While paying attention to your competitors’ ratings is useful, there’s more than one reason to check the traffic flow of other websites. Whether you’d like to advertise on a certain website, or you’re interested in how the competition is ranking on Google, checking the traffic of a certain site will provide information to help you attain your goals.
Here are three bullet-proof ways to figure out how much traffic a website gets.
Alexa
Alexa, now owned by Amazon, is one of the best ways to check how much traffic a site gets. And, it’s really simple to use: Just enter a domain and it’ll show the stats, including “Estimated Page Views” and “Estimated Unique Visitors.”
Alexa also shows other stats for the site, including but not limited to, global rank, engagement metrics, and a percentage of traffic visiting the site from a search engine. The downside? You’ll need to be a paying member to get these insights, and the cost isn’t cheap: The advanced plan starts at $149/month.
Ahrefs/SEMRush/Spyfu
Ahrefs, SEMRush, and Spyfu are useful to gauge organic traffic estimates. Each of these tools offer users the data needed to do competitive research, and any professional digital marketing agency will have at least one of these at their disposal. For site traffic purposes, these tools give users an overview of monthly organic traffic, organic keywords, and paid keywords.
As a sidenote, Ahrefs is the only tool listed above that will show you “global” search traffic.
Similarweb
Similarweb relies on a trustworthy set of figures in order to get its estimated traffic stats.
According to theSimilarweb site, this data, “comes from 4 main sources: 1. A panel of monitored devices, currently the largest in the industry; 2. Local internet service providers (ISPs) located in many different countries; 3. Our web crawlers that scan every public website to create a highly accurate map of the digital world; 4. Hundreds of thousands of direct measurement sources from websites and apps that are connected to us directly.”
Similarweb “guesstimates” the following traffic stats:
Total visits for the past month (including whether or not the traffic us up/down compared to the previous month)
Pages per visit
Average visit duration
Bounce rate
In addition, Similarweb offers:
Traffic by countries (desktop)
Top referring sites
Traffic sources (referrals, direct, search, etc.)
Top five organic keywords
Bonus Tips
Stats can only get you so far. Here’s a few other tips to help you out:
Check out the number of Youtube video views
How many comments is this site getting on its posts? How many shares?
Check out the engagement level of their fan pages (i.e. Twitter, Facebook)
In many respects, Snapchat is the social media platform on the rise. It recently announced an update to its ad management platform, which would put it on track to reach $1 billion in revenue this year, and it boasts a daily active user population well over 150 million. Additionally, it has experienced meteoric growth year over year and continues to bring new features and updates to expand and engage its user base.
However, one of the ways in which Snapchat is still losing out to its competitors is with its lack of a smart feed to bring the most relevant, interesting information directly to Snapchatters. Without this intuitive feature, experts are predicting Snapchat’s growth is likely to plateau at 300 million active users due to impediments to new user engagement.
The Importance of the Algorithm
An algorithmic feed may not seem like a crucial feature to the average social media user; in fact, they probably don’t even realize what pops up on their news feed is based on anything in particular, really. That’s essentially the goal of a smart interface, though: Engage the user with more relevant content in an organic-seeming manner. The consequences of being able to target user interests in an ultra-specific way extend far beyond making the platform more appealing to the audience.
Image courtesy of The Next Web
The classic algorithmic-based social media pioneer is Facebook. Since introducing a crude version of their algorithm with the incorporation of the News Feed feature in 2006, it has been re-worked and updated to be the prime example of the best in the business. While holding on to an monthly active user base totaling over 1.9 billion worldwide, the social media leader also earned over $1.8 billion in revenue in Q1, 2017. Its quarterly earnings reflect one of the larger effects of an algorithm-based feed: Advertising and marketing appeal. By extracting the information the algorithm provides insight into, companies are able to create campaigns that are far more successful by honing in on their ultimate target consumer.
Instagram and Twitter, too, experienced the added boost a smart feed can bring. When Twitter switched to this style of presenting users with information, the once-struggling platform attracted an additional 9 million users at the start of 2017. As Instagram transitioned to an algorithmic way of showing users new posts, it experienced a surge in users, too, adding 200 million to its total count to reach 700 million.
Instagram also launched a Stories feature modeled closely after Snapchat, though employing an algorithmic sorting software. After this introduction of direct competition, Snapchat’s growth rate declined 82%. Though Snapchat’s user population is high, it’s lack of an intuitive feed to promote sustained exponential growth rates and attract advertisers can ultimately lead to its demise.
Image courtesy of The Verge
But Wait: There’s Hope
As of mid-May, Snapchat announced it is working on developing an algorithm-based solution to its display feed. Though some brands already advertising on the app fear this will introduce unfair competition in that it will penalize some while boosting others, the implementation of an intuitive feed will allow Snapchat to be a more competitive player, while letting it enjoy the advantages of such a feature.
Already, advertising on Snapchat can yield huge results. PopSugar, for example, disclosed that its sponsored messages on Snapchat receive almost 1 million daily views. BuzzFeed, another major digital player, said 20% of all of its video views come via their Snapchat account. Imagine the appeal, then, on both a user and advertiser end, if Snapchat can succeed in developing and integrating an algorithmic feed.
Psychology is at the root of every effective marketing strategy. Understanding your consumers’ thought processes is a surefire way to grab their attention and convince them to convert into a loyal customer.
Being able to successfully grasp the tendencies, habits, and preferences of your audience can be incredibly beneficial. To help you get started, here are five of the most effective psychological principles that will boost your homepage conversion rate:
Cognitive Fluency
Many people find Apple’s homepage aesthetically pleasing, but have you ever wondered why this is?
Cognitive fluency, also known as cognitive ease,is defined as “the ease in which our brain processes information; this level of each impacts how positively [or negatively] we feel about something.” To put this into practice, this means Apple refrains from bombarding users’ brains with useless and excessive information. Instead, they employ a simplistic, modern style that people innately enjoy.
So, what can you take from this? Avoid overloading your website with vivid and excessive animations. Instead, use plenty of whitespace on your homepage and landing pages. Keeping your pages sparse will keep your visitors at ease and your CTA clear.
Visual Salience
Visual salience is a simple concept: Make the most important elements on your homepage (i.e., your CTA) stand out from everything else. Try boosting your conversions by experimenting with different formatting options and colors via A/B testing. Whichever method is receiving the highest conversion or engagement rates, employ for the future.
Principle of Reciprocity
There is an old experiment in which customers at a restaurant were given after-dinner mints along with their checks without an explanation. In this scenario, waiters’ tips increased by three percent. Then, other customers were given mints and told that the mints were for those individuals specifically. In this scenario, tips increased 20 percent.
What’s to learn here? Offer your customers something of value for free on your homepage. This could be a PDF, eBook, or discount code, but just ensure you include a brief message letting the know how they’re special.
Scarcity
Using scarcity is a widespread marketing strategy because it gets results. For example, if a customer is shopping for shoes and sees that there are only two left in stock, they will most likely make an immediate purchase to ensure that they get that pair.
The Psychology of Color
Colors have an effect on our emotions, so understanding what types of emotions your audience will feel while scrolling through your page is important. NBC, Google, Ebay, and Windows incorporate blue, yellow, red, and green into their company logos. This is because blue gives users a feeling of trust, yellow conveys optimism, red gives visitors a feeling of excitement, while green exudes a feeling of peace. Use a color emotion guide to create the color scheme for your website.
A study analyzed how the number of links (from 1 to >30) affected Click-Throughs.
Results:
Emails with 2-3 links and a single call to action convert at a rate that is 120% better than those with just one and 46% better than those with 4 or more.
Use Quora to gut-check demand / potential traffic volume:
– Keyword search Quora for your key term(s)
– Set it to “Questions” only
– Look for the most popular questions
– Create content that answers THEIR questions
As you can imagine, this means there’s plenty of opportunity for the good, the bad, and the ugly of Facebook ad examples.
Image source: https://www.emarketer.com
Instead of pitying the poor digital marketers that run such advertising atrocities, use them as examples of how to improve your own Facebook ad strategy.
We’ll show examples of what the worst Facebook ads of 2017 look like (prepare the tissues).
We’ll also tell you exactly where they went wrong and provide tips for how to advertise on Facebook the right way.
With an average conversion rate of over 9% across industries, it’s no surprise every social media marketer is trying to get a slice of the Facebook ad pie.
Here’s how to achieve conversions and boost your bottom line by learning from the worst Facebook ad examples of 2017.
Exhibit A: The Worst Ads on Facebook Have No CTA
Every Facebook ad has a goal of conversions.
Whether that’s measured in engagement (i.e. likes), app downloads, or purchases, a successful advertisement includes a clear CTA and callout within its copy.
Costa Sunglasses missed the mark with their Facebook ad, which has no discernible CTA at all.
The only options in this Facebook ad example appear to be to Like the ad or follow the two links to business pages.
When you launch your strategy, be sure your copy directs users to a clear call-to-action.
Include the CTA button directly within the ad, and use your text to include a callout of the product or service that will compel people to convert.
Exhibit B: Failure to Hook the Customer
There are certain psychological principles that govern the success of a Facebook ad.
A catchy headline and copy is one of the most effective ways to tap into a user’s mindset.
You can use content for relating to people, grabbing their attention, building value, and more.
Even the big guys can fail.
Netflix shows what happens when the content misses the mark with this example of one of the worst Facebook ads.
Despite using catchy video content, the ad fails to attract the attention of users to even click through because of its vague text and lack of headline.
The fact is, 60% of people will only read a headline before sharing a social media post.
You need to compel people that are both aware of your brand and those that are not with informative yet concise content.
Try using this headline guide from BuzzSumo and A/B testing what works best for your brand’s Facebook ad strategy.
Always, though, include a headline and excite both new and current customers within the ad copy.
Exhibit C: A Facebook Ad Strategy That Fails to Build Value
Before someone will take action on a Facebook ad, they need to feel that doing so will provide some kind of benefit to them.
The value can be tangible, like a promotion offering a coupon code of 25% off.
It can also come from solving a customer problem or pain point.
However you build value, make it explicit when launching your Facebook ad strategy.
PPI Check Me gets close to providing that value with their caption and visual.
It’s clear they’re offering a PPI check, but they are in this list of the worst ads on Facebook because they fail to link the offer with the incentive.
The questions you need to answer in your Facebook ad strategy are: Why should someone be interested in your offer and what even is your offer?
Connect the dots for your in the headline, sub-headline, and caption so customers know the value.
Exhibit D: Your Facebook Ad Has a List That Goes On and On
Good Facebook ad copy should be short and sweet.
It’s true that striking the right balance of being informative without giving too much way is no easy task.
However, there are certain things you definitely should not do while trying to find that perfect harmony.
Sahara Motors is the unfortunate Facebook ad example of choice here.
A run-on sentence as the first thing the user reads is a huge no-no.
That sentence also lists out every value-add and feature the product offers, which leaves the customer with no incentive to click through and learn more.
Not only is the formatting difficult to read, but also the entire Facebook ad itself is too long.
For an online retailer, shopping cart abandonment is consistently one of the most frustrating issues to contend with. According toBaymard Institute it’s not going away anytime soon: Baymard reports that the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate is 68.63%
Before you throw in the ecommerce towel, there are a few ways to easily bring those rates down, such as sending out basket abandonment emails and offering multiple payment options. These best practices are highlighted here:
Create an Awesome Card Abandonment Email
First, you’ll need to think about what a successful abandoned cart email entails. In general, these features are: A catchy subject line, personalized introduction, breakdown of the items still in the customer’s cart, a call-to-action, and a product review.
Timing
Timing is essential when it comes to crafting cart abandonment emails. According toSalesCycle’s research into 200 global brands, emails sent within 20 minutes achieved an average 5.2% conversion rate, whereas emails sent more than 24 hours after a basket was abandoned achieved an average 2.6% conversion rate. It’s best to create an email campaign that sends out an abandoned cart reminder at multiple intervals, including immediate, 24 hours, and 48 hours. Don’t goo too crazy, though; cap these emails at 3-4 before notifying the customer the cart has expired.
Content
The subject line is the first step in getting a customer to open an email. Effective subject line copy defines your brand before the email is opened, creates a sense of urgency, and appeals to the excitement of the customer. For example, “Hey, Jessica! You forgot how much you wanted to buy this!” This email is not only personalized, but also reminds the customer of their initial interest that caused them to place the items in their shopping cart in the first place.
In addition to creating an inviting subject line, you’ll also need to make sure that the body of the email follows the voice of your brand while getting the key points across to your customer. The course the content takes should look like: They’ve left an item in their basket, they liked this particular item enough to put it in their basket, and they should return to their basket to finish purchasing the item(s).
Another great way to lure customers back in is to tempt them with related items. Providing your customers with images of other popular or related items will encourage them to revisit the site, as you just simplified the browsing process for them.
Call-to-Action
The only CTA you really want with a cart abandonment email is for the customer to come back and finish shopping. Common calls to action include:
Claim my item
Continue shopping
Take me back to my basket
Complete my order
Additional Tips
Reduce the number of people who abandon their carts with the following tips:
Include photos of the product in your shopping cart
Be up-front and clear about shipping costs
Offer a guest checkout option
Ensure that the navigation between shopping pages and the shopping cart are seamless
Alladin Happy ran a bunch of A/B tests on a music startup.
Among them, we tried to test how adding “X spots left” affects conversions.
We tried different numbers from 1 to 31.
The Results:
1. The best conversions come from “2 spots left”.
2. When you test 2 identical copies, the one including “2 spots left” shows a 31% increase in conversions.
Protip: This can work just as well on ecommerce sites, by showing “in stock” numbers”
Quote Roller, a sales proposal creation and monitoring tool, conducted this test in-house using in-house testing technology. The team measured all free trial accounts created regardless of the pricing plan selected. The trial did not require a credit card.
One variant had a larger font on the left side, the other had a smaller font.
The winner was the larger font, with a 38% increase in free trial signups!
An efficient ecommerce website contains several elements. The design, placement, and relevance of these features is imperative, and can only be done correctly and successfully with the aid of proper analytics. You need to optimize each part every step of the way, and having the results to back up these decisions comes in the form of testing and analytics.
Elements that need to be analyzed in the case of any ecommerce website include:
Social Media Integration
CTA Buttons
Mobile Responsiveness
Simplicity
Security
Search Bar
Shopping Cart
Product Reviews and Testimonials
Live Chat
Discounts and Coupons
User Friendly Navigation
Related Products and Wishlist
Checkout Process and Payment Options
Web Design and Color Scheme
Product Images, Videos, and Description
Ecommerce websites also include off-page promotional activities. The effectiveness of these campaigns still needs to be analyzed for optimizing your promotional strategy.
While there are plenty of analytics tools out there, Google Analytics is the best choice. Google Analytics comes with an ecommerce tracking feature designed to make decisions based on statistical data specifically for ecommerce websites. To enable the ecommerce tracking feature, you’ll need to go into the “admin” tab of your account, and add the tracking code from Google Analytics onto your website. Once this is set up, you’ll be able to view your ecommerce reports from the platform’s reporting tab. These reports will give you access to your sales, performance, transactions, etc.
Important Metrics to Consider
Traffic: Ecommerce companies thrive on traffic. Thankfully, the Google Analytics traffic sources are designed to help ecommerce marketers analyze how well a campaign is doing.
Conversion rate: In order to analyze this metric, first define a goal; this goal will be specified for a particular URL. Build your tracking URL by using Google Analytics URL builder, then use this instead of your standard URL in your campaign.
Engagement: The amount of time users spend on your website is useful when building ecommerce campaigns. In order to better understand engagement and sales on your site, you should check the bounce rate of your site, users’ average session duration, and your shopping cart abandonment rate.
Heat Map Analytics
Heatmaps give business owners a “map” of what visitors are doing on their site. For example, it can show you where people are clicking, how many people are scrolling down the page, and when and where they stop.
Social Media Analytics
Social media is another great tool for increasing site traffic, promoting products online, and establishing a stronger online presence. On these, too, tracking results is key. If you promote items on Facebook and/or Instagram, Facebook Insights will help you measure the accomplishments of your campaigns on both (Facebook is the parent company of Instagram). Twitter has also incorporated an analytics tool so that, like Facebook, you can now advertise on Twitter.
Analyzing the data of your ecommerce site is a must for reaching your goal number of conversions. The more you know about your audience, the better you can entice them as customers.
On both mobile and desktop platforms, Facebook is the social media behemoth with the biggest user base.
Having exceeded 1.23 billion daily active users as of December 2016 and growing, this massive audience represents a huge pool of consumers.
The potential to make millions by targeting even a tiny segment of Facebook users has attracted companies across every industry, as demonstrated in the platform’s ad revenue of $8.81 billion at the end of Q4, 2016.
Nearly every business wants a slice of the Facebook advertisement pie because it represents huge growth potential for them in terms of both ROI and brand awareness.
However, not every company succeeds in their campaign.
Just like with any other kind of marketing, Facebook ads can flourish or flop based on certain factors.
These range from visual appeal to placing the call to action (CTA) button in the right place.
Here, we’ve rounded up the best Facebook ads from last year that highlight the “do’s” of advertising on this social media.
The Ads
EE Shop
When it comes to successful advertising, a touch of humor is always a good strategy to employ.
In this ad, it brings a touch of humanity and relatability, while the high-definition image and customized typography draw the viewer in initially.
According to John Rampton, a leading Top 50 Online Influencer, “Start with an engaging headline that will draw people in but keep the body of your text simple, easy to read and straight to the point.”
This ad accomplishes just that with it’s clear offer and call to action button, which includes a conversion pixel to track clicks and website visitors.
Village Eatery
Facebook’s targeting tools are unrivaled in their ad campaigns.
This advertisement takes advantage of that with location tracking, ensuring this only appears to people within the geographic location selected (presumably near the establishment).
The tempting image and catchy copy are just the right elements to encourage viewers to take action.
The Digiterati
This ad demonstrates the wide range of capabilities within the Power Editor feature on the Facebook ad platform.
Not only has the company employed a vanity URL, but also has a customized CTA and an additional “Like Page” action button.
By incorporating as many options as possible for viewer engagement, this ad has a greater chance of success in terms of achieving its goal of website clicks.
Rue La La
The ability to expand advertising mediums beyond print is one of the greatest advantages in digital marketing.
Options like videos and carousel ads reach and relate to a wider audience, enhancing their effectiveness.
This ad from Rue La La accomplishes just that, with a captivating video and engaging description.
For ecommerce companies, especially, utilizing videos to show off products is a great way to entice consumers, and including a link to shop is just the right kind of call to action.
NatureBox
For an ad all about getting people to Like their company page, the keys to success are an engaging image, value proposition, and tempting descriptions.
With a relatable catchphrase as a headline, and emphasis on their ethos of all natural snacking, NatureBox does an excellent job of portraying their brand and attracting Likes.
The Look of Silence
Carousel ads, like video ads, are a digital medium that can heighten a user’s experience and encourage them to action more effectively.
This advertisement makes the most of this template with high-quality, informative imagery.
Additionally, the utilization of unique calls to action below each image tailors the experience to the viewer, and provides more opportunities for conversion than just one CTA.
Paper
For Facebook ads aimed at encouraging app installs and downloads, the main features are a thumbnail photo, very brief text, and the call to action button.
Paper goes one step further in their ad to include a star rating system, which provides an extra layer of trustworthiness and adds value to the product.
As mentioned by Jerry Kelly, the Chief Marketing Officer and partner at Marketing 360®, in reference to effective design in Facebook ads, “If possible, show people using your product in your ad and focus your message on keeping it simple and consumer focused.”
For an app-related ad, this advice is especially crucial, and Paper demonstrates how to follow it effectively.
Jasper’s Market
This ad focuses on marketing an upcoming event and employs a tantalizing, but still relevant, image and an inclusive description to encourage RSVPs.
The use of “us” and “our” lets viewers feel like they are a part of the company, while the enticement of delicious food is added incentive.
123-reg
Like NatureBox, this ad is aimed at achieving Page Likes.
Also like NatureBox, it succeeds in this endeavor with a stylish image and clear, value-add language in its description.
123-red addresses they “why” on every consumer’s mind (Why should I Like your page?) with a concise description that both explains and entices.
SalesCycle recently found that the highest conversion rate (5.2%) for cart abandonment emails was for emails sent only 20 minutes after the user leaves!
Compare that to 4.6% for an hour and 2.6% for 24 hours.
Hubspot performed a 6 month analysis on 21,000 blog post shares to figure out which type of posts get the most shares. Lists, “Why”, Video”, “how to” and Explainer posts. Here are the results:
Lists narrowly claimed the most social traction at 22.45%
Why-posts earned 22.32% of social traction.
Videos drew 18.94% of total shares and performed well in Q4.
How-to articles earned 18.42% of shares.
What-posts had the lowest social traction, earning 17.88% of total shares.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6898119/snapchat-instagram-stories-comparison-screenshots-1.0.png )
