A cornerstone of our approach is rapid experimentation, and more specifically, multivariate testing, which allows us to improve processes, products, and future campaigns to enable partners to make informed, data-driven decisions quickly and iteratively based on results.

Rapid experimentation is a broad concept that encompasses various testing and experimentation methods such as A/B testing, pricing experiments, customer feedback loops, multivariate testing, and more. Within growth marketing, being willing, open-minded, and strategically set up to constantly refine and optimize marketing strategies based on data, from ad creatives to website design, is the key that will set a brand apart.

A few years ago, launching A/B tests was a novelty and could provide the dirty, quick, and rough insights needed to pivot and see results. Though A/B tests are still helpful, taking the test one level deeper and launching multivariate testing is what’s now required to make data-driven decisions that will move the needle.

Multivariate testing is the process of simultaneously testing multiple variables across numerous growth channels and campaigns to determine which combinations yield the best results. Multivariate testing is like conducting a symphony of experiments, each with its own set of variables. It’s not just A/B testing; it’s A to Z testing. For each element of a marketing campaign—be it ad copy, visuals, landing pages, or CTAs— test multiple variations simultaneously. The significance lies in its ability to uncover hidden insights, optimize user experiences, and boost conversion rates.

Applying multivariate testing throughout an organization

Whether the brand is a startup or an established market leader, there is always an opportunity to leverage experimentation as the playground where ideas are tested, refined, and transformed into growth engines.

• The playground for startup founders: At its core, multivariate testing is an opportunity to discover what makes the brand and product shine. Leverage multivariate testing across a variety of growth channels and within customer surveys (zero-party data analysis) to uncover the golden nugget of what customers feel makes the brand and product stand out.

• The strategic vision for CMOs and growth execs: This role defines the macro vision of audience and persona testing, messaging and value proposition testing, and other experiments that will chart the course of the brand’s growth trajectory. Multivariate testing empowers the growth leader to pivot when necessary and double down when a winning formula has been identified. This experimentation approach provides data-backed insights needed to craft a growth strategy that’s not just effective but exhilaratingly efficient.
• The battle plan for individual contributors: This group is full of technical and tactical masterminds who execute the vision. They are the data explorers who dig deep into the numbers to unearth the hidden gems and rumblings of a shift in the macro environment. Their battlefield is the digital landscape within creative, messaging, landing pages, and campaign objectives. This role uncovers the precision and firepower required to conquer every stage of the customer journey.

3 Core wins of multivariate testing

• Precision optimization & performance insights: Multivariate testing provides the opportunity to analyze the performance of multiple variations of different elements within a campaign, landing page, or targeting strategy.
  • Benefit: This precision provides valuable insights into which specific elements contribute most to the campaign’s success. This makes fine-tuning simple and effective so the final product can achieve maximal impact.
  • Impact: By pinpointing these elements, we’re able to make targeted optimizations, which can lead to substantial improvements to the North Star and the bottom line.
• Efficiency at scale: No more guesswork or one-size-fits-all strategies. Test multiple elements concurrently and discover what combinations of elements truly resonate and are most effective in driving results.
  • Benefit: Focus budget, time, and creative efforts on strategies and combinations of winning elements that have the highest likelihood of success.
  • Impact: This efficiency can lead to cost savings and a better ROI. Avoid spending resources on strategies that are less effective and instead allocate those resources toward initiatives that are more likely to drive growth.
• Continuous improvement: Multivariate testing is not a one-and-done process, but rather it encourages ongoing experimentation and refinement of digital marketing elements.
  • Benefit: Multivariate testing fosters a culture of continuous optimization and enables frequent refinement of the macro strategy. In the short term, this keeps a brand relevant, dynamic, and flexible.
  • Impact: In the long term, a brand’s commitment to continuous improvement sets them up for success when sudden, drastic pivots are needed. A brand that is nimble, adaptable, and open-minded will always outperform the dinosaur. The cumulative impact of ongoing optimizations will likely result in sustained growth and a competitive edge within the brand’s niche.

Getting started with multivariate testing

The end goal is to optimize every step of the customer journey to transform customer intent into loyalty. Before diving headfirst into multivariate testing, it’s crucial to set the stage for success. Start by defining your goals, whether it’s increasing click-through rates, reducing bounce rates, or boosting CVRs. These objectives will serve as your North Star throughout the experimentation process.

Building a solid foundation is just the beginning. To make the most of multivariate testing, especially within creatives, you’ll need to master the art of crafting winning hypotheses.

The anatomy of a winning hypothesis

A hypothesis isn’t a wild guess; it’s an educated prediction backed by data and insights. Crafting a well-structured hypothesis is crucial for conducting effective experiments and deriving actionable insights. Here’s what a winning hypothesis should include:

1. Observation: This is the basis for recognizing there is an opportunity for growth and begins with collecting data to support the issue at hand. This data can be either quantitative (low CVRs or high bounce rates) or qualitative (low NPS score or user feedback indicating dissatisfaction with the product).
   1. Example: The landing page’s conversion rate has decreased -20% this quarter which has driven a +20% increase in CPA.
2. Statement of the problem: Clearly define the challenge the experiment should attempt to resolve.
   1. Example: The decreasing conversion rate suggests that the value proposition (Convenience & Simplicity of Use) does not resonate with the audience on a larger scale.
3. Identification of the variable: Choose the specific elements that you plan to change or test. These variables are the ones that you suspect may have an impact on the problem you’ve identified.
   1. Example: We will test different versions of a landing page, which will highlight unique value props for the product. 
4. Expected outcome: State the expectation about how the changes to the variable will impact the problem. This should be a prediction, based on data from the observation above, on what you anticipate will happen if you make these changes. This is the heart and boiled-down version of the hypothesis.
   1. Example: We hypothesize that revising the landing page with a new value proposition will resonate more with the target audience and will lead to an increase in the landing page’s conversion rate.
5. Rationale or reasoning: Leverage data, insights, and observations on the context behind why you believe the hypothesis is valid.
   1. Example: Our hypothesis is based on the analysis of user feedback, which indicated that the current value proposition, Convenience & Simplicity of Use, isn’t compelling enough to differentiate the product against competitors.
6. Specify variations: Clearly define the variations that will be tested. Since this is multivariate testing, this will involve multiple versions of the variable you’re changing.
   1. Example: We will test three different value propositions: one emphasizing the product’s effectiveness, one emphasizing the physical health gains from the product, and one emphasizing mental health gains from the product. We will also perform a heatmap analysis of the existing page & ensure all AIDA best practices are being met on the landing pages.
7. Audience: Specify the target audience for your experiment. This can be determined via demographics, behaviors, or preferences, or pre-defined personas that will be tested across the board. It’s also possible
   1. Example: We will test the three landing pages to our 3 core target personas: the money-conscious buyer, the health-conscious buyer, and the time-conscious buyer.
8. Metrics for evaluation: Specify the OKRs or KPIs that will be used to measure the impact of the changes. The results of these metrics will determine whether the hypothesis is valid or null.
   1. Example: The key indicator of success for this experiment will be the impact on conversion rate, though we will also use avg. time on page and CTR to sign-up page as secondary metrics and performance indicators.
9. Timeline and testing plan: Identify how long the test will run and the number of samples or users you aim to include. This should also include minimum conditions for success, such as an impression, spend, or visitors threshold, which ensures statistical significance.
   1. Example: We will run the multivariate test for four weeks with an automatic, randomized 33% split between landing page variations. We aim to gather data from at least 5,000 unique visitors.
10. Success criteria: Define what success looks like for the hypothesis to be categorized as either valid or null.
    1. Example: We will consider the test a success if any of the value proposition variations result in a statistically significant increase of at least +10% in conversion rate compared to the existing landing page.
11. Contingency plan: Provide clear next steps if the hypothesis is proven to be null/incorrect.

a. Example: If none of the variations show a significant improvement in conversion rate, we will reevaluate our approach and explore other value propositions to test.

Now, let’s explore a case study on how to effectively apply multivariate testing to creatives.

Case study on multivariate testing within creatives

There is an AI-driven B2B brand that specializes in SMS marketing. They have a few theories on who their target customer and winning value proposition will be; however, they lack data to inform these macro-level decisions.

As part of the NoGood growth strategy development, we outlined the following macro-level multivariate experiment that will run across paid social platforms, paid search, within core landing pages for paid, on organic social, and within incoming lead nurturing email flows.

Within paid media specifically, we outlined the following hypothesis:

1. Observation: After completing the value proposition and persona exploration with the client, we have identified 2 personas to test against 4 value propositions. There is no prior data to inform performance.
2. Statement of the problem: There is a lack of concrete data, learnings, and internal alignment about the brand’s ideal customer and the value proposition that resonates best with their needs.
3. Identification of the variable: We will test four versions of a paid social creative that will run on LinkedIn and Facebook to the 2 target audiences (personas). Each version of the creative will highlight the 4 potential value props for the product. From a visual perspective, each asset needs to reflect the value prop in a way that is unique and visually different from other assets. For example, the main creative element (comparison chart) cannot be the same across creative variations because the algorithm is not intelligent enough to differentiate them as different assets.
4. Expected outcome: There are three micro experiments at play as part of this multivariate test. We hypothesize that we’ll be able to identify:
   1. The top-performing persona by overall conversion rate
   2. The top-performing value proposition by overall conversion rate
   3. The top performing value prop for each individual persona by conversion rate
5. Rationale or reasoning: Our hypothesis is based on the result of the value proposition and persona exploration with the client, which is based on the brand’s strategic vision and goals.
6. Specify variations: We will test four different value propositions: Personalized Messaging at Scale, Simplify & Streamline, Increase Customer LTV, and Decrease Churn within creative assets on paid and organic social against two personas: the Acquisition Marketer and the Retention Marketer.
7. Audience: We will test the four creative assets against two target personas: the Acquisition Marketer and the Retention Marketer. We will leverage behaviors, interests, and in-platform engagement to build these audiences. Geographic and age targeting will be consistent across both groups.
8. Metrics for evaluation: The key indicator of success for this experiment will be the impact on the lead conversion rate on the website. We will also use in-platform CTR (based on all clicks) and the ratio for users who initiated the lead form and users who completed the lead form as secondary metrics and performance indicators.
9. Timeline and testing plan: Identify how long the test will run and the number of samples or users you aim to include. This should also include minimum conditions for success, such as an impression, spend, or visitors threshold, which ensures statistical significance.
   1. Example: We will run the multivariate test for four weeks. Each persona (ad set) within paid social campaigns will receive the same level of ad spend and launch timeline. For organic social, we aim to gather data from at least 1,000 post views per asset, given the existing follower size of 3,000.
10. Success criteria: We will consider the test a success if any of the value proposition variations result in a statistically significant increase of at least +10% in conversion rate compared to the existing landing page. All creative variations within each audience ad set need to achieve 50K impressions to ensure statistical significance for paid campaigns.
11. Contingency plan: If none of the variations show a significant improvement in conversion rate, we will reevaluate our macro-level strategy for persona and value proposition testing. We will also evaluate the performance of the core landing page using a heatmap and click behavioral analysis to determine the next steps for the website.

Harness the power of multivariate testing tools

For landing page experimentation, we recommend tools such as Optimizely, VMO, and CrazyEgg, which make multivariate testing a breeze. These platforms enable the growth marketer to set up experiments, track results, and draw insights, all while ensuring statistical significance that will propel your growth strategy forward.

For creative experimentation, there are tools such as Marpipe that allow brands to do relevant multivariate testing to the nth degree. However, we have seen mixed results with these approaches because tools like these allow for such a detailed level of customization that detracts from achieving statistically significant findings. In general, we recommend leveraging multivariate testing for macro-level experiments such as persona testing, value prop testing, and visually different creative themes (i.e. comparison chart vs. testimonial). This will restrict the team from going overboard on launching too many micro variations that can muddle results on a larger scale.

Key takeaways

Mastering creative multivariate testing at scale is vital for growth marketers and sets the stage for innovation, adaptability, and sustained growth and success. It involves simultaneously testing multiple variables across various growth channels and campaigns to optimize user experiences and boost conversion rates. This approach can benefit startups searching for their unique value proposition, CMOs shaping macro-level strategies, and individual contributors executing the vision.

Multivariate testing offers precision optimization and efficiency and fosters a culture of continuous improvement, resulting in cost savings and sustained growth. To start, define clear goals and craft well-structured hypotheses based on data and insights. However, use caution when crafting multivariate tests, as overly detailed customization can dilute results, especially within creative experimentation. Instead, focus on macro-level experiments such as persona and value proposition testing, ensuring statistically significant findings that drive growth.

The post Mastering Creative Multivariate Testing at Scale appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

These campaigns encompass a range of verticals within eCommerce and highlight brands that are thinking out of the box and pushing the boundaries of what we define as a successful marketing campaign. From partnerships and brand awareness plays to community engagement and social responsibility, these campaigns explore the power of creativity, customer-centricity, and innovation in eCommerce marketing.

How Do You Build a Successful eCommerce Advertising Strategy?

When crafting an eCommerce marketing campaign, it’s important to do market research & review customer feedback to ensure the goals of the campaign are aligned with the brand’s community. The media mix should align with where your community lives and interacts both online & offline. Explore both traditional (SEM, Paid Social, Email), and non-traditional channels (Podcasts, CTV, or even the Metaverse). Weigh the upfront costs along with industry benchmarks to formulate the macro strategy for this campaign.

In most cases, it makes more sense to launch this as a separate entity to ensure results and budget are segmented between evergreen content and this experimental campaign. Best practice varies by channel; however, it’s important to plan the campaign as an augmentation to ‘business as usual’ campaigns.

What Are the Best Marketing Channels for eCommerce?

Here is a proposed growth marketing strategy for an eCommerce Marketing Campaign for a brand in the beauty industry.

1. Paid Social:

Within performance marketing, building awareness for a campaign quickly and efficiently is best achieved via paid social. Depending on the size of the media budget, competition in the space, and demographics of target customers, it’s recommended to test 2 paid social channels for eCommerce. For beauty brands, FB/IG and TikTok will most likely be the strongest return on investment for shorter-term campaigns. Our recommendation is to mimic the campaign structure of top-performing evergreen paid social campaigns and apply this forward to the separate eCommerce campaign.

TikTok

Test value props in the form of individual video assets, preferably with hook testing for each variation. CPC and CPM will be relatively low here and this is the best opportunity to notify customers about the campaign. Leveraging this content plan also provides quick, valuable learnings on what content performs best for this campaign therefore top performing messaging can be applied quickly to other channels. There are a few ways to approach goals for TikTok: website visitors so these people can be retargeted on other channels OR email capture so these people can be sent through a specific flow tailored to this campaign.

FB/IG

Launch a similar content plan as TikTok on this channel to understand how the FB/IG audience responds to the same test. However, test a variety of content types in addition to value prop & hook testing given the variations in age, demographics, and interests between these 2 paid social channels. Because of this, learnings won’t always be consistent so we don’t recommend making blanket decisions from one to another. Leverage machine learning (A+S) campaigns at TOF to drive awareness and see a return on investment, as well as retargeting WSV and retention campaigns, if possible.

2. Paid Search:

Given the nature of this channel, users who convert through Paid Search are typically lower in the funnel because they are taking an action (i.e. searching) compared to other channels such as paid search where the ad is presented while the user is browsing content that’s completely unrelated to shopping.

Non-Brand Campaigns:

Leverage this channel to acquire MOF & BOF search intent driven by paid social & other TOF channels using non-branded keywords. If the conversion rate isn’t strong, test long tail keywords to ensure the campaign is targeting medium-high intent users which will result in higher conversion rates.

Brand Campaigns:

If there’s enough natural volume for the brand name or there’s substantial competition from competitors on the brand name, leverage a branded campaign. For the purpose of this experimental campaign, test optimizing the copy in the branded campaign to reflect the campaign using relevant keywords in the copy.

3. Performance Max (PMax):

Similar to Paid Search, this channel has the highest return on investment for high-intent users who have been introduced to the campaign (or product) from another channel.

Placement Testing:

Experiment with a variety of Google placements (Shopping, YT, Display, etc.) through PMax which allows machine learning to take the reins and serve the ads to the ideal potential customer at the right time. Over time, develop insights and learnings on top-performing placements for future PMax campaigns and apply those going forward. Typically, shopping placements perform best for PMax campaigns for eCommerce brands however results vary by budget, industry, competition, and seasonality therefore it’s recommended to continually run placement tests for PMax.

4. Connected TV (CTV):

If building brand and campaign awareness is a top priority, leveraging CTV is a strong channel to explore. CTV advertising allows you to reach a highly engaged audience through streaming services on smart TVs, connected devices, and OTT (over-the-top) platforms. Immediate return on investment is typically low and CPMs are historically high (upwards of $25 and even $40+ during peak periods). However, this is one of the best channels to achieve high reach and impression share for larger-scale campaigns where a more traditional media mix (Paid Search + Paid Social) is too limiting.

Building a Strategy:

Research the major players in the CTV ecosystem and identify which ones align with the persona of your target audience. Set expectations internally on measurement and attribution of results for this channel prior to launch as this can be difficult to quantify. Ensure creatives are optimized for this platform as traditional TV and paid social ads may not translate well. Tailor the creative to fit the CTV environment (screen size, user attention & intent, and ad formats) as well as experiment with the same value props & hooks as paid social so messaging can be compared after the campaign has concluded.

5. Influencer Marketing:

Partnering with influencers/content creators who have large, loyal followings on social media can help the brand reach new audiences and build trust with potential customers.

Similar to paid media, select influencers whose values and interests align with the brand and this campaign. However, don’t feel limited by the industry (in this case beauty) because some of the most successful campaigns to date have been collaborations with other industries/niches.

6. Email & SMS Marketing:

These channels should be used strategically and sparingly for this campaign. There will naturally be two peaks of interest & therefore purchases: one at the beginning when the campaign is announced and one at the end before the campaign concludes. The goal here is to generate a third or even fourth peak, depending on the duration of the campaign.

Retention:

This is the audience with the highest potential conversion rates because you’ve already won them as a customer. Send campaigns to this audience sparingly to avoid ‘spamming’ them and giving them a poor impression of the brand. Messaging should be around the value they can gain from the product (or campaign) and extra promotional discounts are likely unnecessary here.

New Potential Customers:

If pursuing a lead generation campaign via paid media as mentioned above, create an email or SMS flow for this audience based on the messaging from the inbound campaign. Reinforce the same value prop in which they converted and send a string of emails aimed to drive the conversion.

7. Public Relations (Earned Media):

As a form of earned media, PR aims to secure media coverage and generate publicity through non-paid editorial content. PR is often used to manage a positive image and reputation for a brand in the form of traditional press releases and subsequent earned media placements. Unlike paid media, the challenge lies within relationship building because this channel leverages the credibility and trust associated with third-party endorsements to enhance brand reputation and shape public perception.

Long-term strategy:

PR requires a longer-term investment and shouldn’t be relied upon for quick wins. It takes time to build credibility and secure media coverage, but when it happens the reward will be worth it. PR won’t be a channel to rely on for shorter-term eCommerce campaigns such as a promotion or 1-week narrative. However, for longer-term campaigns (1-3 months) or announcements of strategic partnerships that will have a substantial impact on the brand, PR can be impactful.

8. Website Optimization (Owned Media):

It’s imperative that the website & key landing page for this campaign is optimized for purchases, preferably using the AIDA framework. It’s also important that the website can handle a high volume of traffic and is optimized for mobile traffic & site speed.

5 Best eCommerce Marketing Campaigns: Insights + Learnings

1. Doordash x Sephora partnership

• Who: Doordash and Sephora
• What: Launched as an exclusive partnership that allowed customers to unlock same-day delivery of Sephora products through Doordash at a competitive price.
• When: November 2022
• Where/Channels: Earned Media, PR, Owned Media (Sephora & Doordash website/apps), Affiliate
• How: Campaign was launched with 500 stores across the US with a one-time promotional offer for purchases over $60.

@azaria.mckinnon

sephora door dash !! GIRLL WHATTTT & THIS FACEMASK OMG my skin feels so good

♬ original sound – Azaria McKinnon

Doordash x Sephora Takeaways

• Timing: The partnership was launched days after Sephora’s bi-annual Beauty Insider (BI) sale which is a popular and highly anticipated event in the beauty community. By leveraging this strategic partnership in the days immediately after the BI sale leading into Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Sephora was able to boost sales ahead of Cyber5 which is historically an extremely expensive and competitive time to advertise.
• Loyalty: To ensure a frictionless experience, both brands ensured their loyalty memberships were able to be easily connected which allowed for a seamless transition.
• Limitations: Doordash had already been experimenting with retail partnerships, however this was their first expansion into the luxury market. Sephora had previously experimented with Instacart partnerships, however scale was limiting and delivery times were slower and more expensive.
• Long-Term Partnership: Though not a revolutionary concept, the partnership was successful due to its scale, speed, and cost effectiveness to the end user. Based on positive feedback from the communities, the partnership is now a permanent offering to Doordash & Sephora customers. Further, imposing a minimum spend requirement for the promotional offer drove higher AOVs and ultimately increased revenue for both brands.

2. Lululemon Align Legging Dupe Swap

• Who: Lululemon
• What: Knock-off ‘dupe’ culture is a trend that’s posing a serious threat to many eCommerce brands. Some have referred to the movement as recession-core or Gen Z’s anti-consumerism sentiments, but the bottom line remains the same: People are purchasing copycat products more often than they’re buying from the original. Lululemon took the control away from copy-cat brands and back into their court with an in-person ‘Dupe Swap’ event in Los Angeles.
• When: May 2023
• Where/Channels: TikTok, Instagram, Earned Media,
• How: The athleisure brand hosted a 2-day public event which allowed 500 customers per day to trade in dupes of their Align High Rise Pant 25” at no charge to the customer. The only requirement was that the leggings couldn’t be Lululemon.

@lululemon Tiny mic, big Q’s: Align Dupe Swap edition. We want to hear from everyone, how do your lululemon Aligns make you feel? #lululemonalign ♬ original sound – lululemon

Lululemon Align Takeaways

• It’s a Genius Brand Awareness Play: The term #lululemondupe has more than 2M views on TikTok and there’s a plethora of organic content reviewing copycat versions of their apparel. The brand recognized an opportunity to take advantage of the natural buzz and conversation, listen to the community’s feedback, and transform it into a brand experience. Plus, it’s an opportunity for the brand to quickly generate UGC/organic-driven content at no cost to the brand.
• Low-lift, high reward: The leggings were released in 2015 and still are considered to be the leading product on the market nearly 8 years after their release. In comparison to a new product launch or larger advertising campaign, the cost and production required to bring this in-person event to life were minimal. Yet still, the virality and ‘shock factor’ of the event drove the same impact from an organic impression perspective.
• Product Feedback: The brand has unlocked the opportunity to analyze, evaluate, and compare a variety of competitors’ leggings against their original design to identify areas of improvement for their product.
• Community Feedback: In exchange for the Align leggings, customers were required to participate in a brief survey. This allowed the brand to unlock valuable, zero-party data to understand why the community is making a purchase with competitors instead of Lululemon. The general hypothesis is that price is the main deterring factor for not purchasing from Lululemon, but is that really the case?

3. See My Skin

• Who: Vaseline x Hued
• What: Vaseline partnered with Hued, a leader in creating equitable and inclusive healthcare experiences for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities, to create a campaign the See My Skin campaign. A key goal of the campaign was to eliminate bias for people of color in skin health and to ensure people of color receive the medical treatment they deserve. The result is a database that allows users to search conditions on skin of color.
• When: August 2022
• Where/Channels: Instagram & FB, YouTube, Earned Media, PR, Owned Media (Dedicated landing page in partnership with both brands)
• How: The campaign was launched with an integrated paid and organic strategy aimed to drive an impact on organic search volume and usage of the database. They achieved a +1,430% increase in people searching for dermatological care & 48% of site visitors took action after visiting the campaign’s landing page.

See My Skin Takeaways

• Importance of Giving Back: For Vaseline, this campaign wasn’t aimed at driving revenue or sales. Instead, this was an opportunity to be a leader in contributing to the greater good and in turn, building and sustaining Vaseline’s positive reputation and brand image. Data has proven that customers are more likely to remain loyal to companies that they perceive as socially responsible.
• Role Model in their Field: For household name brands such as Vaseline, maintaining a strong brand reputation and brand image is important. Studies have shown that consumers are more likely to support companies and are social responsibility and give back to the community, so this is a win-win situation for Hued and Vaseline.
• Increased customer loyalty: For household name brands such as Vaseline, maintaining a strong brand reputation and brand image is important. Studies have shown that consumers are more likely to support companies that are socially responsible and give back to the community. By participating in social good initiatives, Vaseline is strengthening its relationship with customers, winning them as loyal customers, and encouraging repeat business.

4. Asperqueens

• Who: Aspercreme
• What: Aspercreme is a topical pain relief product that’s popular among Baby Boomers. The product went viral on TikTok when women discovered the product as a hack for alleviating the pain of wearing high heels.
• When: Spring-Summer 2021
• Where/Channels: TikTok, Amazon, YouTube, Paid Search
• How: The brand seized the opportunity to take advantage of the natural buzz and took hold of the conversation. The brand strategically partnered with Nicky Doll, a world-renowned drag queen, to take the volume of the campaign to the next level. Though the campaign was scrappy and unplanned, the brand’s ability to move quickly and ride the popularity wave garnered 25M views across paid and organic media and increased sales on Amazon by +70%.

Asperqueens Takeaways

• Influencer Partnerships: Nicky Doll was a contestant on Season 12 of RuPaul Drag Race which premiered in 2020. Season 13 of RuPaul was in the midst of airing when Aspercreme blew up on TikTok, so the show was top of mind for many fans and TikTok users. This is strong example of how partnering with an influencer from another niche can drive success for the brand and expand to a new audience.
• Listen to Community Feedback: Meeting your community where they’re naturally having conversations online is crucial. In this case, the product had historically been popular for Baby Boomers and early adopters from Gen Z, so TikTok likely came from left field. However, staying vigilant to social listening and taking community feedback seriously was the key the brand’s success for this campaign.

5. Robbery Campaign by POPFLEX

1. Who: Blogilates & POPFLEX
2. What: Cassy Ho is the face behind Blogilates, the #1 Female Fitness Channel on YouTube with nearly 8.5M followers, and the CEO of athleisure clothing brand, POPFLEX. As Blogilates grew in popularity and POPFLEX’s business model scaled, fast fashion brands began to steal their designs and remake them for a lower price point, aka “dupes.”
3. When: Spring 2023
4. Where/Channels: TikTok, Instagram, Email, Blog
5. How: Blogilates & POPFLEX changed the narrative around “dupe culture” and launched the Robbery Campaign which directly targeted Shein, Halara, Club Pilates, and Sharkbarbie for stealing designs, photography & video direction, and messaging. The campaign garnered 101.4K likes on Instagram and secured earned media coverage from reputable news outlets such as Yahoo, and Shein ultimately removed one of the dupes from their website.

Robbery Campaign Takeaways

• Community Activation: Going viral on social media has a certain allure and exclusivity that many brands are chasing to achieve. Blogilates & POPFLEX have gone viral countless times for their community-led growth, feedback-forward content approach on TikTok & Instagram which has propelled the athleisure brand’s into a new stage of growth. However, the growth phase often comes with the price of heightened competition, especially in the eComm/fashion space. POPFLEX took an aggressive approach against their competitors through the Robbery campaign which inspired their already active and loyal community to become brand activists overnight.
• The Power of Speaking Up: As inflation & supply chain challenges continue to worsen, “dupe culture” will continue to grow. Unlike Lululemon, there wasn’t a large volume of organic buzz and conversation around dupe for POPFLEX products. To make the issue top of mind, Cassy & the brand took a loud, combative approach to start the Robbery conversation and own the narrative on their terms. This translated into a highly engaged debate and discussion opportunity for the community in the comment section of the Instagram post and the more extensive blog post on blogilates.com.

Conclusion & Takeaways

The success of eCommerce marketing campaigns in 2023 relies on a strategic approach that explores new oportunties to engage a brand’s community and leverage their insights to improve the brand & product’s offerings. These campaigns exemplify brands that embrace innovative thinking and challenge the conventional boundaries of marketing. From strategic partnerships and brand awareness initiatives to community engagement and social responsibility, these campaigns have demonstrated the ability to captivate audiences and achieve remarkable results.

These campaigns are the best in their field because they’re driven by a comprehensive understanding of the target audience, strategic media planning, and a commitment to innovation and customer-centricity. By incorporating these elements into their campaigns, brands can achieve remarkable results, increase brand loyalty, and drive growth in the competitive eCommerce landscape.

The post 5 Best eCommerce Marketing Campaigns appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

To some, AI-powered tools like ChatGPT may be viewed as a threat to “business as usual” and a “replacement for the human touch.” However, early adopters of AI will tell you to greet these tools with open arms because they are transforming the way we collaborate, plan, and, execute marketing campaigns for the better.

At a glance, video marketing is notorious for being expensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive. The reality is that ChatGPT can help alleviate most of these problems. One of the key advantages of using ChatGPT in video marketing is its ability to understand the context of a given situation and generate appropriate text, something that requires a unique skillset or years of experience. This means that GPT-3 can be used to create video scripts that are relevant, specific, and produced in a short period of time. Additionally, GPT-3 can be used to generate captions and descriptions that are optimized for specific keywords and phrases, which makes it incredibly easy to accomplish SEO & content goals alike.

What are the types of video marketing?

Video marketing comes in many shapes and forms and can manifest itself on Meta (Facebook & Instagram), YouTube, TikTok, CTV, and Snapchat, to name a few. Before we dive into the opportunities of leveraging ChatGPT to improve video marketing strategy, planning, and execution, let’s review a few video marketing formats.

1. Product Explanation: This is an opportunity to educate prospective customers on the value-add beyond the product/service and its competitive advantage. This is best suited for prospecting audiences but can also be used for retargeting the middle of the funnel.
2. Product Demos: Similar to best practices for driving conversion rate growth on a website, highlighting product benefits is more impactful in this type of video instead of the features alone. This should only be delivered to warm audiences who have already been introduced to the product/service.
3. Storytelling: Whether you’re leveraging the community appeal through a “get ready with me routine” or positioning the product/service as the solution to an urgent problem, this can be a powerful format to leverage to convince someone to make a conversion. This type of video works well at any level of the funnel.
4. Testimonials: Pessimistic prospective customers may need an extra push to be convinced your product/service is the right fit for their needs. Leveraging a social proof video can help “seal the deal” and earn you a loyal customer via MOF & BOF campaigns.
5. User-generated content (UGC): The goal here is to be authentic & provide a touch of trustworthiness and dependability to communicate a message or value proposition. This can come from a community member or an in-house content creator and can be impactful at all levels of the funnel.
6. Behind the scenes (BTS): Peeling back the curtain and showing clips of the production process can make the user feel like they’re being invited into an exclusive club. This video format can be effective for cold audiences if the video is positioned as “an intro to the brand” or as a push towards a purchase for warm users in the MOF & BOF buckets.
7. Promotions: Dangling an offer as the hook and key content theme can push conversions in the short term, but shouldn’t be used as a long-term solution to guarantee sustainable growth. This should be used sparingly and strategically at all levels of the funnel but requires a holistic promotional calendar & deliberate approach.

How can video be best used in a marketing strategy?

The first step in building a video marketing strategy is to solidify the north star goal and determine how video marketing will contribute to the macro strategy. How will you leverage videos as a growth lever to achieve the larger macro goal? Will there be a specific OKR tied to the viewing experience alone (i.e. CTR, view-through, CPV) or will the performance of the video marketing strategy be evaluated as a contribution to a larger strategy? ChatGPT can be a resource here for brainstorming or validating modeling and projections; however, we recommend the meat of the strategy should come from the growth experts.

Next, identify the target audience. To save time on the brainstorm, submit these questions and your assumptions on the target audience to ChatGPT and use its response as a starting point. After the target audience has been defined, evaluate video marketing platforms to craft the video marketing mix.

• Where do these people spend their time?
• What are their behaviors and interests?
• How do they consume video content?
• What is important to them
• How can the product/service solve their problem?

One of the most important aspects of the video marketing strategy is deciding what story you want to tell and how you will communicate it. The story framework has four core elements. Once these factors are defined, ChatGPT can support in fleshing out the script.

• Character & their goal – Ideally, this is the archetype of your target audience so they will naturally resonate with them.
• Conflict – This serves as the hook to grab the user’s attention and aligns with the target audience’s pain point, problem, or concern.
• Quest – The meat of the story will take place here and will serve as the introduction to the product/service.
• Resolution – This is the “ah-ha moment” or the “moment of joy” when the product/service solves the character’s (and therefore the customer’s) problem.

Video quality is paramount for success. Whether the goal is to be a high production value or an authentic UGC video, a quality benchmark needs to be maintained.

Once the north star goal, target audience and value props, and shell of the story are finalized, the last thing to do is decide which platforms or mediums will drive the biggest impact. Lean on ChatGPT to provide context on industry benchmarks and drawbacks of individual channels. Finally, identify channel-specific OKRs, budgets, and benchmarks for success.

5 Ways to Use ChaptGPT in a Video Marketing Initiative:

Marketers can leverage ChatGPT to create high-quality, engaging video scripts, captions, and descriptions that are designed to attract and convert viewers into customers. Here are 5 key ways to incorporate ChatGPT into the workflow.

1. Video Scripts

GPT-3 can be used to create high-quality, engaging video scripts that are tailored to the target audience. The AI chatbot can succinctly incorporate a variety of topics into the video script and can follow a list of basic rules and guidelines to ensure brand consistency is maintained.

Utilizing an AI-powered ideation machine allows us to spend more time creating high-quality video content. This can be especially helpful for tight deadlines or moments where creative inspiration is lacking. This also allows with experimentation on granular levels of delivery, ranging from script length to hooks utilized.

2. Captions and Subtitles

GPT-3 can be used to generate captions and subtitles for videos that are optimized for specific keywords and phrases quickly and efficiently. This can improve the accessibility and searchability of the video, making it easier for users to find and view relevant content. This shift in content creation will undoubtedly alter the future of search engine optimization. But what does this mean for brands beyond production costs and turnaround time?

Word-of-mouth has an approval rating of over 90% from consumers globally which is a nod to the authenticity of the content on TikTok compared to other social platforms. As the quantity of content on TikTok continues to grow, authentic product and brand recommendations can become lost amongst the sheer volume of ‘influenced’ content. This is where SEO comes into play.

Optimizing video content for searchability will soon become a necessity on TikTok to ensure content can be discovered by prospective customers. Leveraging ChatGPT to do the heavy lifting will save you time and money, but it also ensures the video can be found by the target audience.

ChatGPT can also help ideate keyword clusters — a variety of terms you’ll want to build authority around and create content on. You can prompt the algorithm to generate a cluster around a term that’s high-priority and leverage GPT-3 not just for SEO, but also for content planning and mapping.

3. Video Descriptions

An extension of captions and subtitles is the video’s description. ChatGPT can summarize the video’s content and optimize for specific keywords to increase the visibility of the content. However, since ChatGPT is a free tool that is widely available, how does this provide a competitive advantage?

Using the time saved from copywriting, it’s worthwhile to pursue creative experimentation for different personas. Leverage ChatGPT to shift the messaging and tone for key audiences to validate both the content approach and value propositions.

4. Personalization

ChatGPT can be particularly useful for scaling up content creation, especially for audience validation. GPT-3 can create personalized video content that addresses the viewer by name or by audience segment (i.e. demographic and behavioral traits) based on persona mapping. This makes the message more personal and increases the engagement rate of the video.

In an aggressive growth strategy plan, we’ll typically test the same creative against multiple audiences to understand which interests and behaviors describe our target customer. However, it’s difficult to create & deliver personalized messages at scale. Leveraging ChatGPT in video marketing allows us to unlock a new level of creative experimentation and subsequently a new level of insights and learnings about our key demographic audiences.

5. A/B Testing

Rapid experimentation inherently relies on A/B testing and ChatGPT can serve as an instrumental tool in the workflow. GPT-3 can be used to generate multiple versions of video scripts, captions, and descriptions based on a variety of A/B test parameters. As a brand scales up on experimentation across numerous platforms, identifying which type of content resonates best with the target audience is key to improving overall performance. ChatGPT can serve as a brainstorming tool to help you get started.

Conclusion

GPT-3 is a powerful tool that can be used to enhance video marketing efforts by generating high-quality, unique content that is tailored to the target audience and optimized for specific keywords and phrases. It allows to create personalized video scripts, captions, and descriptions that address the viewer by name or other demographic information, making the message more personal. By improving the quality and relevance of content, GPT-3 can help to increase video views and ultimately lead to more conversions.

The post Using ChatGPT in Video Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

According to the National Retail Federation, consumers purchased $529 billion worth of goods during the 2010 holiday season. Throughout the 2010s, this value grew at a steady rate of +4.2% per year until 2020 when online shopping surged by +32% to $789 billion which was likely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, Insider Intelligence is predicting the US 2021 holiday shopping season will reach $1 trillion.

With so much on the line, it’s important to follow our 9 growth tactics to ensure your brand achieves its revenue goals this holiday season.

Growth Tactic #1: Start Early

Though the 2021 holiday season doesn’t technically start until Black Friday, the 4th Friday in November, many marketers launch holiday campaigns as early as 11/1. With that said, marketers need to be strategic about how they’ll position their brand. One of their biggest hurdles will be differentiating their product in the noisy, crowded environment we call the ‘joyful holiday season’.

To ensure success, holiday planners should begin brainstorming their omnichannel approach in late August. In September, the goal is to iron out messaging and creative direction before the holistic plan is finalized in October. Depending on the size of your brand, your audience, and your EOY goals, we recommend launching your campaigns in early to mid-November.

In fact, LocalIQ ran a research project based on the 2020 holiday season and concluded that 56% of shoppers want to complete their holiday shopping by the end of November. Therefore, the key to success will be getting into your consumer’s pockets early before they’re exhausted by the overwhelming volume of holiday advertising.

Growth Tactic #2: Build a Holiday Calendar

This one might seem obvious, but many marketers overlook it. We suggest building a holiday campaign calendar to visualize your holiday plan across marketing channels. Establishing firm launch dates will help guide your team through the chaos and hecticness of September through December. It also establishes accountability among channel leaders.

Be ready to react and adapt quickly. Make sure you are properly staffed for the 2021 holiday season to avoid burnout and stretching your team too thin. We encourage our team to submit vacation requests by mid-October so we can plan accordingly, and we recommend your company does the same.

Growth Tactic #3: Leverage Data and Research to Your Advantage

During the planning period, give yourself adequate time to build a solid strategic foundation. Begin by analyzing prior data and identifying new areas of opportunity. Next, perform industry and competitor research so that you’re informed and up-to-date with this year’s trends. Based on your findings, identify tangible EOY goals for your brand.

Take time to get your ducks in a row. If time and budget allow, test new strategies on a smaller scale and analyze the results. Spend as much time as possible gathering performance learnings so that you can hit the ground running in November.

We use the following strategies in our pre-holiday planning period.

Review last year’s performance: What worked and what didn’t? Make sure to look for:

• Top-performing offers (Make sure to get finance’s buy-in. Review margin and CAC on these offers)
• Best performing products, bundles, or holiday gifts
• Winning subject lines and email cadence
• Top campaigns and audience segmentation
• Top performing creative
• Best performing customers (don’t forget about them)

See what worked (and didn’t work) for competition. Review public case studies from the last year for both direct and in-direct competitors. Take a dive into your bookmarks and slack channels – does anything stand out? Make sure to answer the following questions:

• Can you identify successful themes across brands?
• How can you take existing “inspo” assets to the next level?
• Are these strategies in line with your brand goals?
• How can you modify other brand’s emails or offers to fit your brand?
• Is it tangible to replicate these tactics for your brand?
• Which trends should be left in the past and which ones should be reinvented for 2021?

After you’ve completed this research, align on budget and goals and identify benchmarks based on last year’s performance.

Growth Tactic #4: Consider Your Logistical Constraints

The goal in the early planning phase is to understand what is logistically possible for your supply chain and fulfillment centers. No matter the size of your company, the supply chain should always be considered when developing a marketing plan.

First, synchronize with your product fulfillment teams in August or September to understand their bandwidth and potential limitations during the holiday season. If you’re planning to roll out special holiday packaging (i.e. holiday prints or stickers), discuss the timeline, cost, and establish expectations with your team. If you already have new holiday packages in the works, get a status update.

Many marketers advertise the last purchase date that will guarantee product delivery by 12/24, Christmas Eve, which is a powerful impulse buying tactic. If you’d like to leverage this strategy, work with your fulfillment team to identify this date. Then, select a date that’s 1-2 days in advance of the final deadline and advertise that date to customers. This way, you’ve given yourself a time cushion and you can avoid accumulating unnecessary angry customers.

Growth Tactic #5: Develop Top-Notch Creative Assets

After you’ve completed preliminary research and aligned on goals, budgets, and logistical limitations, it’s time to shift gears into a creative mindset. We recommend tackling the creative needs early because production takes time. Rushing the creative process will leave you with poorly designed and manufactured assets that can be detrimental to your holiday campaigns.

After you’ve decided on a central theme and identified a winning offer, consider how this can be tweaked for various marketing channels. Media that works for paid Facebook and Instagram campaigns won’t necessarily work for YouTube, TikTok, and Display.

Growth Tactic #6: Review Your Conversion Journey

Consider this question: On average, how many days does it take users to make a purchase on your website? Most brands fall somewhere within 30 days, but it’s not uncommon to see larger numbers for higher-priced and/or luxury products. If you’re not satisfied with your brand’s conversion journey, get to work sooner rather than later so you can get ahead of your technical debts.

Analyze user behavior on your website to identify potential UX and CRO issues. Prioritize core landing pages that receive the highest traffic and visibility instead of blog posts and other pages that are more difficult to find on the website. Get aligned with your development team on an acceptable timeline and ensure the plan can be implemented before the holiday season begins in early November. Identify what it takes to create a frictionless conversion journey for customers and take action to improve your website’s weaknesses so you can ensure optimal holiday campaign performance.

Growth Tactic #7: Tackle SEO, Tagging, and Reporting Issues Early

During the holiday season, product and brand searches spike, which ultimately means increased competition for your organic rankings. It’s imperative to be both strategic and realistic about your SEO goals. Our biggest recommendation is to ensure your top organic ranking pages match the user’s search intent. Once you accomplish this, you’ll likely see higher conversion rates because you’ll be giving users exactly what they’re aiming to get from their organic search.

It’s also important to consider technical errors on your website. And yes, every website has these demons. Although tagging or reporting issues might not be the most glamorous items to address, knocking them out of the way ahead of the holiday season will pay off. Once completed, you can relax knowing that you’re getting the cleanest data possible. This will lead to valuable data findings, performance learnings, and insights that will guide your strategic optimizations throughout the season.

Growth Tactic #8: Use PR, Affiliate and Influencers When It Makes Sense

Public Relations: Leveraging good PR in your performance campaigns can be highly impactful when executed successfully. PR pitching isn’t a quick process and is heavily dependent on relationships, so align with your PR team in August or September to make sure they are focused on the right offers and holiday products. The goal is to achieve PR validation in October or November before the holiday season.

Affiliate Marketing: Don’t miss out on this opportunity. There are a million lists that circulate during the holiday season that tell customers exactly what to buy and who they should buy it for (i.e. mom, brother, girlfriend). Identify the right strategy and placement for your brand, and execute accordingly. This can be a highly impactful marketing strategy during the holiday season.

Influencer Marketing: Like the rest of us, influencers get busy during the holiday season and book up early. Strategize on the qualities your ideal influencer might possess, then find influencers that align with your wish list. It’s important that your chosen influencers are aligned with your brand values because they will be viewed as a representative of the company. Being proactive is key, so get on their list early.

Growth Tactic #9: Combine Learnings to Make a Stellar Media Mix

It’s time to put everything together and begin campaign planning. Consider your strongest and weakest channels from a revenue perspective. The most effective way to organize your campaigns is to refer back to the marketing funnel. Keep campaigns organized in your EOY holiday calendar and find cross-channel opportunities to encourage sales.

Let’s be clear — once your campaigns go live, the time for rapid experimentation has come and gone. Your efforts should be focused on making small campaign tweaks to ensure your campaigns are continually optimized for success.

For Top of Funnel marketing campaigns, the goal will always be brand awareness. Though these campaigns aren’t directly correlated to the holidays, it’s important you keep them running. This structure looks different for every channel. For robust channels like SEM and Paid Social, this might be a click or landing pageview-centric campaign. Two great opening channels are Google Display and YouTube because they have a wide reach and are consistently successful at generating a high volume of clicks in a relatively short time period. As previously mentioned, PR is also a great option for TOF because it builds brand accreditation and recognition.

Now that you’ve sparked people’s interest, leverage Middle of Funnel campaigns to build a positive brand perception in the minds of your target audience. Leverage channels like email marketing, SMS/push notifications, and social media to continue building trust with users. By nature, people who are ‘following’ you in some capacity have a medium level of intent in your brand. Therefore, utilize these channels to announce new product offerings, holiday deals, and other promotions through these channels. Examples might include a weekly email newsletter that highlights your special holiday deals, an SMS reminder to buy before XX/XX date to receive before Christmas, or an organic post on Instagram that features a customer testimonial for one of your best-selling products.

Finally, we’ve arrived at the Bottom of Funnel where customers not only know about your brand, but they actually like your brand and are heavily considering a purchase. Most of the channels we’ve mentioned can also function as effective closing channels, but it’s all about the targeting and the messaging. Copy should not only be actionable, but it should also show the customer how your product can serve as a solution to their problem. Finally, win over customers with testimonials and close the deal.

Conclusion

Success looks different for all brands based on their industry, age, reputation, and growth team. Executing a successful 2021 holiday season is much easier said than done, but thoughtful planning and research can make a world of difference. If the holiday season performs according to Insider Intelligence’s 2021 projections of $1 trillion in retail spend, you’ll need these 9 growth tactics in order to turn a profit.

The post How Top Retail Brands Prep for the 2021 Holiday Season appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.

Enter Braze, a leading customer engagement platform based in NYC, that seeks to “power memorable experiences between consumers and the brands they love.” Their product is superior at helping customers achieve consistent user engagement, which has made their brand name synonymous with this core product offering. However, their true secret to success lies in making customer engagement a primary goal for their business and clients, which ultimately leads to stronger customer lifetime value (LTV). This strategy has allowed them to scale to $200M annual revenue (ARR) and a +840% lift in ROI within just a decade since launch.

When Braze was founded in 2011 as Appboy, its first products were limited to email and iOS delivery services. Their initial success was ignited when they won the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon that same year. Here at NoGood, we’re TechCrunch Verified Experts in Growth Marketing, so we know what it takes to join that exclusive club.

As the marketplace evolved, so did Braze. They re-branded the company in 2017 and expanded their services to include Mobile/Web Push notifications, In-Browser Messaging, Content Cards, and SMS/Text. As their product offerings became more robust, they attracted new clientele, including startups, mobile-first companies, and enterprises. Fast forward to 2021 and they’ve achieved industry-wide accolades as one of the Best Workplaces by Fortune, Inc. Magazine, and Crain, making them a leader in both the tech space and professional networking circles.

Dissecting the True Value of Customer Engagement

Customer engagement is a cornerstone of the Braze approach, and they are committed to helping businesses build genuine and sustainable connections with their customers. Over the years, they have become the expert at communicating with users at critical points in their journey, both as a company and as a service provider. In their 2021 Global Customer Engagement Review, they proved that successful customer engagement tactics are directly correlated to higher customer lifetime value results, and lower customer acquisition costs, resulting in long-term, capital-efficient business growth.

So, let’s break down that formula…

1. Achieve Higher LTV: From a financial perspective, the benefits of customer engagement go far beyond traditional ROAS. If you’re able to hook a new user into your Growth Loop and your product is best-in-class, then it’s only a matter of time until you see a lift in their overall customer lifetime value.
2. Lower Acquisition Costs: New user acquisition can be a costly game if you’re not committed to the Hook Model. Yes, conversion should be considered a win, but the work doesn’t stop there. It’s critical to keep that user engaged with your product/service until they develop habitual engagement. Once you achieve this, you can analyze your strategy to optimize your Growth Loop at lower costs.
3. Maximize ARR Growth: Achieving widespread customer engagement for brands on a global scale can be daunting. However, companies who commit to this strategy will be more likely to achieve their revenue goals compared to those who neglect this tactic.

Beyond these core areas of success, user engagement builds loyalty and retention with both new and existing customers. Eventually, this tactic will elevate your product offering to become an essential part of your customer’s life, and using it will become a no-brainer for them. Braze has accomplished this for their business, as well as countless clients including Venmo, Headspace, and HBO, all of which are used daily by their customers.

Offer Superior Cloud-Based Technology and AI

From a strategic perspective, giving clients the tools to generate strong, consistent customer engagement has been their core product offering since inception. However, Braze is so much more than a customer engagement platform.

The technology that powers their platform is one of the most sophisticated and robust cloud-based solutions in the industry. Their engineers have built a responsive, cross-channel experience that can be adjusted for large and small companies alike, and they pride themselves on offering custom solutions via flexible APIs that can be tweaked for a company’s needs.

In the early years, Braze focused on perfecting their technology. They prioritized building a product that would dominate the competition from a technical perspective. To maintain their growing presence as a digital leader, it was crucial they offered a platform that’s intuitive to clients. Today, the software saves clients up to 1.2K hours on managerial maintenance and integration work, giving them more time to actually focus on doing business. In fact, prioritizing accessibility has allowed them to deliver >1B push notifications per month for 3B+ active monthly users in 2019.

Their #1 product is Braze Canvas, which they’ve branded as an ‘Intuitive Tool for Marketers.’ This AI allows customers to segment, orchestrate, personalize, and test campaigns in one central place. The product excels at dynamic segmentation, automated flows, journey orchestration, and action-based delivery which pushes customer relationships to the next level.

The best platforms give users the ability to run tests quickly and nimbly, which is also a core function of Braze Canvas. To interpret the results, reporting and analysis tools are integrated directly into the platform, which allows customers to listen to and learn from their customers. Braze makes it simple for clients to tweak and optimize campaigns in real-time, which has driven a +624% lift in engagement rate when clients execute across multiple channels.

Selecting the Right Marketing Channels

It’s common sense that blasting the same campaign to customers on email, social, in-app, and SMS/push will likely have a high price tag with little ROI. Braze realizes that cross-channel promotion is paramount, and encourages its customers to choose at least two platforms to advertise on. They’ve found this messaging strategy leads to 4.2K higher customer lifetime value and a +73% lift in their likelihood to convert. However, they strongly recommend against publishing duplicate campaigns (without tweaks or personalization) to all channels.

As a business, Braze is picky when deciding which channels to enter. It’s not enough to “just be active” anymore. To make an impact and garner engagement, you need to be a thought leader and give your customers meaningful content. Simply sending a bland email campaign every Tuesday at 11 a.m. won’t get you very far. Consistency in tone and positioning across channels is also paramount for both stronger customer engagement and the overarching and brand reputation/voice.

Take Braze’s social media presence as an example. Their most active platform is LinkedIn, likely because it’s the leading professional network, and has its largest social media presence (26.8K followers). The majority of the content is blog posts from their website, which accomplishes three core goals. First of all, Braze is positioned as a thought leader. Secondly, this increases their visibility to reach new audiences and serves as an educational tool for newcomers and seasoned marketers alike. Lastly, these pieces are likely SEO optimized so it’s an easy way to repurpose valuable content. Beyond organic social content, this is the only social platform where they run paid advertising, another indicator that they don’t waste efforts on low converting platforms.

Their second most active platform is Twitter, which continues to be a leading news platform. Content is relatively consistent versus LinkedIn, and their engagement strategy includes retweeting partners and other off-page resource posts. They often comment on current events, which keeps them involved in larger conversations. Consistent with their strategy for this platform, Twitter is their second-largest social media audience at 16.2K followers.

Braze also manages an account on Instagram, though it has the smallest audience (2K). From a lead generation perspective, this is the least qualified social channel for Braze. They’ve made a strategic decision to focus efforts on larger reach, professionally targeted platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Therefore, posting on Instagram is less frequent, and the content is more casual and humanity-based.

Leverage Employee and Customer Feedback to Your Advantage

Braze has set an exemplary job at putting its customers first. Creating an intuitive, top-notch user experience has consistently been at the forefront of their strategy, and has earned them industry-wide recognition and financial success. To take it a step further, Braze heavily values customer feedback, which is also a crucial part of our culture here at NoGood. This tactic serves as their most reliable growth mechanism and has allowed them to scale to new heights.

The company strategically invests in both its employees (nearly 1K worldwide) and customers. In Forrester Wave’s Mobile Engagement Automation 2020 review, Braze was defined as an industry leader ahead of Adobe, Airshop, Salesforce, Acoustic, and Leanplum. They received the highest rating for orchestration, data integration, and execution of their product offering which is a testament to their commitment to receiving and implementing feedback from both internal and external perspectives.

Takeaways and Growth Bites

Braze’s success proves that companies who optimize their products for customer engagement will see larger lifts in customer satisfaction and lifetime value, lower acquisition costs, and company-wide revenue margins. This will also cultivate meaningful client relationships which is a key step towards transforming your products into a vital part of your clients’ lives.

However, generating customer engagement will only get you so far. In order to truly set yourself apart from the competition, your product has to live up to your marketing efforts. Listening to user feedback and adapting to evolving trends is particularly important, and will earn clients’ trust and loyalty.

It’s also important to be picky when deciding which marketing channels to enter. Testing content across channels is a smart and effective way to understand what excites your audience. Once you are confident in your marketing strategy, then you can concentrate your efforts on the channels that will deliver the most value for both you and your customers. It’s a win, win.

If you are looking for a growth squad to scale your business, please reach out to our team of TechCrunch Verified Growth Experts. Here at NoGood, we never use a cookie-cutter approach. Instead, we take the time to understand your business, your challenges, and your goals. Together, we’ll build an integrated strategy that works best for you. To get in touch with our team, click here.

The post Braze’s Marketing Strategy: Why Customer Engagement Matters to Your Bottom Line appeared first on NoGood™: Growth Marketing Agency.