What the hell is GDPR? What advertisers need to know

If you don’t have a plan for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) then hurry up – the clock is ticking. And if you have no clue as to what I’m talking about either then read on, quickly! It’s probably the biggest change to personal data regulation for a generation in Europe. When GDPR comes into effect not only will it affect online advertisers but all organisations who use and store data.

Spotlight

Aressy

IT'S TIME TO RELOAD BTOB Aressy is the first independent French agency dedicated to 100% BtoB Corporate & Business to Business communication. Aressy offers a new reading of BtoB: Brand & Business. An exclusive approach that closely combines commercial communication and corporate communication, to leverage the effectiveness of each action. The agency operates in France, throughout Europe and around the world via its WPI BtoB network.

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Advertiser Platforms

Top CRM Tools for Customer Engagement and Maximizing ROI

Article | March 18, 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

Power up Your Mobile Ad Campaigns with These Four Tricks

Article | March 20, 2024

Did you know that there are over three billion smartphone users globally? While browsing through varied content, they see ads relevant to things they explore in their downloaded apps and games. In addition, they receive offers through SMS and see banner ads on websites they visit. These ads are a part of mobile ad campaigns specifically targeting a certain demographic. Some examples of mobile ads include carousel ads, image and text ads on Facebook, Snapchat filters and ads, video ads on YouTube, notifications from downloaded apps, ads that play between videos or games, and Instagram Story ads. Why are advertisers so keen on utilizing mobile ad campaigns? Mobile Ad Campaigns Speak the Revenue Language Marketers understand the power and impact of mobile phones on users’ lives. As a result, U.S. marketers spent a record 120 billion U.S. dollars on mobile promotion in 2020. (Statista). Mobile ad campaigns can achieve tremendous results and bring in revenue for you by creating a connection with the user through personalization and by catering to all kinds of online audience on-the-go. “The mobile device has become our communications hub, our diary, our entertainment portal, our primary source of media consumption, our wallet and our gateway to real-time information tailored to our needs. The revolution is now!” - Nihal Mehta, Founding General Partner at Eniac Ventures Mobile Advertising Covers All the Bases Companies engage in mobile advertising for objectives like lead generation, customer retention through new offers, brand engagement activities like contests, and creating awareness about a product or a service. Mobile ads are the preferred channel for advertising because: They are cost-effective Allow geo-targeting Get a quick response Can be easily tracked Let us look at all the tricks that can help you optimize your mobile ad campaigns. Grab the Users’ Attention Imagine mobile users aggressively scrolling on their phones. Your ad should make them stop and grab their attention enough to make them read it. The goals of your ad campaigns should be clear. If you are looking to redirect the user to your website or want them to click on the ad, your campaign execution should align with these goals. Adding Value Through Your Messaging Pushing your message effectively to the user can ensure the success of your campaign. Your text should be crisp and sharp, interesting yet simple to comprehend. Use popular phrases or buzz words to create a connection with the users. Don’t Underestimate Visual Appeal Visual appeal plays a vital role in the way users react to ads. The image size of your ad, the moving flow, and the options for interacting with the ads can impact your ad’s performance. Ensure that you never interrupt your user’s reading flow when they are browsing and that the visuals of your ad are pleasant and appealing to the eye. Remember, Brevity is the Soul of Wit The content of your ad should be impressive enough to make the users engage with it. Users will respond to clear copy, visuals and your message’s simplicity. Furthermore, make sure that your landing pages are bug-free, load quickly and relate to your display ad so that the users can form a tangible connection between them. Wrapping It Up Mobile advertising helps brands remain connected to their customers around the clock while on the move. It is a personalized and flexible type of advertising that can help advertisers understand the lifestyle of targeted customers to offer them just what they need.

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Advertiser Platforms

Marketers Need to Invest in Detailed Geo Targeting Now

Article | January 9, 2024

Geo targeting is the most under-utilised targeting element available to marketers today, giving a huge opportunity to brands that invest time and money in smarter geo targeting. Most advertising platforms now allow for detailed geo targeting – often down to a zip code/postcode or even to GPS coordinates. Yet it is amazing how few advertisers are consciously investing effort in this area. Audience targeting/ retargeting (via cookies) has dominated online display advertising and is now under threat from legislation and the end of third party cookies. Targeting in search and demographic targeting in logged in social networks attract huge spends. With the end of cookies it has been contextual targeting getting the most attention. This has relegated geo targeting down the list in terms of investment and understanding. This is a mistake as in fact it has many benefits, and to succeed advertisers need to understand how it impacts their business.

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Advertiser Campaign Management

AI-Powered Creative: Get Higher ROI for Clients

Article | July 19, 2022

Creating ad campaigns is a gamble. As advertisers, you are never sure if it was optimized enough, have no idea which micro-targets it resonates with the most, and it could take up to a year to determine the campaign’s sales impact. Market trends change by then. However, AI-powered ad creative can turn things around for you. You will know exactly what aspects of the ad resonate with your target demographic. “It’s a welcome change for creatives, who find it empowering because they can think more broadly, experiment more, and learn faster,” says David Olesnevich, Head of Product at IBM Watson Advertising “It’s a welcome change for creatives, who find it empowering because they can think more broadly, experiment more, and learn faster,” says David Olesnevich, Head of Product at IBM Watson Advertising Let us take a look at what an AI-powered creative can do for your ad campaign: Instant Optimization AI-powered creative can be optimized instantly, not just for display ads but also for OTT video ads. You don’t need to spend extra time or resources to scale your optimization efforts. Multiple Variations Elements in AI creative can be varied and combined with music tracks, sound effects, voice-overs, scripts, video clips and sequences, hero shots, text overlays, end cards, and calls-to-action. Easy Scaling AI-powered creative ad campaigns are easy to scale across sectors for micro-targets defined by demographics, psychographics, life stage, customer journey stage, purchase behavior, and other KPIs like video completion, app installs, site visits, form-filling, purchases/conversions. Enhanced Targeting This technology can target your desired demographic based on message resonance. Consumer characteristics that respond to different message element combinations can help create persona profiles. Brand advertisers like you need to prepare themselves for a cookie-less future with Google phasing out third-party cookies by 2023. Additionally, you need to also take into account Apple ending the IDFA (ID for Advertising). Figuring out micro-targets will get tougher because of these factors. You will have to harness solutions that respect consumer privacy without depending on the traditional advertising identifiers that will no longer remain. Creative Professionals Can Better Maximize Client ROI AI-powered creative is a modular and smarter way to develop ads. It takes the guesswork out of advertising with more actionable information to enhance brand campaigns and how they deliver a higher ROI.

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Spotlight

Aressy

IT'S TIME TO RELOAD BTOB Aressy is the first independent French agency dedicated to 100% BtoB Corporate & Business to Business communication. Aressy offers a new reading of BtoB: Brand & Business. An exclusive approach that closely combines commercial communication and corporate communication, to leverage the effectiveness of each action. The agency operates in France, throughout Europe and around the world via its WPI BtoB network.

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Twitter Updates Privacy Policies That Will Go Into Effect at the Same Time as GDPR

Twitter | April 25, 2018

Twitter has started to notify users about plans to update its Terms and Privacy Policy, which will go into effect next month on May 25—the same day as the European Union enacts its new privacy regulations. As of today, when users open the app, a new window displays requesting acceptance of the new terms taking effect at the same time as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which will change how companies collect, use and share personal data. In a blog post announcing the changes, data protection officer Damien Kieran said the changes are intended to clarify technical and legalistic language, helping users understand what kind of information is collected, as well as what the company means by terms like “location data” or “advertising partner data.” Next month, Twitter will begin showing users “a simple chart that categorizes the legal basis for the personal data we process,” along with a personalized “Settings and Privacy Section” that will help users review, change and approve the types of data they share, according to the post.

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Twitter Updates Privacy Policies That Will Go Into Effect at the Same Time as GDPR

Twitter | April 25, 2018

Twitter has started to notify users about plans to update its Terms and Privacy Policy, which will go into effect next month on May 25—the same day as the European Union enacts its new privacy regulations. As of today, when users open the app, a new window displays requesting acceptance of the new terms taking effect at the same time as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which will change how companies collect, use and share personal data. In a blog post announcing the changes, data protection officer Damien Kieran said the changes are intended to clarify technical and legalistic language, helping users understand what kind of information is collected, as well as what the company means by terms like “location data” or “advertising partner data.” Next month, Twitter will begin showing users “a simple chart that categorizes the legal basis for the personal data we process,” along with a personalized “Settings and Privacy Section” that will help users review, change and approve the types of data they share, according to the post.

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