What is CRM?

CRM in online advertising uses the collected customer data to shape the relationships and interactions between a brand and its customers. By combining different marketing strategies and practices, a brand can manage this data with a CRM platform create highly personalized, ultra-targeted experiences for its users.

What are the benefits of CRM?

The old saying goes that “the customer is always right” and while that isn’t an iron-clad strategy, the phrase highlights a customer’s influence on any business’ source of income; you can’t make money without customers. That’s why it’s important to cater to their needs and preferences and build long-lasting bonds.

Happy customers aren’t only loyal customers. They can spread positive messages, recommendations, and good reviews, resulting in a larger customer base and consequently securing more sales and profit.

There are so many reasons that a business will engage with CRM when it comes to online advertising. CRM really offers invaluable insights and can offer you a whole lot of customer information that will then be at your disposal when it comes to crafting high-quality and high-performing PPC campaigns.

Some of the main perks of using CRM in your online marketing include:

• Helping you to leverage the contacts in your CRM database
• Drive shoppers to your site through social media posts
• Encourage repeat purchases through retention-focused campaigns
• Improve customer retention through retention-focused campaigns
• Help with customer acquisition
• Maximise the success of remarketing efforts
• Boost the performance of PPC

CRM really does help your company and brand to reach your full base’s potential, rather than just the simple to catch customers who are naturally more easily drawn in.

How to get started with CRM

Of course, CRM can be applied to many areas of your business. But for now, let’s focus on how CRM can drive your digital marketing campaigns.

To manage CRM data, you need CRM software. A high-quality CRM system can help your business to build your customer base while maintaining a personalised relationship with the customers that you do obtain. Of course, you need to spend some time considering your business’ needs and preferences before investing in a platform. This will help you to choose the right one the first time around and to benefit from your investment as much as possible. You can then take a look at the different options on the market and select the one that ticks as many of your boxes as possible.

Not all CRM software is the same but they follow the same principles:

1. Import contacts
2. Clean up data
3. Assign data
4. Outline next steps
5. Set up sales pipelines
6. Create segments and filters
7. Set tasks
8. Create tickets

Examples of CRM data

CRM systems gather customer data from multiple channels where a customer has interacted with a brand, including:

• The brand’s website
• Telephone
• Email
• Live chat
• Social media
• Direct mail

In terms of the data collected for CRM, these can also include:

• Geolocation
• Purchase history
• Feedback – positive or negative
• Marital status
• Contact details
• Average review scores
• Spending habits

A good CRM system will integrate the information from all of these areas, showing you what deals are on the table, what stage they’ve reached, who you should be reaching out to and when you should reach out to them for optimal results.

Next, it’s important to fully understand your chosen CRM system. So many businesses make the mistake of investing in CRM and assuming the results will instantly roll in. This isn’t true. As with any other form of software, it has to be used wisely and effectively to have any positive impact or benefit for your business. So, fully understand your CRM systems and train relevant staff members to use it effectively and precisely too.

The secret weapon: CRM automation

Automation saves time and resources. For large amounts of CRM data, it comes in handy for boring tasks, allowing teams to track and manage their customers with ease.

Besides automating sales processes, CRM automation also empowers sales departments to focus more on difficult decisions – the kind of decisions that need human interactions. There’s also an opportunity for teams to collaborate for example sales and devs or sales and marketing.

What is the cost of CRM?

It’s relatively difficult to outline one set cost for CRM – even when focusing on one company and the CRM packages they’re providing. Ideally, companies offering CRM software would give you a set price list, detailing their prices with a per-user breakdown. But often, this isn’t the case. Costs can be hidden and obscured, so it’s important to really look into costs before getting started.

It’s also important to understand that costs differ depending on the status and reputation of your chosen CRM provider, your region, and add ons that you may need. Put simply, you need to request upfront costs before getting tied in.

Here are some examples of CRM software costs (data correct as of 2021):

• Zoho: £10 per user per month for a Standard subscription billed annually. Try it free for 14 days.
• Monday.com: Starting from £7 per user per month on a Basic package for a minimum of 3 users. Try it free for 14 days.
• Pipedrive: Starting from £12.50 per user per month on a Essential package billed annually. Try it free for 14 days.
• Less Annoying CRM: Starting from £15 per user per month. Try it free for 30 days.
• Keap: Starting from $11 per month if you sign up for 5 months on a Lite package. Try it free for 14 days.

Summary

CRM has always been important in marketing. It can help your business provide the best customer service, improve customer engagement, and build customer loyalty to your brand. It’s also essential for growth. Without it, you may find it difficult to build genuine bonds with your userbase so if you haven’t already, consider investing in your customer relationship processes.

So we’re at hand to give you 10 free CRO tools that’ll help you boost your conversion rates in 2021.

What is CRO?

CRO stands for conversion rate optimization. Your conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who complete a valuable action. For example, a valuable action could be buying a product, filling in an online form, or subscribing to a service. Conversion rate optimization is the process of improving your content and website to increase your conversions.

Example: you have 10,000 website visitors in a month and 7,000 email sign-ups. Your conversation rate would then be 7,000 ÷ 10,000 = 0.7 or 70%.

What can a CRO tool do?

CRO tools offer a range of useful features such as:

• Generalised page optimisation
• Access to page speed data
• Monitoring user behaviour
• Heatmapping
• Survey and form building
• Landing page building
• User analytics
• AI chat capabilities
• Split testing

Many of the best premium tools offer all of them while others focus on certain areas of CRO. Our list of free tools will show a mix of these features.

Why do you need a CRO tool?

Online marketing will bring users to your site, but this is of little use if visitors are not converting. With a CRO tool, you have access to data that you can use to enhance user experience. CRO analytics can identify issues like why so many users abandon their shopping carts, or why your bounce rate is so high on PPC landing pages.

Adzooma is no stranger to offering free tools so enjoy our list and get high-performing solutions without the price tag.

1. MobileMonkey

Founded by Larry Kim, MobileMonkey is a Messenger marketing platform that helps companies connect with potential leads through the use of its chatbots. The software then nurtures and convert leads. Messenger is used by over 1.3 billion people around the world, making MobileMonkey a lucrative and easy way to build chatbots and automate your Facebook marketing strategy without writing a line of code.

Key benefits

• Optimized service: MobileMonkey uses Messenger-based chatbots to deliver your customers a fast and convenient service 24/7.
• Extend reach: You can utilize the popularity of mobile devices and social media to extend your reach.
• No coding: Create AI chatbots with ease and without no coding required. It’s the perfect platform for small businesses and marketers to boost their conversion rates.

Other features of MobileMonkey include chat automation and building conversion funnels.

2. Hotjar

Hotjar is a CRO tool that analyses user behaviour and gives feedback in the form of heatmaps, surveys, and session recordings. These analyses help businesses to gauge deeper understandings of their site users and pinpoint where improvements should be made.

Key benefits

• Analyze web visitors: Hotjar lets you deploy testing and identify the stages of the funnel that are losing your conversions.
• View user behaviour: Hotjar provides a full picture of where your users scroll, tap, click and linger. Combined with Google Analytics, site owners gain great knowledge of their sites
• Heatmaps: Hotjar is best known for its heatmaps which are graphical representations of data using colour to depict site interactions.

Hotjar also deploys feedback and analysis using session recordings to help improve your conversion funnels.

3. TypeForm

TypeForm is a platform where individuals and businesses can create and manage forms and surveys. It does this by removing the challenge of obtaining feedback with more engaging forms. With Typeform, the average completion rate of its forms is 57%.

Key benefits

• Customized forms: Create the forms you need including opinion scales, multiple choice questions, and rating scales.
• Free API: This feature lets you integrate your forms with the other applications to automate your processes.
• Logic Jumps (available in paid subscriptions): use the Typeform tools in unison with your very own survey logic. Logic Jumps allow you to respond to people’s answers.

With the free plan, you also get templates, reports and metrics, and the ability to embed your typeform.

4. SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow is another survey platform, allowing brands to collect answers and opinions, and transform insights into actionable data. That user feedback contributes to boosting conversion rates as businesses enhance their website.

Key benefits

• Subaccounts & multiple users: You can manage multiple accounts, for different teams in your company under one single parent account.
• Multi-language surveys: SurveySparrow allows you to collect feedback from around the globe, in any language, using multilingual surveys.
• Visual workflows: Automate actions based on the survey triggers. When responses clock-in, set conditions and perform tasks. Configure once and forget.

With SurveySparrow, businesses can gain top insights and supercharge their CRO.

5. CrazyEgg

When it comes to free CRO tools, you can’t get much better than Crazy Egg. It’s a top website optimization platform, used to monitor user behaviour.

Key benefits

• Heat mapping: You can see where your customers are clicking, and discover which parts of your site are performing the best.
• Origin tracker: Gain insights about where your users have landed from and whether that needs to improve.
• Interactive analytics: Instead of reports, you can view your analytics with a fully interactive and intuitive UI.

Crazy Egg boasts a range of other appealing features including design testing, CRM (customer relationship management), A/B split testing tools, and scroll maps.

6. Unbounce

Unbounce is a drag-and-drop landing page builder for individuals and businesses. The platform allows users to design, test and publish landing pages in a quicker, more efficient way. Your company can improve marketing, increase leads and enhance your connection with customers.

Key benefits

• Unlimited testing: There’s no limit to the pages you can create and test with this CRO tool.
• Design assistance: Unbounce comes with a wide range of different design templates to assist you with your web pages.
• Client management: You can organize leads and manage your clients.

Regardless of your business size, Unbounce makes things simple with easy management, the ability to set permissions for each user and replicate the success of your best-performing landing pages between different accounts.

7. WebWave

WebWave’s free website builder allows you to create amazing websites effortlessly with their drag and drop tool.

Key benefits

• RWD – responsive website: You can precisely tell how a user will see your website on a computer, tablet and mobile phone.
• Animations: You have full control over animation, its direction and duration. You can add animations to every element of your website and present it in unique ways.
• Image feature: WebWave offers a range of image features, including parallax effect, ken burns effect, free stock photos, and dynamic elements size and alignment.

Their range of features gives you a range of possibilities when creating your website.

8. GTMetrix

GTMetrix analyses the performance and speed of your page plus offers valuable advice on how to make improvements. For WordPress users, you may recognise GTmetrix as a free plugin to optimise your site’s page speed.

Key benefits

• Advanced testing: GTMetrix allows you to test your website at different connection speeds, in various countries and on a range of browsers. You also get a score based on Google PageSpeed Insights and YSlow metrics.
• Page insights: GT Metrix tells you why your page is slow, so you can make changes accordingly.
• Different devices: you can see how your site loads depending on which device is being used.

Speed is an important factor in CRO so a tool like GTMetrix is worth using.

9. Google PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed Insights offers data on the speed and performance of your web pages.

Key benefits

• Suggestions: the software offers suggestions to help you improve speed and performance.
• Performance score: with a performance score, individuals can track the performance of their site, and aim to boost that score.
• Classification: find out if your site is deemed slow, moderate or fast.

If you don’t use GTMetrix, it’s essential you at least use PageSpeed Insights. It’s a valuable tool for CRO and all aspects of online marketing.

10. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the most popular analytics platform out there, it’s also one of the best free CRO tools. This Google software tool summarises data and utilizes several funnel visualization methods.

Key benefits

• Top analytics: analysing data is imperative to marketing optimisation, so let Google do what it does best!
• Advanced reporting: Google lets you know the who, how, and what of your audience, in detail.
• Budget allocation: Google separates your working site practices, from those that are not working. Using this data you can improve budget allocation.

Google Analytics is one of the main CRO tools you need in your arsenal. It gives you important insights into how your users operate and the data you obtain can be used in other tools via its dedicated API.

But ad extensions definitely improve your CTR – Google have said so themselves.

What you need are ad extensions that boost your conversions and give you a healthy ROI. They also need to be appropriate for your business. There are many different formats to choose from, including:

• Location information
• Extra text
• Call buttons
• Direct links to webpages
• Star ratings

If you’re thinking it’s a lot to take in, fret not! This article will discuss what Google and Microsoft ad extensions are, what each ad extension type does and how to choose the correct extensions for your business so you can get the most out of them.

What is an ad extension?

Ad extensions are extra pieces of information that “extend” your ads with useful features for users. Because they expand your ads, that means they take up more space on the search results page which, in itself, increases CTR. Instant bonus.

The whole point is to add as much content to your ad as possible and thanks to these extensions your ad will have higher visibility and prominence in the results, adding value and improving your ROI.

The total number of clicks usually increases, as you are providing people with extra ways to interact and contact you, such as with maps or calls for instance.

When do ad extensions appear?

Google and Microsoft can approve or disapprove extensions, just like they can with ads and keywords. Any disapproved extensions won’t show and you need to edit these and re-submit to be reviewed.

Extensions don’t appear in your ad all the time, they’ll show when:

• The extension or combination of extensions has been predicted to improve your ad performance.
• The position and rank of your ad are high enough for the extensions to show up. To show extensions, Google and Microsoft both require a minimum Ad Rank before it shows ads.

As there’s a limited amount of space in the search results, ads in the higher positions will obviously get the best chance for their extensions to show up. Generally, higher ads will have more extensions than the lower ones.

There are are free tools out like Adzooma that also give you recommendations of which ad extensions to use and where. By heading to the Opportunities tab in your Adzooma account, under best practice, you will see a number of extension Opportunities that you can apply to your account like below.

From there if you click on details you will be given a run down on how you can improve your campaigns and ad groups with these ad extensions, meaning you don’t have to spend mining down into the granular of every ad yourself.

Best practices

• Make sure you use all the extensions you feel are right for your business.
• Try adding 4 or more extensions, such as callouts, site links, structured snippets and another you feel is right for you.
• You can also create extensions at higher account levels such as account or campaign level if it suits your larger goals.
• Choose extensions to achieve your main goal
• Use software to speed up the process

Location extensions

These extensions show your location and a link to your business details page, which can include your opening hours, directions etc. Their details can encourage physical visits to your premises. If you’d prefer them to call a centralized line, as opposed to a specific location, you can use call extensions within your location extensions.

Sitelink extensions

Use these to link people directly to specific pages on your site, such as your opening hours, product page or your order page.

Affiliate location extensions

This will help people find retail chain stores that sell your products.

App extensions

You can easily encourage people to download your app.

Callout extensions

Callout extensions can help your conversions by offering more beneficial info, such as “free delivery” or “24/7 customer support.”

Call extensions

By adding your phone number to your ad, you’ll encourage people to act immediately and call your business right now. That’s why call extensions are so handy.

Message extensions

These obviously encourage people to text you straight from your ad.

Structured snippet extensions

With this, you can show more info customers may find valuable and attractive, by selecting a predefined header such as a product or service category and listing relevant items.

Price extensions

Showcase your products, categories and prices so people can browse right from your ad. Only available in select countries.

Promotion extensions

Promotion extensions display special sales, discounts, and offers. Perfect for seasonal ads during Christmas, Black Friday, back-to-school, or Valentine’s Day.

Automated ad extensions

Review extensions

The ability to add useful quotes or rankings from published sources, is available on desktop in select languages.

Automated call extensions

General call extension can be added manually but Google and Microsoft may ad automated call extensions if your website has a contact number and you have call-based business goals or specific call campaigns.

Automated message extensions

These don’t require any set up either. Google and Microsoft may use automated message extensions if you’ve set business goals regarding receiving text messages.

Dynamic sitelink extensions

Dynamic sitelink extensions add the most relevant sitelinks to your search ads, allowing users to connect to your site directly from your ad to what they need.

Dynamic structured snippet extensions

Dynamic structured snippets add more descriptive text that helps people understand a business’s range of products and services. Using these extensions can improve CTR (click-through rate) and ROI (return on investment).

Google or Microsoft?

It shouldn’t be Google or Microsoft. It should be Google and Microsoft.

Advertising across multiple marketing channels is the key to success. Just like you wouldn’t neglect the radio if you were advertising on TV, just because you’re advertising on Google you shouldn’t neglect Microsoft.

Microsoft’s audience reaches 63 million users that Google doesn’t, while those users are both more affluent and educated in comparison to Google. Plus, the cost per click is so, so much cheaper on Microsoft in comparison as our research shows.

Not advertising on Microsoft yet? You can get $125 in free ad spend when you spend $25, thanks to our exclusive offer.

Then connect your account to Adzooma and manage both your Google and Microsoft campaigns from one screen.

Conclusion

Ad extensions can be beneficial to your business as they target your a more specific customer base.

Their value lies in the fact you can easily focus on the goal you want to achieve, such as increase click-through rates to your site, visits to your store, calls straight through to your business and much more.

They’re free and with a little practice they’re easy to implement, so it seems a waste not to use them. Particularly with callout and call extensions, they can make or break a conversion.

Yes, you need to spend a little time really getting to know them and it will be time well spent doing your research on each one and testing a few so you can see the difference they make to your results.

With a little time and practice, you could see a big difference in the number of people that actually engage with your business. The whole point of these extensions is to efficiently and cost-effectively increase clicks to your site, viewer engagement and ultimately, your bottom line.

Working with a website design agency is the best way to ensure you develop a site that cultivates a strong online presence. Of course, some agencies are better than others.

Similarly, the way you interact with your designer makes a huge difference. In this post, we’ll go over the main points to help you get the most out of your web design agency, ensuring your site is a success!

1. Have a plan

To start, you need to have a plan of action.

Look at your business and consider what type of website you need to produce. Is it going to be a detailed site that operates as an online store with hundreds of product pages? Some companies only need a landing page and a couple of other web pages to provide info and contact details.

It depends on what you sell and who your target market is. This will help you come up with a plan that your web design agency can look at and put into action.

2. Work with your agency, not against them

The most common issue between agencies and clients is communication. Granted, the channels are always there and always open but intentions can get misinterpreted if neither side explains themselves. But that can be fixed; you need to work with your agency to further your goals.

If you require a solution to a problem, you should outline what that issue is in a concise way and provide the solution(s) if you know them. You should also stay connected to your agency and offer insights into your business or extra information that helps them develop a better website.

This not only gives your communication more structure, it also feeds into the stability of your client-agency relationship, resulting in the best site for your business.

3. Responsive web design is key

As we’ve already mentioned, you will find a plethora of website design agencies in your area. The best ones all have one thing in common – they offer responsive web design.

Responsive design is critical to user experience so your website can look the same on different devices and screen sizes. Alongside that, with Google using mobile-first indexing by default, it’s important your design is responsive to avoid a decrease in SEO performance.

4. Don’t forget UX and accessibility

UX (user experience) is arguably the most important aspect of website design. When hiring a web design agency, they must provide exceptional UX design.

The easier it is for someone to use your website, the more time they spend on it. Conversely, what happens when your site isn’t built around user experience? It takes ages to load up, things are hard to search for, and menu buttons are unresponsive, and bad UX leads to high bounce rates and poor conversion rates.

Within that, your website should also be accessible to all users and the best web design agencies will understand that.

Some things to consider for accessibility:

• Images with alt text
• Audio or video with captions
• Appropriate colour contrasts
• Larger body text
• Using hyperlinks rather than JavaScript links
• Navigation that can be controlled with a keyboard or mouse
• Correctly labelled forms
• No flashing pages or text

Make sure any web agency you talk to takes UX design and accessibility into consideration, to avoid alienating a large number of users who may have used your product or service if they could access your site.

5. Put a huge focus on SEO

SEO is another key part of a strong web design (and works with UX and accessibility). An excellent way to determine if a web design agency is right for you is if they outline their plans for SEO. We’ve already covered a few critical elements that improve a site’s SEO. UX design is a big one—it could cost you ranking positions.

Find SEO agencies for your business on Adzooma Marketplace today.

6. Ensure you get what you pay for

The final point is to pay close attention to what the web design agency offers you.

You need to ensure they deliver on any promises and provide you with exactly what you paid for. If you’ve paid for a responsive website, and yours doesn’t work on mobile devices.

Be clear about what your aims/goals are, ensuring the agency meets all of these targets.

The bottom line is that you can save a lot of time hiring a web design agency. Not only that, but you call upon people with expertise in this field, allowing you to create something that improves your online presence.

The best course of action is to figure out your budget, then search for agencies that align with it. On Adzooma Marketplace, you can filter your search by budget and save time during your search.

Find success with Adzooma Marketplace

Follow the tips in this post to be sure that you get the most out of your partnership! On Adzooma Marketplace, we have a great selection of web design agencies with top agencies such as Arren Marketing, think3, and PMD.

Find the right web agency today on Adzooma Marketplace.

What do digital agencies do?

To expand on the brief description in the introduction, digital agencies work alongside you and your business to handle the creative, technical, and strategical side of any digital products or services that you’re selling.

This could mean the development of your website or the marketing plan to promote a new product. Some digital agencies only offer certain services, but the bigger brands that you could choose to collaborate with will usually provide a range of services from website development, all the way to e-commerce consulting.

Consumers are so connected to the social media world that it’s now more important than ever to consult with digital agencies to tackle the marketing your business requires.

So here are the top ten digital agencies that you should consider to achieve your business goals.

1. We Rise Online

We Rise Online are experts in Facebook and Instagram advertising based in Eastleigh, helping business owners achieve their ambitions and increase their profits.

Social media marketing is in high demand and We Rise has proven how cheap and well-targeted it can be as a platform. Their services include:

• Free social media business page audits
• Facebook ad creation and management
• Weekly and monthly analytics updates
• Competitor analysis
• Email list building
• Tracking & re-targeting

2. Digital Insights

Digital Insights is a specialist consultancy that knows a thing or two about digital data. The team gives clients the confidence to “act, innovate and make necessary changes” with a data-led approach to support.

We believe that having the right data is the cornerstone of all digital marketing, CRO and E-commerce activities – This is our core activity and strength.

We provide bespoke support and services to our clients – Every business is different and has unique needs. We want to make a difference.

Their services include:

• Digital Analtyics Audits
• Tracking Solution Design
• Implementation & Integration
• Analysis
• Reporting & Dashboards
• Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

3. Huzz Digital

Huzz is a digital agency with a difference. Their core focuses are on organic social media marketing and software development.

Our company has helped to generate over 10,000,000 followers for clients, developed software automation tools across social media, built award winning website and foremost delivered ROI results for our clients, no matter the budget! 

Huzz offers influencer marketing through the usual channels—Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok—thanks to a dedicated team of social specialists. Their approach is a consistent, collaborative, and holistic and allows clients to create and build more engaged audiences.

Services include:

• Content marketing
• Branding and strategy
• Marketing automation
• Software development
• SEO
• Social Media
• Viral marketing
• Influencer marketing

4. Mocha Marketing

Mocha Marketing is made up of people with years of client-side experience. That gives them an edge on their competitors with a speciality in creating strategies for success.

We are not just another marketing agency. Our board of directors are made up of people who like you, have spent years being the client and appointing agencies. It was from this experience that led us to launch Mocha Marketing some years ago. We know exactly what a client needs from their external partner and our client promises are made up from our own experience of being in your shoes.

Previous clients include Hope Against Cancer, Harrier Health & Safety, London Rd Hair, and Joel LaRosa Design.

5. SQ Digital

SQ Digital, based in Lancashire, specialises in creating and applying digital marketing strategies to help SMBs online.

The agency mixes a variety of digital disciplines, including SEO, content marketing, and paid media, to increase traffic, search visibility, and boost sales.

Services include:

• SEO
• Content Marketing
• Social Media
• Paid Search
• Digital PR

SQ Digital are also Google-certified mobile web specialists and specialists in WordPress & WooCommerce website design and development.

6. Content Loop Digital

Content Loop Digital is an internet marketing group based in Singapore specialising in SEO, PPC, social media marketing, CRO, and web design.

They follow the five C’s of marketing:

• Content
• Convey
• Connect
• Contact
• Convert

We believe in delivering great results that will pay for itself, and produce profits for your business. That’s why we don’t lock you in with long-term contracts. We are so confident that you will like our work that after the first month, you will want to continue working with us.

7. DigiMentals

DigiMentals is a digital marketing agency based in Bulgaria, offering high-performing marketing strategies to eCommerce clients across Europe and the US. Using their 3 pillars of marketing—SEO, PPC and website audits— they have helped a range of brands, start-ups, and big enterprises to succeed online.

The ever-growing online business needs people to support it and carry it through the rough times. We help starting businesses grow fast and stable with guaranteed success over time. We also provide a sustainable scale YoY for established organizations with established marketing efforts.

Previous eCommerce clients have come from industries such as home automation, furniture, beauty products, and CBD.

8. Zelst Digital Marketing

Zelst is a digital marketing agency based in Harrogate.

They help clients to improve their search visibility and achieve return on investment through creative and strategic inbound marketing.

We call it digital growth marketing, and it’s as beautifully simple and elegant as it sounds. We put brands in the right place, at the right time, in front of the right people in the digital marketplace. Whilst SEO, PPC and all those other acronyms may sound complicated, at the core your marketing is binary: it works or it doesn’t. You either gain appropriate visibility, leads and customers, or you don’t.

Services include:

• SEO
• Organic and paid social
• Content creation, strategy and development
• Email marketing
• Link building
• Reporting
• Website audits

9. tidma

We travel to Sweden for the penultimate agency in our list. tidma describes itself as a “complete digital agency” with the aim of taking businesses in the right direction by streamlining and developing their enterprises.

We can improve your business by developing different strategies that give you the results you are looking for. This will make it easier for you to do good and smarter business that will also give you more satisfied customers and results. Most often it starts with the first meeting between us as we go through your situation, where we reach what goals you want to achieve. After that, we agree on a plan and strategy with a time-line.

Previous clients include ABG Egypt, NS Accounting, and Schemic.

10. Every 1

And finally, we have Lancaster-based agency, Every 1.

The award-winning team at Every 1 is filled with marketing specialists, who know how to get a brand to reach its customers with effective strategies and campaigns.

We create tailor-made strategies that focus on the growth of the client and their ongoing goals. Your success is our success and we want to be part of that. From fulfilling conversions to getting queues outside shop fronts, whatever the outcome you’re after, we deliver the right campaigns to drive results.

Their previous clients include Hippo Motor Group, Rossall School, PFP Energy, and AO.com

Conclusion

Digital agencies can offer so many unique benefits to their clients but the goals are often very similar. It’s about establishing yourself online, generating leads, and improving revenue through increased sales.

If some of your goals match up with those, considering employing a digital marketing agency and discover the right agency for you on Adzooma Marketplace today.

A digital marketing agency takes out the stress and time taken to make that happen by helping businesses measure their efforts and create engaging campaigns and strategies.

So we’ve scoured the Web and our Marketplace to look for the best digital marketing agencies in London, specialising in SEO, PPC, social media marketing, digital PR and more.

1. The Brains

The Brains works with B2B businesses, health clinics and classes and high ticket consumer purchases to help create permanent solutions to their lead generation and digital marketing needs. Specialising in digital advertising, content and marketing automation, the Brains are experts that simplify everything into one proven lead generation system that generates high demands for your services or products.

They offer a range of digital marketing services from content strategy and online advertising to SEO, PPC and email marketing – if you need to increase sales, deliver ROI or improve your website’s conversion rate then The Brains is the right agency for you.

Previous clients: DHL, McDonald’s, Education First, Corgi

2. Monumental Marketing

Monumental Marketing was born out of the very straightforward idea that great digital marketing and PR should be available to all companies – regardless of size or budgets.

As a growth marketing agency in London, they focus on creating and growing businesses through multi-channel marketing to ensure that their clients always meet their goals. After representing and working with a number of clients across sectors, Monumental Marketing was awarded Best Growth Marketing Agency 2020 by The Business Excellence Awards.

Previous clients: The Dungeons, Theatre Royal, JustSpecs, Biopanda

3. Temper

Temper is a digital consultancy that delivers. They specialise in uncovering opportunities and unlocking digital growth to attract customers whilst collecting data to encourage smart decision making.

They build digital-first brands that are consumed with technology and shaped by data. Their people-first approach increases brand engagement captures valuable data and converts visitors into customers.

Temper has delivered growth to a diverse range of clients, including new ventures SME’s, corporates and consumer brands.

Previous clients: Nandos, EDF Energy, Five Guys, HSBC, Europcar

4. VDesign

Established in 2014, VDesign is a creative digital media company providing products and services to accelerate your business further through design, development and marketing. They have grown with a variety of network contacts such as investors to company owners in different industries.

Collectively with over 25 years experience in the design, marketing and development field, VDesign can cover a range of services from branding to developing products to launch your online career.

Previous clients: Florio’s D’Italia, Cyberox, NHK AST, Fabbri Boots

5. FuzeIQ

FuzeIQ is a leading alternative prospecting agency, working with B2B companies to unravel and supercharge their sales growth by combining good old fashioned know-how with modern technology.

They are on a mission to revolutionise how companies engage with prospective clients, win more business and do away with tedious tasks. FuzeIQ has helped hundreds of companies to supercharge their sales and take the stress out of generating new business.

Previous clients: Vodafone, Mastercard, Unilever, Indeed.

6. Reach

Reach has a main focus on making your life easier, by delivering business-changing results, and sharing their expertise and resources to reach more people, more often, more meaningfully.

They work collaboratively with businesses, and offer fresh perspectives and solve tough problems that drive the bottom line, generating more growth and profit by attracting and retaining customers. 

As the UK’s largest news publisher, with more than 42 million people visiting their online network every month. They are everything you’d expect from a media brand: accountable, creative, flexible and personable. 

Previous clients: Google, Vodafone, Harveys, Community Fund

7. Spread Like Wildfire Media

Spread Like Wildfire Media is a marketing company that moves to the beat of their clients’ drum.

With offices in London and Manchester, the agency has put focus in building better marketing strategies for businesses in light of the COVID-19 outbreak. But they can do so much more than that.

Spread Like Wildfire Media doesn’t believe in a ‘one size fits all’ approach to marketing. We provide bespoke solutions to fit your needs

The features a Malaysian videographer who loves Starbucks, an anime-loving editor from Birmingham, two Scouse web design and SEO experts, and a brand specialist who went to the same university as the founder.

Previous clients: Luminant Pictures, Movielux Entertainment Ltd

Conclusion

Digital agencies can provide numerous benefits to brands. They can assist them in becoming established online and therefore generate leads and sales.

If you want a wider range of digital marketing agencies in London, try Adzooma Marketplace and find the right agency for your business.

While RFPs (Request for Proposal) were traditionally used as well as human negotiations and manual insertion orders, the buying and selling of ad inventory through an automated bidding system in real-time help brands and agencies to purchase ad impressions on publisher sites.

Using programmatic advertising relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to evaluate users based on factors, such as behaviour and demographics to ascertain, which ad should be shown to each user.

For this article, we’ll look at how it all works and whether it’s worth the investment.

Types of programmatic advertising

1. Real-Time Bidding (RTB)

Also known as open auction or open marketplace, the ad slots are sold in real-time, through an open auction, where the highest bidder gets the spot. While RTB is easy to set up, as advertisers don’t know the exact publisher websites their ads will appear, it can prove frustrating.

2. Private Marketplace (PMP)

Similar to RTB, Private Marketplace is only available to advertisers on an invite-only basis. The advertiser using PMPs knows the websites their ads are going to be on.

3. Preferred Deals

Also known as spot buying, advertisers can use preferred deals to choose the ad inventory at a fixed price before it is made available on private marketplaces.

4. Programmatic Guaranteed

Also known as programmatic direct or automated guaranteed, this is used by advertisers that know where their ads should go. It consists of the advertiser and publisher negotiating the terms on a one-on-one basis, which a more traditional model and doesn’t follow a bidding process, allowing for more choice in terms of ad inventories. 

Benefits of programmatic advertising

Programmatic advertising comes with a variety of benefits, including:

Real-time insights

Programmatic advertising gives advertisers real-time breakdowns of their ad campaigns to gather more information about their target audience and campaign more effectively.

Enhanced targeting capabilities

Connecting with your target audience is a vital component of advertising, and you can use two main approaches to achieve this:

• Combining first and third-party data to improve the audience profile, guaranteeing you are reaching out to them with precision.
• Using contextual programmatic advertising, getting data from user profiles and page content helps to deliver ads at where it’s most appropriate. 

More transparency in the business

It allows advertisers to trace their ads’ performance concerning the campaign and budget to yield better ROI while also reducing human error.

Helps tackle ad fraud 

As publishers have been implementing various fraudulent tactics, using programmatic advertising platforms allows advertisers to evaluate a publisher in real-time based on the performance of their ads and can choose a platform who is ethical and can deliver results. Reputable platforms have protective methods in place, such as blockers that stop fake bot traffic.

How much does it cost?

Programmatic advertising is useful for businesses with limited budgets, traded on a CPM basis (cost per 1,000 ad impressions). The average cost of a programmatic CPM is between $0.50 to $2 CPM, which, when you compare it to human-driven trading, which can be around $10, is significantly cheaper.

How to use data effectively

In this competitive world, where data appears to hold the key, it’s about having a far more fundamental understanding of what it can represent. With each item of data, you can acquire significant behavioural insights from it to start on the first steps to achieving an efficient programmatic strategy.

Data can comprise of three tiers.

• First-party data is the data the advertiser holds on its customers.
• Second-party data is collected by a third party, like an agency, who shares the information with the brand to create a programmatic strategy structure.
• Third-party data is available to anyone at a cost. When you consider the data you have, focusing beyond the numbers and thinking about data as customers or potential customers is key to engaging them.

Many companies are using programmatic advertising to get away from other targeted methods of advertising. You can use data to find new prospects, grow your brand, and achieve the right balance.

Examples of programmatic ad campaigns

Many big names have used programmatic advertising to great effect: 

• Google used programmatic advertising to promote its Google Search app and increased its brand awareness by 50%, reached 30% more people 3x more frequently, and lowered CPM 30% more than the previous year.
• Kellogg used programmatic advertising to drive offline sales and saw a 70% increase in viewability rates and 2x-3x better audience targeting.
• But it’s not just being used for products. The UK charity Missing People used programmatic advertising to help raise awareness and response rates for missing children. Using location targeting, advanced targeting options and location-based ads encouraged users to sign up, response rates increased from 50% to 70%.

Is programmatic ad buying worth the investment in 2020?

Programmatic advertising spend is increasing every year, and is expected to be used for the vast majority of display advertising soon.

88% of display ads in 2021 in the US are thought to be bought programmatically, and 65% of European and UK brands already use programmatic advertising.

With 86% of those brands using in-house programmatic capability, it’s clear to see this is one of the key methods of online advertising to bolster any business brand. Keeping ahead of the curve is crucial for any company, and programmatic ad buying is undoubtedly worth the investment.

Having a pitch deck is a good start, but having a compelling pitch deck is even better. Creating the perfect pitch deck will help your agency to achieve more.

Read: How Do Advertising Agencies Get New Clients?

What is a pitch deck?

A pitch deck is a short presentation that provides a brief overview of your business plan. It gives you a tool to use during meetings with prospective clients that you can rely on whenever you need it.

You can create a pitch deck using software like Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote for Mac, Visme, or Prezi. There are several elements to include in a pitch deck, as well as various things that you can do to ensure you nail the pitch.

Here are 7 ways that you can create the perfect agency pitch deck so that it’s ready to go when you need it.

1. Research your dream client

Before putting your pitch deck together, you need to know whom you are making it for. Start by thinking about who your dream client is and finding out more about them.

The more information you have, the better you will be able to tailor your pitch to them. It will help you to outline your objectives and understand what your ideal client wants to hear from an agency.

Some of the things that you should consider about your dream client include:

• Their products or services
• The history of their company
• Key people within the company
• How many people are in their in-house team
• Their budget

When you have this information about your dream client, you will be able to create a pitch deck that is made with them in mind.

2. Demonstrate your USP

What makes you different from any other agency? Demonstrating your USP is one of the most important things that you can tell a prospective client. It lets them know why they should choose you over your competitors.

You should know your USP well already, but it’s also worth spending some time nailing it down and thinking about how you can not just tell people about it but show them how you put it into practice.

This might involve allowing your potential client to get to know your team and see what they can gain from working with them, as well as talking about your agency’s values.

3. Personalise your pitch

When you are making a pitch to a client, you have the opportunity to personalise it to match them. Like you should personalise other things in life, such as your CV when applying for a job, you must tailor each pitch to the client.

If you don’t take the time to personalise your pitch deck, there could be parts of it that don’t ring true for your prospective client. When you know about what they are already doing, you can pitch some ideas for what they can do next that make sense for them.

As well as thinking about what you will include in their advertising campaign, you can also consider the client’s budget and what they will be able to afford. Break down the different activities you will recommend to the client and how much each one could cost.

4. Explain your marketing strategy

A potential client needs what your marketing strategy will include—the key facts on what your agency can do for them. They need to have a clear idea of what services you will be providing them, as well as what you will measure to understand your results.

Lastly, you also need to let them know how often you will be reporting on the metrics that you will be measuring.

Tell your prospective client what you will be spending their money on and how your methods are cost-effective, as well as how they will deliver the results that you want.

5. Include case studies

You tell your potential client that you can get results, but how will they know if they can trust you? Including case studies in your pitch deck is the perfect way to demonstrate what you can do.

Clients want to know more about your agency before they decide if you are the right choice for their needs. When you include case studies in your pitch deck, you present them with the information that they need to make an assessment.

Demonstrate your track record by showing what you have done for previous clients and the results that you have achieved.

6. Keep things succinct

Your pitch deck shouldn’t be too long or overly involved. An information dump is boring, confusing, and time-consuming. Be sure to share valuable information, but keep things as succinct as you can.

Finally, summarise your points and lay out all the main facts again to refresh their memories.

7. Be open to questions

Make sure that your pitch isn’t just a one-way conversation. By letting potential clients know that you are open to questions, you can allow them to be more involved.

You can ask them if they have any questions to allow them to speak up about any concerns or anything that they feel you haven’t mentioned.

Thank them for their time and provide your contact information so that they can get in touch through various channels.

Final thoughts

Your agency pitch deck is your chance to convince a potential client that you’re the right choice for them. When you’re designing it, remember to use your brand colours and logo, as well as include visual elements for an eye-catching experience.

Make sure that it’s easy to read so that your prospective client doesn’t need to strain to take in all of the information.

In this article, I’ll look at several factors that you should take into account to help you choose between the two and how a hybrid approach might work.

In-house vs agency: what’s the difference?

As the name suggests, an in-house team comprises of a business’s own employees (or sometimes contract workers) who may form a dedicated department. They work for you and you alone, allowing them to focus on your brand.

An agency, on the other hand, is an external company that provides the services that you need. You will need to help them understand your brand, but they will have a team of experts who can deliver skilled assistance with your marketing.

Both in-house teams and agencies have their benefits, so it’s smart to take some time to understand how each one might be better than the other.

The benefits of an agency

There are several advantages to choosing an agency over an in-house team.

Agencies are highly skilled

When you work with an agency, or sometimes more than one agency, you have access to the best skills and expertise in that field. Most in-house teams are unlikely to cover everything to an equal standard or have the time to do so depending on the size of your business. However, if you choose an agency, you get a powerful team, and it can be much more cost-effective.

They stay on top of the latest trends

Agencies work with a variety of other clients, which can be a positive thing for you. In terms of creativity, it can help them to stay innovative because they’re not focused on just one brand at all times. If they work with different industries and businesses, it can help to keep them on their toes.

Agencies offer honest, objective opinions

You might think all your ideas are the best but getting a second opinion from an external source is priceless. You need a fresh pair of eyes to tell you whether something is likely to work or not. Agencies have enough experience to provide that but, inversely, don’t know enough about your business to just go along with what you say.

Better access to tools = better analysis

Most marketing tools come with a monthly subscription fee and that can be a significant outlay for smaller businesses. But the one-off cost for an agency includes analysis from those tools and it’s that analysis that can give you the edge against your competitors.

The benefits of an in-house team

Having an in-house team over an agency could be the right choice for your business.

Full focus

One benefit of an in-house team is that they are entirely focused on your brand. They already know your brand and what it stands for, meaning that you don’t have to bring them up to speed as you do with an agency. They also have a good understanding of your direct competitors. This allows them to be creative while remaining on-brand at all times.

You can create a diverse team

You also have the opportunity to create a diverse team in all senses of the word: in terms of race, gender and sexuality, and creativity, for example. Not only does this offer the best results, but it also helps to represent all your customers.

Better communication

Working with an in-house team can often be faster than working with an agency too. There are no other clients to consider, and you can quickly communicate with your team. Prioritising tasks can be easier when you’re able to instruct your team to drop everything else and work on what’s most important. This is more difficult to do with an agency, which may have other clients to focus on.

It can be cheaper

A one-off payment to an agency might sound enticing and, in some cases, more cost-effective, but what if you need regular marketing? If that’s the case, an in-house team is a lot cheaper. For more on those kinds of costs, read our article on

Factors to consider when making your choice

When you’re deciding whether it’s better to work with an agency or an in-house team for your marketing efforts, you should consider a number of key factors.

1. What are your goals?

Define your goals so that you can explore the best strategies for meeting them. Either an agency or an in-house team might be a better option to help you fulfil your goals.

Although this focuses on PPC, our PPC roadmap guide can offer some inspiration for goals you could set.

2. What skills do they offer?

Take a look at the skills that are available when making your choice. Agencies may have more to offer, but you might need to consider combining several agencies to get what you need.

Here’s a list of articles we’ve written about agencies and what they offer:

• 8 Best SEO Agencies in 2020
• 7 Best Photography Agencies in The UK
• 7 Best UX Design Agencies
• 10 Best Content Marketing Agencies of 2020
• Top 11 Branding Agencies of 2020
• 7 Best Video Marketing Agencies
• 6 Top CRM Agencies in the UK
• The 10 Best Digital Marketing Agencies In Nottingham

3. What are the costs?

Using an agency is often more cost-effective than an in-house team. You need to consider office space, salaries and taxes, tools, and other expenses that an in-house team can generate over time.

4. How long will it take?

The length of the campaign is an important factor to consider too. How long will it take to get the results that you want? Are you looking at a short-term campaign or something more long-term and sustained?

Read: How Much Time Can You Save By Hiring An Agency?

5. Will you be a priority?

If you use an agency, will they prioritise your needs? This is something that an in-house team will do, but an agency can still dedicate themselves to helping you achieve your goals.

6. How easy is the communication?

In 2014, Tim Leake, SVP growth and innovation at RPA, turned the results of a study they did about client/agency relationships into a campaign of its own, dubbed “The Naked Truth”. One of the “four pillars of truth” that affected trust was “considering we’re communication companies, we suck at communication”

Good communication is vital if you want things to run smoothly. Contact with an in-house team can be quicker, but agencies also have plenty of tools that help them out.

7. What tools do they use?

The right tools can make a big difference. Be sure to find out which tools are used and how they will make your marketing campaign better.

What about the hybrid approach?

Another alternative to choosing either an agency or an in-house team is to consider both. The hybrid approach combines your in-house staff with an agency to help you get the best of both worlds.

If you decide to go with this option, you could benefit from the outside perspective and skillsets of an agency while also having your in-house team, who know your brand inside-out and can prioritise the most important tasks. An agency can fill in the gaps left by an in-house team so that all bases are covered.

Both in-house teams and agencies offer their own pros and cons. When you assess each option, you can find the correct choice for your requirements.

A high Quality Score can lead to higher-performing campaigns by ensuring that your ads get displayed in the right places. The following guide can help you to understand your Google Ads Quality Score better as well as helping you to improve it.

What is a Quality Score?

Your Quality Score takes the form of a number between 1 and 10 (10 being the best and 1 being the worst). You can find it on your Google Ads account under the Quality Score column.

Your Quality Score is an aggregated estimate of your overall performance in ad auctions. It is used to determine the placement of your ads and can impact the amount of money that you pay on ads before you start seeing results.

How is Quality Score calculated?

Your Quality Score is calculated using data from past campaigns as well as the use of keywords. It is a mixture of three things:

• Your ad relevance
• Your expected CTR
• Your landing page experience

Ad relevance is calculated by measuring how closely related your keyword is to your advert. The more related your keywords are to your ads, the higher your quality score.

Ad relevance makes up about 22% of your Quality Score.

Expected CTR (click-through rate) determines how likely your keywords are to result in clicks. The average CTR for search ads is 1.91%, while the average CTR for display ads is 0.35%.

Expected CTR makes up 39% of your Quality Score (so it’s quite an important aspect).

Landing page experience, meanwhile, is a measure of how well your landing page matches up with your ad and keywords (does the text on the landing page relate to the keywords you have used?).

Landing page experience equally equates to 39% of your Quality Score.

Why is it important?

Your Quality Score is important because it has a profound impact on how well your ad campaign performs. Lower Quality Scores contribute significantly to wasted ad spend.

Ultimately, the higher the Quality Score, the less you pay for clicks so, in turn, that brings down the cost per conversion (CPC) and increases your return on investment (ROI).

Relationship with Ad Rank

Quality Score also has an impact on your Ad Rank, the position in which your PPC ad sits on the SERPs. If you have a high Quality Score, you are more likely to rank higher – which could mean more clicks.

Ways to improve your Quality Score

There are ways in which you can improve your Quality Score to get more success out of your campaigns. Below are just some of the strategies you can use.

1. Use single keyword ad groups (SKAGs)

Using single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) can help to target your ads towards those specific search terms.

When using multiple keywords in an ad group, you could find that there’s a higher chance of triggering your ads by related broad search terms rather than the specific search terms you intended. If people click on your ads after entering these broad search terms, it can demonstrate a low CTR that will negatively impact your Quality Score.

Single keyword ad groups will increase the chance of your ad being triggered by matching search terms instead of related broad terms. This demonstrates a higher CTR and will positively impact your Quality Score.

2. Use single theme ad groups (STAGs)

The one issue with SKAGs is that you have to create so many separate ad groups and launch so many campaigns to target each desired keyword. An alternative to SKAGs than can be less painstaking is single theme ad groups (STAGs).

These ad groups contain multiple keywords, but every keyword is closely related. The similarity helps to focus the search terms that will trigger your ads, ensuring that they are a close match to your keywords.

It’s worth doing some research into keyword match types to understand close variants and broad matches better.

3. Offer relevant ad content with ad extensions

Your adverts and ad extensions must be relevant to the keywords that you are trying to target. When creating search engine ads, make sure that the keyword you are targeting is within the ad text. This will show apparent ad relevancy and is likely to boost your Quality Score.

4. Improve the landing page

Landing page experience can also have an effect on your Quality Score. Make sure that your landing page contains text that is similar to that in your ad and that the user can find targeted keywords in the landing page copy.

Other aspects of your landing page can also make an impact. If your landing page loads slowly or has poor navigation or isn’t mobile-compatible, this could reduce your Quality Score. Make sure that the landing page isn’t slow and that it is user-friendly.

Here are some tools that you can use to make sure your landing pages are the best they can be:

• Landingi
• Weebly
• Unbounce
• Wishpond
• Instapage
• Zyro

Read: How To Optimise Your PPC Campaigns for Mobile

5. Promote trust

Transparency and honesty affect your Quality Score. Make sure that your ad doesn’t deceive people in any way (for instance, if your ad is promoting a discount – make sure that you’re offering the same discount on your landing page). Make contact information easy to find and avoid any vagueness as to what your company does.

Don’t give Google any impression that you’re trying to hide information from them or deceive customers. If you do, your Quality Score will likely reduce, and your ads will be mostly ineffective.