A guide to modern Internet marketing tools that will help you attract and retain customers, as well as analyze the effectiveness of promotion.
Why do you need internet marketing tools?
Basic Internet Marketing Tools
How to choose the right tools
Expert advice
Why do you need internet marketing tools?
Table of Contents
Using marketing tools helps to achieve global business goals and solve tactical tasks. For example, with their help, you can fulfill the online store’s sales plan for the quarter and increase the number of orders for a specific suit during a promotion. Or determine that people who buy this suit often buy a tie in the same color, and increase tie sales as well. The main thing is to know what tools are available for this and what tasks they are suitable for.
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Basic Internet Marketing Tools
They can be roughly divided into three categories depending on the purposes for which they are used: customer acquisition, customer retention, and analytics.
SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the improvement of a website in accordance with the requirements of search engines. The better the website is optimized, the higher it is shown in search results for the desired search query. Resources that users like and where they spend a lot of time occupy higher positions in search engines.
Search engines have many ranking factors – nuances that are taken into account when displaying sites in search results. They can be combined into three groups:
● Behavioral factors
A site ranks high if, when users get there via a keyword, they find what they were looking for, view different pages, and go through sections. For example, a cleaning company site is unlikely to rank high in search results for the query “buy a sofa,” because visitors will not find sofas there and will immediately close the page.
● Internal factors
The number of pages and sections, their loading speed, and the website’s adaptability for viewing from a smartphone are important. Commercial factors are worth mentioning separately: the presence of prices for goods or services, “Order” buttons, pages with contacts and delivery information are important.
● External factors
If other resources often link to a site, the search engine understands that this is a really useful site that can be trusted. But it is important that the links match the subject of the resource. A good example of a useful link: a mention of a construction company’s site in a blog about repairs.
You can learn more about the role of SEO in a marketing strategy, learn how to optimize websites for their search results, and understand other modern Internet marketing tools on the Internet Marketer course.
Contextual advertising
This is advertising that is shown to the user “in the context” of his search query. It comes in two types: search and on partner sites.
1. Search ads can be seen in search results for a specific query. For example, if a person enters the phrase “wedding agency” in the search bar, they will be shown ads for wedding planners. Such ads on Yandex sites are launched through the Yandex Direct advertising platform.
2. Contextual advertising on partner sites — launch through advertising networks, in which performers and customers are represented. Performers are site administrators ready to place ads on their resources, and customers are advertisers willing to tell the audience of these sites about their products or services. At the same time, advertising on partner sites also responds to the user’s request.
More details about this internet marketing tool are provided in the article “What is contextual advertising”.
SMM
SMM (Social Media Marketing) is promotion in social networks . SMM is a kind of social proof of the company’s existence. The more users are involved in the company’s social networks, the more trust its products or services inspire for new users.
For a business that sells goods or services directly to the consumer, it is important not only to create pages on social networks, but also to actively manage them. To do this, the SMM manager sets goals that need to be achieved. For example, attract a new audience, bring additional traffic to the site, tell about products and promotions, increase sales of specific goods, get feedback from customers and work out possible negativity. To achieve these goals, the specialist creates a separate content plan for each site.
Targeted advertising
Unlike contextual advertising, which users see in search results, targeted advertising is shown to selected segments of the social network audience. For example, you can set up an ad to be shown to users of a specific age, gender, or with specific interests. With this marketing tool, you can show an ad for a beauty salon near the Yasenevo metro station to girls aged 20-35 who often visit this area. Or tell gamers about a store that sells comfortable gaming chairs.
Social networks know a lot about their users. They collect information about community members, their views and clicks, information from external data providers. This is how audiences are formed based on different interests and behavior on the Internet, which are useful for promotion. For example, an ad from a pastry shop can be shown to people who are about to have a birthday, and an offer from a travel agency can be shown to travel lovers. Therefore, to launch targeted advertising, you need to know your clients. Otherwise, a situation may arise where men see an ad for dresses, and it is unlikely to be effective.
Display advertising
This tool is used to introduce the audience to a new brand or product. For example, when you need to talk about the launch of a new smartphone model or car brand. Celebrities are often involved in such advertising campaigns to attract more attention from potential buyers.
Display advertising is set up through advertising platforms, and its task is to reach as many people as possible, so the advertiser pays for impressions rather than clicks or conversions, as in contextual advertising.
There are several types of media advertising:
● Banner advertising
These are images, sometimes animated and with sound, that tell about the product. The format of such advertising can be different and depends on the site on which it is published. You can place a banner in two ways: contact the site administrators directly and launch a campaign through advertising networks. The number of impressions and the period of placement of the banner are important. The more impressions – the more site visitors will learn about the product.
● Teaser advertising
A picture and text or just text that always intrigues the user and motivates them to follow the link to find out more. For example, “I bought this product and didn’t expect this to happen…”. Usually, such advertising is placed on sites with good traffic to reach a larger audience.
● Video advertising
These are commercials with a link to the advertiser’s website, which are shown on the websites of online cinemas and video hosting sites: YouTube, RuTube, Vimeo. Depending on the chosen format, the user can see the advertisement at the beginning or in the middle of the video he is watching.
CPA
CPA (Cost Per Action) is also called affiliate marketing . The advertiser registers in the CPA system and places his offer, and webmasters – administrators and owners of third-party sites – accept it if they find it profitable. They advertise the offer among their audience, receiving a reward if their users make a purchase from the advertiser.
For example, a hotel chain marketer places an offer, according to the terms of which it is necessary to tell about a profitable promotion for a vacation at the hotel. He provides ready-made banners, photos of the hotel and describes the key advantages of the offer. And sets a reward for attracting a client who will book a room by clicking on the advertisement. The webmaster publishes a banner or article about the promotion on his website and indicates a unique link to the hotel website. Using this link, the marketer will be able to determine that the client came from a specific CPA advertisement.
In CPA networks, it is possible to place advertisements not only on websites, but also in bloggers’ accounts on social networks.
CRM Marketing
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a tool for working with a customer base and potential buyers. Let’s take a children’s goods store as an example. All data about the company’s clients is stored in the CRM system : from contacts to a list of ordered goods. In addition, information is collected there about people who left their contacts but did not place an order, for example, signed up for a notification about the arrival of a product that is not yet available.
This data can be used to motivate people to buy. Several marketing tools help with this:
● Email marketing
Simply put, this is mailing to a customer base. For this, email mailing services are used, in which you can set up automatic scenarios. The most basic: if a registered user puts an item in the basket but does not checkout, he receives an email with a reminder. But there are also more complex scenarios. Let’s say the team at a children’s goods store knows that one package of baby food is usually enough for seven days. In this case, you can set up an automatic mailing to users who purchased baby food, with an offer to replenish stocks a week after ordering. This can significantly increase sales.
● Mobile applications
They are convenient because the company has direct access to the client until the user deletes the application from the smartphone. This facilitates communication and shortens the path to the next purchase. Even if a person rarely opens the application, his attention can be attracted using push notifications.
In addition, push notifications in the application can inform the user about changes in the order status: received, assembled, with the courier. For many people, this method of receiving information is more convenient than an email.
● Loyalty programs
This is an offer of discounts and bonuses to regular customers to motivate them to make repeat purchases. For example, a person is more likely to use the dry cleaning services again if he is offered a discount than to go looking for a new one. Loyalty programs are effective even in the segment of expensive goods. For example, a car dealer can reduce the price for the first maintenance of a newly purchased car for a customer.
Analytics systems
With their help, you can evaluate the quality of the tools that attract customers to the site: contextual, targeted, banner advertising. To do this, you need to install an analytics system counter on the site, for example, Yandex Metrica, and add UTM tags to the links of advertisements – parameters by which you can determine the source of the transition to the site right down to a specific banner. The analytics system will show where users come to the site from and what actions they perform. For example, you can find out that advertising on a specialized site with low traffic brings more orders than a banner on the main page of a popular resource.
In addition, with the help of the analytics system, you can detect problems on the site. Let’s say the analysis shows that many users stop placing an order at a certain step. In this case, it makes sense to carefully study this step, perhaps it causes some difficulties or does not function correctly.
There are similar analytics services for mobile applications. They work in the same way as web analytics, but they track actions not on the site, but in the application.
Call tracking
It helps to find out which advertisements bring targeted calls to the company and how many of these calls result in sales. Among the modern tools of the Internet marketer, there are two types of call tracking:
● Static call tracking
Let’s imagine that an advertiser has launched two advertising campaigns: on TV and billboards. A person saw a store ad on TV, called the phone number listed in the ad, and made an order. Call tracking allows you to determine which ad brought the sale, due to the fact that the ad listed a specific phone number, and not a regular company number. Each advertising channel in the call tracking service is assigned a separate number, for example, for TV advertising 123-45-60, and for advertising on billboards 123-45-61.
● Dynamic call tracking
Unlike static call tracking, where the number is assigned to a specific advertising channel, in dynamic call tracking the phone is assigned to the website visitor. The service replaces the phone number for each new user. This helps track the advertising source if a person clicked on an ad to the company’s website and chose to place an order by phone rather than online. In this case, call tracking links the call to the company with the visitor and the advertisement. Dynamic call tracking helps to make a deeper analysis of advertising sources and track the user’s path right up to a specific banner on a specific website.
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How to choose the right tools
The choice depends on the goal of the Internet marketer and the company’s resources.
Target
Tool
Introducing a new product to the audience
Banner, teaser, video advertising
Promotion of a specific category of goods
Contextual advertising, CPA
Reaching a specific target audience
Targeted advertising
Developing the current customer base
SMM, email newsletters, loyalty programs
When choosing marketing tools, it is worth considering where the orders come from. So, if a significant part of the promotion is offline (TV, outdoor advertising, leaflets) and at least 20% of sales are from phone calls, it is worth connecting call tracking.
In addition, it is important to take into account the specifics of the business. For example, teaser advertising is usually used to promote inexpensive goods and motivate impulse purchases. For B2B businesses or complex products, such advertising is not suitable, because in these cases more information about the service and more time to make a decision are needed, more communication between the potential buyer and the company.
