Now that we’re halfway through 2019 it seems like a good time to look at the year in review and maybe make sure that you didn’t miss the memo.

January 2019 saw 9% more online users than January 2018- a difference of 366 million.

More and more businesses each day are learning the importance of digital marketing and jumping onto this very useful and lucrative bandwagon.

In order to help you do this, we’ve put together a succinct little list of things we hope you’re already doing. If not, now would be a good time to start.

Combining audience targeting and keywords

Keywords, though important, do not say too much about what your audience is looking for, or what stage of investment they are at. They could just be starting out or they could be at the final stage and ready to invest, or they might not be looking to buy at all.

This is where audience targeting comes in. If you use paid search audience targeting along with keywords based marketing, it won’t just make it to the right screens it will also make sure to pop up when people actually want to see it instead of interfering with their scrolling time. You want to be useful not pointlessly distracting.

PPC automation

PPC automation means the marketer has been blessed with more time to strategize instead of wasting precious time wiling away on tedious ad management across a multitude of platforms.

Smart bidding which Google is offering now. This uses user data in real time, including things like the time zone they’re in, device information, and location etc- all information that could be very useful to a marketing campaign.

Especially for local businesses, Smart bidding can change the game with its machine learning and data collecting capabilities.

There are other features such as the Account Anomaly Detector that lets the manager see where something doesn’t add up or is going wrong through hourly or daily scanning.

It not only makes supervision a lot easier but also takes really a lot of the pressure off because it really is too much work for a manager to be keeping check on all accounts across the various platforms and all that activity.

It also means that you could use a portfolio strategy that will help you pick out a bunch of keywords and campaigns into one bid strategy. This has taken a whole lot of the load off of the marketer’s shoulders. So definitely make use of this and focus on other more brain power demanding tasks.

Interact- Funnel marketing

The audience on the internet and social media has seen it all. It will be very hard to generate new leads using the boring old ways. They require interaction. Even algorithms are set to favor posts and ads that can engage more.

So funnel marketing is big this year. What happens here is that you guide the audience to where they want to get. It narrows the options, sure, but it also yields more conversions. This is because only 4% of the total traffic you get on a post will actually be interested in buying or come with that intent. So it’s better to guide this 4% to get 100% conversions from them at least, and the rest can be helped in making up their minds as well when you show them a clear path.

Furthermore, the interaction and engagement helps with the algorithm.

Content

Although this point is kind of at the bottom, do not take it lightly. Along with the technical parts of advertising, this is equally important.

The purpose of all advertising is to get conversions and increase ROI. A good technical strategy might get you the first click but eventually what will help your business grow is the content of your ad campaigns, especially now that everyone is getting more and more creative in this field.

Work on your content and make the kind that tells something about your brand and that solves a potential problem for the reader. Sell a solution instead of a product.

Video marketing

With most people having fast speed internet his is all the rage. The average person is much more likely to watch a one minute fun video than to read through a long article on a website about why the product should be invested in and how it will help them.

Invest in making a nice short video that shows why they need what you’re selling and make it so they remain hooked till the end. This will make your campaign more affective and the audience gets a clear idea of whether they like it or not. It is more likely to increase conversions.

Personalized experience

Although the ads cannot be personalized to each user of course, emails can. Most newsletters and regulated emails that are sent remain unopened. However, it has been noticed that by personalizing those same emails (by adding the user’s name or even forming categories to be sent out among the users according to their interests) the chances of them being opened skyrocket

These are only some of the best practices around to help you boost your conversion rates. The world of digital marketing, however, is forever changing so it is always useful to stay up to date with the latest practices.

At the end of the day, the purpose is audience engagement and increasing conversions. With more and more people joining the online world this is the best place and the best time to make the sell. Just be smart when doing it.