your founder or CEO. Consider soliciting user feedback and offering assistance to make your product or service worth it for the user.

Fear of missing out (FOMO) can motivate users to action. A good way to achieve this is to show users how many other people are shopping for the same product they’re looking at right now. Customers will feel worried that they will miss out and are more likely to bounce. You can also add social […]

Use social media to send traffic to a landing page where users can download a PDF with valuable information, such as a how-to guide or worksheet. Your audience will appreciate the resource, and you’ll establish yourself as an authority in your topic.

Most users are on mobile and are limited in how they can navigate the web. That means that once they’re done looking at your landing page, they’re more likely to bounce. Solve this problem by implementing an infinite scroll to automatically load more content as soon as the visitor “finishes” the landing page.

Put your founder’s or CEO’s name in the From and Signature fields of important emails. Users like to feel like someone as busy as the CEO is reaching out to them. This tactic can boost open and click rates.

Customers get nervous about making purchases — they’ve all been burned by scams. Reassure your customers by offering a money-back guarantee or no-questions-asked return or refund if they end up being dissatisfied with their purchase.

If your landing page isn’t converting, switch up the layout. A simple reconfiguration of images, buttons, and copy might do the trick. Use an A/B testing tools such as  Optimizely to assess your results.

In your ad copy, express to your audience that they can achieve some sort of accomplishment by using your product. Indicate that they will win the race, conclude their project, etc. People often feel like they need completion and finality in their life, so offer them that in your ad copy.

Target specific search keyphrases that relate to your company’s offerings, even if they’re not wholly descriptive of what you do. For example, if you’re a travel agency, target some ads and content to “spain vacations” rather than just “ vacations” or “travel agency.”

Avoid having multiple call-to-actions (CTAs) on the same page. Focus on one, and set up multiple landing pages for various ad campaigns to serve your various marketing goals.

Different types and topics of content perform better at different times of day, and to throw another wildcard into the mix, your audience also has a large effect. Use Buffer or another social media tool to evaluate the best times of day to post certain types of content. Then, stick to the schedule you create […]

Make customers feel like they’d better act now by adding urgency to your ad copy. Whether it’s explicitly saying “Act Now” or subtly suggesting that they should take advantage “while sipplies last,” this tactic spurs customers to action..

If you notice that your product has a frequent area of confusion or concern, create and distribute detailed documentation with plenty of how-tos and FAQs. Your users will feel glad that they can find answers and not have to send emails or make phone calls, and your brand’s reputation will be boosted.

Every product is unique in some way: highlight that in your ad copy. Even if the unique feature is something minor, you can emphasize it and give it power with carefully crafted copy. Remember: customers want to feel special! If they think your offering is special, they’ll be more likely to buy it.

Everyone likes to indulge in a bit of luxury and feel like they live a glamorous lifestyle. Play up your offering’s luxury quality. This tactic works especially well for services that make yout customers’ lives more convenient.

The average smartphone user has at least 30 apps on their phone. Yours might be lost among the crowd. Get users back on track with a promoted Twitter app card that leads them back to the app.

Boost both your retention rate and customer lifetime value (LTV) by rewarding your best/frequent customers with special offers and discounts. The more that customers feel acknowledged and appreciated by shopping with you, the more likely they are to make a repeat purchase.

Never feel stuck with your landing page copy: adjust it to each set of users and A/B test it to find the tone and content that best resonates with your target audience.

On your landing page, ensure that your menu uses keyword-rich commands or content that reflects the keyphrases that brought the user to the page. This helps provide a more seamless experience for users and encourages them to explore your other content by honing in on what brought them to your landing page in the first […]

If you’re running a platform, activate keyboard shortcuts to make it easier for your users — especially those who navigate only by keyboard. For example, let the arrow keys move the user around the user interface (UI), or offer keystrokes/shortcuts for commonly executed actions.

Using SumoMe, you can configure a trigger that generates a Link Builder. Access the SumoMe dashboard, create a List Builder campaign, and then use Click Triggers to configure the action button. SumoMe will then set up a custom URL for your action button.

About 25 percent of all your users only access websites on mobile devices. If your website isn’t “responsive,” meaning that it adjusts flexibly to the screen size and dimensions that the user has on their device. Ensure that your web design is responsive so that nothing is cut off or shrunk to the point of […]

If you offer multiple packages or plans for your product or service, offer a comparison chart so that prospective customers can better understand the differences in features and pricing for each option. This tactic can drive conversion by eliminating confusion.

A lot of exit intent popups simply beg the user not to leave the page. Instead, use Qualaroo to find out why users are leaving. Consider asking a quick question, such as “Was there anything you had trouble finding today?” or  “What was your biggest concern about making a purchase today?” to learn why your […]

Use LinkedIn’s publishing platform, Pulse, to share high-value, top-quality articles in your industry or target topics. Be sure to quote or otherwise include your industry influencers, and use LinkedIn groups and trending topics to get your content in front of more eyes.

Believe it or not, people do sometimes like to read long articles or lists. Longform content, such as how-tos, reviews, guides, and feature essays perform well because they are full of SEO keywords and offer a great opportunity for your users to share.

Your landing page needs at least testimonial, although the magic number is three. Feature testimonials from well-known clients or influencers, and choose brief yet relatable quotes. Try to feature each of your Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) in your chosen testimonials. 

Whether we’re talking branding or your actual products, it’s important to be consistent. Use a consistent, cohesive visual identity and tone, make your similar products consistent in design and features, and be consistent in scheduling and releasing content. This tactic builds trust with your users.

If registration for your platform is a long, cumbersome process, no one will complete it. Eliminate as many steps and form fields as possible. Remember, you can always follow up later to get the missing information.

Never keyword-stuff your copy: Always get to the point quickly and write your message as though your user has the attention span of a goldfish. You’ll notice more engagement and higher conversion rates with your content.

If you run a platform and have users who signed up but never engaged/participated, send them an email reminder about their registration. Consider offering an incentive to contribute to the platform, if applicable.

When retargeting, adjust your strategy to how far they got down the sales funnel. If they looked at an item, retarget with an email featuring that item. If they added the item to their cart, followup with an abandned car message, and so on.

Match your displayed testimonials to those from customers in the same country or geographic region as the user. Prospective customers like to know that their neighbors approve of your product.

The risk of sharing other creators’ content is that it might lead users away from your content! Try using the tool Sniply, which utilizes iFrames to ensure that a call-to-action (CTA) leading back to your site appears with your curated content. 

Subtly promote your product or service in a subreddit tailored to your industry or that’s in line with your target audience with a high-value post. Ensure that you offer useful or entertaining content rather than a heavy sales pitch, and be sure that you follow the rules of the subreddit!

Job titles often don’t describe all that someone in that role does. Imagine what your target customers does on the job — especially if you’re in the B2B space — and build your marketing around those keywords.

Don’t rearrange your UI with no warning to your users. Introduce big changes gradually, such as by offering the option to let a new sidebar slide in rather than suddenly appearing, and roll out a “tour” for users to help orient them to the changes.

Target your video ads to appear before competitors’ videos, with a strong call-to-action (CTA) to visit your channel. With luck, your audience will be so compelled by your content that they won’t even watch your competitors’ vids!

When writing ad copy, think about cause-and-effect or feature-benefit relationships that you can highlight. When customers are shopping, they want to buy more than the product or service — they want something more that you can tap into. Phrase your copy in such a way that users feel like they are going to become more […]

A click magnet word is one that drives up your clickthrough rate. No matter what your company or industry, click magnet words are proven to work. They include “new”, “proven”, “now,” and “top.”

When you roll out a new product or improve upon an existing one, target your update emails to users who have expressed interest in the product (or if it’s a new product, something similar from your offerings). Be sure that your call-to-action (CTA) sends users directly to the product page!

If subtle posting in target communities on Reddit isn’t working for you, consider running a sponsored post. These posts can reach people outside a given subreddit and enjoy prime real estate in Redditors’ feeds.

Don’t focus so hard on your email marketing efforts that you neglect your personal or professional email! Put a link to your company or landing page in your email signature, or use it as an opportunity to promote signups for your mailing list!

Celebrating an anniversary? Reached a certain number of followers? No matter the milestone, your target audience appreciates your accomplishments. You might be surprised by the engagement you receive on a post promoting your milestone. People love to feel like they’re part of a celebration, so let the confetti fly!

If you ran a giveaway or contest, you certainly had more losers than winners. Most people are used to never hearing back about a contest or sweepstakes they entered. Make your audience feel like winners by offering a discount to entrants who didn’t win. You’ll boost retention and let your audience know that you value […]

If you’re jealous of your competitors’ amazing content, don’t sulk — use it. You can set up alerts for when your competitors’ content gets a backlink, then write a post on the same topic and ask the backlinker to include your content. This tactic works exceptionally well for review sites and “top ten” articles.

Don’t be afraid to ask for reviews after your customers make a purchase. Many customers don’t think to leave a review, or they do, and they simply forget. Remind them to do so and enjoy the boost to your social proof, plus valuable feedback — even if they don’t love your product.

Don’t let your text ad fade into the background: include a pop of color as the background or with a compelling symbol to draw eyes to your ad. The more eye-catching your ad, the better it will perform.

If you’re using a pop-up for your lead capture form, consider A/B testing the design and copy to see which combination best resonates with your viewers. Remember: you’ve got only a few seconds to catch their attention! 

If you’re down to the last two variations of your new logo (remember, you should develop and test this with a limited audience), A/B test minor variations (e.g. color, font size) to see which combination performs better.

many users will search for keyphrases such as [competitor] alternative’ or ‘[your product] vs [competitor].” Tap into these solution-seeking users by creating content that compares your offering to your competitors’. Ironically, targeting these keyphrases can help you rank above your competitor — even though you’re mentioning them explicitly!

Most people don’t just search for a product: They add qualifiers, such as “cheap,” “easy,” “affordable,” or “near me.” Target these combinations to better reach your most qualified leads.

If a certain placement on the Google Display Network hasn’t been netting you a lot of results, exclude it from future campaigns. .

Start a Facebook Group that only your email subscribers will join, then offer exclusive content and high-quality (moderated) discussions for members. This tactic is a great way to boost retention by building a following around your company, as well as an opportunity to incentivize mailing list signup with high-value content!

Your top-performing, best-quality content likely hasn’t made it to all of your audience. Send out an email showcasing your best stuff to get new eyes on your top content and boost your retention rate.

A zero data state is one in which your user has nothing to input into your user interface (UI). This is most common among new users, but can be frustrating if there is no instruction on how to proceed. Ensure that you make your design intuitive, and foolproof it by offering an onboarding how-to guide […]

People like to be in the “in-crowd,” so incorporate social proof into your call-to-action (CTA) to encourage users to take action. You can draw out a top quote from an influencer, review, or testimonial and associate it with your CTA to inspire users to click. 

Don’t be afraid to use funny memes or cartoons in your advertising to reach a younger audience and cultivate a feeling of relatability and connection. Just be sure that you research and fully understand the origins and general use of the meme first!

When getting started with Google AdWords, your brand name should be one of the first keywords you target. Especially if your name contains a generic word, your competitors could easily steal your keywords out from under you. Bid on your brand name as a keyword to ensure that you rank as the #1 search engine […]

Each advertising platform is unique in their algorithms and audience creation methods. Use the same creative assets across different platforms to get a sense of the variation among them. Then, you can make informed decisions about how to optimize your ad spending and copy.

Your audience segments may have similar interests or industries, but don’t forget the effects of age on your ad performance! Evaluate which age-based audience segments are underperforming in your campaigns, then exclude those groups to optimize your ad spend.

If there’s one golden rule about web forms, it’s that they will malfunction and/or cause confusion among users. Never assume that your forms are fool-proof. For example, if the user enters a password that doesn’t meet the password requirements, don’t let the form reload and dump all the information they’ve already entered. That’s a great […]

If you’re looking for fresh content as well as backlinks, find relevant articles in another language and translate it. Republish it with permission on your site and ask the original author to link to it.

If your content has a lot of sharable images, such as infographics or quote graphics, use a tool such as SumoMe Image Sharer to enable readers to instantly share images to their platforms and create a backlink to your site.

Create a sense of urgency in your leads by driving them to a landing page where you’re offering a time-linked deal or countdown timer to when a discount expires. Most users will feel eager to take advantage of the deal and will readily convert to customers

The fold of your website or landing page is the portion visible in most viewports/devices without the user having to scroll. Assume that most users won’t scroll, and place your call-to-action (CTA) and other crucial content above the fold.

Deploy a waterfall effect in your PR: Once you get a notable bit of coverage from a well-established publication, use the link to that article as proof with which you can pitch other journalists. That first piece of coverage can cause other smaller publications to also want to cover you, which then leads to even […]

If your subscriber’s payment method fails, the surest way to ensure a permanently lost subscriber is to let it slide. To get subscribers back on track, send email notifications alerting them to update their payment method and make it easy to do so. Many users let automatic payments happen and don’t pay them much mind, […]

An exit intent popup detects when a user is about to leave the page, especially if they haven’t clicked on the call-to-action or read the entire article, and offers a new call-to-action (CTA). This CTA can be a special offer, email list signup, or any other tool that captures information from leads. Keep your exit […]

When running ads promoting a special deal or product update, roll in quotes or endorsements from influencers who will be recognizable to your audience. This boosts your credibility and serves as a compelling form of social proof. Ensure that your influencers are ones followed by your target audience.

Your audience is more likely to engage and convert on certain days of the week. There are no hard-and-fast rules — it varies by interest, industry, and other factors. Take a deep dive into your ad insights to see when these are, then exclude low-engagement days to avoid wasted ad dollars. 

Seek out advice from influencers before you start featuring them in your ad copy and social media posts. By establishing a relationship with them before you dive in, you’re more likely to garner press attention and high-profile followership.

Sometimes, you’ll find that a page on your site is unexpectedly getting a lot of traffic. Perhaps a high-profile blog linked to it, or a social media influencer shared the link on their platform. Either way, don’t let this surge of traffic meet a dead end: Add a call-to-action (CTA) to your high-traffic page to […]

Use videos in your ads to boost engagement. You can share a compelling customer story, take viewers behind the scenes, or illustrate the use of your product. The cost per mille (CPM) of video ads tends to be lower than other types of ads, so video ads are a cost-effective way of building interest in […]

If your blog or website includes original visuals, such as infographics or high-quality photos, it’s likely that someone has poached them. Run a Reverse Image Search on Google to locate other pages using your images, then ask for a backlink, which is more valuable (and effective) than asking the poacher to take down the image.

A lot of customers don’t think about how much they’re spending, but they’re very interested in how much they’re saving. Play on this by offering a cost–benefit analysis in your ad copy and web content. For example, you could compare your pricing to that of your competitor and show users that they’d be saving $5 […]

Increasingly, consumers like companies that take a casual, self-deprecating approach rather than painting themselves as the best thing since sliced bread. Plus, customers are more likely to feel positive about your brand if you make them laugh, and you’ll create a sense of trust with them. Try ad copy such as, “The best coders you […]

Take your website out of the ‘90s by keeping text separate from images. Superimposing text over images looks cheap and unprofessional by contemporary standards, and can present a challenge to readability. Embrace white space in your page design to make users more likely to read and engage with your content.

Avoid long, boring copy with directions on how to take whatever action you want the user to take. No one wants to read an instruction manual online. Use compelling visuals to create a website flow that walks visitors right up to your call-to-action (CTA). A clear choice and easily identifiable action make conversions much more […]

If you collect data on your users or platform that would be of interest to other people in your industry, create reports, whitepapers, blogs, infographics, and other content that highlights your findings. Think of how OKCupid started releasing data about matches formed on its site and gained the attention of social scientists, relationship experts, and […]

Your landing page should be hyper-focused on the action you want users to take, so remove any extraneous links that might distract from this action. This is why your landing page should look different from the other pages on your website: You don’t want a menu or sidebar with a bunch of unrelated links that […]

Rhymes not only remind people of pleasant childhood memories, but they’re also more likely to stick in people’s heads. Incorporate rhyme into your ad copy to better connect with your target audience. 

If you’ve gained press coverage of your business or brand, be sure to include links on your website or landing page. You can do a row of soundbites with attributions, or list links to coverage in a dedicated “Press” page. This tactic boosts your credibility and helps build good link relationships with the publishers.

Keep gender in mind when crafting your ad copy, then run different campaigns targeting each gender. See which copy and constructions resonate better with different genders, then adjust your new ads accordingly. Be sure that you don’t rely upon stereotypes to achieve this — that can backfire easily!

People love “toolkits,” i.e. handbooks, how-tos, and templates that can help them achieve their own business, productivity, or life goals. Offering a toolkit to users in exchange for their email address is a great way to establish your company as an authority in your industry.

B2B companies, especially those that offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) can really benefit from focus groups that provide them with real-world feedback. Recruit your top users by offering a reward, such as a free month or discounted annual rate, then hold a meeting (virtual or in-person) to talk about the user experience, performance issues, and anything else […]

Don’t underestimate the power of real-world advertising. If you’re targeting a specific geographic area, especially an urban area, use flyers, posters, stickers, and handbills to reach potential customers. Do your research to learn where people in your target audience congregate — coffee shops, coworking spaces, etc. Then place your print assets in high-traffic areas.

Always include author bylines on your blog posts. This not only builds good relationships with guest bloggers, but it also boosts trust with your audience and helps them make a human connection. Feel free to include a bio as well that lists the author’s experience, degrees, certifications, or other qualifications. And when you’re a guest […]

List the total number of customers or subscribers you have and incorporate this number into your ad copy, landing page, wherever you can. Be creative. For example, you can say things like “9,000 creators served since 2018” or “50,000 happy customers.” Experiment with real numbers, rounded-up numbers, or percentages as the case may be, to […]

If you’re running a platform, notify users when users they follow post new content, especially if the content creators are high-profile. This tactic encourages users to return to the platform, thereby boosting your retention rates. 

Image galleries get a bad rap for being space hogs and accessibility nightmares, but if done well, they have a lot of potential to highlight your products. Try taking photos of your product from different angles, then collecting all shots in a single gallery. You can also use galleries to highlight the customer journey, such […]

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. This is especially true for major social platforms where you might gain a lot of followers, but few of which are qualified leads. For example, on Instagram, you might receive a lot of engagement on your posts but experience few conversions. That’s because a […]

Upsell a prospective customer who expresses interest in one product or service by using a popup or widget to show them a related product or service. You can show this to them during checkout or immediately after purchase to capitalize on warm leads.

Use a call-to-action (CTA) ribbon, such as SumoMe’s Smart Bar, to subtly drive customers to a special offer or email signup no matter which page they are on. Some tactics, such as exit intent popups or splash CTAs, can be off-putting to certain customers or in certain contexts. A/B test to see what works, then […]

Your page titles and meta descriptions are crucial to your page’s search engine optimization (SEO). Keep your top-performing Google AdWords in mind, and adjust your titles and descriptions accordingly. Remember to abide by ideal character counts (about 60 characters for titles, about 160 for descriptions). 

If you collect data of any type, think about the ways it might be useful to others, then create a blog post, whitepaper, report, infographic, or other piece of compelling content that you can post and share. You can also conduct surveys to add context to your data, for example by sharing your users’ experience […]

Many companies will request service level agreements (SLAs) and master licensing agreements (MLAs) before opening an account with your company. Position yourself as a vendor that can make such agreements and uphold all ends of the bargain. You have the opportunity to charge enterprise-level rates for such contracts.

Take a page out of Hulu advertisers’ playbook and make your audience choose their ad experience. You can evaluate what type of content your audience prefers by offering website visitors a choice about what page they want to view/ “what experience they would like.” You might find that affirming their choice improves conversion.

When advertising on Facebook, you can narrow your audience according to users’ spending habits. Whether you want to target big spenders for your luxury products, impulse shoppers for your lightning deals, or even people who are more frugal in order to promote your “budget” offering, you can optimize your ads to reach the people who […]

A/B test the first line of copy on your landing page. Because this is the first thing visitors will see, you want to ensure that your choice resonates with the largest segment of your audience.

Rather than offering a generic product description on your landing page, highlight special features, a compelling customer story, or interesting data or stats to mix it up and give customers something to chew on. Make sure this exciting new content is above the fold!

Don’t forget to highlight reviews, testimonials, and endorsements on your site. Customers respond well to social proof that shows them that previous customers enjoyed your product or service. Place this social proof right below the Buy button. Never fake reviews: users can and will validate these.

If you’re targeting an audience based on a shared interest or industry, call it out in your ad copy to better collect qualified leads and improve your clickthrough rate (CTR). Note that for Facebook Ads, you cannot directly call out or mention your audience’s race/ethnic group, religion/spirituality, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, medical status, […]

Release content that taps into current news trends surrounding your industry. Offer timely yet authoritative comments on the topic on social media, release a blog answering frequently asked questions about the topic, or share your original data that relates to the topic. This tactic establishes you as a trustworthy leader in your industry.

If you’ve got a low ad budget and want more qualified leads, join and post in LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, and subreddits related to your industries. Share your articles or other content and engage with other users. Just be sure that you follow the group rules and don’t spam!

If a user comments on your post expressing interest in a certain product or service, don’t assume that they’ll track down your site or store of their volition. Reach out to them in a private message to encourage them to try your offering. Be personable, and refer back to their original message in conversational style […]

Analyze your visitor data to identify users who are at risk of “churning,” i.e. abandoning carts or bouncing. You can then target those users with discount offers, mailing list signups, and other tactics that boost engagement and reduce your bounce rate.

Submit content to social networks where your target audience tends to gather. For example, if you’re in the tech sphere, submit your content to Quibb. If you’re in the self-improvement or productivity sphere, post on Medium. By introducing relevant content to these platforms, you can better connect with influencers who might reshare or engage with […]

When your user’s shared content is reshared, be sure to let them know. People get an endorphin boost from knowing that their content performed well. Just don’t overdo it — focus on high-performing reshares or reshares by influencers.

Advertising platform algorithms favor new ads. So, if you love your current ad creatives but want a wider audience, give your content a refresh. Try adjusting the font, text size, colors, and proportions for a new look that might perform better.

Know how news platforms will add content and updates to developing stories? You can do this with your blog posts. This tactic works especially well with listicles, how-tos, and other content that can be updated every month or year. Plus, these articles are already ranked, so adding new keywords via updates can further boost the […]

Most customers have come to expect free quotes from service providers. No one likes sticker shock, and customers don’t want to pay money just to know how much something costs. Don’t be afraid to give free quotes — it’s a great way to nurture leads and start establishing a good relationship with them! Consider using […]

Don’t neglect the different needs and wants of mobile versus desktop users. Mobile users are typically arriving at your content via a voice search or app. They’re not sitting down to do extensive research. Desktop users, on the other hand, are taking more time to browse the web. Consider adjusting your pages to prioritize different […]

As a rule, users hate filling out forms. That’s why dozens of add-ons and browser functionalities have been developed to make it easier. On mobile especially, though, these systems are still not perfect. Make it easier to capture your leads by pre-filling user data with information from their mobile devices. 

If you’ve got a successful campaign, widening the audience may seem like a good idea. However, if you’re not careful, you might reduce the proportion of quality leads by expanding the audience beyond its niche. Keep your expansion numbers-based, such as by targeting the top 200 web development companies rather than the top 100.

Even the biggest companies have sometimes had to restyle their product name — or give it a whole new one — to help their marketing get better results. Avoid this headache by testing your product name during pre-launch to see which variation best resonates with your target audience. Possible variations include pluralization, capitalization, spacing, and […]

Ultimately, people aren’t just shopping for things — they’re shopping to improve their life or affirm their sense of status, personality, or preference. Capitalize on this psychological tendency by creating ads that focus on the lifestyle your customers will have after they make a purchase, rather than the product itself. Think about how deodorant advertisers […]

Target previous customers by entering their email addresses as unique IDs (UIDs) on advertising platforms. Your past customers are your best source of new sales, because once they buy, they’re much more likely to buy again. Retargeting is much more cost-effective than targeting new leads and can help you build a base of loyal, lifetime […]

Twitter’s Lead Generation Cards are powerful advertising tools, but they also scream “ad.” Some users are trained to skip over ads and will ignore your card. Instead, promote a tweet with a simple image or link, plus some compelling copy, to help it get seen.

Between 60 and 75 percent of subscribers on any given email list haven’t actually opened or read an email from the marketer in months. They simply forget to unsubscribe or delete without reading. These leads aren’t a lost cause. Run a campaign that specifically targets dormant subscribers with an offer they can’t refuse.

Always ensure that the messaging, branding, and other elements on your landing page matches the elements used in the ad or social media post that led them there. Confused users are more likely to bounce, while consistent messaging builds trust and boosts engagement.

Improve your platform or site’s efficiency by decluttering your user interface (UI) and/or menus. Combine similar links or destinations, eliminate items that aren’t performing well, and keep imagery sleek and simple.

Personalized subject lines cause a 22.3 percent increase in their open rate over emails. People like seeing their name. Your lead capture form should be as simple as possible, but it’s usually worth it to collect first names so that you can make your emails friendlier.

You likely follow and engage with a lot of content publishers in your field or industry. Offer to promote their content if they promote your product or service. Often, publishers will be happy to toss you a shoutout — or even publish content promoting your offering — if you promote their work to your followers […]

Alliterative sentences contains words that all or mostly start with the same letter. This construction is engaging and eye-catching, which makes it great for ads! Turn a phrase and make a memorable tagline by drafting copy that uses alliteration, e.g. “Make magical memories” or “Dare to Discover your Dreams”

When customers buy your product or sign up for your service, offer them a way to share the purchase on social media. This tactic helps create a sense of social commitment. Those who commit alone and don’t share what they’re doing are less likely to follow through. Plus, this is a great way to obtain […]

Boosting a social media post is usually a dirt-cheap, effective way to get results. Boosted posts operate differently from ads. They’re usually rolled into people’s feeds rather than occupying ad sections, and they capitalize upon existing engagement. Users who are trained to skip over ads are more likely to engage with a promoted post.

A/B test various value propositions for your offering. Sometimes, the benefit you think will resonate with prospective customers falls flat, but your target audience is more interested in a different proposition. Test variations with each of your audiences to determine the best value proposition to promote.

Use special characters, such as parentheses, brackets, or em dashes, in your page title to distinguish it from other search engine results. This formatting trick can boost your clickthrough rate (CTR) and help readers parse the title better. Always A/B test your title formatting to see which variation works best.

Reach out to your most valuable email subscribers (the ones who always open, read, and click links in your campaigns), and offer a free demo, call, or other incentive to help convert them to customers. This tactic will help those VIP customers feel special and rewarded.

It’s the age of the image. Focus on your compelling imagery by choosing an image-oriented blog layout. Big image grids a la Pinterest work well, as do large splash images.

Use a widget to highlight the latest blogs, products, or other content. This tactic drives users to pages that may not yet rank highly. Plus, people like to feel like they’re “first,” so you’ll likely see a boost in readership and purchases.

Segment your audience and target based on people’s skills, as determined by the advertising platform. For example, you can focus on people who have coding or web development skills noted in their profile or interests. This tactic is especially effective in B2B advertising.

Capitalize on people’s fear of missing out (FOMO) by sending them updates from your platform or social media profiles. Use language such as “Did you see this popular post?” or “You missed our flash sale!” to encourage people to visit your content.

Many people offer a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of their blogs or other content to encourage people to sign up for a mailing list or download an ebook. But what if your CTA was to enter a giveaway? Your visitors will be delightfully surprised and more inclined to engage with and share the content. […]

While your most important content and call-to-action (CTA) should be at the top of your landing page, you can and should put content below the fold. If done well, longer landing pages have higher conversion rates because they give you the opportunity to elaborate on your offering. This tactic works well for fundraising campaigns, where […]

Resist the temptation to fill your product page with lengthy descriptions, reviews, and photos. Too much clutter can distract potential customer from what’s important: clicking that “buy” or “add to cart” button. Streamline your product page to focus on your top selling points, best photos, and no more than one review or endorsement.

If you offer a service that customers would use on a regular basis, make it a subscription model: Collect their payment information and charge them on a recurring basis. This tactic allows you to make it easy for your loyal customers, while improving retention rates. Users who are evaluating your service or uncertain about it […]

If you offer products in multiple categories, take advantage of each single purchase to offer related products to the customer. Send an automated email within 24 hours of a purchase, and highlight other products from the same category. Customers are likely to purchase again while your brand is fresh in their mind.

Don’t skimp on your YouTube video descriptions. The platform parses these descriptions for keywords and ranks you accordingly, so videos with brief descriptions are less likely to rank highly.

After you’ve established your lead list, figure out what/who those leads “look like” and build an audience accordingly. For example, if most of your leads are marketers in the Philadelphia area, create an audience of Philadelphia-based designers, copywriters, social media strategists, and so on.

If your company has a similar business model to a well-known company but is in a different industry, play upon that to help explain your company in a nutshell. For example, if you rent out your backyard as a doggie day care, you can call yourself an “AirBnB for dogs.” You can also use a […]

If you regularly publish great content on your website, ask your visitors to opt-in to push notifications so that they never miss a new article. Many users will click “Allow notifications,” which is a great opportunity for you to keep summoning those users back to your site.

Many top-performing companies benefit from using humor in their advertising. This tactic can boost engagement and build a sense of connection with your customers. That said, it can easily backfire. Subtly test humorous copy and see which style — dry, goofy, self-effacing, etc. — best resonates with your audience. Then, roll out humorous ads slowly […]

Ads typically comprise an image, body copy, a headline, and a call-to-action (CTA). Within each element, there are additional variations, e.g. photo vs. graphic, descriptive vs. persuasive, etc. To optimize your ads, A/B test each element with the others remaining constant, then combine the winners of all tests. You can also use Facebook ads to […]

Tap into people’s festive sense by linking your promotions or discounts to the current seasons and holidays. Offering a 20% discount for no apparent reason isn’t as compelling as advertising a “Summer Fun Sale!” or “Black Friday Blowout!”

If you have a referral program, don’t let it hide at the bottom of emails or landing pages. Make a referral a call-to-action (CTA) where appropriate. If you have a platform, allow users to easily access their referral link in a prominent location.

Sponsor an issue of a well-established newsletter in your industry. This helps build a good working relationship with a publisher in your field and helps you gain access to potential new followers and customers.

Add buttons to your website content to facilitate easy sharing on social networks. You can even auto-generate tweets that communicate the blog’s core message, or allow users to share pullout quotes so that you can ensure the user is sharing the points that you want shared.

There are many plugins and other tools on the market to directly import reviews and endorsements from social media sites into your website. This tactic is an easy and effective way to add social proof to your page by providing reviews that other users can trust.

To better connect with prospective customers in other countries, offer a variant of your people for each major geographic area. Even if users have to translate your content into their language, they’ll be more likely to buy if the content itself taps into their local needs.

Add a “no-index” meta tag to pages with dynamic URLs (e.g. PHP pages that are generated by user input) to prevent search engines from indexing them. Remember, you want your permanent pages indexed to avoid frustration by users arriving from search engine results pages (SERPs).

Be conversational and inviting in your ad copy, rather than forceful or rigid. Imagine how you would talk to a customer in the real world, then emulate those patterns of speech in your ads. By creating a sense of camaraderie and comfort in the potential customer, you make them more likely to trust you enough […]

In general, it’s a best practice to use a one-column layout in your landing pages. You don’t want users to feel overwhelmed by information or uncertain as to where to click. Plus, a one-column layout better enables you to put your call-to-action (CTA) front and center.

SumoMe offers an app, Discover, that locates sites with audiences similar to yours. It then features links to your articles on those sites to capitalize on their traffic.

Use tools like Import.io or Kimono to collect business emails from companies that are in your industry or field. Focus on businesses that are in your target geographic area or company size. Once you’ve “scraped” an email list, send them a drip campaign to pitch your products and services.

Run a sweepstakes in which users must refer friends to be entered. Increase the number of entries based on how many friends the users refer. This tactic is a great way to gather new leads and motivate your current customers to engage.

Ensure that your website’s pages each link to other relevant pages on your site. This tactic not only  makes your site easier for search engine bots to crawl, but also makes a better user experience. It can also deboost your relevancy ranking in search engine results

Make your landing pages conversion-friendly by using a template builder crafted by experts. The right combination of colors, graphic elements, and font can make a world of difference.

Place a title card or graphic overlay, also called an “end slate,” at the conclusion of your video. This tactic allows you to maintain the viewer’s attention and reinforce your brand before the “related videos” start taking over the screen. The end slate is also a great place to add a call-to-action (CTA) for a […]

If you have a national or international audience, you might not be reaching your users at the peak time you think you are. Most email marketing providers offer you the opportunity to adjust your emails by time zones and send emails at the optimal time depending on where subscribers are located. Do this to improve […]

Write Top 10 lists (or Top 20, Top 5, etc) for products in your industry or field, then ask the creators of those products to promote the link to the published list. This tactic is a great way to build good relationships with companies in your niche and provide high-value content that drives traffic.

Make call-to-action (CTA) buttons easier to click on to reduce frustration and improve your conversion rate. Avoid small buttons or images, and consider making the area around the button clickable as well.

Despite emoji’s popularity, most email marketers aren’t using them. Include emojis in your subject line to draw attention to your email out of the many, many, many messages in your subscribers’ inboxes. Use an emoji as punctuation or to illustrate your subject lone — but don’t go overboard! Tip: Don’t use emojis to replace words, […]

Optimized CRPM (oCPM) bidding on the Facebook platform allows you to bid on the combination of ad inventory, audiences, and ad content to best improve your chances of conversion. A good rule of thumb is to bid to enable 25 conversions per day. Aim for an audience size of 1 million.

When launching new web banners, social media ads, or email campaigns, especially for new products, toss out a small discount. Even 10% off or $5 off can be very enticing to customers who are afraid of missing out, and it’s usually worth the boost in conversions to offer this small discount. Tip: Make the discount […]

Create lookalike audiences on Facebook by targeting users with interests similar to those who follow your page (or your competitor’s).

In your lead capture forms, make the newsletter sign-up checkbox checked by default rather than asking users to opt-in. Most won’t check the box if it’s not already checked, and by the same token, most won’t uncheck it if it’s already selected.

When someone books a call, appointment, or meeting, use a tool such as Calend.ly to automatically generate a calendar invite that will add the event to the customer’s Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook Calendar.

Longform content such as blogs and how-to guides perform well in search engines, but busy readers may not have time to read all your wonderful content. Offer a summary at the top of the blog to help them out. They’ll be more likely to share the content if they can obtain a quick understanding of […]

If there’s a podcast focused on your industry niche — and there likely is — reach out and pitch yourself as a potential guest on the show. You’ll enjoy exposure to all podcast listeners and the opportunity to establish yourself as an authority, all for minimal effort.

If you have an app, use a preview video to demonstrate how it works. Videos should be short, sweet, and engaging to best improve your chances of having the app be downloaded.

Implement best practices in the design of the call-to-action (CTA) on your landing page. Aim for bright, complementary colors; clear, serif font in a fairly large size; and plenty of space around the text elements and the button itself. Avoid using images as CTAs. Instead, use a compelling image as a background for the button.

Reach out to journalists who frequently write in your industry niche or about topics related to your enterprise. Pitch yourself and your business as a potential human interest story, or tap into current industry news and trends and offer yourself as an expert source or new development in this trend. Tip: Include any links to […]

Add site extensions to your search engine ads to direct your audience right to your targeted destination.This tactic is useful for viewers who know your company but need to be pushed toward a current campaign, new product, or email signup.

Use the “People who like your Page” and “Friends of People who like your page” in your Facebook ad targeting to send boosted posts right into the feeds of the people most likely to engage with them.

Start a webinar series that offers exclusive knowledge or great conversation to potential customers or industry publishers. Choose a topic to discuss in general and select one or more moderators to guide the discussion and offer a presentation. Then, conclude with an explanation of your company offering. A good rule of thumb is to devote […]

After users log out of your platform, don’t just say “Bye.” Show them highlights of your latest platform updates, new features, or exciting content on the platform. You just may entice them to log right back in.

Alert users who looked at a product but didn’t purchase it when the item’s price drops. Sending an email with this update provides the user a reminder of the product and motivate to visit your store and purchase it.

If your advertising platform insights show that your ads perform poorly at certain times of day, remove those times from your ad configuration to reduce wasted ad spend.

If you’re running a campaign through emails and need to drive users to a strong call-to-action (CTA), design your emails as though they were landing pages. Avoid old-fashioned, clunky “newsletter” designs with sidebars and grid layouts, and instead choose a single-column layout with a prominent, large CTA button.

When retargeting, configure your audiences according to the time that’s elapsed since their last engagement with your site or platform.  Users who haven’t been on in a week need to be targeted differently than people who have been gone for months.

Psychologically, people tend to feel ownership of something that they obtain and use. That’s why free trials are so effective: your users get accustomed to having access to the product or service and don’t want to give it up. Offer a free trial that’s short enough that people can’t take advantage of it to the […]

A portrait ad offers you an opportunity to combine image and text in a compact yet effective format. Run a portrait ad that will appear in sidebars on Facebook and other major ad platforms. Aim to make the size 300 x 1050 px for most platforms.

If you’re in a business where you’d provide a service for a client, offer that for free and ask the client for their email address to send them your results. This tactic is a great way to generate leads while boosting interest in your company.

Share content that’s located on your app via SMS or email marketing. This tactic will encourage users to download or install your app if they haven’t yet. Plus, users are more likely to click on links in SMS or email messages that offer them direct benefit or satisfaction.

Connect with influencers regularly to build good business relationships. Don’t just go to them and ask for endorsements without putting in the time and reciprocity needed to make it worthwhile for both of you!

LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms system leverages the profile information that LinkedIn members already have their profiles to help fill your lead capture forms. Use this system if you want to reach professionals in your industry.

Appending your calls-to-action (CTAs) with special characters such as  “>>” or “+” may help drive conversion by indicating to the user that there is more to do.

Test your ad placement. For example, Facebook ads might appear in the sidebar of the desktop experience or in the feed on the mobile app. Optimize your ads for where they perform best.

Liven up your signup process with natural-language input. Form providers such as Typeform facilitate this approach, in which leads enter text into fields that constitute blanks in existing sentences, Mad Libs- style, rather than filling out a formal form.

A lot of users balk at pop-up subscriber boxes that suddenly blast onto the page. Entice users to sign up in a gentler fashion by having the signup box appear as they scroll, or even at the end of your post. This tactic gives users a chance to read your content, which makes them more […]

Offer single sign-on support to entice enterprise-level clients. Large companies with tons of employees don’t want to have to handle a cumbersome signup/login process. Single sign-on works with their existing user IDs to allow access to your platform.

Roll editorial content into your email marketing. Curate content in your industry, show the best of your blog, and otherwise provide value to your subscribers, rather than just being “sales-y.” These types of emails are more often forwarded to other people, thereby increasing your subscription rates. Plus, you’re more likely to boost your open and […]

Put a sign up for your service or mailing list on your homepage. Make it a simple, easy-to-fill-out form to remove any hurdles. Users will be more likely to sign up in those situations.

In select situations, you can bid on the brand keywords for your product suppliers or competitors. Just be sure that you are not in violation of terms of service by doing this.

Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAG) improve relevancy between your keywords and ad copy. This will help improve  your clickthrough rate (CTR) and overall efficiency of your ad spend.

Include a list of references in each article in your blog, or perhaps a “Recommended Resources” section on your site. Then, reach out to the publishers of the linked content. You just may get backlinks!

Include faces and, when possible, voices of the people endorsing you. This boosts the social proof of these testimonials.

If you’re running a platform, especially one in which people share or save content, roll out a Chrome and/or Firefox extension to encourage users to take full advantage of your platform. Anything you can do to remove hurdles such as the annoying process of copy-and-pasting of links or images will help boost engagement on your […]

One of the chief obstacles to a lead converting to a customer is a weak call-to-action (CTA). Ramp up the color or size of your Buy button or other CTA to see if it encourages conversion. You can also play with the text itself, such as “Get fit now!” or “Power up now!” instead of […]

Rather than rolling out flat frontal shots of your products, take a cue from the fashion models and show your product’s best side. Place it at an angle to show how it would most often look when your customers encounter it. Plus, customers are used to this positioning of objects photographed for advertising.

Take a different approach to targeting leads by tapping into the tools they use. This can be a good way to reach people you would not otherwise be able to configure in an ad audience. For example, if you wish to reach people who are interested in “productivity,” target those who follow Trello’s social media […]

When targeting your ads, configure your audiences to include those whose interests complement your product category. Roll in keywords that are related to the lifestyle or subculture of those who would want your products. For example, if you sell natural products, target people interested in “organic food.” Just remember that your Facebook ads cannot target […]

If you have a client who did particularly well with your product or service (especially in B2B scenarios), feature them in a case study that explains how your business helped them achieve their goals or streamline their operations. Draw out key points from the case study and highlight them on your landing pages. The case […]

Some ads perform worse when triggered by certain words. You can configure Google to remove these negative phrases. For example, you might want to avoid users who are searching for related phrases that are actually not related to your business, because those people are likely not interested in your company. Don’t waste your ad dollars […]

Thank your loyal customers with email that acknowledge their frequent purchases or long-term standing as your customer. Offer them a discount, exclusive products, or early access to a new release. Be sure to roll sincere, grateful language into your copy, especially the subject line!

If you’re a B2B business, target your ads to companies of a certain size and word your ad copy appropriately. Mom-and-pop shops have different need and priorities than large enterprise-level clients would. Targeting the wrong size business is a good way to waste your ad spend.

When choosing your stock photos or arranging photo shoots, opt for subjects that resemble the end result you want your audience to associate with your product. For example, if you’re selling haircare products, choose models with shiny, healthy hair.

Never be afraid to completely re-design your landing pages. Sometimes, a fresh new look is what’s needed to improve your conversion rate. Stay on-brand, but test a revamped version of the page with new splash images, colors, layout, etc.

Create ads that suggest exclusivity and secrecy. Offer a special code to sign up, or roll out a special membership option. Use language such as “Join the club” and “Get the VIP treatment.” People like to feel included and special, so this approach taps into that psychological need.

Even if your site is free to access, use a login system and some simple personalization options to encourage user engagement. Believe it or not, requiring signup actually drives conversions, because people like to feel catered-to and special. Just ensure that your registration and login processes are both simple. Consider using a social sign-on such […]

Offer accumulating referrals to incentivize users to regularly refer friends and family. For example, you could give them a discount code that increases with each referral, or gradually lower their subscription rate until it’s free. This tactic can reward loyal customers while encouraging them to keep making referrals.

Did you know you can target a Twitter audience based on hashtags? This tactic is especially useful for advertising to people interested in an event. Create a Twitter list using this hashtag. Then, use an automation program such as Zapier or IFTTT to populate the list with this hashtag. Finally, import the list to Twitter […]

If you have email subscribers who haven’t purchased from you, retarget them on a different platform to remind about your company. They are more likely to recognize the brand, and seeing content tailored to them will boost their interest in making a purchase.

Rather than linking your emails to your website (or a mobile version of your website), send users straight to your app. This is called a deep link, and this tactic can improve the user experience while driving app downloads.

When you’re on a call with a customer or client, don’t be afraid to ask them if they’re on your email list and invite them to join if they’re not! You can even take care of it for them It shows that you care about keeping them in the loop, and many people will agree […]

Get engaged on discussion-based sites such as Reddit and Quora. These platforms feature huge numbers of users looking to solve problems in their lives. Offer authoritative responses on relevant topics to drive interest in your profile. Just be sure to follow the community rules and don’t be “sales-y.”

If you’re rolling out new features or products, don’t lose customers who might cancel without ever having the chance to try them! Regularly announce what’s “coming soon” and highlight new items or features on the cancellation page. This tactic can help prevent people from cancelling because the product or feature they want isn’t there. If […]

Don’t forget to send a welcome message to your mailing list’s new subscribers! Let them know what to expect and get them excited for your next email. It’s a good idea to set some expectations: Establish how often you’ll be emailing them and what sort of content they can expect. Tip: Give them the option […]

Send an email promoting a certain product to customers who have purchased items in the same product category. This tactic helps encourage customers to return by showing them products relevant to their interests.

Use aggregator sites such as Alltop or Mix to conduct market research in your chosen industry. You can see relevant news and garner content ideas, plus share your own content as well. Such sites are a great opportunity to tap into trending topics.

The key to SEO is keywords. Choosing good ones is an art. Here’s a tip to find keyword phrases that you can use to generate content ideas and optimize your webpages: Check out the top-selling books in your industry niche and look at the phrases in the table of content. You’ll find that they give […]

Use Video Email Capture, also known as “Gating,” to generate leads. Users who watch your video must enter their email address to continue watching the video. Because they’re already invested, they’re more likely to provide their email address to be able to finish the vide. Just be sure that the meat of the video — […]

Place your call to action on the left side of the landing page, where it’s more likely to capture users’ attention. Plus, it’s more likely to stay above the fold on mobile.

Most search engines penalize websites that have duplicate content. Unfortunately, this can be easy to have happen if you repurpose content or don’t have a good content scheme. Use a site audit to find and remove duplicate content. If you quote content, say on your blog, use the rel canonical tag to identify the original […]

Never crowd elements of your webpage together: It looks very old-fashioned. Keep plenty of white space for a more pleasing and functional user experience.

Make users feel like they’re about to miss out on something by using subject lines that express urgency. Include deadlines or language such as “Last chance” to drive open rates.

Include a link to your mailing list signup form on all of your social media bios. More people check out your bio than you might imagine and are likely to click on a link there.

The Google Search Network with Display Select ads combine traditional pay per click (PPC) search engine advertising with advertising on Google’s Display Network, which appears on more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps. This two-for-one approach allows Google to optimize your ads for their platform and display options, thereby reducing your overall ad spend.

On your product or pricing pages, show local currency rates when possible. This tactic helps you to reach international audiences and affirms that you do indeed serve customers in their country.

Use the onboarding process to make a personalized impact. Offer to onboard users manually and help ensure that everything goes smoothly. Customers will feel respected and appreciate the convenience. This tactic can improve your retention rate.

Be sure you regularly update your app for bugs and vulnerabilities. Not only does this improve your users’ experience, but also, posting an app update pushes negative reviews down the page.

Establish your authority in your niche by hosting “Ask Me Anything” session, aka an AMA, on a site like Reddit or Twitter. Share insights unique to your position and talk about your expertise in order to drive qualified leads and encourage brand awareness.

Before you launch your company or product, track down the journalists and bloggers who have written about your competitors. Draft a release describing how you out-perform those competitors, along with a pitch of something newsworthy or human-interest driven. This tactic will help you get press coverage headed into your launch.

Sometimes, too many pricing plans can drive away customers. Keep it simple; if you must have tiered pricing plans, make the differences clear and obvious. When possible, condense your offerings into a flat rate. This tactic can boost both conversion and retention.

If you have a lot of Pokémon Go players at your location, incentivize them by offering a discount if they show you a screenshot of a Pokémon caught near your place of business.

At the end of your video or other multimedia post, remind users to like and share it.  You’d be amazed by how many people genuinely enjoy your content and simply forget to hit the Like button. A simple reminder can go a long way.

Create an ad in which text appears over a translucent layer on top of an image. This tactic enhances readability on text-and-image combinations and gives the post a sophisticated look.

Reach out to conferences in your industry niche that need speakers. Speaking at a conferReach out to conferences in your industry niche that need speakers. Speaking at a conference is a great way to establish your authority and share your experience, as well as subtly promote your business.ence is a great way to establish your […]

Avoid potential distractions for your leads by removing other links on landing pages. You want them to focus on your call-to-action (CTA). Consider removing menus, footers, and other distracting page elements from your landing pages.

Nothing quite expresses gratitude like a handwritten “Thank you” note. Take a page out of Etsy and eBay sellers’ playbooks and use handwritten notes to thanks your customers. This tactic can boost customer satisfaction and encourage loyalty.

Tap into emotional themes, such as nostalgia, ambition, and heartwarming stories, to guide your ad copy into something that compels viewers to make a purchase. Dull, straightforward copy can easily be lost in the noise. Focus on the human element to drive conversions.

Incentivize your customers to give feedback by offering a reward, such as a discount or gift card, in exchange for their time.  Send them an online survey to save time and money, then offer them a discount code upon completion. Tip: Focus on open-ended questions, e.g. “Why did you decide to upgrade to a paid […]

Avoid fluff in your ad copy: Get straight to the point and avoid filler words. Use active, rather than passive language. For example, rather than saying, “Our product offers you the opportunity to be your best self,” say, “Be your best self! Order our product today.”

Customize your onboarding process according to the source of the subscription.  For example, if someone comes in via your general profile, they likely need full onboarding. A user who came in via a product page likely just wants information on that product, so tailor your onboarding accordingly.

Customize your onboarding process according to the source of the subscription.  For example, if someone comes in via your general profile, they likely need full onboarding. A user who came in via a product page likely just wants information on that product, so tailor your onboarding accordingly.

After you’ve scraped an email list, create a custom audience based on their interests and import it into your ads system. This tactic helps ensure that you are reaching people who could be invested in your company and brand.

When you’re running a sale or other limited-time offer, send an email to your subscribers to alert them to the last day of the sale. This tactic gives them a sense of urgency that can drive sales.

Sponsor a checkout page on an affiliate’s site to tap into their customer’s buying journey. Customers will feel like there is something a of value being offered to them and often happily follow the rabbit hole to your site. You can arrange with your affiliate to have a portion of sales shared for purchase made […]

During user registration or signup, incentivize a social media login by offering a coupon or discount code. When users are encouraged to do so, they’re more likely to add their social network information, which provides you with their interests, birthday, and friends list, allowing you to better target them.

Always provide the status of an action that your customer took, such as placing an order. Don’t leave them to wonder if the item has been shipped yet or what’s going on. Clear communication is the key to customer loyalty.

Be clear that the customer retains their choice. Express to them that they’re always free to cancel a trial, cancel their membership, change their service plan, or reach out with any questions. People get nervous about getting locked into something or being stuck with a product or service that they no longer want, so it […]

Encourage your VIP customers, as well as family and friends, to give you five-star ratings. If you want genuine feedback, offer a friends and family trial or discount so that they can legitimately give you a good review.

Consider sending automatic password resets to users who enter their passwords wrong 3 times. You don’t want users to get frustrated and end up leaving your platform. Make it convenient for them to get back on board!

Build cross-promotion partnerships with complementary apps to help improve customer satisfaction and therefore loyalty. You can offer discount codes for signups at each other’s services and cross-pollinate your blogs and content marketing schemes. 

Endorse tools and apps that you like. This establishes your authority in your niche and helps you build a reputation as a knowledgeable influencer and creator. It’s also a great way to generate backlinks to your company site. 

If you offer multiple price points or service plans, set the one at which you see the greatest profit and/or signup as the default option during registration. Because consumers are both less likely to opt-out and opt-out, it’s more effective to have them simply follow a pre-determined path.

People like to do what their friends and peers are doing. Send out testimonials from people who best mirror your target audience, whether in age, role, job title, gender, etc. Prospective users will be more likely to trust your product.

Many of your users are expatriates, meaning that they left their home country. Rather than targeting them based on their current residence, connect with them based on their home country to tap into their nostalgia and sense of identity.

Be sure to pay attention to your ads’ Quality Score. A low-quality score can reduce impressions and rankings, and potentially cause you to pay more in your bids. Be sure to follow best practices on each platform to help your Quality Score rise.

Instantly respond to Twitter mentions by using a service such as Tweetfull. This saves you a lot of time, while encouraging your followers to engage with you.

Target the keywords “alternative to [competitor]” or “[competitor] alternatives” to reach an audience who’s interested in your competitor but looking for a better option — as in, you! Aim to be the top search result for that search phrase.

Getting a listing in an online directory is a great way to get a high-value backlink as well as a new source of traffic. 

Influencer marketing involves establishing a content-sharing relationship with an influencer, i.e. someone who is known in your field or industry for their expertise and advice. Have an influential blogger guest-post on your site or do a social media takeover. Their followers will come to your page.

Most ads are short, and as people’s attention spans shorten, so do the ads. However, there is a place and a need for longer-form ad copy. Consider full-page ads that tell a compelling story, or get an “advertorial” (ad + editorial) published in a newspaper or industry magazine. These formats can draw in readers who […]

When people engage with your content on social media, be sure to follow them! They’re likely to follow you back. Do not use the “follow–unfollow” method. This “trick” harms your credibility and can breed resentment among your followers. Instead, follow as many people as you can, and regularly engage with your “VIP” audience: those who […]

If you’re using borders or frames to define and demarcate parts of your user interface (UI), consider decluttering your design and making it look less ‘90s. Excessive borders can be distracting and off-putting to visitors. Instead, use color-blocking and/or white space to define your UI.

The bulk of the content about your company or brand isn’t what you produce: It’s what your customers produce. These posts, photos, videos, etc. are called user-generated content (UGC). Leverage UGC creators as your brand ambassadors by sharing the best UGC content on your site. You should also retweet high-quality tweets about your brand, and […]

If official certifications apply to your business or industry, definitely obtain and feature them proudly on your homepage or landing page. This can boost your brand reputation and entice skeptical users to book your services or purchase your products.

Narrow your ad audiences to align with your target personas. Don’t forget to include age, interests, geographic location, career or job title, and other key factors.

When your subscribers have an upcoming bill, send them a referral link that they can share with friends to discount their next payment. This tactic helps you gain access to qualified leads while boosting your retention rate. 

Use a widget on your landing page to show visitors which posts, products, or services are your most popular posts or products. People like to follow what other people are doing, so this tactic is a nice psychological trick to encourage purchases or upgrades.

Use a tool such as the SumoMe Highlighter to allow your users the capability to quickly share text they highlight on your page to their social media profiles. This is an effective way of encouraging people to promote your brand with direct quotes from your content.

Social listening is the practice of monitoring social media feeds for posts about your brand — both positive and negative. A study from Lithium Technologies indicated that more than half of consumers who message a brand directly expect a response within an hour. Be sure to set up automated responses on platforms such as Facebook […]

Create an ad audience that is a “lookalike audience” for your website visitors based on their demographic and shared interests. Major ad platforms now allow you to define a target audience based on the demographics and interests that users share with your current website visitors..

Square ads perform well on the Google Display Network (GDN) because they fit into pretty much any digital space. Be sure to include some in your rotation. The most common size is 250 by 250 pixels.

Look through the agendas from industry conferences to find useful keyword phrases. Not only are conference attendees entering these phrases into Google, but also, conference speakers tend to draw upon popular topics to title their speeches. Lean on them for content ideas.

Target your ad audiences for top-performing locations. Examine your results to see which locations are producing the most — and least —traffic. Then, turn off underperforming locations to exclude your ads from showing there and wasting your ad dollars.

Big chunks of text don’t perform well on the web. Break up your content into bullet points and/or shorter paragraphs, and use subheadings to label the content (these are also great places to tuck your target keywods). Be sure to keep lots of whitespace on your webpages!

Have you got a hot lead? Great! Are they the sole decision-maker at their workplace? Likely not. Be sure that you can identify all stakeholders in a company and tailor your messaging to reach each of them.

Make the onboarding process easier by transitioning everything over to your platform or service from a customer’s existing system. By offering a convenient, seamless experience to your audience, you can boost their engagement with and loyalty to your company.

Send an email asking your audience to refer a friend. Research says that referred customers produced 25% higher profit margins and were 18% less likely to leave the company.

Resurrect a top-performing article or other content from a past email campaign. Your newer subscribers never got a chance to see it, and your older subscribers might have forgotten it. You know it performed well, so give it a chance to shine again and watch your click rates rise.

Name-drop press outlets who have featured your product or service in your ads, e.g. “As featured in Wired…”. This tactic adds a sense of authority to your advertising and impresses prospective customers. 

Whether you use partner tools or software on your platform or website, or your product works well with other tools, acknowledge them on your website or platform. This tactic shows a collaborative spirit to and inspires brand recognition in your customers, driving their loyalty to your company.

If you’re sending business-to-business (B2B) emails, use introductory language, akin to what you would use in a networking meetup, in your email subject line. This tactic makes you seem more like you’re seeking collaboration rather than being “sales-y.”

While your CTA should be front and center (well, above the fold), it pays to repeat it at the bottom of your landing page to entice users who prefer to read the whole page. 

Automatically include new content added to your site or platform in your email or social media. This tactic boosts engagement while ensuring consistent content marketing. Use a tool such as Zapier, IFTTT, or a Twitter app to achieve this functionality. Tip: Cap the number of posts sent per day so that your followers don’t feel […]

Whether you’re targeting or retargeting, try sending leads directly to a Book Now page, such as your Facebook appointments page or your Calendly link. This tactic can encourage people to go ahead and register.

Test which days of the week your emails perform better. Send the same email to different segments of your audience on different days to see which one has a better open rate.

Many products, especially software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions can be daunting to new users. Some will abandon the product if they don’t understand how to use. Send a tutorial email as part of your onboarding process to help retain customers. 

Extend the delay for your retargeting cookie from 45 seconds to a minute. This ensures that you don’t track users who visited the page and immediately bounced. That way, you’ll be retargeting people who spent some time on the page. Your consequent ads will be more likely to reach leads who are activated and ready […]

If you’re running a platform, regularly remind users to chat with you if they have any questions or concerns. You can usually set custom rules to trigger these messages, such as X number of minutes on the site or X number of days without activity on the platform..

Focus on your content rather than the bells and whistles. Use a strong, compelling hero image with your blog content and minimize the menu. Avoid the temptation to pack your page with sidebars, buttons, and other clutter.

Use vector images on your site: They scale up and down easily, making them ideal for your responsive website design. This tactic helps ensure a better user experience. 

Set up a Facebook ad with a call-to-action (CTA) to “Send Message.” Then, configure your page’s Messenger to auto-respond to customers. Be sure to follow up in person. This tactic can help drive conversions and give customers a good experience with your brand.

Create a video testimonial and post it prominently on your website and/or social media. Keep it natural and honest — the less edited or staged, the better. This tactic provides compelling social proof and helps humanize your brand.

Pin a post on your Twitter or Facebook page that includes a link to your email signup form. By making this the first thing visitors see before they read your great content, you can establish in their minds that signing up for your list would be a good idea.

Create tutorials for your product or service and post them in a “knowledge base” on your website. This tactic helps boost retention by clarifying common problems your users may experience and showing that you care about their use of your product or service.

If you’re targeting businesses, narrow your audience to those with your desired sales revenue range. This way, you can fine-tune your ads to the level of enterprise you’re trying to reach.

Offer a free product or premium access to your service in exchange for a review. Remember, many review platforms’ terms of use state that you cannot reward only good reviews. However, simply rewarding users for submitting a review is a good way to provide social proof, and if you’re keeping your customers happy, most will […]

Create a lookalike audience that resembles the people who are already following your page.  This tactic helps you reach people with interests and characteristics similar to those who are already interested in you.

SlideShare presentations are a great way to establish your authority and drive traffic to your business. Insert a strong call-to-action at the end of a high-value presentation on a topic relevant to your industry.

Shorten the page that lists your products or services — perhaps you can pare down the lesser-used items or relegate them to a smaller page element below the fold. Focus on the items that perform best to help drive further conversions.

A/B test different button color options for your calls-to-action (CTAs). The color of a button can have a large effect on your conversion rate. Try colors that contrast with your general page color to help draw the eye.

Run a “flash sale” on your content to create a sense of urgency and drive reads/downloads.  Make some of your high-value content, e.g. an e-book, available for a limited time or for a limited number of users. Include some sort of counter or countdown to provide a visual indicator and help drive conversions.

Keep your payment page simple and separate from the rest of your site. You can usually build this page through your payment gateway. Changing up the theme of this page can make customers nervous, so go with a classic look: white background, simple layout, and clear indicators of your brand and security measures.

Be authentic in more ways than one: Use a natural, relatable voice in your ad copy, and be open to discussions with your customers. That means responding to their comments and retweets, and even to negative reviews. Being honest and approachable is key to building brand loyalty.

If you have a brick-and-mortar location, use Yelp’s and Facebook’s “Check-in” features to offer a reward or bonus to customers who check in. This incentivizes customers to post your business to their social media. 

Use Twitter cards to grow your mailing list. First, create a Twitter card inside of your email marketing provider. Next, send the card to your Twitter Ads. Finally, embed the card in a pinned a tweet. This tactic is a great way to easily drive Twitter followers to your mailing list signup.

Reach out to an influencer who has a similarly sized audience and offer to promote them to your audience in exchange for them doing the same. This tactic works best if you have a similar number of followers with a large overlap in interests.

People tend to get stuck on the first information they receive. This is called the anchoring effect, and you can leverage it in your ad copy. The anchor can be a reference to a well-known competitor or a numbers-based offer. Examples: “3 metal straws for the price of one.” “50% more potent than Advil.”

Make stickers or buttons with your logo. You can also create designs that match your brand and the industry of your target audience. Then, give it out for free at events or with purchases. People love to decorate their stuff with this “swag,” which is free advertising that might reach unexpected audiences.

If you sell on Amazon, create keyword-targeted ads to drive traffic to your products. This takes a lot of time, but is worth the investment because your audience is usually primed (pun intended) to buy.

When reaching out to webmasters for backlinks, be specific about the page from which you want them to link, and include the destination link. Make it easier for them to understand what you want — and therefore say yes.

Spell out the benefits that customers will achieve by using your product or service. What will their return on investment (ROI) be? Look at your analytics and feedback to assemble some stats, such as number of hours or dollars saved, percentage growth, etc.

When replacing pages on your website, use a 301 redirect to send any traffic to the correct page. This tactic helps you retain the backlinks and search engine ranking, etc., helps prevent frustrating 404 errors, and provides a more seamless experience for your users.

Be sure that you highlight your referral program in your regular emails to your customers! Many of them might not know about it, so take this opportunity to boost their likelihood of referring a friend or family member to your business. Tip: Make forwarding the email count as a referral.

Optimize your ad bids and budget for the specific time of year. This tactic requires a deep understanding of your existing ads’ performance. Dive deep into your insights to drill down to the specific month, day, and time of day that your ads do best.

Re-send email campaigns to members of your audience who did not open the first one. Ensure that you wait a week or so before re-sending and change the subject line to avoid spam complaints.

Podcasts are great ways to establish your brand authority, drive traffic to your website, and produce a passive income stream. Do some research to see what topics your target audience might be interested in, then recruit leaders in your industry to be guests on your podcast. Release content regularly and promote the podcast on your […]

Index your app so that you can deep link to any page within the app straight. Use Google’s App Indexing project to achieve this. Branch.io is also a way to do this. This way, you can drive search engine traffic straight to your app from a Google ad or search result.

Be cautious with hashtags—avoid using generic ones with thousands of followers, and instead choose a variety of specific hashtags. Try to include one industry-specific tag, one that refers to the product or service you’re promoting, and one that describes your target audience. 

For ads that run a little larger, or for promoted social posts, consider using an infographic that illustrates your product or service. This tactic helps you stand out from a sea of generic stock-image ads, while providing value to your audience and answering common questions.

If you experience a lot of churn on your platform, it might be that consumers simply don’t know how to use or access all parts of it. Limit their access until they complete a mandatory tour or other onboarding procedure that shows them the ropes.

Advertise collections of items or complementary products rather than individual items. You can make “suggested pairings” or offer a bundle deal if customers purchase multiple, related products at the same time.

Identify your “top fans” — the people who comment on your content the most — and send them exclusive content or a teaser for a new release. This tactic will boost engagement and brand loyalty.

Use your ad copy to focus on the quality of your product or service. In an age of cheap offerings, customers respond well to claims of high quality. Bonus points if you can prove the quality with strong visuals or a video. You can also enhance your copy by targeting common pain points that customers […]

Never send your email drip campaigns from a “no reply” email address. Always use a real contact so that your audience feels like they can voice their concerns. This tactic gives your company a more personable, accessible feel. Tip: Use a shared account so that the real person isn’t inundated by responses. This way, your […]

Configure your ad audience to include topics of interest. This tactic will help your ads appear on multiple pages.

Try to strike an affiliate deal with an industry-specific search provider. For example, if you have a blog that focuses on job search and recruitment, give your site visitors in-site access to Indeed’s job search engine. You can then monetize your traffic through a pay-per-click model.

Customers’ chief concern is the risk of buying a product or service. Will it be worth their money? Make it easier for them by emphasizing anything you offer that reduces their risk: a money-back guarantee, a warranty, a return policy.

Look for high-authority domains that are available for purchase, then 301 redirect them to your site to capitalize on their link authority.

Run ads that make customers develop a fear of missing out (FOMO). The copy could highlight a limited number of items or a sale that’s ending soon. This tactic triggers FOMO, which psychologically motivates the customer to take action before it’s too late.

Use a simple form to make it convenient for customers to contact you with any questions or concerns. Rather than hiding the form on a separate page, add it to a sidebar or footer to keep it within easy reach

Improve the clarity and aesthetic of the elements in your user interface by combining or hiding tooltips or labels whenever possible. For example, you can unveil tools upon hover rather than listing out every possible option.

Have separate styles for links that the user is hovering over or clicking, as well as a distinct style for any link indicating their current position. This tactic enhances your UI by helping orient users, and it also provides visual cues for people who navigate your website via keyboard.

Retarget users who were on your website but did not take an action. Often, users are interested, but get distracted or lose the site. Seeing an ad for the site on social media or in search will remind them of your site and lead them back to it.

When designing your user interface (UI), allow flexibility and delays that suit your user. For example, don’t automatically close menus or on-hover elements if the user accidentally moves the cursor slightly outside it. You should test your UI extensively to ensure that it doesn’t have annoying side effects.

Target people outside of the North American market. There are many nations with a large English-speaking audience who might be interested in your offerings, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and even the Philippines. Translate your content and reach people in your target demographics and psychographics in France, Germany, Brazil, Japan, Israel, Singapore, and other […]

If you have a pop-up for your mailing list signup, some users will click it away to try to see your content. That’s a lost opportunity to capture leads. Try using a transparent background so that users can see your content and will be further motivated to sign up for more great content.

Promote your content on sites such as Tribber, Mix, ManyStories, Quora, and Reddit to connect with a highly engaged audience. These sites are great ways to build content sharing arrangements and influencer relationships.

In your calls-to-action (CTAs), try using “my” instead of “your,” e.g. “Start my free trial” vs. “Start your free trial.” This tactic can make your audience feel more ownership over your product or control in taking their action.

Negatively associate your product with an established group, audience, or trend. For example, the “Not Your Mother’s” cosmetics brand uses this to its advantage. This tactic is great for brands with a whimsical approach.

Incorporate emotion into your advertising to better connect with audiences. This tactic pairs well with story-based marketing. Develop strong stories to use in video ads, and pull on heartstrings in your social media posts and text ads. Use emotive language and strong calls to action, e.g. “Join me to make a difference in children’s lives.”

Avoid asking customers to do math. Explicitly list the number of products left, how much they’ll save, etc. to improve your conversion rate.

Keep your URLs short: Abbreviate long page titles in the slug, and eliminate any elements of your permalink structure that you don’t need. For example, if you’re using WordPress to organize posts on your site but don’t need dates on those posts, remove the date field from your permalink structure.

Reach out to publishers that tend to publish content or cover products similar to yours, and ask them to provide a link to your site. When emailing them, point out a dead link on their site that you could replace, or highlight similar content with which your link could be included.

Create a lookalike audience based on your email list to capture people with similar interests.

When you sign up a user for an email list, send them an email with a confirmation link. By requiring double opt-in, you can weed out spam signups or signups via bot, and improve your chances of getting qualified leads on your list.

Include an interesting fact about or related to your offering. This tactic gives your audience a concrete thing to hold onto and can drive up your click rate. The fact can be about your customers, e.g. “52 percent of users reported improved productivity” or the thing itself, e.g. “Made in the USA by a team […]

Use a Sniply link to create a custom call-to-action (CTA) that accompanies your shared content. This tool drives traffic back to your site from your content shared on other sites.

Build a free tool or widget, e.g. a calculator or design tool, related to your industry. Other sites will likely link to it, which is a great source of backlinks for your site. It’s also a great way to boost your brand authority.

Retarget previous visitors based on the specific page they visited before. For example, if they were on your copywriting service page, show them ads related to your copywriting service. This specific approach performs better than generic ads directing them to your homepage.

Include a video on your landing page to concisely explain or illustrate your proposition. If you use this tactic, minimize the text on the page and ensure that you have a strong call-to-action (CTA).

Make sure that all your videos end with a title card, end slate, or embedded link with some sort of call-to-action, whether it’s to subscribe to your channel or watch a related video.

Use Google Suggest (the phrases that pop up as you type into the search bar) to get ideas for keyword phrases for your SEO targeting and content marketing.

Position your call to action (CTA) on the right side of your landing page, and make it scroll with the page. This way, it stays out of the way of your copy but remains visible to your audience. This tactic can boost the conversion rate of your page.

Birds of a feather tend to flock together — and that means you can capitalize on your fans’ friends as a potential audience. Target an audience comprising friends or followers of your page’s fans or followers, and be sure to incentivize referrals to your company!

Export your customers on portals such as Etsy or Shopify, from social media sites such as LinkedIn, or even from your Gmail, and import them to your mailing list. These leads are usually highly qualified. Remember to clearly explain why you’re contacting them and offer high-quality content so that they do not unsubscribe.

If you want to retarget your site visitors, be sure to add the AdWords Remarketing tag to your website with Google Tag Manager. You can then bid for high-volume spots in the Google AdWords platform.

Establish a referral program that offers a discount, coupon, or account credit to your user for each friend that signs up. Your current customers will feel appreciated, and new customers will gain a good impression of your company.

Design your user interface (UI) to use Progressive Disclosure, in which information or content is revealed as the user moves through your page. This tactic helps provide a compelling experience for website visitors that can drive them to take action.

Target people who work in your industry or related industries. Test out multiple configurations based on job title, degree, and other key factors. This tactic works especially  well in B2B scenarios.

When designing your user interface (UI), use familiar symbols, typographic elements, and orientations. Don’t make users try to figure out an alien system. This tactic can boost conversion and retention by minimizing distractions for the user.

Using Google’s schema markup helps you achiever a higher clickthrough rate on your search results. Create structured snippets and leverage data to improve the way your site appears on Google. By offering more options to users, you can boost traffic to your content.

Are your brand identity keywords driving traffic or is your content doing well on its own? Test your current situation by running campaigns with and without your tagline or brand language and see which type of ads perform better.

Use a hero image as the background or banner of your landing page to add visual interest and quickly illustrate your proposition to leads. A/B test image options to discover which one has a larger impact on your conversion rate.

Guest write for industry publications to establish your expertise. Be sure that the sites have a large following and allow you the opportunity to include a bio that links to your company.

Incorporate social proof into your ad copy to help your audience feel like they’d be missing out if they ignore the ad. Name drop celebrities or influencers who like your product or service, and make it relevant to your target audience. You can also list the number of users satisfied with your company or mention […]

Give your potential customers or clients an easy opportunity to book a call or meeting, using a tool like Calendly. Then, show them a thank you page and/or lead capture form after they complete. This ensures that you get their information and motivate them to keep their appointment.

Use Google’s Search Partners to show your ads outside the Google platform. Often, your ad spend will be less on these cheaper platforms, and it’s easy to convert your ads from Google ads to partner ads.

Shorten your landing page by reducing clutter and keeping the focus on your call-to-action (CTA). Place as much key content “above-the-fold” as possible to boost your conversion rate. Users are more likely to act on impulse when there are few distractions.

If a friend of a user joins the platform or posts an engaging post, notify the user to help boost your retention rate.

Use Facebook’s Multi-Product Ads services to showcase multiple products. The advantage of this tool is that you can show a broad audience multiple images and lines of copy. Ensure that you use high-quality images and compelling product descriptions. This tactic is particular helpful when retargeting users who browsed your products or services on your website […]

Offer seasonal content — and promotions — in your email and social media marketing campaigns.  There is always something to tap into, whether the first day of spring or National Pizza Day. Think of clever ways to boost engagement with your content and offer discounts or coupons as appropriate.

Avoid stiff, formal ad copy that might bore — or even drive away — your potential customers. Try to keep it conversational, even casual, to better connect with your audience and make them feel like you’re a friendly, accessible brand. This tactic works especially well when targeting millennials and Generation Z.

Create a quiz on your landing page that’s easy to take and drives users toward conversions. Incentivize the quiz by offering a discount or coupon if the visitor completes. Keep it short — no more than 5 questions — and relevant to your company’s products or services.

Provide a glossary of definitions for popular industry terms and jargon. Interested publishers will link to your resource, and qualified leads will share your content. This tactic also establishes you as an authority, while making content that’s more likely to become a Google Featured Snippet.

Whenever you release a new feature on your platform, email your users to let them know. This tactic will reactivate many of your inactive users, while motivating new users to use the platform. Bonus points if you can point to a development that was requested by users!

Offer a swipe file, or a collection of tested, proven ad formulas and sales letter and design templates, as a gated resource to help drive lead signups and establish your expertise.

Keep as many form fields on the landing page as possible to boost conversions. For example, rather than placing the email field behind the call-to-action (CTA) button, have it reveal below the button when the user clicks..

Customize the onboarding experience by using deep links to collect user data. For example, if one of your users referred a friend, the friend can see an acknowledgement of this referral in their onboarding process. Deep links provide a powerful way of boosting retention by making the onboarding process as personal as possible.

Once your app is love, prioritize fixing bugs, speeding up the app, and stabilizing the build so that users don’t get frustrated. Aim to provide a quick turnaround on responding to bug reports and feature requests. Remember, users can easily rate the app, so keep them happy!.

Retarget customers who looked at an out-of-stock product with an email alerting them to it being back in stock. This tactic can boost conversion rates and build customer loyalty. Especially if you sell products that other companies sell, it’s crucial to let potential buyers know immediately when something they were interested in is available again.

Determine which areas or locations aren’t converting, then exclude those from your ad audience to avoid wasting ad spend. This tactic helps you optimize your ads for audiences that are more likely to buy.

Chat with your website visitors via Facebook Messenger. The advantage of using Facebook messenger is that the vast majority of internet users already have a Facebook account – no need to log in or interrupt their workflow. Additionally the open rates on Facebook messages tend to be in the high 90s.

Examine the existing AdWords ads for your target keywords and see which words they use. Then, use those words in your content and the meta description of each lagging page.

Build a piece of high-value content, such as an e-book, PDF, worksheet, or template, and include a download link for it behind a lead capture form (such as a mailing list sign-up). This is called gated content, and it can help you build your audience while establishing your brand authority.

While it’s best practice to keep your forms as short as possible, sometimes you need to have multi-page signups. Let the user know how many pages or fields to expect, or show a progress bar, to help set expectations. This tactic can prevent users from bouncing or cancelling their progress if they get fatigued by […]

In your ad copy, draw a parallel to a well-established positive thing. Even if there is no direct connection to your product or service, it’s a psychological trick to help potential customers remember your brand positively. Examples: “The Uber of beauty.” “The gold standard in razors.”

If you’re running a platform, don’t send email notifications for every event. Tailor them to the user’s interests and priorities, or send a roundup on a daily or weekly basis.

If you have a lot of content on your website, offer a site search functionality to help users avoid frustration while discovering more of your content.

It’s tempting to divide the parts of your website into subdomains, but it might be better for search engine optimization to organize it by folders. Search engines don’t always recognize subdomains as part of your site. Examples: domain.com/blog versus blog.domain.com.

Customize each new user’s onboarding with their name, gender, interests, and any social media friends. A more personalized experience makes for a better overall experience.

Be careful and strategic with your stock images featuring people. Aim to include natural-looking photos of smiling people, but avoid overly cheesy or posed photos. Serious or angry expressions can backfire, so be sure you’re careful with your copy.

Create copy that’s reactive and relevant to current events, yet devalues your competitors. Be cautious with your timing and tone, but this tactic can be highly effective if you have a strong trending topic to tap into.

Offer a free trial (usually 1 to 4 weeks) to entice users to become lasting customers. Many people expect to be able to try before they buy, so giving them that chance is key to boosting your conversion rate. Tip: Don’t limit their access to your product by features, but rather by time.

Use Facebook’s carousel ads as a means of showing a sequence of content or value propositions. Focus on short segments or “plot points” in the buyer’s journey, then add compelling images and conclude with a strong call-to-action.

Illustrate each blog post or section of your website with wide banner images to add visual interest and help define the layout of your site.

Sometimes, even the best stock images can backfire because they appear on so many websites, which can hurt your search engine ranking. Create on-brand graphics to illustrate your content and add unique visual engagement to your site.

Tools such as Rapportive and Clearbit Connect can help you accurately guess journalists’ and editors’ email addresses, which might otherwise be concealed or not listed. By getting directly into their inbox, you’re more likely to get your content featured on their site.