editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

Shattering Ad Targeting’s Glass Ceiling

August 12, 2019 No Comments

By Rachel Gantz

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Today’s column is written by Rachel Gantz, SVP, commercial, at Comscore.

Time’s up. #MeToo. Equal pay. This is the world many of us proudly live in.

Gender identity and norms have become more fluid and expansive – and they are often at the forefront of discussions across industries.

As a participant in the advertising ecosystem, I believe that today’s environment begs the question: Is advertising doing its part to keep up with the gender conversation? Isn’t advertising supposed to be aspirational and fill the needs we don’t even know we have? How can a successful ad guide me to my next car, or help me select my next roll of paper towels if it doesn’t reflect our modern-day collective experience?

As brands look to adapt to today’s environment and pivot their businesses to engage the next generation, it has become critically important to understand shifts in gender constructs and identity.

Thirty-five percent of Generation Z says they personally know someone who uses gender-neutral pronouns like “they” and “them,” according to Pew Center of Research, compared to 25%, 16% and 12% percent for millennials, Generation X and baby boomers, respectively.

There has been much discussion about inclusive creatives and how gender should be represented or depicted in advertisements. But what about the data used to target those creatives? How can brands refine their targeting strategies to effectively reach audiences in this new era?

And furthermore, what does this mean for data providers? What responsibility do data providers bear to help move the conversation forward?

Inclusivity in ad targeting

While gender constructs are certainly evolving as a whole, it’s clear that the advertising industry isn’t quite ready to retire basic demographic targeting, and there are several examples we can point to as evidence. Comscore data shows, for example, that 88% of consumers shopping for a BMW X7 are male, and 73% of buyers of baby goods are female.

Demographic targeting – at least today – is far from irrelevant, and for some goods it continues to be an important part of a successful ad targeting strategy. However, it’s imperative for brands to recognize today’s rapidly-changing world and that consumers are no longer defined solely by their age and gender; they’re a collection of interests, preferences, behaviors and affinities.

Saying goodbye to outdated stereotypes

Already, we see emerging trends that defy traditional stereotypes. Per Comscore data:

Only 55% of video game console and accessory buyers are male, defying the accepted thinking that gamers and the surrounding markets are nearly all men.
Forty-one percent of visitors to sports sites are female, even though the common perception is that men consume most sports content.
Nearly half of social media site visitors are older than 45, despite conventional wisdom that younger generations are power users of social media.

If you’re targeting based on assumptions and preconceived notions, you’re likely missing out on a large group of in-market, high-value consumers. At best, this simply results in wasted spend. At worst, mistargeted creatives could annoy and even offend particular groups, possibly damaging a brand.

It’s clear that the currency of decades past is no longer sufficient in today’s climate. Brands, agencies and data providers must pivot quickly to a more comprehensive, advanced and inclusive set of targeting criteria.

The targeting for many industries must go beyond age and gender. The advancement of behavioral-based targeting audiences furthers this cause and deserves more buy-side attention.

But how can brands and agencies do that successfully when they are faced with hundreds of demographic data providers and thousands of targetable audiences in any DSP or DMP? Blaming brands and agencies for not digging in deeper on what data they use and settling for cheap alternatives is easy, but it’s just as much on data providers to hold themselves to a better standard.

Inclusivity and quality amid targeting clutter

Our industry is undergoing a reckoning of purging low-quality targeting data (finally). Recently, Oracle Data Cloud announced a set of premium data partners (Disclosure: Comscore is included). Even the Interactive Advertising Bureau is getting involved, as evidenced by their new data label initiative. This is critical not only for the betterment of the industry but is also a key driver for more inclusive advertising.

While these are important first steps, more is needed.

If a brand wants to target a baseball fan, it should be able to target a baseball fan, and not just a man (this from an avid female sports fan).

When our family and friends ask what we do for a living, instead of saying “we keep the internet free,” perhaps it’s time to say, “We keep it free, relevant – and, most importantly – inclusive.”

Follow Comscore (@Comscore) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

By Rachel Gantz

Sourced from ad exchanger

In News

LinkedIn goes niche

August 9, 2019 No Comments

By Sara Fischer

LinkedIn announces algorithm changes made over the past 12-18 months to favour conversations in its Feed that cater to niche professional interests, as opposed to elevating viral content, its executives tell Axios.

The big picture: News feeds that were fundamentally built to connect one voice to many are struggling to deliver on value as communication trends move to more personal and ephemeral conversations.

Driving the news: Users may have noticed that their notifications or engagements on LinkedIn have increased lately.

LinkedIn has done this in part, because internal research found that participation wasn’t even across the platform, and that much of the attention in on LinkedIn was skewed towards the top 1% of power users, according to Tim Jurka, Director of Artificial Intelligence at LinkedIn.

Changes include:

Elevating content that users are most likely to join in conversation, which typically means people that users interact with directly in the feed through comments and reactions, or people who have shared interests with you based on your profile.
Elevating a post from someone closer to a users’ interests or network if it needs more engagement, not if it’s already going viral.
Elevating conversations with things that encourage a response (like opinions commentary alongside content), as well as posts that use mentions and hashtags to bring other people and interests into the conversation and elevating posts from users that respond to commenters.
Elevating niche topics of conversation will perform better than broad ones. (When it comes to length, LinkedIn says its algorithm doesn’t favour any particular format, despite rumours that it does.)

Be smart: If this sounds familiar, it’s because LinkedIn is the latest social network to change its feed algorithm to get people to engage more, instead of just passively scroll through the app and website.

Facebook began talking about changes it was making to its News Feed to favour posts from close friends over brands and publishers in 2018.
Snapchat separated social from media on its app in 2017 to keep conversations intimate among friends.

Why it matters: Higher-quality engagement matters because its often more attractive to advertisers, according to Pete Davies, Head of LinkedIn Feed Product.

“Member engagement is at an all-time high, driven by record levels of engagement in the feed and content being shared,” says Davies. “LinkedIn Marketing Solutions revenue is up 46% year-over-year.”
Last year, Axios reported that LinkedIn planned to bring in $2 billion from its marketing solutions business.

Between the lines: LinkedIn has been hinting at this for a while.

Audience development managers tells Axios that LinkedIn editors have been asking publishers to have their reporters share content to boost posts from authoritative individuals, as opposed to having content come from brands directly.

Feature Image Credit: Photo by studioEAST/Getty Images

By Sara Fischer

Sourced from AXIOS

In News

How to Market an Event: 15 Event Marketing Tips

August 9, 2019 No Comments

By Michael Brenner

A well-planned promotional strategy is vital for a successful event. These event marketing tips will help you get the word out about your event, reach the right audience, and build buzz for your conference, trade show, or corporate event in the run-up to its launch.

Quick Takeaways

An integrated marketing strategy is essential to maximize attendance and build buzz in the run-up to your event.
You should use a combination of content marketing, social media, email marketing, and video and podcast marketing in order to get the best results.
Marketing should start several months before your event and continue during and after the event, especially if you’ll be running it regularly.

1. Setup a Website for Your Event

While you can just put a basic landing page and contact form on your existing website, setting up a standalone website for your event means you can focus your branding and SEO efforts on the event itself.

Make sure you come up with a memorable domain name and build the design around clear CTAs that funnel visitors to a registration page.

2. Use Pop-ups on Your Site

Pop-ups may be controversial but there’s no denying that they can boost your conversion rate. Putting a pop-up on your website makes sure that visitors find out about your event and you can direct them to your dedicated site or landing page.

3. Include Guest Speaker Pictures and Bios

Popular speakers can be a huge draw for your event. Make sure you include a speaker page that includes photos of your guest speakers as well as their credentials, experience, and why they’re qualified to speak at your event.

4. Create Videos Showcasing Your Event and Speakers

Videos can be a highly effective form of event marketing, particularly when distributed across social networks like YouTube and Facebook.

You can easily put together a basic video to generate enthusiasm for your event using shots of the venue, details of the schedule, and footage of past events if you’ve run them before.

You can also use individual videos to showcase your speakers, including clips of them speaking. This can also set the mood, showing attendees what they can expect at the presentation.

5. Use Email to Market to Your List

Email can be one of the most effective marketing channels if you already have a list of loyal followers.

Start your email campaign several months before the event by announcing early bird ticket prices and the speaker lineup. You should continue sending emails regularly as the event approaches, with reminders about deadlines on discounted tickets and a finalized schedule and the last push for registrations a few days before the event.

6. Create a Hashtag for Your Event

Before you start promoting your event on social media, choose a hashtag that’s short and easy to remember and use it on every post.

This helps people looking for information about the event find all relevant posts easily, and it’s also a great way to boost engagement and buzz in the run-up to and during the event.

7. Rebrand Your Social Media Profiles for Your Event

The banner graphics on your Facebook and Twitter pages are great places to show off your event and make sure the dates, hashtag, and website are always prominent.

If your event is very large, you may want to consider setting up separate social media accounts for the event. This provides a place for attendees to engage prior to the event and is a handy way to distribute news and updates as you approach the launch day.

8. Blog About Your Event

Writing blog posts about your upcoming event is an easy way to increase interest and push for registrations. It also helps to improve your SEO and attract a new audience who may be interested in attending.

Publish posts regularly in the run-up to your event. They don’t have to be detailed articles – just quick updates to the schedule and guest speaker profiles are enough to keep your readers interested and boost engagement.

9. Utilize Influencer Marketing

Inviting influencers in your industry to your event can be a great way to reach a wider audience and boost registration.

Having influencers at your event can also help greatly to promote it, particularly if you plan to run a regular event. Make sure you choose a photogenic venue and encourage attendees to post on social media with photos and live video during the event to get the most out of influencer marketing.

10. Create an Affiliate Program

As well as offering free entry and other perks, an affiliate program can be an effective way to encourage influencers to write and post about your event.

Create a unique promotion code for each partner that offers a discount on registration. Each person signed up for your affiliate scheme can then use this code when they post about the event on social media. Promotional codes not only encourage more people to sign up (everyone loves a bargain) but they also enable you to track who is generating the most referrals. You’ll pay a referral fee to your partners for each ticket sale they generate.

11. Write a Press Release

Distributing a press release about your event is the most effective way to get it picked up by media sites and news portals.

Journalists are more likely to use your press release if you can find a unique, newsworthy angle. Make sure to include all relevant dates, details of speakers, and how readers can register for the event.

You can also invite journalists and local media to your event and offer extra opportunities such as an interview with a guest speaker.

12. Use Paid Ads

PPC ads targeting keyword terms on search engines like Google and paid advertisements on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram can also be a good way to increase awareness of your event and attract more registrations.

Social media advertising, in particular, enables you to target your ads to individual markets, and you can even retarget those who have visited your event website but haven’t bought a ticket yet.

13. Be Interviewed on Relevant Podcasts

Podcast interview marketing can be a fantastic way to build buzz about your event in certain industries. Some studies show that traffic from podcast interviews converts 25x better than blog traffic.

You can also encourage your guest speakers to be on podcasts, talking about their own work and brand, and mentioning your event.

Another option is to sponsor podcast episodes. With this paid method of advertising, the podcast host will introduce and talk about your event before launching into the main topic of the podcast. This can be particularly effective if you offer a promotional code for discounted registration to podcast listeners.

14. Optimize SEO on Your Event Website

Making your event landing page or website friendly to search engines is vital for attracting visitors who may not already know about your event and brand.

Optimizing for terms such as the topic and location of your event is essential as people looking for events like yours will be typing these terms into the search engine. For example: “digital marketing conference Florida” or “baby product trade show Chicago”.

Make sure to include your SEO keywords in the title and headings of your website, and add as much content as you can to create more opportunities for attracting search engine traffic.

15. Submit Your Site to Industry Websites and Directories

Many industry websites include a calendar or list of upcoming events that may be of interest for their followers, for example: Smashing Magazine’s directory of web design conferences.

These lists are often well established and have strong SEO, so it makes sense to get your event listed on as many of them as possible.

Content Marketing for Events

Need help with content marketing for your next event? If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content that’s consistently published, check out our Content Builder Service. Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

By Michael Brenner

Sourced from Marketing Insider Group

In News

How I Grew My Dying Facebook Traffic

August 9, 2019 No Comments

By Neil Patel

Is it me, or does Facebook just want to keep you on Facebook?

Every time I post a link to my site, I get less and less traffic. And it’s been this way for years.

In other words, my organic reach on Facebook was dying.

And to make matters worse, they give you hope every time they launch a new feature.

For example, when they launched Facebook Live, you used to be able to get tons of views because they promoted it organically… but not really anymore.

The same goes with Facebook Watch. I used to easily get 30,000 plus views per video when Facebook Watch came out… again, not anymore.

Now I am lucky to get 10,000 views.

But hey, I can’t really hate on Facebook. They are a business and they have to do what’s best for them. So instead of getting upset at Facebook, I decided to run some tests to see if I could find a way to get more organic traffic.

Because there has to be a way, right?

Well, there is. 🙂

And here is my traffic from Facebook over the last 7 days:

facebook traffic

That may not seem like a big increase, but I generated 10,621 visitors the month before. In other words, I took my Facebook traffic from 10,621 visitors PER MONTH to 10,085 visitors PER WEEK.

I am getting roughly the same amount of traffic I used to get in 30 days from Facebook, now in just 7 days.

So how did I do this?

Taking control of your own destiny

As marketers, our faith typically relies on the big giants… you know, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram…

If they decide to change their algorithms your traffic could go up, down, or stay flat.

For that reason, over the last few years, I’ve been building up marketing channels that aren’t as reliant on algorithms.

For example, you may learn about new blog posts I publish through my email lists because every time I publish a new post, I usually send out an email blast.

Or it could be through browser notifications.

subscribers

Every time I release a blog post or a video… again, I send a message out through push notifications.

But why can’t we do the same with Facebook?

Sure, you can post on your wall or page like everyone else, but if Facebook doesn’t want to show it to people they don’t have to.

So, I decided to push really hard on Facebook Messenger, which gives you the same ability.

In other words, you can send a direct message to everyone on Facebook through their chat feature and share a message or a link to your website.

Something that isn’t too controlled by an algorithm… similar to text messaging or email marketing.

I built this list of 129,560 Facebook Messenger contacts and leveraged them to continually generate traffic back to my blog.

Now before I break down the exact steps I took to do this, the tactics here take execution and elbow grease. It isn’t rocket science, it’s not hard to do, but it does take a bit of work.

But first, let’s go over how Facebook Messenger marketing works.

Facebook Messenger

grow facebook messenger list

First, let’s back up on why Facebook Messenger is working so well today.

Facebook Messenger open rates are 50-80% click-through rates post elite stats.

When you send an email campaign, you can expect a 20% open rate on a really good day. On average, I get 28 to 31% with my NeilPatel.com email list.

In other words, if you send your email newsletter to 100 people, 20 people will open it. If you scrub your list and work really hard like me, roughly 30 people will open it, which still isn’t great.

However, when you send a Messenger message to 100 people, 88 people will open it and read it.

We’re talking about an 88% open rate on Messenger. That is crazy!!!!

Now over time, you will notice that it will go down, but it is still substantially higher than email.

But here is where it really gets interesting.

With email marketing, you’ll typically see a 2% to a 4% click-through rate. So for every 100 emails you send, you will get 2 to 4 clicks back to your site.

To give you a benchmark, again, I spend a lot of time fine-tuning my emails and I can get about 6 clicks for every 100 emails I send.

Better than the 2 to 4 percent most people get, but still not life-changing.

With Messenger? You can get 20% click rates.

Over time, you will see it go down, but it is still substantially higher than email marketing.

And it is not just marketing, it works with pretty much any industry. Here’s an example of a real estate company that leverages Facebook Messenger:

As you can see from the screenshot above, Facebook Messenger works like how you would chat with a friend on Facebook or even email. You don’t always have to promote or link, you could just have a conversation with a friend.

This is why their adoption rate is continually climbing in the United States.

That’s almost 140 million users that are projected to use Messenger.

Messaging apps are also surpassing social networks in popularity. Just ask yourself… how many times do you use WhatsApp each week?

But the key is to start now because it will become saturated just like every other marketing channel that works. So whoever builds the biggest list early on will have the best shot of doing well in the long run.

If you are already leveraging Messenger, great, just skip to the tips below to start growing your Facebook traffic.

If you aren’t, just like email marketing you are going to need software so you can send the messages on Facebook. You can start off with this free software called MobileMonkey.

Now let’s get into how you can build your Messenger list and get consistent Facebook traffic.

Tactic #1: Website Messenger widget

My own tests have shown that chat on a website can boost conversions 45%.

So I wondered, what would happen if I installed a Messenger bot on a website?

What’s great about adding this is that visitors get answers to their questions immediately, 24/7. Say goodbye to conversion bottlenecks.

But also, everyone who starts a chat on the site becomes a new contact in my Messenger list.

So how does this work?

Add a Facebook Messenger bot to your website with a widget.

Everyone who visits your website is invited to become a Messenger contact. Website traffic turns into Messenger contacts.

Most users are already logged into Messenger on their desktop or device. So when they have questions or want info and see the Messenger widget, they tap it and boom — new Messenger contact.

If your site is on WordPress site like 34% of the world’s sites, a WordPress plugin called WP-Chatbot is the quickest way to add Facebook Messenger chat to your site.

Install the plugin on your WordPress site and you’ll have Messenger chat on your site in just a few minutes.

This widget makes list building easy. An active website could get hundreds or thousands of new contacts from the visitors on the site who engage the chatbot every day.

Think about yourself.

Are you more likely to search for a contact form on a site, fill it out, and sit back and wait who knows how long for an answer to your question?

Or are you more likely to pop open the chat window, ask your question, and get an immediate response?

Tactic #2: Run Facebook click to Messenger ads

You can do a lot without leveraging paid traffic, but if you really want to put some fuel on the fire, a few hundred dollars goes a long way.

And for the purpose of this blog post, I spent $391.58 just so I would have some stats to share with you. 🙂

Facebook Messenger ads are a Facebook Ad format in which the user who clicks on the ad is immediately added to your Messenger contact list as opposed to going to a landing page where they may bounce or exit, anonymously.

Everyone who clicks the button on the ad converts when they send the advertiser a message — becoming a permanent Messenger contact.

The key part is… they need to send the advertiser a message. In other words, if you don’t get them to send you a message they won’t be added to your Messenger contact list so you won’t be able to send blasts to them.

That’s why you want to use an autoresponder. If which you automatically start talking to each person to increase your chance that they will get added to your contact list.

Here’s an example of an ad:

How much will Facebook click-to-Messenger ads run you?

I personally haven’t scaled a campaign too large yet, but with a $391.58 test budget, I’ve been able to generate leads for roughly 62% less than traditional Facebook ads.

But again, the key with all of this is in the autoresponder. Without that, your numbers won’t be too great.

Within MobileMonkey, use the bot content builder to create the autoresponder to your Facebook Ad.

Then create a new Messenger ad in MobileMonkey to connect your autoresponder to your Facebook Ad.

Next, pick the autoresponder from a drop-down of all your bot dialogues and connect it to your Facebook Ads Manager account.

The result is a low-cost ad campaign that drives more contacts into your Messenger list.

Facebook Messenger ads work time and again across industries, including e-commerce and service businesses.

Now, if you are like me and you prefer to do things a bit more organically and save some money, here’s how you generate more contacts without spending money.

Tactic #3: Use organic Facebook post autoresponders

Growing your list with a little ad spend goes a long way, but this next list building power tactic is totally free.

Anyone who comments on your Facebook Page posts instantly becomes your Messenger contact.

A Facebook post autoresponder adds people to your Messenger contact list if they comment on any Facebook post.

Here’s how it works.

You post to your Facebook Business Page.
Someone comments.
A Messenger bot automatically responds and as soon as that person replies, they’ve become a contact in Messenger.

You can see an example of this tactic in action here:

The more engaging your Facebook post, the more likely it will be that people will want to comment on it.

These kinds of posts always get a ton of comments and contacts:

Quizzes
Contests
Riddles

You could ask fans to post a GIF in response to a question. “Describe your boss with a GIF.”

Or ask them to tell a story or ask them a question like “What industry are most of your clients in?”

Even just asking them “what do you do?” is super-engaging because people love to talk about themselves!

This store asks fans to name how many duck species are in the photo. Comment with your guess and get a discount code in the autoresponder follow-up.

You can create the Messenger dialog for this technique in MobileMonkey with the “FB Comment Guard” tool.

That feature is what allows you to add the autoresponder to an organic post.

I love this technique because it converts my hard-fought organic Facebook engagement into a list of contacts I can follow up with.

Tactic #4: Convert page fans into Messenger contacts

I’m a fan of cross-promoting, traffic-sharing, and allowing various marketing channels to build off each other.

After all, if someone follows you on one channel, they may want your updates on a different channel as well. This increases your odds of connecting with them and amplifying your content reach at any given time.

This tactic combines several methodologies for a boost to Messenger contacts.

If you’ve gone to the effort of building a robust Facebook page, you will want to convert these fans into Messenger contacts. Fans are great, but Messenger contacts are better because Messenger is personalized, interactive, one-on-one, and has way more visibility than Facebook News Feed.

Organic reach on Facebook is very low. Maybe 1%, of your fans on your Facebook Page will even see your post.

Using Facebook Messenger changes this. Instead of a low organic reach, you’re getting high-powered interactions that are personalized.

This is important because page fans aren’t automatically Messenger contacts. You have to invite them or connect with them in Messenger first.

Here are three ways to convert your Page fans into Messenger contacts.

First, and this one is pretty obvious, you can change the CTA button on your Facebook Page to “Send Message”.

Right now your Facebook Page CTA button might be sending traffic to your site with a button like “Learn More”.

Hover over the button until you see “Edit Button.” Then choose the option to “Contact you” and “Send Message.”

Customize the message that people will see when they click that button in MobileMonkey.

Boom. Now anyone who clicks the “Send Message” button from a Facebook Page will become a Messenger contact.

Second, create a Facebook Post Autoresponder (see tip #3).

This autoresponder was a simple invitation — Stay in touch! Sign up for Messenger updates.

Third, you can then use Page fan audience targeting of a click-to-Messenger Facebook Ad campaign.

Remember, your existing Page fans are more likely to take another step into more interaction with a brand that they know and trust.

Tactic #5: Turn your email subscribers into Messenger contacts

Email marketing has a low engagement rate.

Facebook Messenger has high engagement.

Would you rather send your content to your subscribers in a channel with a 2% click-rate or 20% click-through rate?

Ideally, you should do what I do and leverage them both.

Send your email list an invitation to join your Facebook Messenger list. Those who choose to do so will become email subscribers and Messenger subscribers, but their engagement level (and therefore your reach) will increase using Messenger.

One of the most effective marketing methods is to convert your existing contacts into more effective marketing channels.

Using MobileMonkey’s chatbot builder, you can create an opt-in page consisting of a quick and simple “Want to receive occasional updates?” invitation.

Link to that invitation anywhere you’d normally include a link.

Link to that invitation in a button, like the examples below.

And here:

Link to your Messenger experience in your:

Email signature
CTAs in blog posts
Business card in QR codes
Landing pages
Newsletter subscription forms

The list is as long as you are clever. And it works very well!

Conclusion

You are always going to deal with algorithms, but if you want more consistent traffic you need to take matters into your own hands.

Just look at me, I leverage email marketing, push notifications, and even Facebook Messenger marketing.

I’m now looking into leveraging text messaging too.

Sure, I leverage SEO, content marketing, paid ads, social media marketing… and every other major channel out there.

But I focus a large part of my efforts on controlling my own destiny and you can too.

If you haven’t started, start with Facebook Messenger. It works so well right now and I expect it to last for a while. The key is getting in on the right time and time is right now.

By Neil Patel

He is the co-founder of Neil Patel Digital. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Sourced from https://neilpatel.com

In News

Carole Cadwalladr: the ad industry is ignoring Cambridge Analytica fallout

August 8, 2019 No Comments

By Rebecca Stewart

Prominent UK journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who led the reporting on Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica data scandal in 2018, has cautioned the advertising industry that it has a collective responsibility to tackle the issue of data misuse.

Speaking during an unscheduled event at Cannes Lions last week (20 June), the reporter called out the advertising ecosystem for its role in funding the platforms she accuses of undermining democracy – including Facebook – as well as a perceived lack of action in tackling the issue head-on.

“It’s really funny being here in the heart of the ad industry and seeing the yachts, the money and the beach clubs – while its central, central role in what’s going on here is being ignored,” she said.

Accusing the adtech yachts parked in Le Viex Port of “monetising a total surveillance apparatus” that was “exploiting [people] in invisible ways,” Cadwalladr said the lack of discussion around the issue on Cannes Lions’ main stage was “depressing”.

“In terms of responsibility, there’s something really key about Cannes Lions and the ad industry’s involvement in this,” she explained. “This is where the money is coming from. It is kind of depressing that there’s not a single talk happening in this entire week [about data misuse] with money swishing down through the streets.”

While there were talks hosted in the Cannes Palais around data and marketing technology, there were none with a specific focus on data misuse or ethics.

Cadwalladr said: “I know that individuals here are really troubled by what’s going on but as a collective industry level, it just seems to be that it’s being swept under the carpet.”

The Guardian and Observer journalist, who has been fiercely critical of Facebook, also called out chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg for attending the festival but failing to “give answers to MPs in parliament” about Cambridge Analytica.

“As far as I’m concerned, Facebook is a foreign company which represents a national security threat and it shouldn’t be anywhere near our elections,” she said.

Sandberg appeared on the main stage on the Wednesday of Cannes where she simply said it needed to be “clearer” about the way it uses data. She was also invited to speak at WPP’s Beach event where, in conversation with chief executive Mark Read, she admitted that Facebook had to “earn back” trust.

Hacking Nix’s Cannes appearance

In one of the most controversial events at Cannes, former Cambridge Analytica executive Alexander Nix had been scheduled to appear on the main stage on Thursday (20 June).

The headline event was billed as his first speaking appearance since the firm sunk into administration after allegedly harvesting Facebook user data to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential race.

However, Nix pulled out the day before he was due to appear following criticism from various corners of the industry – including one ad director who penned an anonymous letter to organisers, describing the inclusion of the exec on the programme as a “monumental act of self-harm.”

His withdrawal also followed on from Cadwalladr announcing she was to host her own event during the festival.

Gillian Tett, The Financial Times’ editorial board chair and US editor at large, had been due to chair the discussion with Nix on “the morality of data” but instead found herself hosting Cadwalladr’s ‘Great Hack’ event with BBC journalist Jamie Bartlett in which they screened a documentary taking a deeper look into the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

Tett said she had hoped her conversation with Nix was going to be a way to focus the topic of data misuse that was lacking throughout the festival, and get answers to some of the “bigger, more existential” questions.

She detailed how Nix had been “on and off” and “back and forth” with her in the weeks before Cannes Lions, finally withdrawing from the appearance.

“I’m not sure as to why he pulled out – you’d have to ask him,” she asserted. “We’ve been up and down and round the blocks on that one, he’s been cross with me, then not cross with me and there’s stuff I’ve written he doesn’t like.”

Discussing the practical ways in which the ad industry could help ensure people got real value in handing their data over to advertisers, Bartlett – who covered the use of data and tech in the 2016 elections – said GDPR was too reliant on consumers issuing companies with requests.

“People need to be aware of what they’re trading and what they’re getting back in return. At the moment it’s very one-sided and not very informed,” he said.

“People have no idea, they give away their data for a good Google search result or product recommendation, but they don’t know what the scale of that trade is because they don’t see what’s on the other side of it and they don’t fully understand who is going to misuse it in future.”

Bartlett said he wanted people to make informed choices about when they give their data away and for it to be as easy as possible for them to get it back.

He suggested that the advertising industry had the power to build the technology that could allow people to do just that – bundling up consumer data and repackaging it in a way that it could be sold, with both parties getting a share of the profit.

“We need the private sector to incentivise people to make money out of their own data. You can’t do it on your own, it’s not valuable but it is if you do it collectively. It will take decades for that to happen, the culture needs to change.”

As well as the Nix controversy, Cannes Lions 2019 was disrupted by protesters from climate change activist group Extinction Rebellion, who crashed spots like the Palais and Facebook beach, urging the ad industry to act on the climate and ecological emergency facing the world.

With a heavy theme of brand purpose and business for good running throughout the week, the lack of interest from ad execs in supporting the group’s mission has been lamented as “hypocrisy” by Extinction Rebellion’s team and other industry commentators.

Feature Image Credit: Cadwalladr called out the advertising ecosystem for its role in funding the platforms she accuses of undermining democracy / TED/YouTube

By Rebecca Stewart

Sourced from The Drum

In News

6 Things Every (Atheist) Blogger Should Know

August 8, 2019 No Comments

By Rebekah K

Recently, my blog turned two and a half years old! That means that today, I’ve been blogging for 136 weeks and this is my 136th post. Over the years, people have asked me for my greatest advice for blog writing, whether that is how to grow a following and get noticed or how to go about writing for an atheist blog when you’re still in the atheist closet. Today, I want to share with you some of my answers to some commonly asked blogging questions.

1. How do I start a blog?

This is a fairly simple question with a straightforward answer. Ask anyone who has ever started a blog, and they will tell you that this is by far the easiest step in blogging. For me, it involved choosing a blog name (The Closet Atheist at the time) and clicking on the big, unmissable Get Started button on WordPress.com. WordPress (almost) literally holds your hand throughout the blog-building process, and there is nothing technical to it. Any WordPress blog can be free, by the way, if you don’t mind a URL ending in .wordpress.blog and a few ads on your site. My blog started off as theclosetatheist39.wordpress.com (does anyone remember this?) because theclosetatheist.wordpress.com was (and still is) reserved. But oh, how far we’ve come!

2. How do I start an anonymous blog as a closeted atheist?

The first thing of which I must warn you—which I had to learn the hard way—is not to expect it to stay hidden forever. I think I did a pretty good job of writing anonymously for that year and a half. My name or face were nowhere to be seen on the site, my Twitter, or anywhere related to them. You better believe The Closet Atheist was not only the name of my site, but my second identity. It was my email address and my Twitter handle, and there was not any way that anyone who didn’t know me could have ever found me on Instagram or Facebook through it.

But writing anonymously, continuously, is hard. You can’t write your life story without details of your life slipping in. Even when I was writing anonymously, you would have known that I was raised in the Lutheran Church, that my mom was an organist, my brother-in-law was a pastor, and I went to a Christian college where I played in a marching band. But I think that giving up that many details of my life were worth how much this blog saved my sanity. Even YouTubers make videos anonymously, but I think that puts you at a much higher risk of being found by people you know.

3. How do I keep my blog going?

I’ve seen more blogs than I can count with one post, or a handful of posts, which were then left and never touched again. Thinking of a cool name, a sleek design, and a catchy topic is simple until you realize that if you want your blog to succeed, you are going to have to keep writing. And writing. And writing. And writing. (Repeat, in my case, 136 times so far.)

Not to be harsh, or overly obvious, but you probably shouldn’t start a blog if you don’t have a pretty long list of post ideas. You don’t want a blog with a total of four or five posts, but you want to be able to write for as long as possible, and to do that, you need things to talk about. I think that generating topics is more difficult as a blogger than it would be for a podcast or for YouTube, because on those media, there are endless other videos to reply to, and endless people to invite onto your podcast to interview (wink, wink—like me!). But I find that it is nearly impossible to collaborate with others or review videos through blogging, so I stick with reviewing books and articles, and in the past I’ve responded to sermons, speeches, bible studies, and class lectures.

4. How will I ever come up with that much to talk about?

The best way to come up with post ideas is deciding the overall topic of your blog. It absolutely has to be something you are passionate about, and that you could talk about for literal years. And you should be able to put your own spin on it, own it, and write about it from your perspective. If you’re telling your story, it should be easy because no one else can or has told it before. For me, I combined my story of becoming an atheist, living as an atheist at a Christian college and in a Christian family, and coming out to the people in my life. On quiet weeks, I interspersed my life experiences with the aforementioned reviews and responses. Nowadays, with my atheist story being quiet and peaceful, I’ve started branching out from the topic of atheism and religion—to posts like this!

5. How do I grow my following?

Here’s my practical, tried-and-true advice: Engage. This is true for every content creator: YouTubers, Instagrammers, and traditional bloggers alike. Comment on, follow, and like other people’s blogs and blog posts. Follow them on social media and interact with them there. The audience will follow if you have built relationships with people. This also means that you can’t make it all about you. If you comment on anyone’s blog saying only “Nice post! Check out my blog at doucheymcdouche.wordpress.com,” they will probably delete it immediately, if it doesn’t get sent automatically to spam. If the post you are commenting on is something you’ve also written about, you should still summarize your thoughts in your comments before linking to your specific post and explaining why. But I find that it is always good enough to not self-advertise at all. Just be logged in, where your blog link will be in your username automatically.

But on a more authentic, less marketing-centered level, it is really all about what you are actually writing. I am a firm believer, when it comes to personal blogging (as opposed to marketing blogs or other paid content), in this unpopular opinion.

The writer comes first. The readers come second.

This probably goes against any blogging advice you have ever read. But for he or she who blogs unpaid, just to tell their story, it is vital. If you write what you want to write, you will have more fun, you will write better, and your readers will know that you love what you’re doing. This is how you keep them around, and this is how you keep your blog going before you decide that it’s “just too hard,” it’s “not fun anymore,” and “no one’s reading it anyway and I can’t figure out what they want!” Just keep going. At the very least, you will be enjoying it. Even among my own readership, I can tell you right now that no matter what, this blog’s biggest fan is me!

6. What’s your biggest advice for anyone who wants to get into blogging?

STICK TO A SCHEDULE!

I cannot stress this enough. At all. Is it absolutely crucial.

I follow a number of blogs, and I can’t tell you how much it drives me crazy when they do not keep a posting schedule, especially when they claim to! If you tell your audience you will upload every Tuesday at 11 a.m., you have to upload every Tuesday at 11 a.m. This is part of building trust. My readers knew that this post would be up today at 8 a.m., and I know that my views are always highest on Sunday mornings. I have never kept my readers wondering for longer than 12 hours where my last post was or when I would write next. There are many Saturdays when I don’t have time to write, and there are no Sundays (anymore) when I am up by 8 a.m. One of the greatest things about WordPress is the ability to write a post any time you want and schedule it to go up when you want it to.

When I was in a graphic design class in college, one of my projects was to make an instructional infographic. I chose a how-to on personal blogging. So if you want a more concise and design-centric list of blogging tips from me, you can look at this poster called “5 Traits of a Successful Personal Blog”.

By Rebekah K

Sourced from The Curious Atheist

In News

Why The Rise Of Social Commerce Is Inevitable

August 8, 2019 No Comments

By Jia Wertz

The line between social media and e-commerce is increasingly becoming blurred, commonly known as social commerce. The sheer amount of time spent by people, especially younger generations, on social media apps has positioned social commerce as the indisputable market breakout trend for e-commerce in the coming years. Generation Z spends 2-3 times more shopping on social channels than the average consumer, with Instagram and Snapchat taking the lead, while Generation X prefers shopping on Facebook.

Hubspot defines omni-channel commerce as “the ability to deliver a seamless and consistent experience across channels while factoring in the different devices that consumers are using to interact with your business.”

Their definition highlights the mounting pressure on brands to streamline their marketing models across devices and applications. With Generation Z connected online near-constantly, mainly on social channels, and on track to become the largest consumer generation on the planet, the importance of social commerce is obvious for forward-thinking e-commerce brands.

Video Content, Social Apps, And Evolving Technology

One of the primary drivers of the success of social commerce has been the shift of preference by Generation Z and Millennials away from Facebook and towards platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. The key is short-form video content, which is rapidly becoming the dominant form of online content.

For example, 91% of consumers prefer interactive or visual content, such as video, over conventional static media, and internet video traffic is expected to have a compound annual growth rate increase of 33% from 2017 to 2022. This trend is complemented by new technology that underpins mobile applications and video streaming, from progressive web applications (PWA) to the pending materialization of 5G.

“One of the most overlooked aspects of digital marketing campaigns, especially with smaller businesses, is that YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google,” says George Konidis, an SEO expert and Founder of Growing Search.

“It’s hard to achieve digital growth among younger consumers when you ignore video content. We are seeing an enormous boost in video content consumption, and the transition to hybrid social apps, like PWAs, will only accelerate this trend,” he says.

PWAs are a form of hybrid e-commerce website and mobile application. They arose out of the market need for faster and deeper integrations of e-commerce functionality into mobile apps – particularly social media. They load faster than mobile sites, and brands like West Elm and Lancome are some of the technology’s early adopters.

For younger users that grew up on the internet and are impatient when it comes to loading times and buffering, PWAs represent a marked opportunity for brands to capitalize on social commerce. For example, when Lancôme converted its mobile site to a PWA, conversions went up 17% and mobile sessions increased 51%.

Depop, who just closed $63 million in funding as a social fashion app targeting Millennials and Generation Z, is an excellent example of the convergence of social commerce and technology. Similarly, the popularity of “merch-drops” and exclusive branding on new social media channels like Monkey and TikTok are gaining steam.

And marketers are taking notice.

For example, Sprout Social cited prudent evaluation of emerging social media channels as an important marketing tactic for online brands.

Instagram and Snapchat are both working on built-in e-commerce projects, hoping to keep pace with upstart social commerce apps.

“Online shoppers do 12 searches on average before engaging on a specific brand’s website. Social commerce can connect social media users directly to brands with a simple click; it’s a powerful way to onboard more consumers and reduce the average number of searches,” says Konidis. “Small online businesses have never had the opportunity to bring in more consumers and experience outsized growth.”

Young People Shape Consumer Markets

Quite simply, young people determine what is trending culturally, and consequently, what drives demand in consumer markets. The combination of Generation Z and Millennials, who have very similar social and political tastes – not just commercial – represent a paradigm shift in digital commerce.

What once consisted of static online brand websites is becoming a much more fluid ecosystem defined by multiple threads of content mediums.

The rise of social commerce is poised to coincide with some significant technological boosts, and even perhaps threaten the dominance of social media giants like Facebook and Instagram. Facebook has even gone as far as to discreetly develop a proprietary cryptocurrency, seeking to enter the payments market for what seems like an eventual integration of e-commerce features too.

What’s clear is that social commerce is inevitable, driven by the changing cultural and consumer preferences of younger generations.

Feature Image Credit: Pixabay

By Jia Wertz

I am the CEO of Studio 15, a socially responsible fashion brand. After leaving behind a 15-year career in the corporate fashion world, I started a company that focuses on doing good and supporting women. It’s Studio 15’s mission to promote and collaborate with other female-owned businesses and to support female entrepreneurs in developing countries through a partnership with Kleos MFG, a non-profit organization.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Blown Away by Some Instagram Stories? Here’s Exactly How Creators Are Making Their Feeds Look So Ridiculously Good

August 7, 2019 No Comments

By Amanda Pressner Kreuser

Make your visual storytelling easier and more impactful with themed templates, accessibility features, and user-friendly video editing.

We all start out with the same tools to create our Instagram stories–but there are those creators out there who just know how to make magic happen. Their images and video demand to be seen, and you can’t stop clicking til they’re gone.

As both founder of a content marketing company (and a human who loves visually arresting content) I can’t get enough of stories and I’m always trying to reverse engineer what makes someone’s feed so addictive.

For those people and brands who can unlock–or rewrite–the equation, there’s massive potential. Not only does IG stories have 500 million daily active users ready to discover you, but if you have the “swipe up” hyperlink feature (either by having more than 10,000 followers or being verified), Stories can lead to direct conversions ($$$).

Of course, reaching both goals is closely tied to the quality of content you publish. That means it’s definitely worth your time to create well-designed, engaging images and video before you share them. Sound…expensive? It’s not. You don’t have to employ a dedicated design or social media team, thanks to a bevy of apps that make it easy (or at least, easier) to bring out your Insta A-Game. Here are six of my favorites.

Unfold

Unfold makes it easy to create aesthetically gorgeous Instagram Stories without a huge investment. The app includes a wide selection of professionally-designed templates packaged by theme (think: “Journal 1” that mimics a nostalgic scrapbook, or “Digital Wave 1” that incorporates computer and web design elements), some of which are free and the rest of which come at a relatively low cost ($1.99 for a package of 15 templates). And in the wake of their massive app success, the company launched Unfold for Brands, a design agency to further help brands customize and perfect their story game.

Canva

This app is an all-around incredible free design tool that you can use to elevate any of your company’s visuals (from amping up your presentations to editing photos for your website) — and Instagram Stories is no exception. Among the thousands of free templates is a vast selection of Instagram Story options to suit pretty much every brand aesthetic or campaign. Bonus: Canva’s other templates, like those for logos, can be useful in creating thumbnail covers for your Instagram Story highlights.

Clipomatic

Too few brands consider digital accessibility when planning their online and social strategies–but making your content available to all customers is a truly worthy goal. Clipomatic can support accessibility by enabling you to create written captions to go along with the videos you share on Instagram Stories. The app instantly translates speech into text, so any followers who are hearing impaired (or who simply don’t watch Stories with the sound on) can still easily follow along. Clipomatic isn’t free, but the $5 price tag is pretty reasonable for the product.

Hype Type

There’s a lot you can do with both the fonts native to Instagram Stories and those available in apps like Unfold and Canva to make your text stand out — but Hype Type takes it to a whole other level. Through the app, you can create dynamic, animated captions to overlay on your photos and videos. The tool gives you a variety of font and color options, as well as the ability to add music, so the possibilities are plenty extensive. The app itself is free, but you can pay to get access to all of its features and to remove the watermark.

Life Lapse

Ever wonder how brands make those cool how-to, stop motion tutorials, product features or, well, really any other fancy animations? It’s possible that at least some of them are using Life Lapse. The user-friendly app makes it easy to create pro-level stop motion videos from groups of individual photos (and it includes tutorials if you want to step up your game). This is another one that’s free, but offers additional features if you subscribe to the Pro level (which is $35.99 per year).

InShot Video Editor

You don’t have to be a complete video whiz to make quality, engaging videos for your Instagram Stories, especially when you have a solid app like InShot Video Editor to help you. The app gives you the ability to do basic video editing (like rotating, trimming, merging clips and adjusting speed) and add in more snazzy elements (like voice-overs, sound effects, filters and text), so you can customize as you see fit. You can get plenty of features for free; make small, one-time purchases to remove watermarks and adds or access extra stickers; or buy a subscription ($3.99 per month or $14.99 per year for an auto-renewing subscription) to have unlimited access to all features and add-ons.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Amanda Pressner Kreuser

Sourced from Inc.

In News

Knowing Your Data: What Businesses Should Expect From Their Marketing Partners

August 7, 2019 No Comments

By Korena Keys

I am lucky to talk to key executives from hundreds of companies each year. Inevitably, the conversation typically rolls around to the effectiveness of digital marketing. The one common link in each of the conversations is understanding if their marketing is effective and interpreting what it means. In some cases, the organization has never received a report. In others, they get numbers but don’t know what they mean or how to decipher them.

If you are paying someone (an individual or an agency) to execute a digital marketing initiative, then you should expect to receive regular updates, reports on progress and interpretations of what the data is telling you and what should — or should not — be done about it. If you are missing this information, there are two possible solutions: Meet with your provider and ask for reporting data and recommendations to be delivered consistently, or find a new provider.

Understanding your campaign performance is critical in order to make decisions, allocate budgets and understand your customers and their needs. Let me explain in greater detail.

1. Search Engine Marketing: Paid and organic efforts relating to search marketing are able to provide key insights that can boost your page visibility within your specific sector, improving your page rankings while creating a better experience for your customers. As it relates to your paid search marketing (SEM or PPC), you will want to know what terms your customers are using, as well as which of your keywords has the strongest click-through and conversion metrics. Additionally, ask for reporting on ad group and ad copy performance, site links and call extensions. This will help you better understand your customers and what they want from you while providing insights that can be applied to other areas of your marketing. You should review this information monthly with your contracted provider.

2. Website Optimization: With an SEO contract, you can expect to see regular reports on your website performance in relation to your search engine rankings — how and where you are showing up on Google, Yahoo or Bing search results pages. The actual report may vary by contract, but at a minimum should include a review of your website speed on mobile devices, your current ranking and any change in your ranking for 5-8 keywords, identified technical errors and a summary of what work has been completed to improve in these areas.

3. Video (pre-roll, streaming, promoted): Video marketing has a little different report and KPI structure. With this type of advertising, the goal is typically to increase awareness or evoke some type of emotion. That is difficult to measure in clicks. When you are looking at performance metrics as it relates to video, ask for the video completion rate (VCR) and total time played in addition to any attributed clicks or conversions. This video data will let you know how effective your message is as well as if you are targeting the right audience within your ad buy.

4. Online Display Ads: While many professionals within our industry provide reporting on display ad impressions served and click-through rates (CTR), they really do not tell us the whole story. Request reporting data on ad performance by message and size, conversion metrics and website analytics data that will indicate the quality of the click. In today’s marketplace, it is easy to buy clicks and flood a website with cheap traffic. You will want to ensure that you are paying for quality web traffic, not just quantity.

5. Email Marketing: Reporting on this activity is more straightforward than other digital aspects, mostly because it is more of a standardized service. Ask for a summary for each email sent. It should include the date and time it was deployed, total sends, total opens and reads, number of clicks (and on what links), as well as any results from A/B testing of subject lines and content.

6. Social Media Marketing: Depending on the scope of services of your social media contract, your contractor should be providing a monthly summary of their activity and the results. If the intent is to boost your page engagement, the report should include posts made, activity for each post, change in page engagement over the previous month and data on paid activity. If you are trying to promote an event or sell a product, the report should also include hard numbers on the registrations, sales or leads attributed to the campaign efforts.

7. Website Insights/Usability: The goal of a paid online campaign is to grow your business. Looking beyond impressions and clicks will tell you how well your campaign is working for you. Look for key indicators, such as time on site, pages per visit and new visitors. These data points will let you know how good the quality of traffic is (how many pages they are looking at and for how long). They will also provide insights as to what pages of your website need attention through better/more content or flow.

The data collected from your marketing campaigns provides valuable knowledge. Accessing this information, understanding its meaning and applying the insights will propel your organization further, faster and with lower acquisition costs.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Korena Keys

Korena, the Founder & CEO of KeyMedia Solutions, applies 25+ years marketing experience to drive a startegy first approach

Sourced from Forbes

In News

The hottest web design trends of 2019

August 7, 2019 No Comments

By Jim McCauley

Create cutting-edge sites with these must-have looks and techniques.

Working in web design means that you’re constantly having to keep track of all the latest developments. New technologies and techniques are cropping up all the time, and if you want to deliver the sites that your customers demand then you need to at least be aware of up-and-coming web design tools.

Beyond the technical, though, there’s also the visual angle to consider. Tastes are always evolving, and what looked good a couple of years ago is likely to look less appealing today. If you want your website layout to look fresh and stand out from the crowd, it pays to be up to speed with the latest trends. So read on for eight of this year’s hottest looks, some of them technical, some of them more aesthetic, and most of them essential.

The future of web design

01. Strong typography

The hottest web design trends of 2019: Strong typography — Safari Riot’s site is big on typography and bigger on doing amazing, attention-grabbing stuff with it

Web design has always been a bit of a poor relation of graphic design, and part of the problem is that while a graphic designer has more or less complete freedom to create across the page, web designers were for a long time shackled by primitive layout options and the most basic typography.

This is, thankfully, changing; CSS Grid and Flexbox give designers the opportunity to create more print-like pages, and vastly improved typography tools have meant that big, bold, and experimental typographic layouts are very much the in thing right now, making full use of oversized retro fonts in all the styles and weights, and complete with assorted effects and deformations to add extra character.

02. Progressive Web Apps

The hottest web design trends of 2019: Progressive Web Apps — The Starbucks PWA won’t set your world on fire, but it’ll just work, whatever

They’re not a one-size-fits-all solution, but if you’re building a site that’s predominantly targeting mobile users who don’t always have the bandwidth they want, a Progressive Web App is an elegant way of doing it. PWAs are progressive and responsive, so they should work on any platform and look good too, and they deliver an app-like experience that, crucially, isn’t dependent on having an internet connection, using service workers to allow offline use. And while you wouldn’t want to use a PWA for your next full-blown desktop site, they’re ideal for creating fast and lightweight ecommerce sites when high engagement is a must.

03. Illustration

The hottest web design trends of 2019: Illustration — Cytora’s guide to AI underwriting uses illustration to make a complex subject understandable

It’s hard to visit a new startup’s site these days that doesn’t have a smattering of flat and funky cartoon figures illustrating its business and providing some much-needed character for visitors to identify with. They’re everywhere and they don’t seem to be going anywhere for now, but while we’re sure this particular style of illustration will fall out of favour sooner or later, illustration itself as a staple element of web design is one that seems set to stick around; it’s just the style that’s likely to evolve. If you’re keen to incorporate modern-looking illustration into your site, be sure to read our guide to 2019’s illustration trends to know about.

04. Animation and video

The hottest web design trends of 2019: Animation and video — The Stonewall Forever site mixes video and 3D animation to fabulous effect

While it’s not always wise to build sites that deliver a performance hit while guzzling bandwidth, if you want to make an impact then it’s a lot easier these days to go full-on with all the attention-grabbing visual flair you feel you need. It’s not that long since embedded full-screen video was simply unthinkable; now it’s visible on an ever-increasing number of sites, and a great way to deliver instant visual interest while getting a brand story across. And for a less heavyweight visual punch, JavaScript or CSS animation used well not only looks good on the page, but can also be used to breathe life into navigation and enhance the user experience.

05. Pastel palettes

The hottest web design trends of 2019: Pastel palettes — We’re not sure what Liebe Quark is, but its colour scheme is to *die* for

Because web design trends are so much more closely linked to more general visual trends these days, it’s not surprising that many of the must-have looks for web sites tend to mirror the sort of design decisions you can already see in print pages and advertising. An outmoded palette is the perfect way to turn people off, and if you want a site to look bang up-to-date then you need to reflect current colour trends.

Right now gentle pastel tones are a strong look – see Pantone’s 2019 colour of the year, ‘Living Coral’, for example – but what can really help bring them out is adding one or two really vibrant shades in the same way that print designers use spot colours.

06. Custom cursors

The hottest web design trends of 2019: Custom cursors — Romain Avalle’s portfolio site does some impressive things with your mouse input

With modern websites being home to so much visual interest these days, the humble mouse cursor can sometimes feel a bit lost, which would go some way to explaining the increasing number of sites that try to do something exciting with the pointer.

Merely changing the mouse cursor into something else has been possible for a very long time, but the return of custom cursors sees much more elaborate techniques coming into play, such as reactive cursors that change in response to site elements, and secondary pointers that follow the cursor around, but sweeping across the screen in a much more organic manner. They’re very much the fashion right now, but we suspect this trend will run out of steam before too long.

07. Colour gradients

The hottest web design trends of 2019: Colour gradients — Just look at Abella Andrade’s gradients; whatever they’re selling, it looks delicious

Beautiful colour gradients have long been available to graphic designers, but until recently they’ve been difficult to bring to web designs as they have to be rendered as bitmaps that don’t always scale well. Now, though, CSS gradients mean that it’s easy to enliven a page with an eye-catching gradient, whether it’s simply to provide a gently colourful backdrop, or as an overlay providing an attractive way of fading in photography from one side. CSS gradients are just as versatile as the ones you’ll find in Illustrator or Photoshop CC, and combined with CSS blend modes there are almost unlimited ways to use them imaginatively.

08. Micro-interactions

The hottest web design trends of 2019: Micro-interactions — A better Montreux Jazz Festival experience through micro-interactions

Sometimes the devil is in the details, and spending time on adding delightful extra touches can add a much-needed dose of personality to a site. A little animated feedback can be a great way to keep users engaged and entertained, but there’s more to micro-interactions than simple visual feedback.

They can be used to make navigation clearer, to reassure visitors while they’re waiting for something to load, or to draw attention to useful features such as the inevitable hamburger menu. And used imaginatively, they can help your audience find the information they need without any unwanted noise; for example, check out this site for the Montreux Jazz Festival, which will put together a custom list of the acts you’ll want to see, based on a handful of decisive swipes. Nice.

Feature Image Credit: istock.com

By Jim McCauley

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ