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Tips & Tricks

Building the Ultimate MarTech Stack: 100 Tips

MarTech stacks. You’ve heard about them, and you likely use components of them, but you still may not be able to nail down a succinct definition of one. Think of a MarTech stack as a collection of technologies from various companies that help you attract and maintain customers. Vis-a-vis a child building with blocks, marketers need to build their MarTech stacks with a strong foundation for them to stand up to the task. That foundation must be made of reputable software and technology tools that help you work efficiently and effectively.

To help you build the ultimate MarTech stack, we have gathered 101 tips from top marketers, MarTech authorities, leading software and technology providers, and other experts in the field. To help you find the information most useful for your situation, we have categorized them for easy reference; however, our 100 tips for building the ultimate MarTech stack are not ranked or rated in any particular order.

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Analytics Tips

“In a relationship, it’s the small, everyday gestures that tend to mean the most.” – Alexis Hall

1. Pay attention to microconversions. “In a relationship, it’s the small, everyday gestures that tend to mean the most.

“For marketers, this means, don’t ignore the microconversions. Especially, when you are working with a long buying cycle, it is crucial for marketers to pay attention to all the microconversions which are happening on and off-site. Like a white paper download, a Facebook comment, or a video view. All of these small conversions, leading up to the purchase or Demo Request, are meaningful interactions [with] your customers.  Marketers should use analytics in order to monitor the channels driving those microconversions, as well as monitoring the microconversions to determine how they lead to the ultimate conversion.” – Alexis Hall, How to Make Love Stay: 6 Ways B2B Marketing Analytics is Like A RelationshipTopRank Marketing; Twitter: @toprank

2. Maximize small data with predictive analytics. “Once you’re looking at the right data in the right amounts, predictive analytics can help you identify and analyze usage patterns. For example, an online retailer might use predictive analytics to discover the different ways that their customers interact with them such as how often they log on to the website, use features like search, or contact customer service. Of course, these different events present new opportunities. Potential customers might search for a specific term when they’re ready to buy or search two related items and be primed for an upsell–cues that marketers can use to inform their campaigns.

“Using predictive analysis, you can gain a better idea of what to look for and optimize your campaigns for the best possible outcomes.” – Loretta Jones, 4 Tips to Make the Most of Predictive AnalyticsMarketo; Twitter: @marketo

“The invaluable insights gathered in these data pools can help marketers to improve content strategy, capture attention, and more.” – Adtaxi

3. Leverage analytics tools that enable you to drill-down into deeper levels of data. “Marketers should drill down deep into the demographics and geo subsections of audience, the content drilldown and landing/exit pages of the behavior section, and the all traffic/channels portion of the acquisition section. The invaluable insights gathered in these data pools can help marketers to improve content strategy, capture attention, and more.” – Google Analytics Tips to Improve Marketing StrategiesAdtaxi; Twitter: @Adtaxi

4. Approach your analytics dashboard from a marketing ROI standpoint. “Numbers may not lie, but they can get overwhelming – and fast. In the marketing sphere, we tend to stress the importance of marketing analytics and measurements, and yet with so many different KPIs to examine – social media followers, post likes, email open rates, website visitors, website bounce rates, etc. – it can be tough to know exactly which ones to track. If you allow yourself to get lost in the numbers, it’s easy to fall into a state of paralysis by analysis. Instead, take a step back and approach your analytics dashboards from a more rational standpoint – one that puts the focus on maximizing your ROI.” – Carolyn Menz, Marketing Analytics & Measurement DashboardsParadigm Marketing and Design; Twitter: @ParadigmMDesign

“The only thing worse than the wrong answer is the right answer to the wrong question.” – Joshua Reynolds

5. Ask better questions based on your data. “The only thing worse than the wrong answer is the right answer to the wrong question. And some of the most pernicious side effects of unpredictability are the unknown unknowns.

“If you don’t know what questions would yield the best insights, then let your data whisper to you and guide you to smarter questions. Explanatory analytics solutions can help you explore how strong certain correlations are.

“The simple act of scanning your data for strong correlation signals can sometimes lead you to serendipitous discoveries that make a huge difference. Learning how to let your data lead you to smarter questions is going to create massive advantages for marketing organizations in 2016 and beyond.” – Joshua Reynolds, Auto-Tune for Marketing: Tips For Using Analytics To Plan, Execute And Adjust Your Marketing Strategy In Real TimeMarTech Today; Twitter: @martech_today

6. Measure total lead attribution. “You want to track the metrics for every stage of your sales funnel, especially where leads are concerned. The leads you generate are the lifeblood of your business, and they’re likely the primary reason for your content marketing.

“Track this metric by looking at the number of leads generated from form completions, such as offer opt-ins, trial signups, and email subscribers.” – Aaron Agius, The 10 Most Important Metrics You Should be Tracking in Content MarketingSearch Engine Journal; Twitter: @sejournal

“Using analytics allows insight into your status quo, which helps set expectations and goals.” – Jon Simpson

7. Gain perspective with marketing analytics. “Analytics can also provide perspective. Using analytics allows insight into your status quo, which helps set expectations and goals. If your site receives 2,000 monthly viewers, growth to 10,000 monthly viewers in two to three months is unlikely. That’s a 400% increase in a short amount of time. However, an increase to 4,000 monthly viewers might be more realistic based on traffic history. Similarly, tracking analytics on social media, like Facebook likes, can show trends that shape strategy. If you’re posting on Facebook on behalf of a multifamily property, for example, and your posts are split among community events, apartment specials and local news, tracking the engagement and clicks on individual posts will show which perform best.” – Jon Simpson, Tracking Your Marketing Efforts: Why It’s Important And How To StartForbes; Twitter: @Forbes

8. Use social media marketing metrics. “Social Traffic and Conversion – This social media marketing metric connects your team’s social media performance on different platforms to your goal conversion rate. Looking at this metric tells you which social media platforms are performing best for your team; you may be surprised once you dig in! Use this insight to inform your strategy, allocate budget and see if your marketing objectives are meeting intended goals.

“Social Visits and Leads – This metric proves that social media marketing’s impact is not as unclear as some might think. In fact, this metric directly demonstrates the ROI from your social media campaign.” – Danielle Poleski, The Top 10 Most Valuable Metrics for Marketing ManagersKlipfolio; Twitter: @klipfolio

“In order to best serve your visitors, as well as to ensure they follow a logical sales funnel, you have to know and understand their general behavior patterns.” – WebpageFX

9. Track bounce rate. “What are people doing when and after they arrive on your site? Are they just dropping by and leaving without visiting any other pages (‘bouncing’)? Are they lingering on a certain page? Do they tend to click around, following the links you provide?

“In order to best serve your visitors, as well as to ensure they follow a logical sales funnel, you have to know and understand their general behavior patterns. And if a large percentage of your visitors are arriving on your site and then bouncing, that’s an indication that whatever they’re seeing isn’t enough to get their attention—and that you have some work to do.”  What Web Marketing Analytics Are Most Important?WebpageFX; Twitter: @webpagefx

10. Use data analytics to personalize customer interactions. “Businesses now have access to more information regarding their customers than ever before. As well as surface-level data about their gender, age, and geographical location, companies can now derive more detailed insights regarding consumer behavior and preferences. It’s becoming increasingly clear that not only are customers open to sharing their data with businesses in order to receive personalized marketing, they are encouraging it. A recent report by Salesforce, for example, found that 52 percent of customers are extremely or somewhat likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize their communications with them.” – GlobalWebIndex for MarTechSeriesThe Importance of Data Analytics in Marketing StrategiesMarTechSeries; Twitter: @MarTechSeries

“Ours is a mobile-first world. The total number of mobile users now exceeds the total number of desktop users and mobile e-commerce is nearly 30 percent of all e-commerce in the US.” – Khalid Saleh

11. Use mobile performance reports in your analytics platform. “You know this already: Ours is a mobile-first world. The total number of mobile users now exceeds the total number of desktop users and mobile e-commerce is nearly 30 percent of all e-commerce in the US.

“In fact, mobile is so important now that Google even penalizes websites that are not mobile-friendly.

“For marketers, knowing how their sites perform on smaller screens is vital to staying alive in the SERPs and winning over customers.

“The mobile performance report shows you how well your site (not app) is optimized for mobile and where you need to make improvements.

“You can even segment the report further to see which mobile devices/browsers customers are using to access your site. This will tell you if your site is performing poorly on some devices.” – Khalid Saleh, 7 Essential Google Analytics Reports Every Marketer Must KnowSearch Engine Land; Twitter: @sengineland

12. Approach competitive analysis as a constant metric. “Competitive analysis, you so funny. It’s one of those things that all marketers know is important, but so many of us fail to carve out dedicated time for it. Marketing analytics assumes that competitive research is an ongoing, fluid effort. It shouldn’t be something we do at the beginning of a project or when we take on a new client. It should be a constant metric we are aware of — and one we know as well as we do our own.

“In addition to performance, we need to be aware of where they are putting their time. What are they testing? What are they investing in? This requires we jump out of our software and tools and become observers. Are they engaging more on certain networks? Are they pushing more money into content marketing? Are they investing heavily into channels that you may or may not be in?

“This competitive layer adds color to your performance research. Now you know where you stand, where they stand, and you have a better sense of where things are going. This helps you invest in the right efforts, and possibly pull back from others.” – Joanna Lord, The Importance of Marketing AnalyticsMoz; Twitter: @Moz

“The challenge with some customer analytics software solutions is that they require enormous data integration efforts between heterogeneous databases and data warehouse systems.” – Amy Cross

13. Choose the right customer analytics solution. “The challenge with some customer analytics software solutions is that they require enormous data integration efforts between heterogeneous databases and data warehouse systems. Often, there is little agreement on exactly which key metrics to use to profile customers for marketing and analytical applications. These data integration projects typically result in batch-heavy ETL solutions, for both consolidation and subsequent processing, with analytical and reporting applications that often only have access to resulting data on a weekly or even coarser basis.

The most powerful and results-oriented customer analytics solutions build individual customer profiles, in real-time, and solve data integration issues by providing a standard, customer-centric approach with thousands of pre-defined metrics that are centrally managed, continuously updated and available for application connectivity.” – Amy Cross, Customer Analytics Solutions for the Most Personalized Customer ExperiencesNGDATA: Twitter: @ngdata_com

14. Strive for excellence in customer analytics. “Striving for excellence in customer analytics matters (as opposed to a merely good average). More than 85 percent of companies that report extensive use of customer analytics (in terms of IT, analytics, and its execution) claim their company achieves a significant value contribution from customer analytics. This compares with around 20 percent for low users of the function, and some 30 percent of moderate users—suggesting that companies start to reap substantial benefit from customer analytics only when they achieve excellence, i.e., when their function can be considered state of the art. Just moving from a low to a medium level of maturity will merely generate limited success.” – Lars Fiedler, Till Großmaß, Marcus Roth, and Ole Jørgen Vetvik, Why Customer Analytics MatterMcKinsey & Company; Twitter: @McKinsey

“Look for people with skills to leverage your data effectively and consider software that can help them zoom directly to the most granular level of data to give you a more intelligent understanding of your customers.” – John Lucker

15. Use the customer data you have to get a better understanding of their preferences. “Do you have access to internal or external data that can help answer your questions? You probably do. Don’t underestimate the strength of your current data. It doesn’t have to be complete or perfect to be valuable. Also, don’t settle for aggregate views of your company’s data, or for someone else’s idea of what you need. Look for people with skills to leverage your data effectively and consider software that can help them zoom directly to the most granular level of data to give you a more intelligent understanding of your customers.” – John Lucker, Customer Analytics: 5 Tips for Getting StartedThe Wall Street Journal; Twitter: @WSJ

16. Monitor and analyze campaign effectiveness. “Over time, you will begin to learn what works and what to change going forward. Consider these factors when crafting marketing messaging, determining what types of offers resonate most with each customer segment, understanding how seasonally influences their buying behavior, etc.

“You will then be able to implement a promotional plan that forecasts customer activity, revenue, and costs. Continue to monitor and analyze this data, as it will allow you to make more strategic decisions in the future.” – Create a Loyal Following with Customer AnalyticsBuxton; Twitter: @Buxtonco

“Be it for social listening, web analytics, predictive analytics, CRM, BI visualization, or more, you will not know what is required to help you reach your goals unless you understand what you are trying to accomplish.” – Daniel Ng

17. Use analytics tools to build a richer customer view. “What is your end-in-mind? This is something you need to ask yourself and the larger marketing team before building your marketing tech stack and deciding what tools you need. It is also essential to have buy in from various lines of business to align on these objectives. Be it for social listening, web analytics, predictive analytics, CRM, BI visualization, or more, you will not know what is required to help you reach your goals unless you understand what you are trying to accomplish.

“Once you have objectives, it helps to consult an expert. Not just any expert, but one who really understands data management so that you can ensure that the systems being put together make sense and are fool-proof. Having a technical marketing operations professional on your team will eventually allow richer customer analytics to be delivered to your executives anyway. It is also important that the foundation is well-set and that the tools are customizable, without having to rewrite the system for every new use case.

“It is essential to have the right and business relevant plan, people and programs in place.” – Daniel Ng, 4 Tips for Marketers to Kick-Start Their Analytics JourneyCloudera; Twitter: @cloudera

18. Use customer data to identify high-value customers. “The data provided by a customer’s recent activity can predict if a customer is high value or becoming high value. Data points such as high clickthrough rate, frequent site visits, and large purchases can indicate a customer as a high-value customer. One way to monitor customer involvement and identify high-value customers is through a  triggered marketing campaign. Triggered marketing includes a continuous stream of messages sent to customers based on their shopping activity, browsing history, purchases, etc. Triggered marketing indicates to customers that a brand knows its customers.” – Komal Desai, Engaging High-Value Customers for High-Value ResultsNectarOM; Twitter: @nectarOM

“A key component of setting KPIs has to do with existing benchmarks. Whether those benchmarks are derived from your own data, competitor data, or vendor data, they must be contextualized if they are to produce the most informed benchmarks for KPI measurement.” – Manu Mathew

19. Consider internal and external factors when establishing benchmarks. “A key component of setting KPIs has to do with existing benchmarks. Whether those benchmarks are derived from your own data, competitor data, or vendor data, they must be contextualized if they are to produce the most informed benchmarks for KPI measurement.

“For instance, analyzing internal historical data to establish benchmarks is a common practice, but organizations are constantly changing and often have cyclical fluctuations. Marketing performance will shift regularly based on internal factors, such as short-term promotions and media blitzes, as well as outside factors, such as seasonality, competitive activities, economic factors, and more. To ensure an apples-to-apples comparison of performance results, all of those variables must be taken into account when determining benchmarks.” – Manu Mathew, Five Common Pitfalls and Best-Practices of Measuring Marketing and Advertising PerformanceMarketingProfs; Twitter: @MarketingProfs

Customer Data Platform (CDP) Tips

20. Take advantage of the granularity of data offered by a true CDP. “A true CDP works with other MarTech stack technologies, so brands don’t have to replace their other systems. The CDP enables more relevant, precise customer experiences because of the granularity of the data.” – Amy Cross, NGDATA; Twitter: @ngdata_com

“A good way to think about the difference is CDPs can be used to nurture the relationship with existing consumers, while DMPs are mainly used to acquire lookalike audiences.” – Yuyu Chen

21. Use a CDP to nurture relationships with existing customers. “So are CDPs taking over DMP duties in advertising? Not really. CDPs mainly analyze first-party data based on real consumer identities, while DMPs largely examine consolidate third-party data based on cookies. A good way to think about the difference is CDPs can be used to nurture the relationship with existing consumers, while DMPs are mainly used to acquire lookalike audiences.” – Yuyu Chen,  WTF is a Customer Data Platform?Digiday; Twitter: @Digiday

22. Use a CDP to gather all customer data in one place. “Gather all customer data in one place. That’s the ‘persistent, unified customer database’ part of the definition. It distinguishes CDPs from systems that store data without linking items related to the same customer (like many ‘data lakes’), that gather customer data on the fly (like many behavior-based personalization products), or that hold just an anonymous cookie ID plus audience attributes (like a Data Management Platform).

“The CDP stores all details down to the level of web pageviews, email clicks, purchases, payments, and content selections. And it stores personal identifiers so data can be assembled into a single customer view and so messages can be directed at known individuals. One of the reasons that publishers have eagerly adopted CDPs is that detailed, personally identified data is exactly what they needed for content recommendations and individual-level ad targeting, two key profit drivers.” – David Raab, What Is a CDP & How Does It Differ from Other Audience Data Tools?Publishing Executive; Twitter: @pubexec

“The CDP is not the new CRM, because CRM is not a category. It is 190 different capabilities that span five areas – only one of which is marketing – and a massive cross-functional domain that scrambles from information and asset management to personalization and voice-of-customer.” – Martin Kihn

23. Implement a CDP for marketers who are looking for capabilities a CRM cannot deliver. “The CDP is not the new CRM, because CRM is not a category. It is 190 different capabilities that span five areas – only one of which is marketing – and a massive cross-functional domain that scrambles from information and asset management to personalization and voice-of-customer.

“And that’s the problem. CRM is labyrinthine, slow, cross-functional and controlled by IT. Marketing is fast, loose, self-centered and (if we’re honest) annoyed by IT. It wants its own flexible customer database. Now.

“Marketing automation and multichannel campaign management systems still fill this need for many, but they’re showing seams. They are purpose-built, limited in scope and can have rigid taxonomies. They are obsessed by email and aren’t built for tag and API management, identity mapping, data integration – all things marketers say they want from CDPs.” – Martin Kihn, What Is This Thing We Call A CDP?AdExchanger; Twitter: @adexchanger

24. Help turn data into actionable insights with a CDP. “CDPs offer a number of benefits that will help turn data into actionable insights. Your customers interact with your brand in a number of ways, and a CDP can house all this data for you. This customer information will allow you to make the best decisions for your business.

“You can also use this data to predict your customers’ moves. Having the power to see how a customer has already interacted with your brand means that you can predict their next move. That means you can offer something like a personalized promotion, which will keep them around longer.

“This software can help you to recognize which of your customers interact more with your brand. That means you reduce communications with those that are not quite as active. I think we all know that an influx of marketing emails can make or break the decision to stay connected with a brand. For these reasons, CDP has more than proven itself deserving of a spot within our marketing software categories and any marketer’s software stack.” – Brynne Ramella, What is a CDP? Connecting to Your Customers with a Customer Data PlatformG2 Crowd; Twitter: @G2Crowd

“There are many ‘variants’ of CDP today, but at its core, a CDP will have the ability to gather and store PII from multiple internal and external sources into one place and allow you — the marketer — to leverage that for multiple customer-related purposes.” – Chitra Iyer

25. For a truly unified customer view, use a CDP. “There are many ‘variants’ of CDP today, but at its core, a CDP will have the ability to gather and store PII from multiple internal and external sources into one place and allow you — the marketer — to leverage that for multiple customer-related purposes.

“It has variously been called the central nervous system’ of marketing and the ‘unified central customer view’ that delivers the most current intel about a unique customer from the structured and unstructured; real-time and historical; anonymous and identifiable – data that is collected from multiple sources. It uses a single unique identifier for each customer and can link everything associated with that record back to it. In other words, a single view of all customer activity, interactions, and attributes.” – Chitra Iyer, What is CDP and Where does it Fit into my Data Ecosystem?MarTech Advisor; Twitter: @MarTechAdvisor

26. Select a CDP for making decisions using all available data. “What marketers want most of all from their data are actionable insights, and that’s where CDPs really make an impact. Integrating multiple data sources traditionally was a time-intensive, laborious, and often imperfect process. As the need to eliminate data silos became obvious, some vendors offered customer profiling tools, making it possible to generate reports on-the-fly that combined various data sources. While this marked an improvement, these platforms fall short of providing a consistently available, always-integrated single source of customer data.

“By integrating myriad customer data sources into a single, centralized platform, gleaning truly actionable, data-driven insights is faster, and those insights are more accurate, thanks to the robust contextual data that exists when multiple data sources are combined. Thanks to CDPs, a single source of truth about every individual is always available, making it possible to drive all decision-making in the context of all available data. Eliminating silos and weighing decisions based on multiple variables is no longer an afterthought; it’s the foundation.” What is a Customer Data Platform? Definition of a CDP, Benefits, Best Practices, and MoreNGDATA; Twitter: @ngdata_com

“While a Customer Data Platform is primarily a marketer-driven project, this unified data is valuable to many different areas of the business.” – Anthony Botibol

27. Use a CDP to speak the same language across your organization. “While a Customer Data Platform is primarily a marketer-driven project, this unified data is valuable to many different areas of the business. Indeed, a CDP can create multiple SCVs that bring together the most useful datasets for their requirements. Importantly, the whole organization is contributing to these views, and all are working with information that is reliable and up-to-date.

“As a result, your customer service team can immediately access a disgruntled customer’s individual profile generated by the Single Customer View and ensure that the marketing team does not contact them with promotional material. Your LTV analysis is more accurate. Your marketing team is sending timelier, relevant communications.” – Anthony Botibol, How Customer Data Platforms Improve the Sharing of Data within Your Business for Better MarketingCustomer Data Platform Institute; Twitter: @CDPInstitute

28. Use a CDP to get a complete and up-to-date picture of each prospect and customer. “CDPs ingest data from a broad array of marketing applications within the enterprise (CRMs, marketing automation platforms, website form fills, etc.) to create an integrated profile for each prospect/customer linked by a single identifier.  Currently, most CDPs focus on prospect/customer information collected from direct touchpoints (first-party data), but some of the more sophisticated, data-intensive platforms can ingest, synthesize, and do longitudinal analysis to validate external (third-party) data as well, thereby creating a proprietary picture of each prospect/customer that is complete and up to date.” – Mike Becker, What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?Synthio; Twitter: @Synthio_

“CDP management can be summed up in one word: simple.  One of the requirements for a piece of software to be considered a CDP is that it’s manageable by marketers.” – SelectHub

29. Avoid the need for IT with a CDP. “CDP management can be summed up in one word: simple.  One of the requirements for a piece of software to be considered a CDP is that it’s manageable by marketers.  Although IT needs to help with initial implementation, marketers should be able to handle it afterwards.  David Raab of the CDP Institute explains what makes CDP management so simple: ‘Schema-less data stores and AI-driven data preparation reduce set-up effort. Prebuilt modules for complex processes such as identity management eliminate custom development and simplify tuning to make the data ready for use.’

“This is in contrast to a customer relationship management system, which requires IT for setup and management, as the databases are much more complicated.” – What’s the Difference Between CDP and CRM?SelectHub; Twitter: @SelectHub

30. Implement a CDP to eliminate spending too much time analyzing and preparing data. “Marketers often express a feeling of overwhelming burden of having to collect and analyse customer data. Recent research suggests that marketers are feeling confident about their abilities to analyse complex customer data. However, with the sheer volume of information available, over half believe that they are spending too much time analysing and preparing data on a daily basis. This is where a CDP underpins the process and takes away the ever-growing need to prepare data for campaigns – something that is responsible for many campaigns being sent later than scheduled.” – Anthony Botibol, Single Customer View Vs. Customer Data PlatformMyCustomer; Twitter: @MyCustomer

“CDPs help improve conversion rates, customer retention, and engagement with clients, and they are utilized by every department involved in dealing with customers. This includes not only marketers, but also store managers, manufacturers, and many others.” – Karolina Lubowicka

31. Manage disparate data across your MarTech tools with a CDP. “CDPs, on the other hand, were primarily thought to be a system of records for managing disparate data about the real customers across a company’s MarTech tools (that’s why the word ‘customer’ is in the name). This means that the CDP gathers and unifies customer data from multiple sources, such as analytics data from your websites and apps, CRM data, backend and/or transactional systems (including offline ones!), etc.

“Then the data can be further used across multiple communication and marketing channels, for instance, to personalize website content and prepare customized emails, dedicated offers, and discounts.

“CDPs help improve conversion rates, customer retention, and engagement with clients, and they are utilized by every department involved in dealing with customers. This includes not only marketers, but also store managers, manufacturers, and many others.” – Karolina Lubowicka, Data Management Platform vs Customer Data Platform – 4 Key DifferencesPiwik; Twitter: @PiwikPro

32. Integrate neatly merged data with other marketing software using a CDP. “One of the primary features of a CDP is to maintain a persistent, unified marketing database — or several, in the case of the aforementioned umbrella company. CDPs are designed to ingest data from numerous locations, including (personally identifiable) first-party data, along with web behavior and anonymous cookie data from third parties.

“However, a CDP goes beyond the Single Customer View by making this neatly merged data readily available to integrate with other marketing software where you can put the data to use.

“A CDP can underpin segmentation and data analysis tools, campaign automation and customer journey management solutions, as well as email service providers, online advertising solution, and real-time personalization tools.” – Curt Bloom, Customer Data Platform vs. Single Customer View: What’s the Difference? CMSWire; Twitter: @cmswire

“CDPs are purpose-built to assemble and share customer data. Systems like DMP, CRM, and integration platforms were designed with other goals.” – David Raab

33. Assemble and share customer data with a CDP. “CDPs are purpose-built to assemble and share customer data. Systems like DMP, CRM, and integration platforms were designed with other goals. They’re actually great at what they were built for. But using them as a shared customer database is like using a screwdriver when you need a wrench. You might succeed but you’ll work harder than necessary.” – David Raab, Introduction to Customer Data PlatformsClickZ; Twitter: @ClickZ

34. Change your MarTech stack more easily with a CDP. “While traditional all-in-one vendors usually have high substantial switching costs, Customer Data Platforms give to modern companies the ability to change their stack on the flight as their businesses evolve over time.

“This allows companies to change the technology their teams are using very quickly without losing critical data along the way.” – Leonardo Federico, Customer Data Platforms: The Next Big Shift in SaaS Marketing Stacks?ConversionXL; Twitter: @conversionxl

“Companies regularly experiment with testing the impact of varied customer experiences, but they do it in isolation. When they do try to scale, they smack against the challenge of understanding what to prioritize.” – Julien Boudet

35. Solve the challenge of achieving true personalization with a CDP. “Companies regularly experiment with testing the impact of varied customer experiences, but they do it in isolation. When they do try to scale, they smack against the challenge of understanding what to prioritize. Going back to Jane, do marketers target her as a mom, a yoga enthusiast, or a homeowner? What happens when tests are running against all three segments? Is she part of a new microsegment that combines attributes and signals across all three segments?

“This is a challenge that has continued to plague marketers, despite the promise of solutions such as customer-relationship management (CRM), master-data management (MDM), and marketing resource management (MRM). These solutions can help companies consolidate and streamline data, manage segmentation, organize workflow, and improve customer relationships. But they don’t take full advantage of digital signals customers provide. Instead, relying on antiquated “list pulls,” basic segmentation, and campaigns, all lack the automated decision making, adaptive modeling, and nimble data utilization to scale personalized interactions.

“Enter the Customer Data Platform (CDP)—a data discovery and ‘decisioning’ (i.e. automated decision making) platform. The CDP makes it possible for marketers to scale data-driven customer interactions in real time. And while CDP hasn’t really broken into the Gartner Magic Quadrant or Forrester Wave, it is gradually becoming an industry-standard concept, with a small but growing cadre of third-party platforms emerging that will soon shape the category.” – Julien Boudet, Brian Gregg, Jason Heller, and Caroline Tufft, The Heartbeat of Modern Marketing: Data Activation and PersonalizationMcKinsey; Twitter: @McKinsey

36. Eliminate your customer data gap with a CDP. “Many organizations have assembled marketing technology stacks composed of a complicated patchwork of interconnections. Too often, there’s no process for organizing and communicating between data sources and across organizational silos, creating a customer data gap. For example, your CRM is syncing with your marketing automation platform, which may have an external email service sending parameters to your analytics platform, and so forth. In this paradigm, the CRM acts as the center of gravity.

“This is fine if you just want to enable sales with high-level information about how prospects and customers are using digital properties. But what if you want to use aggregated customer data to drive real-time personalization? CRM platforms and their associated databases generally cannot be used in real time, and even if they could, you’d need to work within the confines of their content management solution and not in your existing CMS. Moreover, it would be complicated, weird and not at all fun for content managers.

“The resolution: customer data platforms.

“The premise of a customer data platform is that instead of a cobweb of interconnected systems, the systems sync data into the CDP in more of a hub-and-spoke organization.” – Lars von Sneidern, Customer Data Platforms: Shiny New Object or Soul Mate?Connective DX; Twitter: @ConnectiveDX

“In the same way the Single Customer View (SCV) process makes replying to SARs more efficient, all good CDPs should create an audit trail to demonstrate your compliance and provide evidence should anyone question your marketing practices.” – Anthony Botibol

37. Use a CDP to comply with GDPR. “If a data protection governing body asked you how and when you obtained consent to send them marketing communications, could you do it? Could you easily provide evidence to show how long you keep records, and to any third parties you’ve supplied them?

“In the same way the Single Customer View (SCV) process makes replying to SARs more efficient, all good CDPs should create an audit trail to demonstrate your compliance and provide evidence should anyone question your marketing practices.

“Thankfully, with a CDP using consistently refreshed and aggregated data, all your customer records should be compliant to the latest suppressions and unsubscribes anyway. Which should mean you are only communicating with permitted people.

“The BlueVenn CDP takes GDPR permissions even further, with the ability to mask data within sensitive fields. This means personal data is hidden from any data exports or campaign outputs (so it cannot be accidentally used), while still making it usable for analysis or counts.

“One positive to take away from using a CDP to better manage your data is that you are treating your customer data with respect and their increased trust in you should make those who consent to your marketing far more willing to share the details that help you do your job better.” – Anthony Botibol, How Can a Customer Data Platform Help with GDPR Compliance?Customer Data Platform Institute; Twitter: @CDPInstitute

38. When choosing a CDP, determine the speed of its real-time access. “Nearly all CDPs allow access through file exports, API connections and database queries. But only some CDPs return results quickly enough to support real-time interactions such as responding to Web behavior or bidding on ad impressions. Depending on the channel, this might require response in as little as 30 nanoseconds. A second dimension is how quickly new data can be incorporated into the CDP database. Again, the required speed depends on the application. Some CDPs are engineered to be much faster than others.” – Paul Greenberg, How Customer Data Platforms Can Benefit Your BusinessZDNet; Twitter: @ZDNet

39. To learn about anonymous visitors, use a CDP. “While CDPs are often confused for CRMs, they do have a few key differences. Customer Data Platforms can track anonymous visitors whereas CRMs can only track known customers. Generally speaking, CDPs are simpler and more streamlined to prevent data duplication. And, most importantly, they integrate data across channels and departments in a way that CRMs are incapable of.

“In short, a CRM can only tell you information about known customers/prospects that you input. CDPs can track known and unknown people across your different channels.

“The simplicity of CDPs has also moved this kind of software out of the hands of IT and into the hands of marketers directly. This change is especially helpful for niche publishers who might need to work with lots of streams of data but don’t have a large or technical team to back them up.” – Sterling Woods, What is a Customer Data Platform?Sterling Woods; Twitter: @SterlingWoodsGr

“What sets the CDP even further apart from the DMP and other tools in the customer data category like Data warehouses, Data lakes, and CRM systems is its unique ability to onboard and authenticate Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in real time from both online and offline channels.” – Dynamic Yield

40. Don’t confuse DMPs and CDPs. “Commonly confused with a Data Management Platform (DMP) which refers to a centralized database meant for building audiences to support advertising initiatives, the CDP acts as a System of Insight (SoI) for companies looking to manage disparate user data in order to better deliver personalized experiences at scale across multiple channels such as web, email, mobile, and ads.

“What sets the CDP even further apart from the DMP and other tools in the customer data category like Data warehouses, Data lakes, and CRM systems is its unique ability to onboard and authenticate Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in real time from both online and offline channels.” – Customer Data Platform (CDP)Dynamic Yield; Twitter: @DynamicYield

41. Get the ability to share data and integrate systems using a CDP. “This means that data in the CDP can be used by any other system, not just the CDP itself. It’s important because many marketing systems that assemble something resembling a unified, persistent customer database for their own purposes but don’t expose it externally. The ability to share data is one of the most powerful features of the CDP, allowing it to enhance operations of many systems throughout the organization.” – David Raab, Enter the Customer Data PlatformTFM Insights; Twitter: @tfm_event

“Key differences among CDP systems include the types of data they ingest, how they unify customer identities, support for real-time updates and queries, and ancillary capabilities such as machine learning, segmentation, message selection, and campaign management.” – Scott Brinker

42. Be aware of the differences between CDPs. “There are substantial differences among CDP products — much greater than among marketing automation systems, which quickly converged on a standard feature set. Key differences among CDP systems include the types of data they ingest, how they unify customer identities, support for real-time updates and queries, and ancillary capabilities such as machine learning, segmentation, message selection, and campaign management.

“There are also non-technical differences in pricing, support services, and industry expertise. Marketers need to understand what those issues are and how they relate to each company’s own needs.” – Scott Brinker, Everything a Marketer Needs to Know About CDPs. Wait, what’s a CDP?Chief Marketing Technologist; Twitter: @chiefmartec

43. Address the complexity of the user lifecycle with a CDP. “The complexity of the user lifecycle is ever increasing. Several touch points and different vendors and technology vendors make it complicated to track an individual user. Essentially for brands, it only makes sense to get a CDP rather than DMP as CDP can match, eg emails with Facebook and target users according to behavioural Facebook data on top.

“That, in my opinion, will be a more powerful way of using customer data than the sole use of unidentified users via cookies in a DMP. The latter still has its own rightful uses, and the combination is useful – when you can mix and match the PII with cookie data – but in the wake of privacy regulations such as GDPR, we should keep that discussion for another time.” – Volker Ballueder, Why Marketers Should Start Using a CDP in 2018The Drum; Twitter: @TheDrum

Content Management System (CMS) Tips

“To help content writers understand and implement different SEO practices, incorporate more information about SEO in the CMS.” – Stephanie Chang

44. Incorporate more SEO information into the CMS to help content writers. “To help content writers understand and implement different SEO practices, incorporate more information about SEO in the CMS. Some CMS systems already provide additional information for other sections via the question mark, such as on how to set time/date like in the example below. Consider adding this feature for other sections that are particularly important for SEO, such as title and description fields. These sections should provide very brief, but explicit instructions (such as specific word counts) on how they should be utilized.” – Stephanie Chang, 5 Content Management CMS Tips for Large EnterprisesMoz; Twitter: @Moz

45. Code custom post types when using WordPress as a CMS. “You can code your post type to do basically anything you want it to, but creating a different type for every conceivable kind of post can make navigating your site feel impossible. Customizations, therefore, should only be used to simplify your site.

“Custom post types can be coded to perform incredibly intricate functions, but they can also be used for something as simple as a products page. Say you’re running a blog with constantly updating posts, like a daily newsblog. You obviously want to make your stories instantly available to everyone who visits your page, and you also want an archive of previous articles that visitors can search through.” – John Rampton, 3 Tips for Using WordPress as a CMSForbes; Twitter: @Forbes

“A usage scenario is the most effective way to describe requirements for your WCMS selection process.” – Dom Nicastro

46. Utilize a usage scenario when selecting a CMS. “A usage scenario is the most effective way to describe requirements for your WCMS selection process. A usage scenario can be described as a ‘narrative that describes what a person needs to use the technology for,’ [Lionbridge CTO Seth] Gottlieb offers. These scenarios are used as a basis for comparing different platforms. Usage scenarios should be specific about inputs and outcomes and general about how the technology works.

“For example, Gottlieb says, a usage scenario about posting a press release may specify that the person who writes press releases always delivers it in Microsoft Word; the publishing of the press release needs to be scheduled; how the newswires accepts press releases (publication channel and format); and where on the site the press releases should be listed.

“Don’t get too specific though he warns. ‘A usage scenario should not include procedural or user interface details. Usage scenarios should be prioritized by impact and frequency. An hour-long task that you need to do every day is more important than an occasional task that happens a couple of times a year,’ says Gottlieb.” – Dom Nicastro, 11 Rules for Selecting the Right Content Management System (CMS)CMSWire; Twitter: @cmswire

47. Use tagging and categorizing to deliver relevant content to visitors. “Beyond organizing content with categories and indexing it with tags, applying categories and tags allows personalization of a visitor’s experience.  Categories are a vertical organization of content attaching the appropriate navigational site structure to the content topic.  Tags are a more horizontal organization tool that indexes content across numerous, searchable factors relevant to the content piece.

“Bonus Tip: Ensuring your website has site-search functionality that connects visitors to relevant content, using tags and other data points, is also must-have for your Content Management System.  Disciplined and consistent tagging and categorizing of your content is an essential ongoing content marketing task.  When used properly, your site search tool becomes a very powerful service in your users’ on-site experience.” – Kimberly McCormick, How to Use Your CMS to Power Great Content Marketing – Part 2Bayshore Solutions; Twitter: @BayshoreWebPros

“You’ll ideally want to make sure to include a CTA on every page of your site, and a CMS provides the ability to not only create CTAs, but place them in multiple places on each page, ensuring that they provide more relevant information for your visitors.” – Chris Osterhout

48. Configure CMS templates for CTA placement. “Calls-to-action (CTAs) are used to offer a next step for your site visitors, showing where they can go for more information and guiding them through the process of conversion. You’ll ideally want to make sure to include a CTA on every page of your site, and a CMS provides the ability to not only create CTAs, but place them in multiple places on each page, ensuring that they provide more relevant information for your visitors.” – Chris Osterhout, 5 Tips for Configuring Your CMS for Inbound MarketingWSOL; Twitter: @WSOLHQ

49. Measure each CMS for fit before choosing one. “Your CMS should be equipped with the features you need, both now and for the long haul, without being weighed down by bells and whistles.

“Find features that meet the needs of your company. Don’t fall victim to ‘shiny object syndrome.’ Define exactly what you need and look for solutions that meet that criteria.” – Lisa Callahan, Content Management Systems (CMS): Your Need-to-Know, Vendor-Agnostic, and Comprehensive GuideMartechExec; Twitter: @MarTechExec

“Blogging is a popular way to reach your supporters and your marketing automation software’s CMS makes it easier than ever to design, post to, and edit your blog.” – Allison Gauss

50. Use your CMS to add content and track its performance. “Blogging is a popular way to reach your supporters and your marketing automation software’s CMS makes it easier than ever to design, post to, and edit your blog. Many of these platforms even come with templates that you can personalize with your brand and imagery. Writing a compelling blog post can be a challenge in itself, you don’t need a complicated process to get it online. The right CMS can make the transition from Word document to webpage quick and painless.

To maximize the reach and impact of your blog, however, you need to track how you’re doing. Marketing automation software can tell you how many visits each page receives and where these visitors are coming from (organic search, inbound links, social media etc.). Using your software’s CMS not only makes the process of adding to your blog simple, it also gives you the tools to see what content performs best. Once you get an idea of what content gets your community’s attention, you gain more insight for planning future posts.” – Allison Gauss, Simplify Your Marketing with Marketing Automation SoftwareClassy; Twitter: @classy

51. Use WordPress as your CMS if SEO is part of your strategy. “Content marketing and WordPress were made for each other, quite literally. WordPress was initially created to be nothing more than a blogging tool.

“Over the last decade and a half, WordPress has become much more than that — it’s become the weapon of choice for millions of web developers, marketers, and SEOs who want to turn content marketing to their advantage, and along the way, it’s accumulated a veritable smorgasbord of content-marketing-friendly plugins.

“Not only that but WordPress is also one of the best CMSs out there if SEO is part of your traffic generation strategy. Content marketing and SEO are heavily dependent on one another, so it’s an added bonus that WordPress supports SEO efforts so well.” – Adam Fout, Content Marketing and WordPress: Tips, Plugins, And How To Make An ImpactSmashing Magazine; Twitter: @smashingmag

“Good CMS tools allow you to optimize for search engines within some of the most important on-page components, like URL structure, page titles, and headers.” – Rebecca Corliss

52. Build your website with your CMS. “Good CMS tools allow you to optimize for search engines within some of the most important on-page components, like URL structure, page titles, and headers. Extra credit if the tool allows you to easily add your own meta description and meta tags, but the SEO benefit there is pretty unsubstantial these days. However, a good meta description may increase the likelihood that a page is noticed in search engine results by a human eye and clicked. ” – Rebecca Corliss, What Is a CMS and Why Should You Care?HubSpot; Twitter: @HubSpot

53. Choose a CMS that is easy for marketers to use. “If your CMS isn’t easy to use, then your small marketing team has to rely on more technical departments and employees to get their content online and their campaigns moving.  Relevant content gets delayed, sometimes towards irrelevance.  Time and money are wasted, from both the marketing team and the technical teams.  And your business objectives slip further into the future and further away.

“A CMS that is easy-to-use empowers marketers to actually do their marketing.  Fast marketers are agile marketers, so a CMS that allows for quick and painless posting expands your possibilities for online marketing.  Many Content Management Systems, however, believe easy content posting is all they have to offer.  They lack the features that online marketing teams want.

“Ease of use means more than just how easy it is to get content from a blank word processor document onto your website.  The interface for online posting is important, but your CMS should be easy to use for all of its online marketing features.  The most successful online marketing campaigns encompass email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and even crafting customer profiles in order to deliver personalization for their web experience.” – Michael Sarrow, One Essential Online Marketing Tip for the One or Two Person Marketing DepartmentDynamicweb NA; Twitter: @DynamicwebNA

“Choosing a CMS that is well-supported is critical. Be sure you can reach someone on the phone and by email when you need help or when something goes wrong. You should be spending your time building and launching websites, not digging through code.” – Accrisoft

54. Choose a CMS with available support. “The disadvantages of some of the open source CMS products is spotty support. Choosing a CMS that is well-supported is critical. Be sure you can reach someone on the phone and by email when you need help or when something goes wrong. You should be spending your time building and launching websites, not digging through code.” – 10 Tips to Choose the Right CMSAccrisoft; Twitter: @Accrisoft

55. Populate metadata tag fields. “Populate all metadata tag fields (keywords, content, and description) on all pages. Use descriptive keywords. Populating the metadata helps with search engine optimization! And it’s easy. In the Edit Tab, under Content, you will see a field for Inline Metadata. Just fill in the fields!” – Tips For CMS UsersThe University of Scranton; Twitter: @univofscranton

“A first step in determining which CMS is right for your projects is understanding how much technical know-how you will need to work with that software.” – Jeremy Girard

56. Consider your knowledge of web design when choosing a CMS. “A first step in determining which CMS is right for your projects is understanding how much technical know-how you will need to work with that software.

“If you have years of experience with web design and are fluent with HTML and CSS, a solution that gives you total control over the code of a website may be an attractive solution for you. Platforms like ExpressionEngine or Drupal would fit these requirements.

“If you have absolutely no understanding of website coding and want a system that handles that code for you, but still allows you to design fully custom websites, a solution like Webydo and their code-free development platform may be the best fit.

“If you want some flexibility in how a solution will allow you to work, then WordPress may be the right choice to fill your needs. Very little technical knowledge is required to select an existing theme to get started with this platform, but if you do want to get deeper into the code and fully customize a site, WordPress gives you that ability as well.” – Jeremy Girard, Choosing the Right Content Management System (CMS)Lifewire; Twitter: @lifewire

57. Use a CMS to create an audit trail and reuse content. “By using a CMS to create an audit trail, you’ll also have the capability to reuse content. The CMS keeps track of every reuse instance of a content component or module. Use features such as Where Used and Referenced By to follow the reuse path of any given piece of content. You can also use Branching to trace the reuse and modifications made to similar content.” – Tips for Following the Content Audit Trail in a CMSVasont Systems; Twitter: @VasontSystems

“As both technology and strategy can change quickly, the right CMS should also offer additional modules that are easily added when needed.” – Natalie Xenos

58. Consider a flexible cloud CMS. “An online strategy must be prepared to adapt when your business strategy changes. Find a cloud CMS with a set of core features your business can rely upon. Look for features that have been used and refined by organizations of all sizes. And as both technology and strategy can change quickly, the right CMS should also offer additional modules that are easily added when needed.” – Natalie Xenos, Cloud CMS: 6 Things You Must Consider Before Choosing a Cloud CMSCore DNA; Twitter: @coredna

59. Don’t assume you can substitute your CMS for a content strategy. “We live in a world where everything has an app, and it’s tempting to reach for tech for every solution. Don’t forget that a CMS is a tool to address a specific problem. If you’re having trouble getting buy-in for content marketing, you’re struggling to get content created in the first place, or your content strategy isn’t in place securely, then a CMS might not be the solution. Don’t think that an expensive CMS is a substitute for a content strategy. Let’s say your goal is to increase the number of social followers for your business. A CMS probably won’t help much with that goal. Creating great content will. Conversely, if your goal is to upload more content and the roadblock isn’t in creation, but rather IT is just way overworked, a CMS would be a very valuable asset. You need to understand the problem clearly to see what CMS is right for you.” – Getting A CMS? 10 Must Ask Questions!,  Enginess; Twitter: @enginessio

“Did your mum ever buy you a jumper that was three sizes too big, thinking you would grow into it? The trouble was that by the time it actually fit, it was summer so you never wore it. This is a common issue that we see with clients – not that they wear over-sized jumpers, more that they have bought a CMS platform that is way beyond their needs, opting to include functionality that they never end up using!” – Adele Button

60. Select a CMS that has scalability. “Did your mum ever buy you a jumper that was three sizes too big, thinking you would grow into it? The trouble was that by the time it actually fit, it was summer so you never wore it. This is a common issue that we see with clients – not that they wear over-sized jumpers, more that they have bought a CMS platform that is way beyond their needs, opting to include functionality that they never end up using! The end result is a system that is complicated to implement, expensive to maintain, and something that isn’t always easy to use. You should select a platform that has scalability, however. This might sound a little contradictory to what I’ve just said, but this is why selecting the right CMS platform based on your business requirements now and 5 years down the line is important, it shouldn’t just be based on a glamorous-looking feature set. ” – Adele Button, Tips for Choosing the Right CMS PlatformRidgeway; Twitter: @Ridgeway

61. Choose an accessible CMS. “The perfect CMS should be the most accessible. Even for those who know nothing about web design. The configuration of the cover, writing text, uploading an image… should be as easy as, for example, modifying a document in Word, intuitive and functional.

“Look for options that allow you to drag elements, copy and paste photos… You don’t want to enter into a spiral of doubts every time you need to change some text or upload a video.” – Cristina Franco, Nine Tips on Choosing the Best CMS for Your Website (and Avoid Future Regret)Opennemas; Twitter: @opennemas

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tips

“A CRM system is only effective when the data it provides is current.” – TechAdvisory.org

62. Always update customer information. “A CRM system is only effective when the data it provides is current. If the customer’s address, company name, or preferred method of contact has changed, your staff should be recording this information immediately so your sales and marketing teams are always equipped with the right information.” – CRM Tips and Tricks for BeginnersTechAdvisory.org/Pronto Marketing; Twitter: @prontomarketing

63. Supplement CRM data with other data sources. “The customer data in your CRM is only a partial picture of your leads and customers. Teach sales staff to use Google Alerts, Twitter Firehose data and other sources to get a clearer, fuller picture of your leads and customers before making contact.” – Lisa Falcone, 6 Great Tricks to Get More Out of Your Company’s CRM SystemBedrockData; Twitter: @BedrockData

“Integrating your systems seems like a real no-brainer, but you would be amazed how many companies utilize and invest in multiple solutions to guide their marketing.” – Chad Collett

64. Integrate your systems with your CRM. “Integrating your systems seems like a real no-brainer, but you would be amazed how many companies utilize and invest in multiple solutions to guide their marketing. Perhaps you are using GoToWebinar or WebEx for all your webinars and Constant Contact, Vertical Response or MailChimp for your email campaigns and newsletters. But are they integrated with your CRM? With third-party products like these, you can capture new leads, obtain new demographic data and much more – why would you not want that to auto-populate directly into your CRM?” – Chad Collett, 5 Marketing Tips to Implement (with your CRM)Ledgeview partners; Twitter: @ledgeviewcrm

65. Get insight from your CRM to create targeted campaigns. “By tracking demographic and behavioral information in your CRM, you will gain more insight on your contacts and will be more successful speaking to their needs. For example, if you know that construction industry companies in a specific region are more likely to buy your service, you will want to develop targeted campaigns for that audience.” – Jonathan Ebenstein, 5 Tips for Leveraging Your CRM DataThe Business Journals; Twitter: @bizjournals

“Closed-loop reporting transforms marketing from a fuzzy, intuition-based discipline into a data-backed science and it tells you where your leads came from, which channels drive the greatest lead quantity, and which channels drive the greatest lead revenue.” – Elijah Masek-Kelly

66. Integrate marketing analytics software with your CRM to set up closed-loop reporting. Closed-loop reporting transforms marketing from a fuzzy, intuition-based discipline into a data-backed science and it tells you where your leads came from, which channels drive the greatest lead quantity, and which channels drive the greatest lead revenue.

“Armed with this knowledge, you can make the most accurate decisions about where to invest your time and budget.

“To set up closed-loop reporting, you need to integrate your marketing analytics software with your CRM software. Now every action your visitors take (from their first visit to your website to purchase) will be tracked in your CRM system.” – Elijah Masek-Kelly, 4 Ways to Improve Your Marketing Strategies With a CRMTweak Your Biz; Twitter: @TweakYourBiz

67. Use your CRM to genuinely connect with your audience. “The key to helping customers embrace your brand is to connect with the authorities they follow on the web. As [Nimble founder and CEO Jon] Ferrara points out, ‘To access prospects and customers at scale, don’t think about marketing to them. Think about identifying their trusted advisor, their influencer, and help build relationships with those influencers and help those people succeed.’ By helping influencers reach their goals and encouraging them to teach prospects about your brand, your CRM strategy will let potential customers get all the information and social proof they need to buy.

“Although this kind of service may seem like a supplement to a marketing strategy, Jon argues that relationships are at the core of our trade. ‘Business isn’t about business,’ he claims. ‘It’s about connecting with people. That way, [customers will] remember you.'” – Jay Tellini, Three Tips for a Dynamite CRM StrategySocial Media Explorer; Twitter: @smxplorer

“CRM justifies the resources invested in it by understanding customers and delivering relevant and timely messages to them.” – Matthew Eccles

68. Look to the customer response to gauge the effectiveness of your CRM. “Great CRM is evidenced by the customer response. It delivers measurable incremental value to the organization across sales, brand engagement and brand affinity.

“CRM justifies the resources invested in it by understanding customers and delivering relevant and timely messages to them.” – Matthew Eccles, as quoted by David Moth, CRM Implementation Tips from the Experts: Part One, Econsultancy; Twitter: @Econsultancy

69. Make targeting relevant social networks part of your CRM strategy. “Don’t waste time churning out posts and engaging with followers on a social media platform that’s not core to your business. An e-commerce site might be well-served to post glossy photos of its products on Instagram or Pinterest and interact with customers there whereas an enterprise software company’s customers are more likely to be localized in the traditional trifecta of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. If more and more of your customers are gravitating toward a new social network, that network may be worth monitoring. But your social media manager shouldn’t take hours to respond to a Twitter question because he or she was busy messing around with the Snapchat account your business decided to launch.” – Rob Marvin, 8 Tips for a Killer Social CRM StrategyPC Magazine; Twitter: @PCMag

“Because CRM software can retain all types of data about customers beyond just their names and contact information, it can help you establish and maintain a meaningful relationship with them.” – Sara Angeles

70. Use your CRM to personalize service. “You will often hear CRM software companies boast that they offer a 360-degree view of customers. This means the software offers a comprehensive view of each customer, such as all contact points, communication, opportunities, campaigns, complaints, how they became a customer and much more. This is all designed to help you personalize customer support.

“Because CRM software can retain all types of data about customers beyond just their names and contact information, it can help you establish and maintain a meaningful relationship with them.

“There are several ways to use CRM software for personalized customer service. For example, you can:

  • Address customers by name: Personalize calls, emails, marketing materials and other communications with their names and relevant information. Most CRM software can automate this process, making it easier for customer support agents to create a personal rapport.
  • Know what the customer wants: Use analytics, purchase histories, browsing behaviors and other data tracking tools to tailor solutions and target marketing materials to a customer’s individual needs and personal preferences.
  • Make note of past communications: You will look more professional knowing the customer’s issues ahead of time. This will also avoid frustrating the customer when they must repeat their concerns every time they communicate.

“In the end, it’s all about making customers feel valued, important and cared for.” – Sara Angeles, Tips and Tricks to Using CRM for Customer ServiceBusiness News Daily; Twitter: @BNDarticles

71. Share data collected during the CRM process with your team. “All team members should have access to the data collected during the CRM process. If it’s a pattern that customers are questioning a certain product, your various teams need to know about it. A good CRM solution allows your teams to collaborate and be aware of what’s happening in the business.” – Top CRM Trends and Tips for 2017Clickatell; Twitter: @Clickatell

“Don’t invest in software and technology infrastructure without knowing the types of data you want to collect. Your data collection should align with your goals of CRM, which often include higher profitability, long-term relationships, and an optimized customer experience.” – Billy McNair

72. Know which data you want to collect. “Don’t invest in software and technology infrastructure without knowing the types of data you want to collect. Your data collection should align with your goals of CRM, which often include higher profitability, long-term relationships, and an optimized customer experience.

“Customer profile data and transactional or behavioral data are the two common categories of CRM data collection. By building detailed prospect/customer profiles and capturing extensive behavioral data, your reporting achieves much greater accuracy for use in marketing decisions.” – Billy McNair, 4 Tips for Building a Strong CRM StrategyBKV (now DRUM Agency); Twitter: @DRUMagency

73. Add marketing automation to your CRM. “Marketing automation is the cream and sugar to your CRM coffee. Not only does it significantly make processes much sweeter with greater efficiency, marketing automation campaigns have been proven to increase sales with personalized messages and immediate response.

“In fact, VB Insight’s 2015 marketing automation report found that 80% of users saw an increase in leads, and 77% of those users also saw an increase in conversions.

“Marketing automation, which focuses on lead generation, interaction with contacts and personalized communications, is the perfect compliment to a CRM system – transforming the essential database into a powerful sales and marketing tool and eliminating guesswork.” – Nate Kristy, Improve Sales Productivity with These 3 TipsAutomational; Twitter: @automational

“Through CRM-based activities such as marketing campaign optimization, customer segmentation and targeting, lead management, PRM, customer self-service, call center automation, BI dashboards and maintaining a single view of each customer, companies will gain the operating intelligence they need to not just survive the downturn but to flourish in the future.” – Adam Honig

74. Use your CRM to develop deep insight into customer behavior. “During difficult times, companies want to get more from what they already have and ensure that they reach customers in the most cost-efficient manner. Companies then must use CRM to provide deep insight into customer behavior, improve account management practices, increase sales and marketing effectiveness, successfully resolve call center and service interactions, and manage partner programs.

“Through CRM-based activities such as marketing campaign optimization, customer segmentation and targeting, lead management, PRM, customer self-service, call center automation, BI dashboards and maintaining a single view of each customer, companies will gain the operating intelligence they need to not just survive the downturn but to flourish in the future.” – Adam Honig, CRM and the Economy: Tips for Streamlining Marketing, Sales and Service OperationsAd Age; Twitter: @adage

75. Choose a CRM that features custom reporting. “While it’s true that you don’t want a complex tool laden with unneeded features, it’s also true that you want the power your business needs.

“One such feature is the ability to create custom reports.  This allows you to create categories and associate contacts with products, services, or campaigns that are distinct for your business.” How to Choose the Best CRM for Your Small Business – 7 Tips on Choosing the Right CRM Software for Your NeedsMarketing 360; Twitter: @fuelsyourbrand

“CRM technology is pretty mature at this point. The major CRM tools have been around for years and have kept pace with cloud and mobile growth.” – Scott Robinson

76. When selecting a CRM system, consider how long its features have been available. “CRM technology is pretty mature at this point. The major CRM tools have been around for years and have kept pace with cloud and mobile growth. Many offerings are available for SMBs, and several niche products exist for those companies that only need a small subset of CRM functionality, such as email marketing automation or customer service.

“Because CRM technology is evolving so rapidly, it’s useful to break it down by how long features have been around. This will help predict their importance; for example, which functions are older core features vs. which are new, such as artificial intelligence or chatbots, and may or may not be widely adopted by your competitors. This is especially helpful when evaluating what your competitors may be doing.” – Scott Robinson, Tips for Evaluating CRM Platforms and Marketing ToolsSearchCRM; Twitter: @SearchCRM

77. Keep data in your CRM up to date. “Customer-related data become relevant quite soon. Also, users end up adding up irrelevant data, no matter how hard they try to fill only important fields. Keeping these scenarios in mind, it’s important to keep your CRM data up to date. Businesses need to clean data as an ongoing routine to ensure the effectiveness of every sales and marketing campaign. Many of the CRM software come with the important feature of automated de-duplications to de-clutter and update data. With hosted CRM software, third-party vendors can pro-actively manage de-duplication.” – Kalpana Arya, 5 CRM Tips for an Effective Data ManagementDigital Doughnut; Twitter: @Digitaldoughnut

“Build dashboards so salespeople and management can monitor the number, frequency, and outcome.  Track and measure these lead indicators of success rather than lag indicators such as orders and % of revenue to plan.” – Rob Triggs

78. Use your CRM to track the high-value activities of your business. “Define the important high value activities for your business and use the CRM to track them.  Depending on what you sell the simple activities are cold calls, lead follow up, presentations, demonstrations, proposals, closing calls, customer maintenance.  Build dashboards so salespeople and management can monitor the number, frequency, and outcome.  Track and measure these lead indicators of success rather than lag indicators such as orders and % of revenue to plan.  Use a coaching model when reps are not performing.  If you “beat up” salespeople for their activities tracked in CRM rather than encouraging, them they will see the CRM as the enemy.  CRM must be easy to use and an enabler to sales, not a deterrent. So define your high-value activities, track these in your CRM, monitor with dashboards, and schedule coaching sessions to help your salespeople.” – Rob Triggs, 3 Insider Tips for Using CRM to Increase Company RevenueCRMDynamics; Twitter: @CRMDynamicsCA

79. Ensure usage of your CRM by involving those who will use it. “‘Make sure that the system is simple to learn for new users, and that your users can easily teach themselves as they work,’ advises Rafi Sweary, president, WalkMe, which provides step-by-step guidance on how to use Websites and apps. Similarly, ‘make sure employees have the opportunity to tell you what features do and do not make sense,’ says Aron Susman, co-founder, The Square Foot, a business real estate search site. ‘You do not want to change workflow and make things take more time than before the CRM was implemented.'” – Jennifer Lonoff Schiff, 13 Tips to Get Business Teams to Use Your CRM SystemCIO.com, Twitter: @CIOonline

“CRM has a great impact on marketing. The data collected by the software can be put to better use to reach your goals and increase sales.” – Techpluggers

80. Use data in your CRM to increase your ROI. “CRM has a great impact on marketing. The data collected by the software can be put to better use to reach your goals and increase sales. It gives a deeper insight into your customers. With the help of this software, you can look into the opportunity pipelines and run a marketing campaign to focus on these opportunities. These focused campaigns can help you increase your ROI in many folds.” – Tips to Increase Your ROI with the Help of CRM SoftwareTechpluggers; Twitter: @techpluggers

81. Determine which leads sync from marketing automation to CRM. “There are different approaches for determining which leads should sync from marketing automation to CRM, and companies want to have control over these rules. At the very least, there is a minimum set of data such as email address, company, and name required to push a record into CRM systems. CRM admins appreciate putting controls over which data synchronizes to help maintain data cleanliness and quality in the CRM system. Other potential gates for handing off leads may be based on a lead score, a specific definition agreed to with sales or a specific set of actions taken by prospects.” – Zak Pines, 12 Keys for a High Performing Marketing Automation & CRM IntegrationBedrock Data; Twitter: @BedrockData

“When you’re designing a paid social campaign, your CRM data can help you target those customers and bring them back under your umbrella with a special offer, such as a major discount on the next purchase, a two-for-one deal, free shipping, or anything else you might want to suggest.” – Katy Lucey

82. Use CRM data to target lapsed customers. “Sometimes lapsed purchasers haven’t lost interest in your company. They’re just busy, distracted, or otherwise engaged.

“When you’re designing a paid social campaign, your CRM data can help you target those customers and bring them back under your umbrella with a special offer, such as a major discount on the next purchase, a two-for-one deal, free shipping, or anything else you might want to suggest.

“You can also test this strategy by targeting them based on the number of lapsed months, such as three, six, nine, 12, and 18 months. Watch the data your paid social campaign generates to better understand how each segment converts based on your offer.” – Katy Lucey, Tips on Using Your CRM for Your Social Ad CampaignsElite SEM; Twitter: @eliteSEM

Email Marketing Tips

83. Include interesting links and calls to action in email marketing. “The aim of most email marketing campaigns is to increase traffic to a site, sometimes a specific landing page. No clicks means no customers — it really is that simple. Always try to include visually striking buttons with text that give readers more than one opportunity to interact (e.g., Find out more! Download Now! etc.)… In general, calls to action should be written as just that — actions. The more exciting the action you describe, the more enticing it will be to your audience.” – Tim Kelsey, 13 Tips for Effective Email MarketingPronto Marketing; Twitter: @prontomarketing

“A good email marketing service enables you to create highly engaging emails. It also allows you to manage your contacts, segment users into groups, and track the performance of your email campaigns.” – WPBeginner

84. Choose an email marketing service carefully. “If you aren’t careful, then you might end up paying a lot more money for fewer features and terrible deliverability (which causes you to lose even more money).

“A good email marketing service enables you to create highly engaging emails. It also allows you to manage your contacts, segment users into groups, and track the performance of your email campaigns.

“Most importantly, a good email marketing service ensures that your emails do not end up in the spam folder.” – 7 Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business (2018)WPBeginner; Twitter: @wpbeginner

85. Hook customers with email subject lines. “The subject line is the first thing your customer will see. Hook them. Make them want to see more. When crafting a subject line, keep this in mind these email marketing writing tips:

  • Keep it short.
    There are restrictions on how many characters will be previewed in the customer inbox. Shorter subject lines (generally fewer than 50 words) are less likely to be ‘cut off.’ Likewise, descriptive subjects that provide some incentive to open the email (‘Special offers in August’), are more likely to be opened. Don’t waste character space on including your brand name, as this information should already be visible in the ‘From’ field.
  • Personalize it.
    Subject lines that include personal information, such as the recipient’s first and last name, or even the city he or she lives in, are more likely to be opened. In fact, personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14%, and increase conversions by an average of 10%.
  • Mix it up.
    If you are regularly sending emails (such as newsletters) to those on your mailing lists, try to update your subject lines just as regularly. This will help keep the subject interesting and will also give recipients a more accurate idea of what awaits them should they decide to open the email.”

– Email Marketing Tips for Businesses Big and SmallSalesforce; Twitter: @salesforce

“When we say personalized email marketing, we don’t mean that you send an individual email to every single subscriber. Personalization means that you use customer data to create a personalized message…” – Steven MacDonald

86. Use customer data to personalize email messages. “When we say personalized email marketing, we don’t mean that you send an individual email to every single subscriber. Personalization means that you use customer data to create a personalized message…

“70% of brands do not use personalization within their email marketing strategy. This means that by personalizing your emails, you stand out against the competition.” – Steven MacDonald, Email Marketing Strategy: A Data-driven Guide (with Original Case Studies)SuperOffice; Twitter: @SuperOfficeAS

87. Only use personalized email in a meaningful way. “The takeaway here is that if you are to use personalization as an email strategy, do so in a meaningful way. It takes little knowledge or relationship to place someone’s name in your greeting. It shows far greater care to send personalized email that is specific to a recipient’s needs and history. Again, an example from my inbox, this email from Rdio dispenses with the formalities and simply provides an update on music I actually listen to.” – Kevan Lee, 8 Effective Email Marketing Strategies, Backed by ScienceBuffer; Twitter: @buffer

“In an ideal world, you would A/B test every email you sent out. In practice, this can be quite time-consuming, so you’ll need to figure out which emails would have the biggest impact on your bottom line if they had a higher engagement rate.” – Shopify

88. Rely on email A/B testing. “If you’re not already convinced of the value of A/B testing your emails, consider that during his election, Barack Obama’s team found that one subject line generated $403,600 in donations, whereas another variation generated $2,540,866. Generally speaking, when we talk about email A/B testing, we’re referring to creating multiple variations of either the subject line or body content to identify which one has the highest engagement or conversion rate.

“Keep in mind that you’re testing the impact of a single, isolated variable at a time. This way your experiments yield real insights you can act on in the future.

“In an ideal world, you would A/B test every email you sent out. In practice, this can be quite time-consuming, so you’ll need to figure out which emails would have the biggest impact on your bottom line if they had a higher engagement rate.

“For ecommerce sites, an obvious example would be to experiment with different upsells and cross-sells in your transactional emails, as well as A/B testing any major retail holiday newsletter campaigns.” – 7 Tips for an Effective Email Marketing StrategyShopify; Twitter; @Shopify

89. Use statistics provided by your email platform to determine when to send to your audience. “The timing in which you send your campaigns is one of the most important elements to focus on in any email marketing strategy. You may be located in New York, but perhaps a large portion of your target demographic is in a different time zone. The time of day users receive emails can directly contribute to performance indicators like open-rate and click-through-rate.

“Segment your contact lists based on the time zone the recipients live in so that they receive your messages at an hour that is convenient and appropriate for them. You can’t send the same message at the same hour to a global or national audience and expect to reach everyone.

“If you’re looking to maximize user engagement with your emails, but aren’t sure when to send, a good place to start is by considering three core time slots—during the morning when your users are commuting or arriving at work, during the early afternoon on their lunch break, and in the evening when they are home. Also, think about the audience’s lifestyle habits. If you’ve launched campaigns in the past, take a look at the statistics provided by your email platform and see when readers would be most likely to give some attention to your email.” – Top 5 Elements of Successful Email Marketing StrategiesBlue Fountain Media; Twitter: @BFMweb

“Clickthrough rate is a very important metric for all email marketers to be tracking, as it gives you direct insight into how many people on your list are engaging with your content and interested in learning more about your brand or your offer.” – Lindsay Kolowich

90. Include clickthrough rate in your email report. “Clickthrough rate (CTR) is likely the first answer you’ll get when you ask an email marketer what metrics they track. It’s what I like to call the ‘day-to-day’ email marketing metric, because it lets you easily calculate performance for every individual email you send. From there, you can track how your CTR changes over time.

“CTR is also frequently used for determining the results of A/B tests, as these tests are often designed with the intention of finding new ways to get more clicks in your emails. Clickthrough rate is a very important metric for all email marketers to be tracking, as it gives you direct insight into how many people on your list are engaging with your content and interested in learning more about your brand or your offer.” – Lindsay Kolowich, Email Analytics: The 6 Email Marketing Metrics & KPIs You Should Be TrackingHubSpot; Twitter: @HubSpot

91. Understand demographic segmentation. “Most marketers know a thing or two about demographics. While demographics itself is limited to a couple of handfuls of data types, there are some creative ways to use them in your email strategy.

“For example, have you tried segmenting your audience using demographics? It’s a simple idea, but it’s underused by most marketers. We’re fans, and there are some genius ways to do it for e-commerce email marketing.

“A lot of email marketers don’t stop to think about the psychology behind demographic segmentation. There’s not just as much cold, hard data at work. The way each segment behaves and interacts with your emails can tell you a lot about your audience. You’ll also get to know your subscribers better, and that means you can send better emails.

“Demographics are great for segmentation because they give you conclusive metrics to use, and these metrics are more comprehensive than arbitrary segments.” – Emil Kristensen, How to Get in the Head of Your Target Market with Advanced Email Marketing AnalyticsSleeknote; Twitter: @Sleeknotecom

“Basic email software can tell you if your subscribers are opening your emails or just deleting them, but what most software cannot do is report on whether or not people are actually reading your emails.” – Jamie Turner

92. Use advanced analytics to determine whether people are reading your emails. “Basic email software can tell you if your subscribers are opening your emails or just deleting them, but what most software cannot do is report on whether or not people are actually reading your emails. It’s vital that you can tell if your subscribers are actually reading what you send or if they’re simply skimming. This information helps you gauge what kind of emails best attract the attention of your customers and which types simply fall flat.

“Analysts have accepted the following time frames as indicative of deleting, skimming, or reading an email:

  • Glancing at/Deleting the Email – Open for 2 seconds or less
  • Skimming the Email- Open for 3 to 7 seconds
  • Reading the Email – Open for 8 seconds or more

“Another advanced analytical tool is an ‘engagement time distribution.’ This tool will give you a model of how much time your subscribers are spending with your emails open. It gives you an easy way to compare the percentage of your audience that is reading the emails versus the percentage that is deleting.” – Jamie Turner, Advanced Analytics are the New Frontier in Email Marketing60 Second Marketer; Twitter: @AskJamieTurner

93. Know your audience to improve your email marketing strategy. Email blasts are officially over. Knowing your audience is one of the most important pieces of data you can leverage to improve your email strategy. But understanding your audience extends beyond just simple demographics.

“Do you know how your audience prefers to receive communication and when they are most likely to engage? Understanding the ins and outs of audience behavior allows you to effectively personalize your email messages with language, tone, and delivery that truly speaks to them.” – 2018 A-Z Email Marketing GuideSendGrid; Twitter: @SendGrid

“Context is king when it comes to email marketing. Your customers should intuitively understand why they are getting your emails.” – Jimmy Daly

94. Context is king for email marketing. “Context is king when it comes to email marketing. Your customers should intuitively understand why they are getting your emails. Yes, they subscribed but what behavior triggered the message? Did it arrive at that right time in their buying process? And what, exactly, should they do next?” – Jimmy Daly, 5 Things We Learned Analyzing 100 Million+ EmailsVero; Twitter: @getvero

95. Measure email click rate. “Once your subject line has enticed a subscriber to open your email, now it’s time to convince them to click the links in your email. This is known as your email click rate. Your click rate is especially important when your email’s goal is conversion.

“Some emails are only meant to provide free, educational information. We believe these beginning emails without pitches are essential in building a relationship with your email subscribers. But after sending a few educational emails and gaining their trust, it’s time to introduce the big guns: soft and hard sales pitches.

“Your click rate percentage will inform what your email conversion rate will be with any product or service launch.” – Kayla Hollatz, The 7 Email Marketing Metrics You Should Pay Attention To and How to Measure ThemConvertKit; Twitter: @ConvertKit

“Open and clicks and bounces and unsubscribes are all well and good, but this is business, and ultimately, it all comes down to money. Unfortunately, revenue per email sent is not tracked nearly as much as opens and clicks. That’s probably because it’s harder to track.” – Pam Neely

96. Know your revenue per email sent for every email marketing campaign. “This is where the rubber meets the road. Open and clicks and bounces and unsubscribes are all well and good, but this is business, and ultimately, it all comes down to money. Unfortunately, revenue per email sent is not tracked nearly as much as opens and clicks. That’s probably because it’s harder to track.

“Once you know your conversion rate and the total you earned from your campaign, you’ll have this stat. Just divide how many emails you sent by how much you earned. For example, if you earned $5,000 from your last campaign and you sent 10,000 emails, your revenue per email sent is 50 cents.

“You should know this metric for every email marketing campaign you send but also for your overall email program. That way you have a tidy figure – the average revenue per email sent – to measure every campaign you send against.” – Pam Neely, How to Measure What Matters With Email AnalyticsPinpointe; Twitter: @pinpointe

97. Begin each email marketing campaign by analyzing previous campaigns. “Every campaign should start with an analysis of the results of previous campaigns. Generally, email marketing campaign analytics include open rates, click-through rates (CTR), unsubscribes, bounces and other statistics, which you can see in the general panel of Mailigen reports. Recently, we launched a device, browser and geo-location reporting that provides you with in-depth information about subscriber activity.” – Janis Rose, Analyzing Email Marketing Campaign ResultsMailigen; Twitter: @mailigen

“If more people are unsubscribing than they are joining your list, it might be time to re-evaluate your email content strategy and your open and click-through rates. If they’re low, you might need to see how you can send more relevant and compelling content.” – Brandon Olson

98. Get feedback from unsubscribers. “Subscribers typically have a few different options when unsubscribing from your list. They can click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in your email, or use an app like Unroll.me to get the job done. In Gmail, people also have the option to click the ‘unsubscribe’ link next to your name and email address. Regardless of how they choose to remove themselves from your list, you should make it easy for them to do so.

“To learn why people are leaving your list, ask them for their feedback. This will help you better understand the reasons why they left and what you can do to bring them back or prevent others from leaving.

“If more people are unsubscribing than they are joining your list, it might be time to re-evaluate your email content strategy and your open and click-through rates. If they’re low, you might need to see how you can send more relevant and compelling content.” – Brandon Olson, 7 Email Marketing Metrics You Should Track (and What They Mean)AWeber; Twitter: @AWeber

99. Drive consumer engagement with personalized emails driven by AI. “A one-size-fits-all approach to email marketing is a thing of the past. Personalized emails, particularly those driven by the predictive power of artificial intelligence (AI), are much more effective at driving consumer engagement. For example, when our client, Aldo, focused on personalized messages, the shoe retailer saw a 131 percent increase in email conversion year over year. It makes sense: You’re sending people information they’re truly interested in, instead of making a blanket guess.

“There are several ways AI can help with personalization. AI tools can help companies parse consumer data to create audience segments, allowing marketers to target each group with relevant messaging that speaks to their interests and previous shopping patterns.

“Marketers also can use AI to tailor specific blocks of content, such as product recommendations, to individual subscribers based on information about their behavior and preferences.” – Joanna Milliken, Back to Basics with These 6 Tips for Foolproof Email MarketingMarketing Land; Twitter: @Marketingland

“Effective calls to action, great offers, and dedicated and optimized landing pages, as well as creating more personalized emails, all contribute to higher email conversion rates.” – FulcrumTech

100. Proactively improve email conversion rate. “This email metric tells you how many of the subscribers you sent an email to clicked all the way through to complete the desired conversion. For example, the conversion could be making a purchase online, signing up for a webinar, completing a survey, downloading such resources as white papers and ebooks, or subscribing to your email newsletter. Effective calls to action, great offers, and dedicated and optimized landing pages, as well as creating more personalized emails, all contribute to higher email conversion rates.” – Email Analytics: Email-Marketing Analytics That MatterFulcrumTech; Twitter: @fulcrumtech