As consumers are offered more, they also demand more from brands. Using AI strategically is the key to rise to that challenge.

Even successful brands know how hard it can be to reach their target audience at exactly the right moment with exactly the right message. Consumers just have too many ways to interact with your brand, ranging from their phones to their tablets to their laptops. They’re bombarded with messages on email, social media, and search engines. It’s not surprising, then, that a study from Kantar found that more than half of consumers are totally apathetic toward advertising content and 70% see the same ads over and over again. A paltry 11% actually enjoy advertising. Your brand has to rise above all the noise in the marketplace to catch consumers' attention. [si_guide_block id="87369" title="Download our Business Resource – AI and Machine Learning for marketing" description="The guide aims to help…

Three tools and tactics to inspire 10x thinking

“Companies fail because they do the wrong things or they aren't ambitious, not because of litigation or competition” - Larry Page, Google, 2013 The ability to innovate is one of the most important tools that any business has at its disposal. Whilst some businesses will be more innovative than others, those that have the capacity to innovate and evolve give themselves the best opportunity to survive in a constantly changing world. Google, currently the third-largest company in the world by market cap, is also one of the most innovative. Since its launch in September 1998, Google has developed a culture of innovation that is based on the concept of 10x thinking, i.e. ideas that lead to 10-fold improvements rather than the more typical 10% improvements. The way Larry Page (Alphabet/ Google’s CEO) sees it, a 10% improvement means you're doing the same thing as everybody else.…

Twitter's new design, Amazon anti-competition investigation, UK digital tax plans, Facebook's scam ad tool, Instagram removes like count

This week has seen Twitter launch it's new design for desktop users, with the jury still being out on how it is being received. Amazon is set to face a probe to see if it is using third-party seller data unfairly. The UK government has announced that it will push ahead with a plan to tax tech giants more going forward. Facebook has responded to a lawsuit by introducing a new tool for reporting scam ads in the UK. Finally, Instagram is testing out the removal of it's like count in six new areas. Get more detail on all of these news stories below in our latest news roundup.

Twitter updates desktop site

Twitter has updated the look of its primary desktop website in a bid to improve personalization…

There’s no more direct source when it comes to customer research than the human brain and the physiological signals it gives out as it experiences things

One truism that I’ve learned over my years in digital marketing: the closer to the ‘source’ of what you’re measuring, the better data you’ll get. When it comes to customer research, there’s no more direct source than the human brain and the physiological signals it gives out as it experiences things. [si_guide_block id="126084" title="Download our Business Resource – Practical neuromarketing for e-commerce marketers" description="This briefing will enable you to understand how humans perceive information and make buying decisions."/] While some amazing brain scanning technologies have emerged recently — such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positive-emission tomography (PET) — these tools are intrusive and expensive, and thus beyond the reach of most digital marketers. So here I’ll take a pragmatic approach. I’ll share five awesome and affordable…

14 ways to segment your target audience for effective e-commerce personalization

As defined by Smart Insights, segmentation shows approaches to grouping prospects and customers to deliver more relevant communications and offers. The result is to give better response rates to these communications. In the marketing arena, personalization is a term often misused for segmentation. Personalization and segmentation, while both valuable tools for marketers, couldn't be more different. [si_guide_block id="140972" title="Segmentation and targeting workbook template" description="Review techniques to increase relevance and response across paid, earned, and owned media with our easy-to-use segmentation and targeting template."]

The personalization v segmentation debate

Segmentation is grouping customers together according to identifiable characteristics. Often, these are demographic characteristics such as age, geography, gender, favourite brand or AOV. Personalization is the optimizing of experiences and messages to individuals themselves — not the group they…

KFC's "Chicken Town" campaign demonstrates the value that can be found in imitations, as it looks to repair and enhance its brand image in some unexpected ways.

Have you ever been asked “Fancy a VFC?”, or found yourself in a YFC at 2am? KFC’s imitations can be found in most towns and cities. Indirectly, they've become one of its most powerful marketing tools, with fried chicken shops desperate to achieve the levels of success that KFC has managed.

It’s unsurprising that KFC has now decided to play on this in its latest campaign, where we take a Wild West-themed ride through “Chicken Town”.

Overwhelmed by the myriad of imitations, it’s clear that the driver of the cherry red Lincoln Continental is not about to be tempted by any of the imitations on show.

In this Campaign of the Week, we’ll take a look…

A review of some of the most interesting and important insights from this year’s report

Mary Meeker’s annual internet trends report has become one of the most eagerly anticipated moments of the year (well, for internet/ data nerds at least!). Previously of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and now Bond Capital, Mary Meeker has been presenting key trends, statistics and predictions on the internet since 1995. [si_guide_block id="81859" title="Download our Free Resource – 10 digital marketing megatrends 2019" description="To ensure you’re always aware of the most important marketing practices, we’ve created our free guide to digital marketing megatrends 2019."/] I personally find the report fascinating. It gives me the inspiration and ammunition to back new ideas, explore new concepts and take a step back and look at the world from a broader perspective. Meeker’s reports cover a wide range of macro (economy, immigration) and micro (e-commerce, digital advertising) topics that deliver a very…

Facebook changing business Page info, the CMA investigating impact of digital advertisers on consumers, Twitter's updated search results and MPs call for digital political campaigning electoral law changes

Following the excitement of Google's updates last month and several changes to social media platforms, the start of July seems to have been fairly quiet. It seems the marketing world is taking the beginning of this month at a slower pace, which is reflected in the big news stories of the week. This week comes the news that Facebook is scrapping some of the Pages info sections on August 1st, so you need to get these updated. A UK government agency is launching an investigation into the possible harm that digital advertisers could be doing to consumers, which could have huge implications for platforms like Facebook and Google. Twitter has added some more context to search results in a bid to make…

A scientific approach to writing paid search ads can be beneficial to creating effective ads

The ever-changing parameters of search engine marketing are no secret. It can be time-consuming to keep up with the latest trends in the industry, making it important to be efficient while writing quality and catchy ads. A scientific approach to writing paid search ads can be beneficial to creating effective ads for yours or your client's site. Below I explain the steps to take to follow a scientific approach for PPC. [si_guide_block id="71497" title="Download our Free Resource – Google Analytics Fast Start - 10 mistakes to avoid" description="This Free guide brings together a series of common mistakes that we have seen made by both experienced and new Google Analytics alike, grouped into 10 easily identifiable areas."/]

Use science when in a situation of uncertainty

Conversion optimization is what inspires advertisers. Before creating a PPC ad that brings your target…

Understanding the specifics of the lifestyles, habits, preferences, and needs of people of various cultural backgrounds can be the key to rapid campaign success

If you really want to engage your customers, then you should know what it is like to be in their shoes. Understanding the specifics of the lifestyles, habits, preferences, and needs of people of various cultural backgrounds can be the key to rapid campaign success. If you have already dabbled in international marketing, the following is nice to keep in mind: your customers are people who come from different countries, with different goals, purposes and daily challenges. They may not have equal access to the internet and particular web sources where you could communicate with them. Understanding this should be the first step towards growing a robust, diversified marketing campaign. [si_guide_block id="39230" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – Marketing campaign planning guide" description="This guide is designed to enable you…