Does your Website Make the Grade in 2021?

A while ago (as in 13 years ago) we created the first Website Grader. The goal was simple: help anyone with a website evaluate its effectiveness at attracting an audience of interested and relevant buyers.

We founded HubSpot in 2006 and created Website Grader in 2008 because we believed that the inbound methodology — building meaningful, lasting relationships with prospects and customers — was not only a more effective way to grow a business, it was the right way to grow a business. And we knew how important it was for people to leverage their websites to attract visitors and connect with customers to grow.

Fast forward to 2021, and websites do a whole lot more than attract visitors.

Your website is a sales rep, providing prospects with the features and pricing of your offering. And helping them book a meeting to learn more.

Your website is part of your customer service team, answering questions about your products and services through a knowledge base or chatbot.

Your website is a member of your HR team, sharing information about your company culture and open positions.

The list goes on...

To put it bluntly: your website is really freaking important! Today, 86% of people will find your business online. Your website is your first impression, your primary spokesperson, your around-the-clock inbound sales team — you get my point. It’s one of the most important assets to your business.

It’s no wonder we see businesses invest so much in their websites. In a recent HubSpot Research study, 63% of marketers indicated that they were going to upgrade their website this year.

Website upgrades can include:

• Performance: Page speed, load time, page requests, page size, and more
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Page index, meta descriptions, content plugins, and descriptive link text
• Design: Responsive design, legible font size, and tap targets
• Security: HTTPS and secure javascript libraries

Since 2008, we’ve graded over 1 million unique websites on the above four factors. With all this investment, are they actually getting better? Are businesses focusing on the right website upgrades? For example, are websites providing better security for their visitors. Are they offering faster load speeds for quick access? What about mobile accessibility and SEO best practices?

Let’s take a look at average performance in 2015 compared to this year to see what’s changed.

Website Performance Data (2015 vs 2021)

What surprises me the most about this data is that the improvements in technology over the past five years haven’t led to the same improvement in website performance. The overall grade average has only improved 17.1% in little over five years, and performance has actually decreased by 23.3%. The average website grade in 2020 is a D+ (69.1 out of 100). My mother wouldn’t be happy if I came home with that kind of grade.

We also found that only 3.8% of websites have an overall score of 90 or more. If your website scores above a 90, pat yourself on the back. Here are the percentile ranges from our data:

• 80 overall score: 82nd percentile
• 85 overall score: 91st percentile
• 90 overall score: 96th percentile

Here are some observations of the individual benchmark scores:

Website performance has decreased in the past half-decade.

Websites should load faster in 2021 than they did in 2015 — but the exact opposite is true. Performance was the only benchmark metric that decreased in five years. This includes testing for page size, page requests, page speed, and five additional tests that offer a holistic performance grading.

The result? Websites are slower today than they were in 2015.

This is a risk for businesses: the longer visitors wait for your page to load, the more likely they’ll leave your page.

For every second that your website takes to load, people are leaving your business. Good performance should be a priority when improving your website. How does your website’s performance compare?

Search engine optimization is the biggest winner.

In a 2020 survey, we found that 64% of marketers are actively investing in search engine optimization (SEO) and growing their organic presence.

Marketers care about SEO, and this has led to significant progress in the SEO benchmark since 2015 — a 51.9% improvement. Search engine optimization is essential to getting discovered online. It’s good that so many websites are following SEO best practices to improve the discovery of their business. How does your SEO compare?

Security had the second-biggest gain, but the total average falls short.

Our security benchmark shows that websites have improved their security by 142.3% over five years. This is a huge gain but there’s still a lot of room for improvement — the 2021 average score is only 6.3 out of 10.

Security is essential to have on your site to protect customer data. If your website isn’t secure, your visitors might lose trust in your business, especially when shopping on your site. We found that 85% of people won’t visit a site if it’s not secure.

Additionally, security improves discoverability. Starting in 2019, Google prioritized displaying websites with HTTPS in search results. Website Grader checks that your website uses HTTPS and has secure JavaScript libraries.

These two security factors are critical for delivering a secure experience for your visitors. How does your website security compare?

Mobile optimized websites improved marginally.

In the mid-2010s, it felt like every website was going responsive — that is, investing in mobile-first website design. It made sense.

Everywhere I looked, people were heads down on their phones, reading the latest Facebook post or watching a viral YouTube video. And, things haven’t changed much. Well, they have, but now people are scrolling through Instagram or browsing the latest TikTok dance challenge.

Responsiveness wasn’t just a trend — in the first quarter of 2021, mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated 54.8% of global website traffic. So how do websites stack up on small screens?

We found that our mobile design benchmark average improved by 8% over five years. Today, average websites score 21.6 out of 30 on mobile design. A great improvement, though I’d love to see that number go up even more.

Instagram, for example, is a website that does exceptionally well in how they design and optimize users’ mobile experience. It has a seamless mobile shopping feature for businesses to sell products directly through its mobile website or in-app.

Image Source

One study by Google found that 59% of shoppers surveyed said that shopping on mobile is important when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from.

That’s a huge portion of people looking at your website on mobile and making a decision of whether or not to buy from you. Mobile design will not only impact the experience that people have with your site, but also influences social media posts and your rankings in search engines.

Check your mobile design score on Website Grader.

Where do we go from here?

Our goal with the original Website Grader was to help anyone with a website —developer, marketer, or entrepreneur — to quickly grade their website’s performance. We’ve received good feedback from our users, but we are always growing and evolving.

So we asked ourselves, how could we make Website Grader better?

Our users’ comments had a common thread. They graded their site. They saw where their websites fell short. But we stopped short of teaching them how to improve:

• "More information about how to solve website problems"
• "Instructions on how to get better performance and SEO to get our score higher"
• "How about putting explanations and guidelines for beginners?"

Introducing the New Website Grader

You talked. We listened. Not only have we updated Website Grader’s grading system and foundational technology to get you a more accurate score, but we’ve also created a five-lesson video course that helps you improve your grade. All for free.

You can find the Website Optimization course inside Website Grader starting today.

One last question: How did HubSpot.com score?

HubSpot’s score has not historically been the best. At one point, we averaged 70-80 on Website Grader. Years of marketing updates had slowed things down over time.

Since then, we’ve worked hard to improve HubSpot.com’s design and performance over the last five years for our visitors and customers. Powered by HubSpot CMS Hub, our website now scores a 97 out of 100 on Website Grader — no kidding. It’s something we're extremely proud of.

Your website is one of your most important assets in attracting business. A bad user experience could lose customer interest, but that doesn’t have to happen if you take the necessary steps to optimize it. If you’re curious to see how your site measures up, run it through our Website Grader and find out how you can make your site more delightful.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Does your Website Make the Grade in 2021? was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

20 of the Best Infographic Examples to Inspire Your Next Design

There's a lot to like about well-designed infographics — whether it’s the beautiful typography, concise messaging, clever layouts, or bold graphics.

Not to mention that people retain 65% of information passed along with an image compared to only 10% when they listen to the same piece of information.

As the fourth most-used type of content marketing, infographics pop up all over the place — from social media posts to whitepapers. But don't be fooled. They require just as much strategic thinking as a blog post or video.

Yet, as this list of the best infographic examples shows, the effort is worthwhile. Adding them to your marketing strategy can increase web traffic by 12% and help you stay competitive in the B2B crowd, where 65% of marketers use infographics.

Luckily, there are numerous resources to create beautiful infographics of your own.

To help inspire your next visual creation, here are a handful of stunning branded infographics to kickstart your creativity.

Best Infographic Examples to Get Inspired

Simple Infographic Examples

1. 10 Records You Can Break Working From Home, by ChairOffice

Although it’s essential to complete your tasks and remain productive while working from home, many employees often find themselves working too hard without any breaks.

This brilliant, yet straightforward infographic from ChairOffice contains 10 world records you can attempt as you take necessary breaks from work.

With vibrant colors, animated characters, and text, this infographic shares a simple message: take breaks. Who knows? You might be breaking a world record.

2. A Simple Guide to Shooting Video By Yourself, by Spielcreative

Although 86% of businesses use videos as part of their marketing strategy, only a few get it right.

Whether it’s background noises, poor lighting, or some other distraction, the videos don’t usually come out the right way.

This infographic from Spielcreative offers tips you’d need to create incredible videos all by yourself.

The use of simple graphics and arrow pointers makes the visualization easy to follow and understand. You also don’t have to strain your eyes to read the text, as it's big enough to read from afar.

3. A Purposeful Life, by Studio Patten

This free infographic from Studio Patten collects different survey results concerning living a purposeful life and presents the data with visually appealing charts.

Although the topic of a purposeful life might be a deep one, this infographic does a great job of presenting the information simply.

There’s also a nice balance between the use of text and data visualization elements.

4. The Most and Least Bike-Friendly Cities In America, by Tower Electric Bikes

Knowing whether a city is bike-friendly or not is a factor cyclists consider when moving.

Naturally, questions about the city’s bike lanes, cyclist fatality rates, and the number of people using bikes would come up in a cyclist’s mind. Tower Electric Bikes answers these questions using this simple infographic.

To make sense of the infographic, Tower Electric Bikes used color gradation (going from green to red) to help its audience of cyclists understand how friendly the different cities in the United States are.

Cyclists can take a look and tell they’d need to avoid the Los Angeles areas if they want to enjoy sunny days out on their bikes.

5. How to Enjoy Studying, by IvyPanda

Studying doesn’t always have to be a chore. IvyPanda created this excellent infographic design to help students enjoy studying instead of feeling burned out or turning to social media because of boredom.

The use of bright colors and minimalist animated design is brilliant from IvyPanda.

Business Infographic Examples

6. How SMB Sales Teams Are Keeping Up in 2020, by Zendesk

We all know 2020 led to massive changes in the way we work, buy, and enjoy leisure time. But this infographic by Zendesk hones in on a specific group (SMB sales teams) to show how they keep up with the times.

Through research-backed data, clear visuals, and concise copy, the main point comes across crystal clear: Know customers' expectations to meet them where they are.

This infographic does an excellent job following one theme, from start to finish. Readers can answer "What's the point?" within the first few sentences — a best practice, according to CoSchedule.

This helps focus your infographic and avoids cramming too much information into one piece, which is why Zendesk flowed from the research and stats to how SMB sales teams adopt new technology to keep up.

It even includes the benefits of CRM technology, like a 52% increase in productivity from sales reps. Of course, the benefits align with the customer service software Zendesk offers, making the infographic a good sales tool for its team.

7. Content Marketing in Times of Uncertainty, by LinkedIn

More than eight out of 10 people want brands to act as a news source in uncertain times, foster a sense of community, and provide educational resources. Whew.

As a content marketer, those are significant expectations to live up to. LinkedIn realized the changing global landscape would alter customer expectations and, as a result, content marketing strategies. So the team put together this handy infographic to help marketers focus on what matters most.

This infographic example features several design elements from LinkedIn's current brand. The graphics adhere to its primary and complementary color scheme, include diverse illustrations, and relate to the work-from-home times.

It also uses color block banners to add visual interest and break up chunks of text. But my favorite part? The ruler graphic on how to measure ROI and show why your efforts are worthwhile.

8. How to Be Productive While Working From Home, by Bannersnack

Working from home isn't the pajama party many people (used to) imagine. As offices closed and millions turned dining tables into home office spaces, Bannersnack created this infographic to help its employees transition to a different way of working. As a freelancer working remotely for the past five years, I found it full of practical tips and valuable tools.

Beyond essential elements like brand colors, Bannersnack includes information people can immediately put to use. While it's easy to stay planted on your couch all day, Bannersnack recommends finding multiple workspaces for different tasks — an inspirational spot for creative thinking and another for deep work and crunched deadlines.

Tips like this may seem small once you've been working remotely for a while, but for newcomers, it's one less thing you have to learn while adjusting to a different routine.

9. 45 Slack Tricks That Will Impress Your Boss, by Net Credit

A tool as powerful as Slack has many features most people will never use, yet this infographic makes it easy to look like the cool "Slack-er" at the company even if you've only mastered the /giphy shortcut until now.

Net Credit starts with a handful of stats to inform readers and give an idea of Slack's scope. Who knew people spend 50 million hours on the platform in one week? I'm intrigued and want to keep reading.

As you scroll down the graphic, you see a combination of direct headlines "Read Channel Highlight" followed by text instructions and visual cues. As a visual learner, I appreciate how these cues mirror the actual interface.

Each section is organized to help you find what you're looking for, whether it's "#channel" or "message" tips. Finance may be Net Credit's bread and butter, but this infographic shows how its team is adaptable and helpful — exactly what you want in a financial partner.

10. How Bad Data Affects Businesses, TD Insights

A bad egg spoils the whole bunch, but what effect does bad data have on businesses? TD Insights answers that question with this excellent infographic design.

The use of contrast makes this infographic visually appealing. Any reader can quickly identify the main themes and points of the design because of the creative use of different fonts.

Timeline Infographic Examples

11. Tech's Bizarre Beginnings & Lucrative Pivots, by Visual Capitalist

The beauty of infographics? They can be used by dozens of industries for hundreds of different purposes. But the best ones are often unexpected.

Take this graphic designed by Visual Capitalist. It reveals the wild origin stories of some of the biggest tech companies today. I had no idea YouTube began as a video dating site with the tagline "Tune In. Hook Up."

As a growing online publication that focuses on data and technology news, Visual Capitalist's audience is likely interested in stories around company pivots that led to success.

That information, coupled with a simple timeline structure, fun graphics, and hard-hitting metrics, makes it tough to look away from this infographic. Plus, we all need reminders that it's not where you start but where you're going.

12. Power Shifts, Studio Patten

The United States is a powerful nation, but that wasn’t the case centuries ago.

In this infographic, Studio Patten takes us on a journey through the years that show the most powerful nations at different times in history.

This infographic is simple, but it also uses creative images and text to provide a history lesson.

13. The Evolution of US Vaccines, by Janet Haniak

Humans have been fighting diseases and pandemics long before COVID-19. Here is one of the many infographics that make it easy to learn about past vaccines created to combat these diseases.

The use of real-life images instead of cartoon characters makes this infographic more believable. Instead of complicating the infographic, the designer made the timeline appear on a single line, with the notable event branching out of that line.

14. The Journey of Oprah Winfrey, by Blue Mail Media

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most powerful women alive today. But did you know she grew up in a poverty-stricken family and had a tough childhood?

This infographic from Blue Mail Media allows us to look into Oprah's early life and how she grew to become who she is today.

Although this infographic has a prominent blue background, the other bright colors make engaging with it easy. The quote breaks also add personality to the infographic.

15. Apple History Timeline, by Viziononline

Apple is the subject of this creative infographic created by Viziononline, and why not? Apple is one of the largest corporations in the world. In fact, you’re likely reading this article on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

But was Apple always this big?

With one look, a reader can tell that this visualization is about Apple because of the different products that appear throughout the infographic.

Interactive Infographic Examples

16. Response to COVID-19, by the U.S Food and Drug Administration

It wouldn't be a 2021 round-up without mentioning the global pandemic that kept many of us at home for months. The bright spot? There are infographics galore educating people on how to wash their hands and social distance properly.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also relied on this visual medium to share how their regulatory department addressed COVID-19.

This infographic example made our list for several reasons. First, to show how infographics can highlight the impact, instead of sharing step-by-step instructions or research-oriented content.

The impact of each action is organized into separate columns and given a distinct color to help your eyes track from top to bottom. While this flow breaks the typical left-to-right reading pattern, it's not distracting or difficult to follow.

The healthcare worker design at the top of the page nods to those on the frontlines, the colors align with the brand, actual numbers are easy to read, and the page isn't crowded with text.

So the next time you need to explain the fruits of your labors to your boss, help win them over with an impact-driven infographic.

17. Pianeta Plastica, by Manuel Bortoletti for GEDI Gruppo

“Che bello” is the first thought that comes to mind for this design. The stunning data visualizations, oceanic color scheme, and easy-to-understand layout let the visuals do the talking. Visme explains how an infographic follows this essential best practice if it makes sense with all of the text removed.

That may seem impossible, but designer Manuel Bortoletti pulls it off with informative maps accompanied by clear keys and a bar graph that uses oil tankers to inform readers about how oil circulates the globe.

Even with my incredibly limited Italian, I understand that the main point of the piece is to inform readers about the impact of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. And since this infographic was designed for the Italian media outlet GEDI Gruppo, it stays on-brand with a more formal editorial tone.

18. How to Properly Wear a Mask, by John Hopkins Medicine

Education is the crux of an infographic. And when you have mere seconds to capture people's increasingly narrow attention span, the information better be easy to learn.

That's why one of the best infographic examples comes from John Hopkins Medicine. They designed an infographic to share tips on a crucial COVID-19 procedure: wearing a mask.

Is covering your nose important? You bet. What about wearing a bandana as a mask? No way. Hopkins uses a combination of straightforward graphics and copy to make the do's and don'ts very clear.

As a renowned medical institution, Hopkins has the experience and authority to educate people on this topic, so it fits its brand and is helpful for everyone's health — a true win-win.

19. The Sustainable Development Goals Report, by the United Nations

Infographics are a great way to add visual flavor to otherwise dry content, like annual reports and whitepapers.

What stands out in this infographic example is how it can be used as one visual or divided into 17 sections — one for each Sustainable Development Goal. This allows the content team to choose which type of content best fits the target audience.

If the UN is speaking to organizations that empower women and girls, they can share the "Gender Equality'' graphic. But a non-profit that promotes all of the UN goals will likely be interested in the entire design.

While a lot of information is packed into each graphic, it's never overwhelming. Each goal is separate from the other with bold headers and distinct colors, which are also used to differentiate the UN's marketing efforts.

20. Ocean Pollution, by Stephanie Phung

Designer Stephanie Phung created this engaging visualization to make more people aware of the ocean’s current state of pollution.

This free infographic uses art to tell a story about the financial and environmental implications of ocean pollution. The designer also uses colors and design elements — the blue color for the sea — that people are already familiar with.

Ready to start designing stunning infographics?

Now that your creativity is sparked, it's the perfect time to start creating your infographics.

While the infographics you create might be different from those on this list, ensure they’re colorful and engaging. And most importantly, that the infographics pass across information in a manner that’s easy to understand.

20 of the Best Infographic Examples to Inspire Your Next Design was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

Scheduling Instagram Posts: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know

Ensuring your Instagram audience sees your content increases chances of engagement, brand awareness, referral traffic, and conversions.

However,  sometimes it's not super efficient for you and your team members to be hovering over your phones or laptops in order to post on Instagram at the exact time you believe you'll be able to get the greatest amount of audience engagement.

You may also have other things going on throughout the workday that need to take precedence over opening the Instagram app and clicking "Post" on your content.

This is where Instagram scheduling software comes into play. 

Can you schedule Instagram posts?

Yes! Luckily, Instagram's API lets users of marketing tools like HubSpot schedule Instagram posts in advance.

In other words, if you use social media scheduling software, you can upload your content, choose when it goes live on Instagram, and know that it'll be posted for your audience without you having to lift another finger.

As mentioned, to start, you'll need a third-party tool to do the scheduling. Below are a few handy options for your consideration. 

1. HubSpot Social Media Management Software

Price: $0/month (Free), $45/month (Starter), $800/month (Professional), $3,200/month (Enterprise)

With HubSpot's Social Media tool, which is part of HubSpot Marketing Hub, you can schedule and publish social posts to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. From within HubSpot, you can edit your post, schedule it, and add @mentions to tag other accounts and users. 

Upload the image that you want to share on Instagram to HubSpot and then drag and drop it into the post that you're scheduling. You can preview the final post prior to it going live so you're able to see exactly what your visitors are going to see. 

After you choose the date and time that your Instagram post will be shared and preview it, tag it with a relevant HubSpot campaign so all of your social posts that are associated with a marketing campaign you're already running are organized. 

Once you schedule your post, you can select "Schedule another" to plan another social post — there's an option to auto-copy and paste content from the post that you just scheduled so you're able to plan similar posts for different dates, times, and platforms.  

Lastly, if you're using HubSpot's social tool to schedule and publish across other platforms, target specific audience groups (for instance, you can target specific countries or languages on Facebook). 

Get HubSpot's Social Media Management Software to help you focus more on connecting with your customers and target audience by using time-saving publishing and scheduling tools that prioritize social interactions.

2. Later

Price: Free, $12.50/mo (Starter), $20.83 (Growth), $33.33 (Advanced) 

Later is a social media post scheduler dedicated to Instagram. The platform includes a full social content calendar, drag-and-drop post planning, and the ability to publish automatically to your Instagram Business profile. In addition, the service's Linkin.bio feature allows you to link certain posts to specific product pages.

3. Tailwind

Price: Free, $9.99/mo (Pro), $19.99 (Advanced), $39.99 (Max)

Tailwind is a social media scheduler and smart assistant platform specifically for Instagram and Pinterest. Using smart features like bulk image uploading and the built-in Hashtag Finder, the tool allows small businesses to quickly personalize their Instagram posts and get them scheduled.

The tool also allows you to visually plan and preview your Instagram post schedule and grid via a single dashboard so you can see what your audience will see prior to posting. 

4. Buffer

Price: Free, $15/mo (Pro), $65/mo (Premium), $99/mo (Business) 

Buffer allows you to schedule social media posts across six social networks: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. Buffer for Instagram makes it easy to manage and schedule your Instagram posts via a single dashboard.

There's an option to include hashtags in your Instagram post in the Comments section versus in the caption (to keep the post and caption looking as simple as possible). You can also analyze your Instagram posts to determine what worked among your target audience using Buffer's social media analytics feature. 

In addition to a mobile app for iOS and Android, Buffer also offers an extension for your internet browser.

5. Sked Social

Price: $25/mo (Fundamentals), $75/mo (Essentials), $135/mo (Professional)

Sked Social offers an Instagram scheduling and auto-posting tool for Instagram posts and stories. You can plan to automatically post your stories, whether they're photo stories or video stories, using the tool so you never have to intervene or receive reminders to click "Post" again. 

You can also schedule your Instagram posts via iOS or Android so you can upload content directly from your mobile device's camera roll. 

6. Sprout Social

Price: $99/mo (Standard), $149/mo (Professional), $249/mo (Advanced)

Sprout Social is a social media management platform that's compatible with six major social networks including Instagram. It has a social media content calendar that allows you to schedule your social posts and then measure different engagement metrics once live. 

Easily upload the image you want to post on Instagram, add the caption and other Instagram post details (e.g. location), and then schedule it to go out at the date and time of your choosing.

The tool's social listening abilities also help you identify unique trends across your Instagram content and then apply these trends to the rest of your Instagram marketing strategy. 

7. Loomly

Price: $34 /mo (Base), $76 /mo (Standard), $159 /mo (Advanced), $332 /mo (Premium), Contact Us (Enterprise) 

Loomly is a brand success platform with content management and social media publishing and scheduling features. Schedule your social media posts in advance — there are automated scheduling and publishing options for a variety of social platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google. Loomly also offers automated Instagram Ad (and Facebook Ad) publishing. 

With the platform, easily manage your organic and paid social media content — you can also get notifications (via email, Slack, and more) whenever one of your team members works on a piece of social content to make for easy team-wide collaboration. The tool provides social media post recommendations based on trends, events, holidays, and social platform best practices.

Next, let's dive into how to schedule Instagram posts for an Instagram Business page — for the sake of this post, we'll use HubSpot as our scheduling and publishing tool. 

1. Ensure you have admin access to your Facebook Business Page.

Instagram and Facebook might be separate accounts to you personally, but businesses that want to automate their Instagram posting schedule will need to tether both accounts together. So, you'll need the username and password of your business's Facebook account to do this — in other words, head over to the Instagram Business landing page to set up your account if you don't already have one.

2. Switch to your Business profile on the Instagram mobile app and connect this account to Facebook.

If you have a personal Instagram account, you probably know you can manage more than one profile from the app — and the other profile is your business account (keep in mind you'll need an Instagram Business account to schedule Instagram posts in HubSpot).

To switch to your Instagram Business page from your personal page, navigate to your profile on your mobile device and tap the three dots in the upper-right corner of your screen. Then, in the next screen, select "Switch to Business Profile," as shown below:

Under "Settings," select "Linked Accounts." Here's where you can select Facebook and link your two accounts together. You might be asked to "Log in With Facebook," at which point you'll enter your business account's username and password. Otherwise, select "Continue as [yourself]."

3. Open HubSpot and use the "Social" tool to integrate your Instagram profile.

Now that your Instagram profile is anchored to Facebook, you're ready to integrate it with your post scheduler. As mentioned, for our purposes, we'll be using HubSpot's Social tool.

Open HubSpot, select "Settings" > "Marketing" > "Social" > "Connect Account" > "Facebook and Instagram."

 

Click the first option, "Facebook & Instagram," and follow the prompts to complete this step (which are listed here in greater detail). 

4. Create your first social post for your Instagram account.

Once your Instagram account is integrated into HubSpot, you'll see an option to "Create social post" in your HubSpot dashboard. Click it, and you'll see icons for which social network you want to start with. Select the Instagram icon to compose your first post for your Instagram account. 

5. Compose a message with your desired visual assets, captions, and hashtags.

Customize your Instagram post and upload an image using the landscape icons on the bottom-lefthand corner of the white text field that appears, as shown below:

Then, caption your image with the text, hashtags, and user mentions you'd like to post your photo with, as they should appear on Instagram.

6. Set the date and time of your Instagram post.

Just above the photo that you're posting, you'll see a field where you can add the date and time that your post will be scheduled to go live. Use this field to set the exact date and time you want your post to automatically go live on your Instagram profile.

7. Preview your post to make sure it looks right.

Any grammatical errors? Are all your intended hashtags included? Is the image successfully uploaded? Check to make sure, and you'll be ready to schedule.

8. Click "Schedule message."

Got any more Instagram posts planned? Draft them now and schedule all of them at the same time — with HubSpot, you can schedule your social posts in bulk.

Once every post you want to schedule has been loaded into HubSpot, you can hit the "Schedule" button on the page.

Schedule Your Instagram Posts

Start scheduling your Instagram posts to make your workflow more efficient and to ensure the content you need to get in front of your audience does so in a timely fashion. 

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Scheduling Instagram Posts: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

The Ultimate Guide to PPC Marketing

Marketers, can we be honest with each other for a second? On a scale of 1-10, how much do you really understand the world of paid advertising?

Although 45% of small businesses do some form of online advertising, pay-per-click is still a concept that eludes many of us.

As a marketer, PPC is a skill that you should have in your tool belt — or at least have a basic understanding of.

This guide will help you grasp pay-per-click marketing in its entirety. To start, we’ll begin with the benefits of paid advertising and then get into some key definitions that you’ll need to know.

When done right, PPC can earn you quality leads. If you can create a seamless user journey (which you’ll learn how to do later in this piece), it could mean a massive ROI for your PPC efforts.

Pay-per-click advertising is most common in search engine results pages, like Google or Bing, but is also used on social channels (although CPM is more common).

If you’re wondering where you can find pay-per-click ads, they’re the results you see before and to the right of the organic search results. For instance, check out the ad that came up in my search for "cards.”

PPC Terms and Definitions

What’s a marketing channel without a few acronyms and a little jargon?

If you’re going to enter the paid advertising space, there are a few terms you should know. Below, we review the main elements of a PPC campaign, ranging from broad to the more specific.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

The objective of all forms of digital advertising is to rank for a target keyword, which you can do in several ways. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to any digital marketing (paid or unpaid) done on a search engine, like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

SEM is an umbrella term that encompasses both paid advertising and search engine optimization, that is, ranking organically for keywords. It’s important to note that not all PPC occurs on search engines — social media has PPC ads, too (think: Facebook Ads).

CPC

Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount that an advertiser pays for each click on your ad. CPC acts as your bid in an auction that determines where your ad will be placed. As you can imagine, a higher bid equates to better ad placement.

You set your CPC at the maximum price you are willing to pay per click on your ad. What you actually pay is determined by the following formula:

(Competitor’s Ad Rank / Your Quality Score) + 0.01 = Actual CPC.

Let’s go over the terms in this equation, so you know what you’re paying for:

Ad Rank

This value determines the position of an ad on a search engine results page. It’s equal to Maximum Bid x Quality Score.

Quality Score

This is the score that search engines give to your ad based on your clickthrough rate (CTR) — measured against the average CTR of ads in that position — the relevance of your keywords, the quality of your landing page, and your past performance on the SERP.

Maximum Bid

This is the maximum you're willing to pay per click on your ad.

Here’s an image by WordStream that illustrates what I mean:

Source

You can set your CPC to manual, where you determine the maximum bid for your ads, or enhanced, which allows the search engines to adjust your bid based on your goals. One of these enhanced options involves bid strategies that automatically adjust your bids based on either clicks or conversions.

CPM (Cost per Mille)

CPM, also known as cost per thousand, is the cost per one thousand impressions. It’s most commonly used for paid social and display ads. There are other types of cost-pers… like cost-per-engagement, cost-per-acquisition (CPA), but for the sake of preserving your mental space, we’re going to stick with clicks, a.k.a. CPC.

Campaign

The first step in setting up your PPC ads is determining your ad campaign. You can think of your campaign as the key message or theme you want to get across with your advertisements.

Ad Group

One size doesn’t fit all. That’s why you’ll create a series of ads within your campaign based on a set of highly related keywords. You can set a CPC for each ad group that you create.

Keywords

Each ad within your ad group will target a set of relevant keywords or key terms. These keywords tell search engines which terms or search queries you want your ad to be displayed alongside in SERPs. Once you determine which keywords perform best, you can set a micro CPC specifically for keywords within your ads.

Ad Text

Your keywords should inform your ad text. Remember, your Quality Score is determined by how relevant your ad is; therefore, the text in your ad (and landing page, for that matter) should match the keyword terms you’re targeting.

Landing Page

A landing page is a critical piece of your paid advertising strategy. The landing page is where users will end up once they click your PPC ad. Whether it’s a dedicated webpage, your homepage, or somewhere else, make sure to follow landing page best practices to maximize conversions.

Best PPC Platforms

Now that you understand the PPC basics, I’m guessing your next question is: Where should I advertise?

There are dozens of online spaces where you can spend your coveted ad money, and the best way to vet them is by taking a close look at your potential ROI on each platform.

The most popular advertising platforms are effective because they’re easy to use and, most importantly, highly trafficked. But for a smaller budget, you might consider a lesser-known alternative to these key players.

When choosing a platform, some other things to consider are the availability of keyword terms, where your target audience spends their time, and your advertising budget.

Here a non-exhaustive list of some of the top PPC platforms.

Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords)

How many times a day do you hear the phrase “Let me Google that?” Probably more than you can count … hence why Google Ads is the king of paid advertising.

On average, Google processes over 90,000 search queries every second, giving you plenty of opportunities to target keywords that will get your intended audience to click. The downside is that keywords are highly competitive on this platform, meaning a larger ad spend.

If you’re planning to use this popular platform, start with our free Google Ads PPC Kit.

Bing Ads

The perks of using Bing Ads over Google Ads is a slightly lower CPC at the expense of a larger audience, of course.

Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads blend in with other posts on the platform.

Facebook Ads is a popular and effective platform for paid ads (more commonly used as CPM than CPC), mainly due to its specific targeting options. Facebook allows you to target users based on interests, demographics, location, and behaviors.

Also, Facebook allows for native ads, which means ads are introduced and blend into the social feed. Not to mention, you can use Facebook Ads to advertise on Instagram as well.

AdRoll

Chipotle retargeting me as I search for dessert recipes.

AdRoll is a retargeting platform that advertises to people who have already visited your website. For instance, say someone read your article on cheese making. You can retarget them on other sites they visit with display ads that advertise your online cooking classes.

While retargeting is possible with Google Ads, the benefit of using AdRoll is that it can display ads on Google and social media sites, which gives you more opportunities to capture clicks or impressions, depending on your goal.

RevContent

RevContent focuses specifically on promoting content through PPC. It has the same impact as a guest post, where your content is displayed on an external site, except it’s in the form of an ad. You still bid on keywords, and your advertisement is displayed next to content relevant to those keywords. With this platform, you’ll reap the benefits of a low CPC and highly engaged traffic.

With that explanation out of the way, now let's look at some benefits of PPC ads.

1. PPC ads are cost-effective.

With PPC ad campaigns, you have complete control over how much you’re willing to spend.

Since you only pay when visitors click the link leading to your website or landing page — with a high chance of conversion — you’ll be getting your money’s worth.

2. PPC ads produce fast results.

Although organic ranking is great, it sometimes takes months or even years to get on the first page on SERPs. 

If you’re a startup or small business, you likely don’t have the time to wait for the effect of organic, social, or direct traffic to kick in. 

That’s where PPC ads come in. 

With optimized PPC ads, you can shoot yourself to the top of the SERP within hours of launching your campaign.

3. You can easily control and test PPC ads.

It’s easy to control the keywords you’re targeting, ad placement, or budget with PPC ads. You can also run A/B split tests with different ads to identify the one that produces the highest return on investment. You can then scale the ads that do well until it no longer produces desirable results.

4. PPC ads allow you to target your ideal customers.

With PPC ads, you can skip right past cold audiences to target a warm audience that’s ready to buy your products and services.

You can bid on keywords that solution-aware personas would search for online. Aside from keywords, PPC ads also offer targeting options like past online activity or demographics. 

Another excellent use of PPC ads is to create retargeting campaigns targeting visitors who didn’t purchase after landing on your site.

5. Algorithm changes have little effect on PPC ads.

Between the numerous Google algorithm changes and the 200 ranking factors, trying to get free traffic from search engines is a bit unstable compared to PPC advertising. 

With PPC ads, you don’t have to worry about algorithm changes but instead focus on how well your campaigns perform.

6. PPC ads help you rank even with low domain ratings.

Keywords have become increasingly competitive. This makes it more difficult for a business with a low domain authority to get into the top rankings on a search engine or in front of its target audience on a social platform. 

With PPC advertising, you can quickly rank for keywords your audience is searching, irrespective of your domain ratings. 

7. Data from PPC ads can improve your SEO strategy.

You shouldn’t ditch all your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts altogether — your paid advertising should complement your SEO strategy instead of replacing it.

“When people search for your keywords, you know their search intent and can display the most relevant ad to your audience. This means more clicks and a greater chance of conversion.” - Laura Mittelmann, Paid Acquisition at HubSpot

How to Build a PPC Campaign

Now that you understand the benefits of PPC and have your key terms, let’s dive into crafting a quality PPC campaign using Google AdWords or some other platform.

You don’t need to tackle these items step-by-step, but you will need to work through each of them to ensure that you create an effective marketing campaign.

Set Parameters

I know I said that you don’t need to do these things in order, but you should do this step first. Without parameters, you risk your ad being untargeted and ineffective. 

You want to put your ad campaigns into the context of your ultimate business goals. Consider how your paid campaigns will contribute to those goals. Then, think about what you want to accomplish with your ads — whether that be visits, sales, brand awareness, or something else — and how much you’re willing to spend to achieve that goal.

Your ads should encompass a few things:

• Who you want to target
• Theme of your campaign
• How you will measure success
• Type of campaign you will run

Create Goals and Goal Metrics

Your campaign goals will give you something to show for your ad spend as long as you determine how you will measure those goals. Your goal metrics should not be confused with your campaign metrics, which we’ll discuss below.

Let’s touch on some common PPC goals and how to measure them.

Brand awareness is how familiar your target audience is with your company. It might be a good idea to look into display ads for this goal so you can supplement your copy with engaging imagery. You can measure brand awareness through social engagement, surveys, and direct traffic.

Lead generation is the direct result of having a relevant and engaging landing page to follow your paid ad. Since you will create a separate landing page for each ad group, you should be able to easily track lead conversions either in the Google Ads interface via a tracking pixel, or through UTM parameters, if you’re using a tool like HubSpot.

Offer promotion is great if you’re running a limited-time offer, product or service discount, or contest. You should create a dedicated sign-up page or a unique discount code so you know which users came from your ad.

Sales can be measured by how much of your product or service is sold based on your paid ads. You should be able to track this through CMS software or with attribution reporting.

Site traffic is a great goal if you have high-quality content throughout your website. If you’re going to spend money getting people to visit your site, you want to have some level of confidence that you can keep them there and eventually convert them into leads.

Choose Your Campaign Type

You don’t only need to know where you’ll advertise but also how. There are many different types of paid advertising campaigns, and the one you choose depends on where you can reach your audience. That isn’t to say that you can’t advertise through various means; you can also try a combination of campaign types as long as you’re consistently testing and revising.

Search Ads are the most common type of PPC and refer to the text ads that show up on search engine results pages.

Display Ads allow you to place ads (usually image-based) on external websites, including social. There are several ways to buy display ads, including Google Display Network (GDN) and other ad networks.

Learn how to integrate Display Ads into your inbound marketing plan.

Social refers to any ads that you see on social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. You can pay to show up in your target audience’s social feed or somewhere else within their profile, depending on the platform.

Remarketing can use either cookies or a list of contacts that you upload to target people who have previously engaged with your company through some action. That action could be filling out a form, reading a blog, or simply visiting a page on your website.

Google Shopping is most effective for ecommerce sites. Your ad — including image, price, and a short product description — will show on a carousel on a search page based on your target keywords.

Perform Keyword Research

Each ad group you create needs to be assigned a set of keywords to target — that’s how search engines know when and where to display your ad. The general rule of thumb is to select between one to five keywords per ad group, and those keywords should be extremely relevant — your Quality Score depends on it.

Select keywords that are closely aligned with the specific theme of your ad group. If you find keywords you want to target that fall outside of one theme, you should create a separate ad group for them.

It’s important to note that you’re not stuck with the keywords you start with. In fact, you should closely monitor your keyword list throughout your campaign — eliminating those that don’t bring in the types of visitors that you’re looking for and increasing your bids on those that do. Do your best to select the most relevant keywords, but don’t feel pressured to get it 100% right the first time around.

Set Up Google Analytics and Tracking

Google Analytics is free to use, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t install it on your website. The tool provides insights into how your website is performing, how users interact with your pages, and what content is attractive to visitors. The information gathered from Google Analytics can be used for PPC and beyond.

Best Practices for a Quality PPC Strategy

You didn’t think we’d let you spend your hard-earned money on advertisements without providing some best practices to follow, did you? Of course not. We want to make sure you succeed with your next PPC campaign. So, let’s get into some PPC strategies that will help you maximize your efforts and your budget.

As a note, we’re going to dive specifically into paid search ads (those little guys you see in search engines) here.

PPC Ad Copy

Bidding on targeted keywords will get your ad in front of the right people; good ad copy will get those people to click on your ad. Like your keywords, your ad needs to solve for the intent of the searcher — you need to give the searcher exactly what they’re looking for and make sure that is clear through the words you use.

Search ads are comprised of a headline, a URL, and a short description, and each of these has limited character requirements to follow. To make the most of this space, make sure your ad copy does the following:

• Speak directly to your target persona.
• Include the main keyword that you’re bidding on.
• Provide an actionable CTA so the searcher knows what to do next.
• Make the offer appealing.
• Use language that matches your landing page copy.
• Perform A/B Split tests with your copy.

Landing Page Best Practices

Arguably the most important element of PPC (after your ad copy) is the page that you send leads to after they click on your ad. This page needs to be highly targeted, relevant to your ad, deliver what was promised, and present a seamless experience.

Why? Because the point of your landing page is to convert your new visitor into a lead or customer. Not only that, but a high-converting landing page will improve your Quality Score, leading to better ad placements. There’s nothing that will diminish PPC profits like a poorly crafted landing page.

What should a PPC landing page include to increase conversions? Glad you asked.

• Strong headline that mirrors your search ad
• Clean design and layout
• Responsive form that is easy to use with a stand-out CTA button
• Copy that is very specific and relevant to your target keywords
• Presents the offer that was promised in your ad
• A/B tested

A/B Testing Your PPC Ads

As a marketer, you’ll rarely throw something out to your audience that works without testing it. PPC campaigns are no different. A/B testing is as critical to your paid ad campaign as is every other element. The goal of testing your ad is to increase both your clickthrough rate and your conversion rate.

The good news is that ads comprise just four parts that you’ll need to test: headline, description, landing page, and target keywords. Minor tweaks to just one of these elements can significantly alter your results, so you want to make changes one at a time so you can keep track of where improvements come from.

Since there are many variations that you could test one at a time, it’s a good idea to list out all the potential tests you can run and prioritize them by most significant impact. Finally, you should allow your ads to run long enough to gather the data you need and test them early enough, so you don’t waste budget on a poor-performing ad.

Maximizing Your ROI

At a high level, maximizing ROI on your ad campaigns means considering customer lifetime value and customer acquisition costs, which will help you determine how much is worth spending on a new lead and how much of that spend can come from paid advertising.

To get more granular, we need to talk inputs and outputs, that is 1) lowering your input (cost per lead [CPL]) and 2) increasing your return (revenue).

There are a few factors to keep an eye on that will affect both, so let’s break it down.

Ways to Decrease Inputs

• Determine an ad budget before you get started.
• Create more relevant ads. The more relevant, the lower your CPC.
• Improve your Quality Score. The higher your QS, the less search engines will charge you for clicks.

Ways to Increase Revenue

• Follow landing page best practices to increase conversion rates.
• Go after quality leads by being specific with your ad. The more quality your leads, the more likely they will convert and eventually become customers.

Additional PPC Tips and Tricks

There are a few other things you can do to maximize the ROI of your paid ads, whether it’s time spent, budget, clicks, or conversions.

Audiences

Google allows you to tailor your audience so you save marketing dollars and get in front of the right people. You can upload a customer list so that you don’t waste money on people who have already bought from you.

Google also has options for prospecting audiences. For instance, In-Market Audiences employs user behavior tracking to put you in front of prospects who are in the market for a product or service like yours.

You can also increase your bid for more relevant subgroups within your target audience — a practice called layering audiences. For example, HubSpot may layer on people who are in the market for CRM software and add a 30% bid adjustment because those people may be more likely to convert.

Bid Adjustments

Bid adjustments allow you to increase or decrease your bids based on performance. You can even make these adjustments based on different categories, like device, demographics, language, and more.

For example, if a keyword isn’t performing as well on mobile as on desktop, you can add a negative bid adjustment so that when someone searches your keyword on mobile, you’ll bid X% lower than your normal bid.

Custom Ad Scheduling

You can set up ad scheduling in Google Ads to display your ad only during specific days and times. This can cut down on ad spend and improve relevance for your target audience.

Sitelink Extensions

Sitelink extensions allow you to supplement your ad with additional information. For instance, if you’re running an ad for a seasonal promotion at a local store, you can add a sitelink extension to display your store hours and location. These extensions take up more real estate on SERPs and, therefore, stand out. Not only that, but they play a role in improving your Ad Rank.

Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking monitors how your landing page is performing via a tracking code that you place on the page where people land after completing your form (usually a “Thank You” page). By enabling this feature, you’ll be better equipped to make adjustments that can improve your conversions.

Keyword Monitoring

Don’t let too much time pass before you check how your keywords are performing. You can place higher bids on the keywords that are creating the best results for your campaign, and “defund” or eliminate others.

Match Types

Match Types in Google Ads allows you to choose how closely related you want your ad group to be associated with a search team. There are four match types: broad, modified broad, phrase, and exact match. Google will display your ad in results according to your selection.

For example, if your keyword phrase is “how to catch geese” and you select “broad match,” then Google will display your ad for queries that include any word in your key phrase in any order, including “geese catch” and “geese catch how.”

Negative Keywords

A negative keyword list tells search engines what you don’t want to rank for, which is equally as important as what you do. You might know some of these upfront, but likely you’ll determine these keywords by what isn’t performing so well within your campaign.

Social Media Ads

Although CPM is more common on social platforms, social media sites do offer PPC that works similarly to search engine ads in that you set a budget and bid on ad placements.

The difference is social media ads can show up directly in your news feed on most platforms, decreasing the effectiveness of ad blockers. Social platforms, like Facebook, let you set targeted demographics and target people based on interests. While paid search is more keyword-focused, paid social broadens into a demographic focus, leading to more ways to target your persona.

Social media has two paid ad functions that are critical to ad success — retargeting and Lookalike Audiences. Retargeting is remarketing to people based on site visits or manually uploaded contact lists. Lookalike Audiences reviews the people on your marketing list and creates an audience that parallels your list, expanding your potential target. Paid social also allows for a wider variety of ad types, like images, videos, text, and more.

PPC Management and Tracking

Paid advertising is not “set it and forget it.” You need to manage and constantly monitor your ads to ensure that you’re reaching optimal results. Management, analysis, and tracking are crucial to a PPC campaign because they provide you with valuable insights and help you create a more effective campaign.

What is PPC management?

PPC management covers a wide range of techniques, including creating and adjusting goals, split testing, introducing new keywords, optimizing conversion paths, and shifting plans to reach goals.

Managing your PPC means looking at your strategy and ad spend. On the one hand, it means iterating on your plan to optimize keyword effectiveness. On the other hand, it means thinking about how to allocate resources to specific keywords and how to adjust those resources to maximize ROI.

A good management strategy also pays attention to providers — like search engines, social platforms, and ad networks — to monitor changes and updates that could affect paid campaigns.

Overall, PPC management is a hefty undertaking, which is why investing in solid PPC management tools could be a great idea.

Use our PPC management tool to monitor all of your paid campaigns.

PPC Tools and Software

With all of the variables that you need to track, PPC management tools should make things easier. You can opt to monitor your ads within the platform, but if you’re looking for additional assistance and organization, a robust, easy-to-read spreadsheet or sophisticated software that gives you insight into your ad performance is vital.

If you plan to go the software route, there are some features that you want to look for: multi-user support, cross-platform management, A/B testing, scheduling, reporting, and ad grading.

Here’s a list of some popular, highly-rated PPC software and resources.

• HubSpot offers a robust template to help you monitor and manage the moving parts of your campaign, making it easy to keep track of your ad groups, keywords, and A/B tests.
• WordStream automates the tedious parts of setting up and managing your PPC campaign.
• NinjaCat lets you combine all of your analytics from multiple platforms into one report so you can track your entire campaign in one location.
• Optmyzr has end-to-end PPC support, from creation to reporting, and it offers a free trial of its software.
• SEMRush can help you manage the most important part of your PPC campaign — keywords. You can find relevant keywords, manage and optimize your keyword lists, and create negative lists.
• Unbounce is a landing page builder you can use to create landing pages for each of your different PPC campaigns.
• Databox helps businesses track the performance of their ads and displays key metrics across a single dashboard. You can also use Databox’s predictive analysis to estimate how well your ads would do in the future.
• Ahrefs is more than just another SEO tool. You can use Ahrefs to check how well your PPC ads are performing. You can also spy on your competitors’ keywords with Ahrefs.
• Microsoft Advertising Editor (formerly Bing Ad Editor) is a management tool for PPC ads you run through Bing. With this tool, you can manage your bids, research keywords, and make changes to your ads.

PPC Metrics to Track

Metrics are everything (but you already knew that). Here are some key metrics to track within your PPC campaign.

Clicks refer to the total number of clicks you receive on an ad. This metric is affected by your keyword selection and the relevance of your ad copy.

Cost per click (CPC) measures the price you pay for each click on your ad.

Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the percentage of ad views that result in clicks. This metric determines how much you pay (CPC). CTR benchmarks vary by industry.

Impressions are the number of times an ad is viewed. Cost per mille (CPM) is determined for every thousand impressions. Impressions are most relevant for brand awareness campaigns.

Ad spend is the amount you are spending on your ads. You can optimize this by improving your Quality Score.

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is the ROI of your ad campaign. This metric calculates the revenue received for every dollar spent on ads.

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of people that complete the call-to-action on your landing page and become a lead or customer.

Cost per conversion refers to the cost to generate a lead. This is calculated as the total cost of an ad divided by the number of conversions.

Quality Score (QS) determines ad positioning, so it’s an important metric to keep an eye on.

By paying close attention to each of these metrics, you can increase the ROI of your paid campaign and spend less for better results.

Go Paid!

Whether you just started your business yesterday or have been around for decades, PPC just might be the boost you need to get an edge on your competition — or at least ahead of them in the SERPs. 

Applying the lessons found in this guide about building a PPC campaign and the best practices for a quality PPC strategy would set you well on your way to improving your website’s traffic and conversions.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August, 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The Ultimate Guide to PPC Marketing was originally posted by Local Sign Company Irvine, Ca. https://goo.gl/4NmUQV https://goo.gl/bQ1zHR http://www.pearltrees.com/anaheimsigns

5 Steps to Build an Enterprise Data Strategy, Straight From an Expert

Data can be a scary word.

It shouldn't be, but it is. Mostly because people struggle with how to manage it.

Many companies have reached the point where they have so much data, they don't know where to go next. Others believe they are so small, there's no need to invest in an enterprise data strategy.

The truth is, regardless of the size of your company and the current state of your data, you will benefit from implementing a data strategy.

To help you get started, we've enlisted the expertise of Zosia Kossowski, the group product manager for the business intelligence team at HubSpot (i.e. our in-house data strategy expert.)

By the time you finish reading this article, you'll have a better idea of your company's current data maturity level, what factors to consider before you build your strategy, and some steps to help along the way.

Despite popular belief, an enterprise data strategy isn't solely for big companies with large volumes of data. In fact, small businesses can benefit from investing in a data strategy early on and set the foundation that will help them scale.

Benefits of an Enterprise Data Strategy

The common pitfall many organizations face is that while they are collecting a lot of data, every team is interpreting it in their own way. There's no standard reporting method and each team might be reporting a different value for the same metric.

This means that everyone ends up with different data with no clear understanding of what's accurate. When there's no single source of truth, it becomes incredibly difficult to trust your data and pull valuable insights.

"Data doesn't just exist in a silo," said Kossowski. "The marketing team is not just going to use marketing-specific data that no other team has any influence over. They're going to want to pull information from different areas as well."

She continues, "And so, an element of governance and standardization and a common language is really important in making sure that those teams can communicate with one another."

So, by implementing an EDS, you prevent information silos, allow for trust in the data, and enable decision making.

What To Consider When Building an Enterprise Data Strategy

1. Your Current Data Maturity Level

The first thing Kossowski recommends doing before building out your strategy is a self-assessment.

Ask yourself: Where does your company fall in the data maturity stage?

Dell has a widely used "Data Maturity Model" that helps companies determine how data-driven their company actually is. There are four stages:

• Data aware – Your company has not standardized its reporting system and there's no integration between your systems, data sources, and databases. Plus, there's a lack of trust in the data itself.
• Data proficient – There's still a lack of trust in the data, specifically its quality. You may have invested in a data warehouse but there are still some pieces missing.
• Data savvy – Your company is empowered to make business decisions from your data. However, there are still some kinks to work out between business leaders and IT, as IT works to provide reliable data on demand.
• Data driven – IT and business are working closely together and are on the same page. Now, the focus is on scaling the data strategy because the foundation work (particularly integrating data sources) has already been successfully implemented.

What's most important here is being realistic about where your company falls.

"I think the biggest pitfall that I see is not being really honest with yourself about where your company is in the data maturity stage," said Kossowski.

She adds that it's not enough to look at the feelings you have about how data driven you think your company is. Look at the facts.

Start by identifying the data problems your company currently faces, as that is a great indicator of where you stand.

2. Your Industry and Company Size

The industry you're in and the size of your company will determine whether you take a centralized or distributed approach to your data strategy.

But before we break down those approaches, let's talk about two data strategy frameworks: offense and defense.

During my conversation with Kossowski, she brought up how this framework (explained in detail here) has helped HubSpot develop its own strategy.

Data defense prioritizes things like data security, access, governance, and accuracy while data offense focuses on gaining insights that will enable decision making.

Every company needs a balance of offense and defense. However, some lean more on one end of the spectrum based on their industry.

A healthcare organization or financial institution, for instance, likely deals with highly sensitive data, where data privacy and security is paramount.

Getting real-time data and quick insights is likely not a top priority whereas providing guardrails for who can access data probably is. As such, they will lean more toward a defense framework.

On the flip side, you have tech companies, an industry that tends to move quickly and relies more heavily on a quick turnaround of data insights.

So, they lean more on offense. With that said, there are certainly departments within tech companies (and other fast-moving industries) that will focus more on defense, such as finance.

Now back to centralized and distributed strategies.

The framework you use will inform which strategy serves your company best.

In a centralized structure, you have a centralized reporting or business intelligence (BI) team that manages and prepares the data as well as the reports.

"That [structure] can work a lot better at a smaller organization, and especially in an organization that's prioritizing defense because you're going to move slower," said Kossowski. "You're going to be the bottleneck but you also have tight control over every piece of it."

A distributed model, on the other hand, works better for larger teams who take the offensive approach. This way, each team can move quickly and is empowered to do work in a way that works for them.

In this model, BI simply is responsible for the platforms and setting the guardrails while the teams do the development work, Kossowski explains.

"If you think about an organization, as the company gets larger, with a more centralized team, it becomes more and more difficult to scale," she said. "You end up having to just hire more and more people to be able to achieve that."

"So I think at a certain size of the company, you're going to end up moving more and more toward [a] decentralized [strategy] anyways."

So, once you understand which framework works best for your industry and size, you can implement the appropriate strategy.

3. Your Data Management Team

Data science is the hot topic right now in data management, according to Kossowski. And she's not wrong.

In 2012, Harvard Business Review named it the sexiest job of the 21st century. Nearly 10 years later, Glassdoor has named it the second best job in America.

But if you're debating what role to add to your data management team, a data scientist shouldn't be your first option.

Kossowski highlights that your data science is only going to be as good as the data that's powering it. And if that data isn't trustworthy, you're not going to get valuable insights.

"Data science is not a magic wand that magically turns bad data into insights. Regardless, you're still going to need that data foundation," she adds. "So, jumping into doing something because it's the next big thing, I think that's a big concern."

If you're in the earlier stages of the data maturity model, Kossowski has a suggestion on where to focus your efforts.

"A data warehouse architect or even a data analyst who is experienced in writing SQL and building out SQL tables," she says. "If you're only going to hire one person and you don't have that much data, that can be a really powerful hire because there's a lot that one person can do when you're at a smaller scale. They can wear many different hats and learn different things."

When it comes to the more technical tasks, like ingesting data into the warehouse, there are third-party tools you can use to do that for you.

At this stage, what you really need is someone to help you with structuring your data.

1. Outline your data architecture.

The first thing you want to do is understand your data at a granular level.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Where will the data live?
• What type of data will you be collecting and from what sources?
• How will the data be organized?

The goal here is to understand the structure of your data.

If there's no understanding of the structure, you can't build a comprehensive plan on how to manage your data.

2. Define the relationship between BI and your teams.

When it comes to data strategy, one of the most important steps is defining the teams involved in the process and setting expectations for BI.

In a large organization that hasn't thought about data strategy before, you'll often find that every team follows a different model and has a different relationship with BI, making it hard for BI to operate in a streamlined and standard fashion.

It also blurs the lines between the roles of the data analyst and BI.

The data analyst should know the business logic that is specific to their team and the structure of the data being collected. BI, on the other hand, shouldn't need to have specific knowledge on the operational area it is supporting, and should instead be focusing on the data source and managing the platform to support the analyst.

When BI is regularly adjusting its process to match the team's specific business logic, it slows everything down and creates a constant need for relearning.

Kossowki's suggestion? Strip the business logic out of the BI layer and work on things that are relevant to as many teams as possible.

In addition, come up with a standard analyst profile and a model for the relationship between BI and teams.

"There are still going to be some places where we're working on data sets and not the whole platform," said Kossowski, "but as much as we can, it's cleaning up the base data, making it easy to join, but not actually doing those joins and the logic for them."

3. Assign ownership.

After establishing the relationship between your teams and BI, the next step is defining who will own what.

It's typical to have a different owner for each part of the data. For example, one person or team may own the operational data while another owns the reporting data.

You may also need to assign owners at different stages in the pipeline. The BI team may own the data at a particular stage then pass it on to the analysts.

Kossowski believes ownership starts with the teams who are producing the data.

"They need to feel some level of ownership over the data and have some level of accountability if something's wrong," she said. "Because if it's wrong at the source, there's very little that BI can do."

She continues, "And if you try to put in patch patches at that level, you're just going to run into more problems down the line, so that relationship is important as well."

4. Establish data governance.

Data governance is a set of policies and regulations that inform how data will be collected and stored to ensure accuracy and quality.

In simple terms, data governance is saying "Hey, you want to use and be a part of this source of truth data we've created? Then you've got to meet this criteria."

This can include meeting coding standards, having a certain number of reviewers, and following a specific documentation process.

"When we think about governance and adoption, it's really about the mechanisms you can put into place toward adherence," said Kossowski.

There are two pieces that you have to consider when it comes to governance: the cultural piece and the technological aspect.

From a cultural perspective, how do you get your teams to adopt these standards? And from a technical perspective, which processes can you automate so that everything does not require behavior modification?

As you think of these two pieces, you have to consider both the analyst side and the engineer (or source team) side.

Kossowski explains that for engineering teams, it can be hard to think about what data looks like when it comes into the warehouse because it's not a core part of their product or responsibility.

They may not see the tangible benefits of the data unless it's a data-driven organization that works tightly with its analysts. In this case, the analysts can relay that the data is powering X decision, so until the data means Y requirements, decisions can't be made.

For analysts, it's easier to see the benefits because they're closer to the business and can see the direct impact. They can realize that following data governance standards means less reliance on BI, which makes things move more quickly.

"The insights from the data have to be powering decisions being made about the product because that's the only way you're going to get the product and engineering teams

bought into the value of data and thinking about their data as it is exported," said Kossowski.

5. Reassess regularly.

Wherever you fall on the data maturity model, your data strategy will always need some tweaking.

"[At HubSpot], we have a three-year plan and all these ideas of what happens in each of those years," said Kossowski. But I fully expect that a year from now, when we look at it, there are things we're going to want to tweak based on how things have changed."

For instance, say you introduce a new feature in your product or service and now are collecting more sensitive customer data. This may require taking a more defensive approach. If your company grows exponentially, you may need to shift toward a distributed strategy instead of a centralized one.

Even if there are no changes in how your company operates, you may still need to reassess. Here are two major indicators it's time to review your data strategy:

• There is frustration with how long things are taking.
• There's a lack of trust in the data.

Kossowski says finding the balance between those two is key.

"You don't want BI doing everything because then it's just going to take a long time," she said, "but you also don't want to have so much freedom in the analyst population that you can't really rely on any data."

A good rule of thumb is to review your strategy every six months to a year. Speak with business leaders, IT, and your teams to understand how everyone feels about your progress and determine what changes need to be made.

The process for building an EDS will vary from one company to the next, as your data maturity level, industry, and company size all play a role in the steps you take.

By taking stock of where your company currently stands, you can develop a strategy that meets the specific needs of your business.

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