Top Qualities of a Successful Digital Marketing Agency

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What separates a successful digital marketing agency from a mediocre one? Numerous agencies claim they provide the best digital services available and will always go out of their way for client needs, but is this really the case? Listed below are some essential qualities that every digital marketing agency should possess in order to be successful in today’s industry.

Flexibility
Is your current agency available for any needs that arise outside of standard office hours (9-5)? From our perspective, digital marketing is a 24/7 operation and any agency that thinks otherwise is not providing the best service possible. Problems arise, campaigns need monitored, and some industries experience their best business outside of the typical Monday-Friday 9-5 hours. Therefore, flexibility is huge when it comes to digital marketing and if your agency isn’t fulfilling your needs then it may be time to make a change.

Experience
Evaluating the previous experience of an agency is a major factor when determining their success. Does the agency have a proven track record? Are their clients legitimate and relevant to your business or industry? Will they address your specific needs? Always be sure to analyze an agency’s portfolio and case studies to determine if their experience matches your needs. View our Case Studies at Onimod Global and take a look at our credible experience in all aspects of digital marketing.

Transparency
When it comes to digital marketing and working with clients, transparency is a huge quality that clients desire and often expect. An agency demonstrating transparency refers to the clarity of billing, accuracy of data, how campaigns are actually performing, and what’s happening in general. Working with a digital marketing agency that is trustworthy will ultimately lead to better results in the long run. Moreover, transparency is a quality that can never be ignored when evaluating an agency. It separates successful digital agencies from the mediocre ones.

Expertise 
Every agency should be an expert when it comes to SEO, SEM, Social Media, Data Analysis, Website Development, and every other critical component of digital marketing. Is the agency a Google Partner? Are the employees certified in Google AdWords and Analytics? These are important questions to consider when evaluating whether an agency is legitimate or not. All successful digital agencies in today’s industry demonstrate many if not all of these capabilities and always be sure to check out previous work/case studies for reassurance.

Contact Us: At Onimod Global we are a proven digital marketing agency and know what it takes to fulfill the needs of every client. Check out Our Work and see what digital solutions we have to offer! We look forward to hearing from you!

5 Notable Social Media Stats So Far in 2017

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2017 has been an interesting year so far in the world of social media, with some surprising stats and trends. Facebook remains a giant, Instagram is making strides, and Snapchat is utilizing augmented reality to its advantage. Some of the social media stats listed below are from Lauren Johnson’s Article in Adweek that caught our attention.

1. Snapchat and Augmented Reality
Snapchat has recently launched its augmented reality lenses to the public, which now allows users and brands to create their own animated figures and filters. This has given Snapchat an advantage when it comes to the amount of daily content created. According to the Adweek Article, “Snapchat expects 1 trillion photos to be taken with the app this year, which equates to 31,720 snaps every second.” Over 30,000 snaps per second in the year of 2017 is a mind boggling statistic and it will be interesting to see where Snapchat goes in 2018.

2. Facebook Usage Remains Massive
Although other messaging applications such as Twitter, Kik, and Snapchat are experiencing plenty of usage, Facebook still continues to dominate the “messaging empire.” According to the article, “Facebook announced that 17 billion video chats have been sent via messenger in 2017, which doubles the number in 2016. People have also sent 1.7 billion emojis on a daily basis thus far in 2017.” Moreover, Facebook is dominating the social media industry in many aspects and this trend will most likely continue through the next year.

3. Retailers Choosing Instagram Over Snapchat
Instagram adopting the “stories” feature has greatly helped the social media channel in terms of attracting retailers. According to a study from L2 Gartner, “1,400 social posts were analyzed from retailers like TJ Maxx and Marshalls, and it was discovered that Instagram stories made up 95% of the brands social posts.” This is huge for Instagram as their story feature usage in 2016 only accounted for “39% of social posts.”

4. GIF Histeria
The use of GIFs (graphic interchange format) so far in 2017 has been astounding. The article reports that “300 million people have used 2 billion GIFs every day in 2017 thus far.” The use of GIFs is mainly seen within the social media platforms of Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pintrest, and Facebook. The use of GIFS doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon and even looks to increase in the future.

5. Instagram Reaching Millennials
It’s no surprise that Instagram’s popularity is growing, especially with millennials. According to a survey conducted by the Bustle Digital Group, “81 percent out of the 1,000 millennials interviewed claimed social media is the most effective way to reach them. From that group, 40 percent said Instagram is the best way to reach them.” Ultimately, Instagram has been making major strides in 2017 and expect the social media giant to even increase their market share in 2018.

Contact Us: For more information regarding digital marketing expertise, visit the Onimod Global Website. We provide weekly news updates on the latest in the world of digital marketing. Enjoy!

Maximize the Potential of Your Social Video Marketing Strategy

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Consumers are constantly shifting toward the convenient. This is exactly why popularity of video content has soared in 2017, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Users are able to more quickly absorb information through videos, which makes them a very attractive form of advertisement and promotion.

Advertising Implications

The world of digital marketing and advertising revolves around innovation. The goal is to continually adapt to the needs/wants of the consumer in order to be better able to promote products and services to them. Video marketing is proving to be a very effective method in accomplishing this exact objective.

An infographic by Rendrfx states that over 22 billion videos are viewed daily between Facebook (8 billion), Snapchat (10 billion), and YouTube (4 billion). Another statistic that they boast is an online video ad viewer attention rate that is 18.3 times higher than that of T.V. commercials.

The numbers do not lie. What’s more is that daily use of videos is only expected to increase in the next several years. So how can marketers and advertisers best utilize and optimize this trending marketing medium?

Social Spaces Are Best

Social medias have become a wealth of opportunity for digital marketers in recent years. It is a perfect way to tap into the daily activities of target consumers, and to appear as native as possible in advertising style. The more an advertisement looks like a normal piece of news feed foder, the better.

Facebook has become the single most dominant force in social media marketing. With over 2 billion active users, and more than $40 billion made in 2017 from advertisements, according to Statista, it is clear that Facebook is running the show when it comes to paid social media marketing.

Adweek contributor Aubrie Richey wrote a great article on how to get the best value from your Facebook video marketing campaign. Her article is summed up here in the following 5 tips:

  1. Design your ad in a mobile format to best reach potential customers.
  2. Keep the length of your video between 15-30 seconds.
  3. Do not stop being adaptable and flexible with your content!
  4. Your video does not need to be perfect. A less refined video will make the ad seem much more genuine and appealing.
  5. Use video as a supportive piece of the overall customer journey.

More From Onimod Global

This article is only one of the many that has been produced by the Onimod Global content team! We are relentlessly searching to find the most accurate and up-to-date information to keep you informed of what is going on inside of the ever-evolving digital marketing industry.

To read through more of our articles, please visit our blog by clicking HERE. We hope you enjoy reading through the best that our digital marketing experts have to offer!

Paid Advertising Metrics That Matter

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There is no busier time of the year for an advertiser than the holidays. As millions of consumers are looking to purchase gifts for their loved ones, we advertisers are here competing against one another for their attention.

Digital technologies have allowed advertisers much more access into the everyday life of the consumer, which is an incredible advantage for most. However, it is not enough to simply run a digital marketing campaign unless you can accurately measure and interpret its results. So what do you need to look for?

AdWords Pay Per Click

SearchEngineLand.com has recently published an article that discusses the best measurements to analyze when assessing the value of a PPC campaign, particularly those carried out through Google AdWords. The article brings many important topics to light, and is centered around 4 major areas of concern for AdWords PPC campaigns:

  1. High Cost Per Click = low profitability
  2. Long-tail keywords are a waste of money
  3. More clicks don’t mean more conversions
  4. There is no silver bullet

Facebook

Facebook has completely dominated the market when it comes to social media advertising. With more than 2 billion active users, Facebook provides an ideal consumer base for most businesses. The platform is also equipped with many different tools to help marketers keep track of how well their campaigns are performing.

The Facebook Pixel is just such a tool. As you are setting up your campaign, you are given the option to track users with the Facebook Pixel. This allows marketers to get a more complete picture of the customer journey by embedding a tiny, pixel-sized image into the ad. A similar Onimod blog post discusses this topic a bit further with the recent debut of the Snapchat Pixel. To read the full article, please click HERE.

Another highly useful Facebook tool is their split testing option. This campaign type allows the marketer to run two of the exact same ads to two completely different audiences. This form of A/B testing helps advertisers get a better idea of who their target consumers truly are.

More From Onimod Global

At Onimod Global, our content creation team strives to consistently offer the latest industry news combined with expert insight. We have many other articles relating to this subject of paid advertising metrics, including:

For more information from the team at Onimod Global, please visit our website!

The Increasing Power of Instagram

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As marketers, we are constantly on the lookout for the latest and greatest marketing technologies. New gadgets and gizmos come and go, but few can withstand the test of time. One that has achieved this honor is Instagram.

A Brief Instagram History

Instagram’s success has been gaining ground ever since the platform launched in 2010. Only 2 months after its release, Instagram had already acquired over 1 million users. But they didn’t stop there.

Instagram continued improving and innovating itself. Users loved uploading their photos, applying all kinds of professional filters, and adding witty captions to explain their images.

The team at Facebook saw the incredible potential that Instagram possessed, and so they made a move to buy the company in April of 2012. For more information regarding the history of Instagram, please visit wersm.com.

Recent Accomplishments

Today, the social media platform boasts an enormous network of 800 million active users, according to Statista. Instagram also recently announced that more than 25 million business profiles exist through their platform.

These incredible numbers are a direct result from advertisers catching the Insta-wave. Advertisers have started to notice that there is no slowing down for the platform as it continues to increase the size of its network year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. This produces an incredible base for many different ad campaigns.

Social media marketing has been proven to be incredibly useful because it is a more native form of advertising. As consumers continue to reject pushy and annoying advertisements, platforms like Instagram become more and more attractive to them.

It is likely that businesses and marketers will continue to flock toward Instagram. As the platform goes on to increase its user base, it also increases its appeal to marketers.

Latest News From Onimod Global

Keep up to speed with the digital marketing industry by visiting our blog! Our content creation team is constantly releasing new information regarding industry trends, state of the art technologies, and expert digital marketing advice.

Benefits of Pursuing a Digital Marketing Career

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It’s no surprise that career opportunities within the digital marketing industry continue to grow, especially in the larger U.S. cities. With digital marketing being the heaviest advertising route used by most organizations today, these career opportunities are flourishing. Many individuals from previous generations are unfamiliar with concepts like SEO, SEM, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, Website Development, and other important aspects of the digital industry. Listed below are some benefits as to why pursuing a career in digital marketing is a good move.

Variety of Career Options
As mentioned previously the digital marketing industry is comprised of many areas, in which there are plenty of career options available. Many marketing organizations not only consist of SEO/SEM strategists, they include graphic designers, business development executives, content writers, social media specialists, and other opportunities. Deciding on which route to enter can come down to multiple factors, yet it should ultimately depend on what what your top interests and skill sets are. In the end, digital marketing is a versatile industry and that means there’s opportunities for numerous career choices.

In Demand Profession
The demand for digital marketing professionals is increasing at a rapid rate. According to the Digital Marketing Institute, “It is anticipated that there would be around 150,000 digital marketing jobs at the end of 2020 and not enough professionals to fulfill them. there will also be a rise in demand for digital marketing professionals by about 38% this year.” Because of this increasing demand for digital marketing careers, entering the digital industry will provide job seekers with a huge competitive advantage in the job hunt.

Salaries Rising
It’s evident that the demand for digital marketing experts currently exceeds the supply, so how does this affect salaries? Entering a growing industry with a shortage of skills makes digital marketing professionals a commodity. This gives leverage for better salary negotiations and higher starting wages than most first jobs right out of college. According to a study from Prosperity in 2014, “digital salaries are rising faster than in the previous five years, and the pace of growth is set to fasten in the future.” Moreover, as salaries continue to climb within the industry, this presents a clear benefit to becoming an expert in the digital marketing field.

Advancement Opportunities
In addition to the great job outlook for digital marketing careers, the opportunity for advancement in the field is also promising. Entry level positions out of college typically consist of SEO/SEM strategists, social media specialists, content developers, etc. If you’re able to catch on quick and continually learn more about the digital marketing world then advancement to an upper level position is very reachable. Digital marketing managers, director of digital, or a VP of marketing for example are all respectable and reachable advancement opportunities.

Contact Us: For more information regarding digital marketing, visit the Onimod Global Website. We provide weekly news updates on the latest in the world of digital marketing. Enjoy!

Digital Shopping Trends to Watch Out for this Holiday Season

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The Holiday Season is right around the corner, and that means it’s time to develop marketing strategies to prepare for the increased traffic. According to Google, “U.S. retail eCommerce sales are expected to increase 15.8% during the 2017 holiday season.” Moreover, this demonstrates the impact that Holiday shopping has on businesses and the importance of digital preparation. Listed below are some digital shopping trends to watch out for this Holiday Season.

Mobile continues to dominate
It’s not much of a surprise that mobile shopping is still dominating online purchases, as this pattern appears to continue in the near future. Adobe announced last year that “mobile accounted for 50% of website visits during the Holiday Season and 30% of all online sales during that period from Nov 1 – Dec 11.” It’s evident that shoppers during the Holiday Season and in general are reliant on their mobile devices in terms of product comparisons, making quick purchase decisions, convenience, etc. Therefore, as a marketer mobile optimization is critical and needs to be a major focus during the season of Holiday shopping.

Voice search on the rise
The use of voice searches has been an increasing digital trend and continues to be a focus for marketers moving forward. According to Google, “about 50% of U.S. teens and 41% of adults use voice search daily through AI such as Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google Assistant.” Artificial intelligence (AI) is continually evolving and changing the scope of digital marketing tactics.  From an SEO perspective, it should be noted that search queries for voice differ from typical text searches. Optimizing for “conversational language” and longer keyword phrases are two aspects that marketers should be focusing on. Ultimately, the use of voice search for shopping implications will be huge this Holiday Season and it’s essential for marketers to focus on this trend.

Focus on shareable social media content
With increased activity on social media channels during the Holiday Season, having engaging content is key. Creating content that is “shareable” is an effective way for businesses to reach potential consumers. A few tactics of shareable content include referral codes, influencer involvement, in-store incentives, giveaways, contests, etc. Generating valuable and optimized blog content to share on social platforms is another beneficial strategy. Essentially, keying in on social media engagement is beneficial in general, but especially important during the Holiday Season.

Online spending projected to outperform in-store purchases
It’s being predicted that for the first time in history e-commerce sales will outperform in-store sales during the 2017 Holiday Season. Deloitte predicts that “51% of all dollars spent this Holiday Season will be online and 42% will be spent in store. The other 7% will be contributed from catalogs and direct mail drivers. They also project an “18 to 21 percent increase in revenue for online retailers from last year.” In the end, although these are just predictions, there’s no denying how popular online shopping has become during the Holidays and this trend isn’t going away anytime soon.

Contact Us: For more information regarding digital marketing expertise and news, visit the Onimod Global Website. We look forward to hearing from you!

Snapchat App Debuts Pixel To Help Marketers Track Conversions

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Despite still being a bit young in the advertising world, Snapchat is starting to step up their game with the introduction of the new ‘Snap Pixel’. This new addition to the wildly popular social media app will give marketers incredible insight into their ad’s success rate amongst targeted consumers.

What Is A Conversion Pixel?

The idea of a conversion pixel may be a bit foreign. Essentially, a pixel is a tool used to help track conversions. Digitaland.tv describes a pixel as being a, “tiny, transparent, pixel-sized images embedded in everything from emails to banner ads during Digital Banner Production.” Digital advertisers use these pixels to see if their advertisements generated the desired response from consumers who viewed the ad.

Once embedded, these pixels can show marketers if the user converted after viewing an ad or not, which helps marketers determine if the ad is effective or not. It also tells them how well their ad dollar is being spent, which is incredibly important on the bottom line.

How It Can Be Used

We have already discussed how pixels can be used to tell marketers about an ad and its effectiveness, but what else can it do? An article by Casey Wilson of Forbes shares insight into how this tiny tool can be used to better understand your target audience.

Specifically, Wilson says that a pixel can help digital marketers produce the following 3 audience segments:

  • All Site Visitors
  • Cart Abandoners
  • All Converters

It is always critical to understand your target audience. The more information you can gather, the better. This information is what is going to help you generate solid conversions, and in the end every business is looking for more conversions because more conversions mean more money made.

Other Pixel Platforms

Google and Facebook have already been using pixel tracking for quite some time, and have received great results. Social media has shown itself to be an incredible digital marketing medium. Facebook recently released their third quarter reports for 2017 to reveal an astounding $10.14 billion in advertising revenue.

This is the very same stage that Snapchat is now competing on. It will be very interesting to see the effects that the new Snap Pixel has within the industry of digital marketing. It is doubtful that Snapchat will ever rise to the same level of advertising at which Facebook currently operates, but it will certainly be intriguing to see how it all plays out in the months to come.

 

*Feature image courtesy of: ThoroughlyReviewed

Was Twitter’s 280 Character Limit Increase Enough to Turn a Profit?

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There were many comments and concerns in the wake of Twitter’s most recent update of a doubled character limit. We here at Onimod Global gave our two cents on the update in our article, “Twitter Launches New 280 Character Limit: Good or Bad Move?”

But the real question is, was it enough to make the platform profitable? The answers can be found in the latest quarterly report from Twitter.

Bad Reactions

As to be expected, no one really liked the switch from 140 characters to 280. One article from Adweek shared the opinions of many disgruntled users like Lou Paskalis who said, “This will pretty much end Twitter if instituted. Really really bad idea!”

Opposition like Lou’s was very common around the Twitter-sphere and beyond. Selena Larson of CNN Tech expressed her disagreement in her article “More is less: The case against 280 character tweets”.

Larson highlighted the thoughts of users and how many feel that the 140 limit actually helped make them more concise and creative. Haught Tromp agreed with this logic by saying, “It can be intellectually challenging but creatively stimulating to fit words in a confined space.”

New Quarterly Report

The much anticipated Q3 report from Twitter has finally been released. Many were waiting upon this report to see if the increased character limit would be enough to give Twitter the positive results the platform was looking for in its bottom line.

Well, the results are in. An article from techcrunch.com summarized Twitter’s quarterly report. At a glance, it appears that Twitter has outdone itself.

Originally, the company projected revenues of $586.73 million but actually reported revenues of $590 million. Although this is an improvement from the previous quarter, the $590 million is still 4% lower than they were in Q3 of last year.

In addition to these quarterly statistics, Twitter also shared some bad news about their monthly active users.

They released the following statement about the MAU issue: “We discovered that since the fourth quarter of 2014 we had included users of certain third-party applications as Twitter MAUs that should not have been considered MAUs,” Twitter noted. “These third-party applications used Digits, a software development kit of our now-divested Fabric platform, that allowed third-party applications to send authentication messages via SMS through our systems, which did not relate to activity on the Twitter platform. The table below presents the impact for the periods beginning in the fourth quarter of 2016. Due to our data retention policies, we do not have data to reconcile periods prior to the fourth quarter of 2016, but our estimates suggest the prior period adjustments are smaller than those in the fourth quarter of 2016.”

Conclusion

Many Twitter staff members had hoped for the platform to see an increase in engagement from users with their new 280 character limit. Now that the data has been gathered and finalized, we can see its true results.

Although Twitter was able to temporarily increase their engagement rates and revenues, there are still huge problems on the horizon for the social media platform that we will come to see in future months.

4 Tips for Selecting the Right Digital Marketing Agency

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When it comes to making marketing decisions for an organization, it is usually a company’s best interest to hire an agency in the ever changing world of digital marketing. When outsourcing these marketing efforts, selecting the right digital marketing agency for your business is critical. According to research from Capgemini Consulting “companies with a strong digital presence in their industry tend to outperform their peers.” Listed below are four tips that every business should use when deciding which agency is right for them.

Evaluate Work and Track Record:
Doing your research on multiple agencies is one of the best first steps to choosing the right one. If they are not listed on their sites, request case studies from agencies to see what benefits can be provided for your organization. Click Here to view our case studies at Onimod Global. Ultimately, doing your research and ensuring the agency you outsource to is legitimate will most likely lead to positive returns on your investments.

Know Your Most Important Needs:
Before the search for a digital marketing agency starts it is essential to pinpoint the specific digital needs your organization is seeking. Is there a higher priority on search engine optimization, social media marketing, or search engine marketing? All three of these areas could be equally important, but it’s important to address questions like this at the beginning of the process. Some agencies specialize in certain areas of digital marketing, while other agencies like ours provide full scale services. In the end, one of the starting points for every business seeking a marketing agency should be building an extensive list of digital needs.

Transparency of Results:
The last thing you want from an agency is a lack of transparency. There are many marketing agencies out there that like to provide reports for clients that only showcase successes. Agencies that want to stay ahead of the game like ours are frequently looking to improve and highlight areas where changes can be made. The ultimate goal for any business seeking the right agency is to make sure they are doing their best with intentions to always deliver a positive ROI and grow your business.

Be Blunt Upfront:
Many organizations can be afraid of being blunt to an agency, yet it’s a major investment being discussed. Be upfront about what the expectations are and don’t be afraid to walk away if the negotiations don’t go as planned. Although the standards for performance need to be realistic, make sure you and the marketing agency are on the right page about what the end goals are. At the end of the day, finding an agency that fits with your business model and is willing to adapt to what your organization wants will most likely be your best bet.

Contact Us: If you’re a business seeking improvements in SEO, SEM, Website Development, or any other digital service feel free to reach out to us at Onimod Global on our Contact Us Page. We look forward to hearing from you!