9 Social Media Growth Hacks Your Business Needs in 2019

YouTube is the second largest search engine of this world after Google and it makes sense to promote your business on YouTube. The future is of videos and getting viral on YouTube requires some good skills. Here are some tips that you can use to make your videos get viral on YouTube:Research your target keywords before you start creating a video because not all videos can go viral. The keywords should have the potential to earn a lot of views. You can use tools like Rank Tracker to find the best keywords to target on YouTube.

Spotlight

Forever Agency

Forever is an award-winning integrated agency based in the heart of Manchester’s creative hub, the Northern Quarter. We're an agency that knows its SEO from its 48 sheets. And what is right for each brand we work on. Because at Forever we think that the message is just as important as the media. That the strategic thinking is just as important as the design. And that our clients always come first.

OTHER ARTICLES
Advertiser Campaign Management, CMO Strategy

YouTube, auditor spar over transparency of ads

Article | June 3, 2024

Google wants to substantially limit the information a key auditor of YouTube can share about the risks of advertising on the video service, according to people familiar with the situation, highlighting tensions between the tech giant and Madison Avenue. The auditor, New York-based OpenSlate, is refusing to sign a contract that would prevent it from reporting to clients when ads have run in videos with sensitive subject matter, including hate speech, adult content, children's content, profanity, violence and illegal substances, according to an email the firm sent this weekend to ad agencies.

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Advertiser Platforms

Top CRM Tools for Customer Engagement and Maximizing ROI

Article | March 12, 2024

Read this article for an in-depth analysis of top CRM tools that empower businesses to enhance customer engagement, boost ROI, better understand customer needs, and drive significant growth. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Understanding Customer Engagement 2.1 Key Perspectives on Metrics to Improve ROI through CRM 2.2 Role of Engagement in Customer Retention: An Expert Analysis 3. Top CRM Tools for Managing Customer Engagement 3.1 Pipedrive 3.2 ClickUp 3.3 Copper 3.4 Nutshell 3.5 Nimble CRM 3.6 Close 3.7 Insightly CRM 3.8 Sugar Sell 3.9 Workbooks CRM 3.10 Maximizer 4. Final Thoughts 1. Introduction In the growing digital age of intelligence and innovation, leveraging customer relationship management (CRM) tools has become indispensable for businesses aiming to enhance customer engagement and maximize return on investment. These top tools in CRM help streamline interactions and provide invaluable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs. This article explores the top CRM tools that can help businesses implement CRM to forge stronger customer relationships, enhance their marketing strategies, and foster companies to drive growth and innovation. 2. Understanding Customer Engagement Customer engagement transcends basic interactions between a company and its customers. It encompasses the emotional, psychological, and behavioral responses that customers exhibit toward a brand over time. This complex construct is significant as it connotes a proactive relationship where customers choose to interact with the brand beyond contractual obligations. 2.1. Key Perspectives on Metrics to Improve ROI through CRM Advanced metrics to measure customer engagement go beyond traditional indicators to provide deeper insights into customer behaviors and preferences. These metrics include: Customer Lifetime Value: An estimation of the total value a customer is expected to generate during their relationship with a brand. This CLV metric helps businesses understand how much they should invest in maintaining or expanding relationships with individual customers. Social Listening: The process of monitoring digital conversations to understand what customers are saying about a brand online. This metric is crucial for gauging sentiment and engagement in real-time, allowing companies to quickly respond to customer needs or market shifts. Heatmaps: Visual tools that show how users interact with a website, including what they click on, how far they scroll, and what areas they spend the most time viewing. Heatmaps are essential for understanding engagement at a granular level, enabling optimizations that enhance user experience and retention. Event-Triggered Analytics: This involves tracking and analyzing actions taken by users in response to specific events or campaigns. It helps in understanding how particular activities influence engagement and can guide more personalized customer interactions. Customer Health Score: A metric that combines various indicators of customer retention, engagement and satisfaction, such as product usage frequency, support ticket incidents, and feedback scores, to predict future engagement levels and potential churn. 2.2. Role of Engagement in Customer Retention: An Expert Analysis Deeply engaged customers represent a significant asset to any company. Their ongoing interactions with a brand reinforce and deepen their loyalty, making them less likely to switch to competitors. From a business perspective, enhancing customer engagement leads to various strategic benefits: By analyzing engagement patterns, companies can predict future buying behaviors and preferences, allowing for better inventory management, personalized marketing, and more accurate sales forecasts. Highly engaged customers often become brand advocates. They share positive experiences and recommendations with peers, effectively acting as a powerful marketing channel. This word-of-mouth marketing can significantly reduce acquisition costs and increase market penetration. Engaged customers typically require less support and are more familiar with the brand's processes and products. This familiarity reduces the cost and effort needed for customer service and leads to smoother transactions and interactions. Engaged customers provide continuous feedback, whether through formal surveys or informal comments across communication channels. This feedback is invaluable for continuous product and service improvement. 3. Top CRM Tools for Managing Customer Engagement CRM plays a crucial role in almost all businesses and ventures. A strong hold on CRM entails a good sales and marketing strategy. Below are some of the top CRM providers to choose from according to varying needs of businesses. 3.1 Pipedrive Pipedrive is a renowned sales CRM platform designed to optimize customer relationship management processes, enabling businesses to streamline interactions, enhance data management, and improve customer experiences across various stages of the customer lifecycle. Its features include: Lead and pipeline management, workflow and marketing automation, and comprehensive reporting, Pipedrive provides businesses with the tools necessary to manage leads effectively. It automates key sales activities and gains valuable insights into customer behaviors and sales performance. As a cloud-based solution, Pipedrive offers flexibility and accessibility, allowing teams to work from anywhere and ensuring that all employees operate from the most current data. 3.2 ClickUp ClickUp is among the best CRM tools and revolutionary all-in-one productivity platforms that streamlines business operations by integrating essential tools such as AI, project management, document collaboration, and more into a unified system. The platform provides: Enhancement of the entire customer lifecycle, from lead tracking to customer onboarding, through its advanced CRM capabilities, which include customizable workflow visualizations, automation of sales processes, and comprehensive data management tools. ClickUp supports robust collaboration features that allow seamless integration across departments, ensuring that every team member is aligned and productive. With its ability to replace disparate workplace tools and create efficiencies, ClickUp helps organizations save significant time each week, fostering a more productive work environment. 3.3 Copper Copper is a distinguished CRM platform designed to integrate seamlessly with Google Workspace, enhancing the efficiency of relationship management for businesses. As the only CRM recommended by Google, Copper optimizes workflows by enabling users to manage leads, track communications, and access files without leaving their Google apps. Key Features: Real-time updates and contextual information across Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive, ensuring that all customer interactions are streamlined and more productive. Copper empowers businesses to enhance customer relationships and drive revenue with features like direct contact addition from Gmail and Calendar, automatic file synchronization, and comprehensive visibility into communication histories. 3.4 Nutshell Nutshell, one of the top CRM tools, is a comprehensive platform that simplifies and enhances B2B operations in CRM and email marketing. It is designed especially for teams that prefer to avoid juggling multiple sales and marketing tools. Important Characteristics: Nutshell integrates seamlessly with prominent business tools, offering functionalities such as automated sales processes and advanced contact management, all accessible through its native mobile apps. The platform also features Nutshell Marketing, launched in 2021, which allows users to create, send, and measure the impact of marketing emails and automated drip sequences directly within the CRM. The integration ensures that marketing efforts are closely aligned with sales activities. 3.5 Nimble CRM Nimble is a streamlined and intuitive CRM platform for small businesses and solopreneurs utilizing Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Nimble combines CRM functionalities with contact management, social media insights, sales intelligence, and marketing automation into a cohesive relationship management tool. Distinctive Advantages: The platform enhances productivity by providing comprehensive company and contact insights directly within users’ email inboxes and across multiple workspaces, including Gmail and Outlook. Designed to cultivate and nurture relationships rather than manage sales, Nimble facilitates the organization of contacts, calendars, and communications in one accessible location. Its capability to integrate with over 100 apps enhances its utility, providing users with powerful tools for lead capture, pipeline management, and generating actionable insights through customizable reporting features. 3.6 Close Close, one of the best CRM software, is a dynamic CRM platform that caters to small business teams and solopreneurs, particularly those embedded within the Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace ecosystems. Distinguished Features: Seamless integration of CRM functionalities with advanced communication tools, sales intelligence, and marketing automation, all designed to enhance user productivity without the complexity of manual data entry or an intricate UI. It is highly acclaimed for its user-friendliness and cost-effectiveness and is consistently recognized as a leader in CRM solutions. Close supports a range of essential business tools directly within the user's existing workspace, including email, calendar sync, and task management. 3.7 Insightly CRM Insightly is a cutting-edge top CRM tool designed for modern businesses of all sizes, aiming to enhance customer relationships and accelerate growth. Insightly has quickly become a leading platform in the CRM sector, backed by significant venture capital investments totaling $38 million. Peculiar Features: Known for its user-friendly interface and quick setup, Insightly offers extensive customization options tailored to various industry needs, ensuring a swift return on investment at a competitive cost. The platform integrates seamlessly with popular tools such as Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, enhancing productivity without the need for constant switching between applications. With features like opportunity tracking, workflow automation, project management, and advanced email marketing, Insightly provides comprehensive tools to support marketing and sales teams in fostering deeper customer engagement, streamlining communication, and driving sales efficiency. 3.8 Sugar Sell SugarCRM’s Sugar Sell stands out as a sophisticated CRM solution that liberates businesses from the inefficiencies of traditional CRMs by providing a high-definition customer experience without the typical hassles. Unlike conventional platforms that often involve tedious manual entry and limited functionality, SugarCRM eliminates blind spots, busy work, and roadblocks, enhancing overall business efficiency. The platform offers: Unparalleled customizability and control, particularly with its on-premises deployment option, Sugar Enterprise, which allows for deep customization to be tailored to specific business needs. SugarCRM is designed to increase the understanding of customer needs, thereby improving conversion rates, revenue, customer satisfaction, and retention. It includes powerful tools like SugarBPM for process automation and real-time alerts for dynamic account management, ensuring that every customer interaction is maximized for engagement and efficiency. 3.9 Workbooks Workbooks is a versatile top CRM software platform tailored for growing companies seeking to streamline business operations and enhance customer engagement. It provides an extensive suite of services that encompasses not only the traditional realms of sales, marketing, and customer service but also integrates advanced functionalities such as marketing automation, event management, order management, invoicing, and supplier management. Its prime features: It is available at a cost significantly lower than that of major competitors, typically ranging from 50-70% less. Workbooks are designed to cater to various industries, including media and publishing, business services, manufacturing, technology, transport and logistics, and accounting, making it a flexible and affordable solution for businesses aiming to optimize their comme.rcial operations and customer interactions. 3.10 Maximizer Maximizer, a global leader in customer relationship management solutions, offers comprehensive CRM tools to optimize sales, marketing, and customer service operations. Key Characteristics: The platform stands out for its user-centric design that integrates seamlessly with essential applications like Outlook and offers extensive customization options to fit various sales processes. With a strong emphasis on actionable insights, Maximizer enables sales leaders to effectively monitor, guide, and enhance team performance, ensuring accountability and achieving revenue targets. Its robust suite of features includes advanced analytics, pipeline management, and automated workflows to boost productivity and foster authentic customer relationships. 4. Final Thoughts Selecting the right CRM tools can significantly enhance customer engagement and maximize ROI by automating workflows and providing detailed analytics to guide decision-making. The future of CRM tools is likely to be shaped by the following trends: AI can analyze data more deeply to provide insights, predict customer behavior, and personalize customer interactions. Ensuring seamless customer experiences across all channels, whether online, in-app, or in-person, will be crucial. With increasing concerns over data privacy, CRM tools that prioritize secure data handling will be more in demand. These technologies could be used to enhance customer experiences, especially in fields like retail and real estate. As businesses continue to grow and prosper, CRM tools will play a pivotal role in shaping successful customer engagement strategies. By deploying emerging technologies and focusing on customer-centric approaches, companies can ensure sustainable growth and a strong competitive edge.

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Advertiser Platforms

Plunge in digital ad prices opens spending opportunity for start-ups in gaming, e-commerce and online education

Article | March 4, 2024

The coronavirus epidemic has so ravaged travel, live entertainment and physical retail that companies across those industries have frozen their marketing, causing ad prices to plunge. Meanwhile, online beauty brand Insert Name Here is generating so much business that it’s snapping up ad space at a discount. Based in Los Angeles, Insert Name Here sells hair extensions and wigs, which are in high demand now that women are unable to visit their hairstylists. To reach all those consumers who are stuck at home, Insert Name Here is working with social media influencers to create do-it-yourself styling videos for Instagram as well as Facebook, Tik Tok, Snapchat and YouTube.

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Social Media Advertising

What Technical Aspects Should You Consider When Starting An Advertising Campaign? Find Out Here

Article | November 16, 2021

The advertising world is changing at an accelerated pace. Digital media and social networks have changed the way we interact with brands, and these changes have affected the way that advertisements are created. As a result, advertisers need to keep their eyes on new developments in order to appeal to consumers who want more than just a standard advertisement. In this article, I will explore some of the technical aspects you should consider when starting an ad campaign so that your efforts can be successful for both you and your clients. What technical aspects should you consider when starting an advertising campaign? 1. Store Your Campaign Data Somewhere Safe The amount of data that you and your clients collect during the course of an ad campaign can be immense, and it is imperative that you know where to store this information. One option is using a server tool such as online cloud storage to store all of your files in one central location so that they do not get lost or become corrupted. According to a popular UK cloud hosting platform, downtime and slowdowns are some of the biggest issues people face with cloud storage. Do your research and find one that has excellent customer service to avoid these issues that could slow down your campaign. 2. Clearly Communicate Your Message Have a clear message that highlights your brand’s value proposition and aligns with your target audience. This is important because the aim of your campaign is to get people to take action, and that can only be done if you have a clear message. Identifying your target audience will help you align your message with them. It does not mean choosing demographics based on age, income level, etc., but rather looking at what values they hold important. In order for an advertisement to be effective, it should match the values of the people looking at it. For example, if your target audience prefers a minimalist style because they care about the environment, your advertisement should reflect that as well. 3. Multimedia Considerations Use various channels to help spread your message and make it more dynamic. multimedia to increase your reach and make your ad more dynamic. There are many choices for multimedia, including images, videos, infographics, audio files, animations, text messages, and other graphics. All of these can be shared on social networks like Facebook or Twitter, which helps the ad stay in the limelight after it is initially posted by allowing viewers to share links with their friends and followers. Depending on the type of ad you are running, there may be channels that are better at grabbing the attention of your audience. For example, for a music artist’s album release, billboards could be placed in busy areas with high exposure in addition to social media and magazine ads in publications that their target audience reads. By spreading out your ad, it will increase the chances of getting more eyes on it and make it easier for people to find and share with their friends. 4. Pay Attention to Metrics and Real-time Data from Previous Campaigns This is done so that future campaigns can be steered in the right direction. The amount of data collected during an ad campaign can grow very quickly, so it is important to know where to look and how to use it efficiently. You can then take statistical data from previous campaigns and use this information as a reference point for new billboards or other ads. While learning from your mistakes is inevitable, there are some things you just won’t notice until you see numbers about them, like the number of people who stop by your booth at a tradeshow but do not stop to talk to you.

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Spotlight

Forever Agency

Forever is an award-winning integrated agency based in the heart of Manchester’s creative hub, the Northern Quarter. We're an agency that knows its SEO from its 48 sheets. And what is right for each brand we work on. Because at Forever we think that the message is just as important as the media. That the strategic thinking is just as important as the design. And that our clients always come first.

Related News

Ad Networks, Ad Tech and Martech

Businesses Increase Spend on Digital Advertising But Shift Platform Priorities

Business Wire | July 17, 2023

Emburse, the global leader in spend optimization, released new information today about corporate online advertising spend in May 2023. The data reveals that despite macroeconomic concerns, companies are on track to spend more on search and social advertising in 2023 than in 2022. As companies seek ways to be more efficient with their budgets, they are shifting which platforms they prioritize with their ad dollars, but have not slowed ad spending overall. According to the data released in an infographic today, the top three vendors by share of advertising spend, in order, are Google, Meta, and LinkedIn. Spending on Twitter declined 54% from May 2022 to May 2023, while companies are putting more money toward Gen Z-oriented social media platforms. ByteDance, which owns Tiktok, saw a 55% increase, and Snap, which owns Snapchat, a 41% increase from May 2022 to May 2023. Companies invested 6% more in digital advertising in the first five months of 2023 than in the same period in 2022. Emburse also reported increased investment in newer business applications like chat-based AI tools. For example, the amount spent on OpenAI increased 3,266% from May 2022 to May 2023. Although many people expected companies to reduce spend overall this year, instead the company has seen an effort to better align business values with their budgets. “Online advertising is an essential business function, even as companies look to establish lasting efficiency with their budgets and better manage spending practices,” said Emburse’s Chief Experience Officer Johann Wrede. “Many of our customers entered 2023 ready to make changes with a shifting economy, and found that concentrating their ad dollars on platforms that are giving them high value with little tumult is the way to make a longer-term impact on their bottom line.” More than 18,000 companies trust Emburse for its corporate card and spend management solution, Emburse Spend, representing over $80 billion in spending transactions a year. Emburse tracks corporate financial trends, such as the SpendSmart Travel Trends report, which in Q1 2023 revealed that the number of domestic and international flights, hotels, and car rentals increased year-over-year. Investments also increased across all measurements, with the amount spent on flights increasing by 85% domestically and 178% internationally. Emburse will continue to track the shift in corporate expenses as the year goes on. To view the full infographic and learn more about the data, visit emburse.com/learn/digital-ad-spending. About Emburse Emburse is the global leader in spend optimization. Our expense, travel management, purchasing and accounts payable, and payments solutions are trusted by more than 12 million business professionals, including CFOs, finance teams, and travelers. More than 18,000 organizations in 120 countries, including FORTUNE 100 corporations, high-growth startups, public sector agencies, and nonprofits, count on our intelligent automation, sophisticated analytics, and unmatched spend control to streamline processes, increase spend visibility, enhance compliance, and deliver positive financial outcomes. Our mission is to humanize work by eliminating manual, time-consuming tasks, so our customers and their teams can focus on what matters most in their personal and professional lives. For more information on Emburse, visit emburse.com, or follow our social channels at @Emburse.

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Ad Networks

Smartly.io Announces Smartly.io AI Lab at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity

Business Wire | June 19, 2023

Smartly.io, one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, today announced the launch of Smartly.io AI Lab. This innovation hub serves as a meeting point for artificial intelligence and marketing expertise, driving advancements in Generative AI and other AI technologies to simplify campaign management and enhance creative scalability without compromising marketers’ brand governance. For the past ten years, Smartly.io has been at the forefront of AI-powered creative and campaign innovation, transforming digital advertising through its unified, AI-enhanced campaign management platform and creative automation solutions. In 2021, Smartly.io acquired Stanford-graduate founded Viralspace.ai, an industry leader in AI-driven creative optimization. The combination of Viralspace.ai’s custom AI models and Smartly.io’s Workspaces platform has resulted in an unrivaled approach to social advertising, integrating creative, media buying and intelligence seamlessly. “We’ve only just begun to see AI technology, specifically generative AI, unlock value for marketers. From enhanced campaign efficiency, creativity, and effectiveness, AI technology has the potential to make creative the most powerful performance lever of our time,” said Arto Tolonen, Head of Smartly.io AI Lab. “Our mission is to empower marketers to take ideas to ads with intelligence while maximizing their return on investment.” From scene generation that enhances a brand's product photos with new backgrounds and text iteration that powers translation, personalization, and iteration in natural language, to image generation from scratch and video ad assembly and iteration, the Smartly.io AI Lab is equipping marketers with the tools to get to use cases faster and transform their creative quality and time to campaign. “In this way Generative AI serves as a co-pilot to marketers and platforms. What Smartly.io AI Lab is building is already feeding the infrastructure that marketers, creators and even designers use, and increasing simplicity without sacrificing ideas and quality,” said Laura Desmond, CEO, Smartly.io. “The companies that seamlessly adopt generative AI into their platforms will be the early winners in a decades-long race. Smartly.io is poised to be among them.” The Smartly.io AI Lab launch represents the company's commitment to empowering marketers to unlock greater value from their digital investments without sacrificing their brand governance. By advancing the state-of-the-art in Generative AI and other AI areas, the company is poised to provide marketers with a significant advantage, simplifying creative scale while enabling agile campaigns and unified workflows across the evolving social and digital advertising landscape. About Smartly.io Smartly.io is one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, managing nearly $5B in ad spend with 700+ brands worldwide. Our leading end-to-end technology and outstanding customer service help brands such as Walmart, FanDuel, L’Oreal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Nestle, and Disney/ESPN to better reach audiences, engage creatives and learn what performs best—consistently driving scale for brand and performance across the largest media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest, TikTok, and Google. Visit Smartly.io to learn more.

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Advertiser Platforms

Creator Guided Shopping Platform LTK Launches Social Media Advertising for Brands

Business Wire | April 03, 2023

LTK, the global creator marketing platform, today launched social media advertising for brands to further leverage LTK Creator content to drive business outcomes. The new LTK Boost™ advertising solution allows brands to amplify creator collaboration content directly from the creator’s social media handles – leading to higher engagement and conversion. Brand investment in LTK Creators continued to increase last year with brand campaigns growing nearly 50% in the second half of the year. In a recent study, LTK found that Gen Z and Millennials rank influencer content over brand and even user-generated content when making a purchase decision. With LTK Boost, LTK can now run social media ads directly from creator profiles on behalf of brands -which creates a more authentic message, reduces the cost of content production and drives higher engagement and conversion versus traditional social media advertising. In an initial offering, LTK worked with several brands across multiple categories to run LTK Boost ads from creator profiles, which led to an increase in traffic to the brands’ sites, as well as a significant lift in sales with some brands seeing nearly 4X sales growth. All brand results outpaced social media ad industry click through averages by 80%. In addition, creators that participated in the trial saw significant impact with increases in audience reach, outsized gains in new followers and incremental sales and commissions for each creator. Participating creators saw nearly 200K new audience views per post and reached a near 30% increase in retail sales. “Creators are undoubtedly having an impact on consumer shopping behaviors. 92% of Gen Z – a group that will make up the largest consumer segment in a few years - rely on creators to inform their purchases across virtually every category. And, creators are the number one most trusted source to help with purchase decisions for Gen Z and Millennials – beating social media ads and celebrities. That’s why we continue to introduce solutions like LTK Media Boosting to help brands to fully harness the power of creators and reach their customers efficiently and effectively,” said Kristi O’Brien, General Manager of the LTK Brand Platform. LTK Boost is available now in the LTK Brand Platform. For more information, please visit https://company.shopltk.com/en/brands. About LTK As the founder of creator guided shopping, LTK is the trusted and effective platform for creators and their businesses by powering the connection between content and commerce. Founded in 2011 by Amber and Baxter Box, the LTK mission is to empower creators to be as economically successful as possible. World premium lifestyle creators in 150+ countries drive more than $3.6 billion in annual retail sales through their LTK Creator Shop profiles. Today, more than 18 million consumers turn to LTK Creator Shops in the LTK shopping platform each month to find inspiration and instantly shop the styles recommended by their favorite creators. And, more than 6,000 brands partner with LTK to gain access to its global creator network for content that converts against performance-driven, cross-channel KPIs. A three-time honoree on Fast Company’s list of Most Innovative Retail Companies, LTK is headquartered in Dallas, TX and currently operates on five continents. To download the LTK shopping app, search for LTK in the App Store or Google Play. For the latest shopping trends and updates from LTK, follow Shop.LTK on Instagram and TikTok.

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Ad Networks, Ad Tech and Martech

Businesses Increase Spend on Digital Advertising But Shift Platform Priorities

Business Wire | July 17, 2023

Emburse, the global leader in spend optimization, released new information today about corporate online advertising spend in May 2023. The data reveals that despite macroeconomic concerns, companies are on track to spend more on search and social advertising in 2023 than in 2022. As companies seek ways to be more efficient with their budgets, they are shifting which platforms they prioritize with their ad dollars, but have not slowed ad spending overall. According to the data released in an infographic today, the top three vendors by share of advertising spend, in order, are Google, Meta, and LinkedIn. Spending on Twitter declined 54% from May 2022 to May 2023, while companies are putting more money toward Gen Z-oriented social media platforms. ByteDance, which owns Tiktok, saw a 55% increase, and Snap, which owns Snapchat, a 41% increase from May 2022 to May 2023. Companies invested 6% more in digital advertising in the first five months of 2023 than in the same period in 2022. Emburse also reported increased investment in newer business applications like chat-based AI tools. For example, the amount spent on OpenAI increased 3,266% from May 2022 to May 2023. Although many people expected companies to reduce spend overall this year, instead the company has seen an effort to better align business values with their budgets. “Online advertising is an essential business function, even as companies look to establish lasting efficiency with their budgets and better manage spending practices,” said Emburse’s Chief Experience Officer Johann Wrede. “Many of our customers entered 2023 ready to make changes with a shifting economy, and found that concentrating their ad dollars on platforms that are giving them high value with little tumult is the way to make a longer-term impact on their bottom line.” More than 18,000 companies trust Emburse for its corporate card and spend management solution, Emburse Spend, representing over $80 billion in spending transactions a year. Emburse tracks corporate financial trends, such as the SpendSmart Travel Trends report, which in Q1 2023 revealed that the number of domestic and international flights, hotels, and car rentals increased year-over-year. Investments also increased across all measurements, with the amount spent on flights increasing by 85% domestically and 178% internationally. Emburse will continue to track the shift in corporate expenses as the year goes on. To view the full infographic and learn more about the data, visit emburse.com/learn/digital-ad-spending. About Emburse Emburse is the global leader in spend optimization. Our expense, travel management, purchasing and accounts payable, and payments solutions are trusted by more than 12 million business professionals, including CFOs, finance teams, and travelers. More than 18,000 organizations in 120 countries, including FORTUNE 100 corporations, high-growth startups, public sector agencies, and nonprofits, count on our intelligent automation, sophisticated analytics, and unmatched spend control to streamline processes, increase spend visibility, enhance compliance, and deliver positive financial outcomes. Our mission is to humanize work by eliminating manual, time-consuming tasks, so our customers and their teams can focus on what matters most in their personal and professional lives. For more information on Emburse, visit emburse.com, or follow our social channels at @Emburse.

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Ad Networks

Smartly.io Announces Smartly.io AI Lab at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity

Business Wire | June 19, 2023

Smartly.io, one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, today announced the launch of Smartly.io AI Lab. This innovation hub serves as a meeting point for artificial intelligence and marketing expertise, driving advancements in Generative AI and other AI technologies to simplify campaign management and enhance creative scalability without compromising marketers’ brand governance. For the past ten years, Smartly.io has been at the forefront of AI-powered creative and campaign innovation, transforming digital advertising through its unified, AI-enhanced campaign management platform and creative automation solutions. In 2021, Smartly.io acquired Stanford-graduate founded Viralspace.ai, an industry leader in AI-driven creative optimization. The combination of Viralspace.ai’s custom AI models and Smartly.io’s Workspaces platform has resulted in an unrivaled approach to social advertising, integrating creative, media buying and intelligence seamlessly. “We’ve only just begun to see AI technology, specifically generative AI, unlock value for marketers. From enhanced campaign efficiency, creativity, and effectiveness, AI technology has the potential to make creative the most powerful performance lever of our time,” said Arto Tolonen, Head of Smartly.io AI Lab. “Our mission is to empower marketers to take ideas to ads with intelligence while maximizing their return on investment.” From scene generation that enhances a brand's product photos with new backgrounds and text iteration that powers translation, personalization, and iteration in natural language, to image generation from scratch and video ad assembly and iteration, the Smartly.io AI Lab is equipping marketers with the tools to get to use cases faster and transform their creative quality and time to campaign. “In this way Generative AI serves as a co-pilot to marketers and platforms. What Smartly.io AI Lab is building is already feeding the infrastructure that marketers, creators and even designers use, and increasing simplicity without sacrificing ideas and quality,” said Laura Desmond, CEO, Smartly.io. “The companies that seamlessly adopt generative AI into their platforms will be the early winners in a decades-long race. Smartly.io is poised to be among them.” The Smartly.io AI Lab launch represents the company's commitment to empowering marketers to unlock greater value from their digital investments without sacrificing their brand governance. By advancing the state-of-the-art in Generative AI and other AI areas, the company is poised to provide marketers with a significant advantage, simplifying creative scale while enabling agile campaigns and unified workflows across the evolving social and digital advertising landscape. About Smartly.io Smartly.io is one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, managing nearly $5B in ad spend with 700+ brands worldwide. Our leading end-to-end technology and outstanding customer service help brands such as Walmart, FanDuel, L’Oreal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Nestle, and Disney/ESPN to better reach audiences, engage creatives and learn what performs best—consistently driving scale for brand and performance across the largest media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest, TikTok, and Google. Visit Smartly.io to learn more.

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Advertiser Platforms

Creator Guided Shopping Platform LTK Launches Social Media Advertising for Brands

Business Wire | April 03, 2023

LTK, the global creator marketing platform, today launched social media advertising for brands to further leverage LTK Creator content to drive business outcomes. The new LTK Boost™ advertising solution allows brands to amplify creator collaboration content directly from the creator’s social media handles – leading to higher engagement and conversion. Brand investment in LTK Creators continued to increase last year with brand campaigns growing nearly 50% in the second half of the year. In a recent study, LTK found that Gen Z and Millennials rank influencer content over brand and even user-generated content when making a purchase decision. With LTK Boost, LTK can now run social media ads directly from creator profiles on behalf of brands -which creates a more authentic message, reduces the cost of content production and drives higher engagement and conversion versus traditional social media advertising. In an initial offering, LTK worked with several brands across multiple categories to run LTK Boost ads from creator profiles, which led to an increase in traffic to the brands’ sites, as well as a significant lift in sales with some brands seeing nearly 4X sales growth. All brand results outpaced social media ad industry click through averages by 80%. In addition, creators that participated in the trial saw significant impact with increases in audience reach, outsized gains in new followers and incremental sales and commissions for each creator. Participating creators saw nearly 200K new audience views per post and reached a near 30% increase in retail sales. “Creators are undoubtedly having an impact on consumer shopping behaviors. 92% of Gen Z – a group that will make up the largest consumer segment in a few years - rely on creators to inform their purchases across virtually every category. And, creators are the number one most trusted source to help with purchase decisions for Gen Z and Millennials – beating social media ads and celebrities. That’s why we continue to introduce solutions like LTK Media Boosting to help brands to fully harness the power of creators and reach their customers efficiently and effectively,” said Kristi O’Brien, General Manager of the LTK Brand Platform. LTK Boost is available now in the LTK Brand Platform. For more information, please visit https://company.shopltk.com/en/brands. About LTK As the founder of creator guided shopping, LTK is the trusted and effective platform for creators and their businesses by powering the connection between content and commerce. Founded in 2011 by Amber and Baxter Box, the LTK mission is to empower creators to be as economically successful as possible. World premium lifestyle creators in 150+ countries drive more than $3.6 billion in annual retail sales through their LTK Creator Shop profiles. Today, more than 18 million consumers turn to LTK Creator Shops in the LTK shopping platform each month to find inspiration and instantly shop the styles recommended by their favorite creators. And, more than 6,000 brands partner with LTK to gain access to its global creator network for content that converts against performance-driven, cross-channel KPIs. A three-time honoree on Fast Company’s list of Most Innovative Retail Companies, LTK is headquartered in Dallas, TX and currently operates on five continents. To download the LTK shopping app, search for LTK in the App Store or Google Play. For the latest shopping trends and updates from LTK, follow Shop.LTK on Instagram and TikTok.

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