Things Keeping Digital Marketers Up At Night: How To Solve Them

If you are a digital marketer, one of your foremost concerns is how you can stand out from the crowd of thousands of marketers in your niche.

However, there is also the technical side to it, such as challenges involved in brand safety and first-party data, which we have decided to include in this short post, along with some common questions that keep digital marketers up at night.

Assuming that you are already:

focused on a specific target market niche
have analyzed the competition
have identified the selling point of your product and service
have successfully attracted traffic through a calculated SEO strategy
have created content that ranks your website high in search results pages

Your next step would be to ensure consumer data compliance, being updated on Google algorithm, keeping your marketing campaign free from ad fraud, strategic marketing expense, etc.

Below is a guide on how to deal with some of the issues haunting digital marketers.

While it is challenging to be a product marketer these days, you must find ways to be ahead of the competition. Improve your marketing programs, boost lead generation, nurture your contacts, and foster customer loyalty.

How to capture first-party data

Your first-party data (1P data) is data you own and have collected directly from your customers. Such customer data is at your disposal and can complement, enhance, and reduce your need for other types of data.

What is the value of 1P data to you as a marketer? 1P data is extremely precious to your business because of its outstanding accuracy and quality. Since you have collected it from the source, you know it is accurate. Because it comes straight from your customers, such data is also relevant to your organization or business.

The challenge to you as a marketer is how best you can capture 1P data. For that, you will need best-in-class tactics that incentivize customers to share their data.

On the side of your marketing team, they should put in place data and analytics management and protection to handle and secure the data itself. There are three recommended actions for 1P data capture:

Establishing an infrastructure that allows effective management of customer data.
Follow the best practices on data privacy.
Create compelling value propositions to get your target market to share personal information willingly.

Brand safety

As an advertiser, another possible concern that you need to think of all the time is brand safety, which is what you should ensure to protect your brand’s reputation and keep it from appearing in risky environments. You need to align your brand with positive, non-confrontational, and authoritative brands.

But how do you exactly do that?

Use custom brand safety maps to identify suitable content.
Avoid advertising to your 1P customer data in an unsafe environment.
Use new and advanced verification and safety tools to ensure your consumer data and brand are safe while driving ad performance.

Marketers, agencies, and publishers are gauging the success of their digital marketing campaigns using three key metrics:

Valid
Viewable
Brand safe

These three metrics are now considered the baseline for measurement and the foundation from which to build.

Ad fraud and viewability

You would also concern yourself about the possibility of low ad viewability and ad fraud. Either of these can mean a waste of lots of advertising money that never results in increased traffic and conversions.

If your ad viewability is low, it can mean that your ads are not located in positions where they can be easily seen by your target audience, such as when they are placed at the bottom of pages of the publisher’s website.

Another reason for low ad viewability is the use of bots to generate impressions or click on ads all day. That is a form of ad fraud that hurts the reputation of ad networks (Google ads, Facebook ads, publishers, or ad agencies).

Another form of ad fraud is the type that is perpetrated by click farms, where real people in developing countries receive payments for clicking on ads several times.

Advertisers are the most directly affected by ad fraud because they pay for clicks and impressions that do not come from real potential customers.

So, what should you do if you are encountering ad fraud?

Seek cybersecurity professionals who can pinpoint to you if fake traffic is used.
Check your ad subscription and only establish high-quality vendor relationships.
Pay for performance, not clicks.
Increase transparency and data sharing.

Questions that Keep Marketers Awake at Night

Now, you want answers or solutions to the challenges you experience in marketing your brand. You will find this post helpful.

If you are bogged by the following questions day in and out, here are recommended solutions to such dilemmas.

How can I ace social marketing?

Savvy marketers should know very well that they must engage with their prospects on online social networks where they are increasingly present. And with the rise of social media, marketers are aware that the buying process has significantly changed.

People conduct searches through search engines that, in turn, place before them relevant blogs, webinars, white papers, and marketplaces. Then they proceed to seek the opinions of others via social sites, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Quora, etc.

To rise to the challenge, do the following:

Make your website social by putting a comments section or posting articles and questions from social channels.
Offer social sign-in – Allow your visitor to register for special offers by using their social accounts.
Build content that is shareable in social media.
Build your lead database by attracting prospects in social media.
Use social media influencers.
Be sociable by adding comments, telling personal stories, using humor, and, above all, listening to your audience.

How can I automate the tactical?

If, by tactical, you mean a download, a re-tweet, a website visit, a click, or an email open made by a prospect, yes, you can apply marketing automation to respond to them in real-time. With marketing automation, you can deliver personalized messages en masse and provide a virtual tour of your products and services.

In addition, do the following strategies:

Automate data uploading.
Automate sending of email communication
Use automated welcome campaigns to engage contacts while they are interested.
Automate the provision of links to helpful products or services you offer.

How can I prove my value?

You are also thinking hard about beating your competition by showing them that your business provides more value to them. But then, how can you demonstrate your value?

There are many ways you can show your value to your audience and be seen by them as the best choice over your competitors. Create an online community – This strategy is the best way to show your customers your commitment to serving them in the long term. That is the perfect strategy to anchor them to your brand.

Listen to feedback and respond accordingly
Leverage competitor comparisons. Show your greatest strengths over others.
Use customer testimonials and share social proof.
Provide superb customer service.

Conclusion

To succeed in marketing, you should follow the best practices outlined above. Know the best practices for the target market you are trying to capture and engage with.

It is necessary to be promotional to keep your sales up but create the impression that you are out there to engage with your prospects rather than just make sales. Above all, engage your target market where they are. Usually, that place is on the Internet.

Thus, engage them on social media, forums, blogs, webinars, and marketplaces. Learn the best practices for digital marketing and allocate your efforts in the right places.

Article by Dario Sipos

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