Another year has come and gone and the people have spoken…
In this post, we’ve pulled together the 21 most popular articles on the DigitalMarketer blog in 2016.
Yep… this is the stuff you can’t miss out on.
Coming in #1 (by far) is…
In 2017, we sent 181,177,569 emails, a 68% jump in emails compared to 2016.
Every high performing email subject line we sent had at least one of eight characteristics. You’ll learn what those winning characteristics are in the post.
And, for the 5th year in a row, we released our free PDF (no opt-in required) swipe file with all the top subject lines.
It gets better.
What you’ll actually find in this article are 505 killer subject lines to download because we just released our goodies for 2017 and rounded up the previous downloads for 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 all in one place.
Make sure you grab all the downloads before you send your next email!
On January 20th, 2014, Ryan Deiss published (in great detail) the system he used to build ALL of his businesses. Since publishing the system (called Customer Value Optimization or CVO) that post has been…
- read by 375,191 people
- shared almost 37,000 times (36,800 to be exact) on various social networks and…
- has received 535 comments
On August 20th, 2015, Ryan released the 2nd edition of this article with expanded information on…
- Product/Market Fit (« Understand why people buy… and why they don’t.)
- Acquiring leads and customers with Lead Magnets and Tripwire offers.
- Maximizing immediate profit so you can pay more than your competition to acquire customers, scale your campaigns or just pocket more cash.
RELATED TRAINING: Conversion Funnel Mastery: Get Access to our Proprietary Customer Getting Strategy and Get Certified As A Customer Value Optimization Specialist.
We like to think we know a thing or two about generating leads, which is why we were thrilled to roll out the 2nd edition of one of our most popular post in June 2016!
Plus, you’ll get the 8-Point Lead Magnet Success Checklist to print out and put your Lead Magnet through the paces with before launching to your audience.
We’ll show you what makes a great Lead Magnet, and what so many have done wrong before.
RELATED TRAINING: Conversion Funnel Mastery: Get Access to our Proprietary Customer Getting Strategy and Get Certified As A Customer Value Optimization Specialist.
This year welcomed a new Facebook ad type to the block and your business should be utilizing it: Facebook messenger ads.
DigitalMarketer has spent ample time and money testing this new type of ad. And now we’re ready to share everything we’ve learned and everything you need to know to deploy them in your business.
Get the scoop on…
- Facebook messenger as a destination (we’re calling them destination ads)…
- Facebook messenger as a placement (sponsored messages)…
- How to build your own subscriber list…
- How we’re using these new ads to sell tickets to our 4,000+ attendee event…
…plus, the chat tool DigitalMarketer is using to broadcast messages to our list—without it becoming a spam-fest.
We’ve run thousands of ads to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and what’s worth continuing to test.
You can swipe our seven best from 2016 on the DigitalMarketer blog—along with our seven best from 2017 that’ll be coming soon!
Each of these seven ads either generated…
- Sales (One whopper was 3,858% ROI positive)
- Leads (72,033 leads from the first campaign we’ll show you)
- Retargeting audiences (Almost as good as an email list, we like building retargeting lists)
We’ll be the first to admit it — some of our ad campaigns flopped this year.
These didn’t.
Check out our seven best ads of 2015, along with our seven best of 2014, and 2016.
The customer avatar is the Swiss Army Knife of marketing…
… and we’ve got a writeable PDF version of our Customer AvatarWorksheet (no opt-in required) waiting for you in this article.
The customer avatar informs you…
- Content Marketing — What blog posts, videos, podcasts, Lead Magnets, etc. should you create to attract and convert your avatar?
- Paid Traffic — Which ad platforms should you buy traffic from and what targeting options should you use?
- Product Creation – What solutions is your avatar searching for?
- Copywriting — How should you describe offers in your email marketing, ads and sales letters in a way that compels your avatar to buy?
- Email Marketing — Which avatar should receive a specific email marketing campaign?
Honestly… there is no higher leverage activity than getting clear on WHO you are selling to.
RELATED TRAINING: Conversion Funnel Mastery: Get Access to our Proprietary Customer Getting Strategy and Get Certified As A Customer Value Optimization Specialist.
Skills like…
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Media Buying/Traffic Acquisition
…are in demand.
Employers are looking for people that get this digital marketing “stuff.”
(RELATED: The Beginner’s Guide to Digital Marketing)
In this post, visited by 57,566 people, we’ll give you
- Job Description
- Potential salary
- Job titles
…and personality attributes you need to acquire the six hottest skills in the industry.
If you want to future-proof your career — you’ll want to read this guide to the six indispensable digital marketing skills.
RELATED TRAINING: Looking to sharpen your skills in these hot job markets? Learn more about our DigitalMarketer mastery trainings and become indispensable.
Are you an online retailer?
If so, this massive 4-Part ecommerce email marketing guide is for you.
In this roadmap, you’ll learn to create…
- The characteristics of the perfect eCommerce email (Look out for the section on the “Pre-Header” — we’ve made big gains in Open Rate from employing this)
- Where you should spend the VAST majority of your time testing your email marketing
- The right software to use to send emails and build exit-intent pop-ups on your site
We’ve also got loads of examples from online retailers doing email marketing right — and examples of those doing it wrong. Such as…
- Indoctrination emails — Did you know that welcome emails get 4X the opens and 5X the clicks of a typical promotional email? You need a solid welcome email!
- Lead Nurture emails — Learn how eCommerce pros use content to keep the list “warm.”
- Promotional emails — You’ve indoctrinated and nurtured them, it’s time to ask for the order.
This post is filled with examples and analysis you can swipe and put to work in your ecommerce email.
You’ll see killer emails from…
- Bonobos
- Jet.com
- Harry’s
- Michaels
- Art.com
…just to name a few.
You’ll also learn how to structure…
- Transactional Email/Receipts — Transactional emails have extremely high open rates. Are you giving your customers an opportunity to buy more in your transactional email? Look for examples you can swipe from Athleta, Dollar Shave Club, and Etsy.
- Cart Abandonment Email — 67% of online shopping carts are abandoned leaving as much as 4 trillion (<< that’s not a typo) dollars on the table. You’ll find a 3-Part email series you can employ and examples from Fab, FifthThree, and Doggyloot).
Plus, you’ll find more than a dozen manual and “triggered” campaigns you can set up to increase engagement and sales.
If you’re selling physical products online (or you’re thinking about it), you need this guide.
To round it out, you’ll get case studies from three of the best in physical product email…
- Envelopes.com — This cart abandonment strategy gets more than double the typical improvement of cart abandonment email campaigns.
- Bonobos — Learn to send fewer emails (stop carpet bombing your list!) and generate more sales.
- Amazon.com — See how this digital retailing giant generates billions in sales by focusing on personalization.
This is the granddaddy (or grandmommy?) of all email marketing articles for online retailers.
RELATED TRAINING: Ecommerce Marketing Mastery: Learn Exactly How to Make More Sales & Profit From Your Ecommerce Store.
In mid-2014, we released one of our most popular Facebook advertising articles called…
“The Complete Guide to Facebook Ad Targeting.”
This resource was used by more than 25,000 people to find their ideal customer on Facebook and put an offer in front of them using Facebook ads.
In March 2016, we released the 2nd Edition of this resource.
Here’s what’s new:
- The downloadable Facebook Ad Checklist you’ll use to organize your ad targeting research
- The “But No One Else Would” trick that allows you to drill down into your market and reach people who will actually buy (and cut the rest)
- A walkthrough of the exact process our traffic manager uses to conduct targeting research (« This can be applied to any market)
- 4 new resources for market targeting research (3 of these 4 resources cost nothing)
In May of 2014, we released our list of 212 blog post ideas.
Since that date, this resource has helped 94,525 bloggers defeat the dreaded “blank screen.”
Almost a year later, we updated and released the 2nd edition of our Ultimate List of Blog Post Ideas to include…
- 232 blog post ideas (you’ll love the Content Aggregator and Embed Reactor posts)
- 5 short instructional videos (showing you how to create some of our best blog post types)
- Updated screenshots and links to example articles (so you’ll know exactly how to put them together yourself)
… PLUS, we added a handy lightning bolt icon that denotes posts that can be put together extremely quickly!
RELATED TRAINING: Content Marketing Mastery: Get our Step-By-Step Plan For Turning Content Into Free, Organic Traffic and Get Certified as a Content Marketing Specialist.
Did you know, according to Yahoo! Finance, the earning potential of a professional digital marketer is $209,755?
Heck… the average entry-level salary for a digital marketer with experience is north of 70K per year.
Now we’re showing you the 4-step process we use to bring in new marketing talent… (HINT: We aren’t looking for experienced marketers)
…that immediately contribute to the marketing of the business… (You’ll see our onboarding process)
…at a reasonable salary.
Whether you’re thinking of hiring your 1st marketing team member or your 101st, you need to read this guide.
RELATED TRAINING: Looking to sharpen your skills in these hot job markets? Learn more about our DigitalMarketer mastery trainings and become indispensable.
Trying to figure out which conversion funnel to build?
DigitalMarketer’s President Richard Lindner was back in July 2015 with the ultimate GIFT for you.
It’s a shortcut.
Simply answer the 3 questions Richard poses in this article and you’ll know how to move forward acquiring leads and converting them into customers.
Seriously… you’ll wish you had this shortcut 10 years ago.
Read this article at least twice and pay very close attention to the section titled “3 Types of Conversion Funnels” — this information could change your life.
RELATED TRAINING: Conversion Funnel Mastery: Get Access to our Proprietary Customer Getting Strategy and Get Certified As A Customer Value Optimization Specialist.
Today, digital advertising is all about RETARGETING. It drives click costs down and conversions up. It doesn’t get better than that.
And retargeting is all about PIXELS — little pieces of code you drop on your web pages that “tag” your visitors and allow you to retarget.
But that’s not all a pixel can do.
Right now on the blog, Molly Pittman is sharing EXACTLY how to use pixels to optimize your Facebook advertising.
Trust me… you need to understand how these pixels work — it’s imperative to your traffic success.
In June 2015, we published the first edition of The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Video Ads, and it’s been a hit ever since…
In June 2016 we rolled out a brand new second edition from Keith Krance of Dominate Web Media and co-host on the Perpetual Traffic podcast.
Here’s what’s new:
- The 3 Stages of a Facebook Video Ad ( « What you do in the first 10 seconds are critical. Keith gives three examples of how to get people to take action.)
- 5 steps Keith’s team uses every time they launch a new Facebook video ad — leading to Video View custom audiences for 5¢ per person.
- 7 examples of different Facebook video ad styles that crushed it, so you can, too.
If you’re thinking of dabbling in Facebook video ads, this 2nd edition is a must read.
The Data & Marketing Association said that in 2015, for each $1 spent on email marketing, companies made $38 in return.
That’s a 3,800% ROI!
If you want to achieve this result (and who wouldn’t?), you need to figure out if your emails and campaigns are ACTUALLY driving business-building results.
To do that, you need to pay attention to four email marketing metrics. Yes, just four. 🙂
These email marketing metrics are UNIVERSAL and will help you measure the success of your emails, so you can create effective email marketing campaigns no matter…
- …your email list size (whether it’s a fledgling or a full-grown eagle)
- …your type of business (from ecommerce to brick-and-mortar)
- …the email platform you use (from MailChimp to Maropost)
This post will share…
- …the only four email marketing metrics you need to track (« but you must track them for every email you send)
- …how to use the metrics to track the two categories of emails (« they couldn’t be more different)
- …and – most importantly – how to figure out if your email performance is good or bad (« so you can actually improve your email marketing!)
The process laid out in this blog post from Molly Pittman is three years in the making.
The Ad Grid is DigitalMarketer’s process for organizing and systemizing our paid traffic strategy. It takes the guesswork out of creating an ad campaign.
It’s a 7-Step process that dramatically increases the odds of creating a paid traffic campaign that is an absolute home run.
You’ll see an entire ad campaign built from scratch using the Ad Grid so you’ll understand exactly how to put this system to work in your traffic campaigns.
If you or your organization are sending traffic to landing pages, you need to download this Landing Page Audit (no opt-in required)…
It’s a tool you’ll use to grade landing pages (yours or a competitor’s) and determine the elements that are hitting the mark or failing at every turn.
You’ll rank a landing page on 15 “grading elements” and score each factor on a scale of 1 to 4. In the end, you’ll have a final score and a list of action items that can improve the post.
Here’s how to put this audit tool to work:
- Email Marketers – You should definitely direct your traffic to a solid landing page, and the better the landing page, the better your email campaign.
- All PPC Marketers – We all know how important a well-crafted landing page is for our PPC campaigns. Use this audit to squeeze even more revenue!
- Business Owners and Managers – Landing pages are easier to create than ever and it’s likely yours could use a tweak. See how your campaigns stack up or evaluate how your team creates their landing pages!
- Agency Owners and Freelancers – Audit the landing pages of your clients so you can help them improve their campaign conversion rates.
In case you missed it, these are the numbers in this case study on the DigitalMarketer blog…
- Total Ad Spend: $434,256.72
- Total Revenue Generated: $1,422,500.15
- Total Initial Profit Before Ad Spend: $810,825.08
- Total Initial Profit After Ad Spend: $376,568.36
Ezra Firestone will teach you…
- The three issues you must overcome to generate consistent visibility for your ecommerce business (and how to overcome them).
- “The Big Four” traffic sources your ecommerce business should be leveraging.
- The one sales funnel that has worked for every ecommerce business and every market Ezra has ever tried.
This funnel (Ezra calls it the Dipsy Doodle and The Don Daliber) looks like this…
You’ll see every page of this funnel along with the follow-up emails that accompany this 7 figure funnel.
RELATED TRAINING: Ecommerce Marketing Mastery: Get our Step-By-Step Plan to Make More Sales & Profit From Your Ecommerce Store.
A couple years ago, DigitalMarketer made the decision to abandon our ghost town private forum on our website in favor of a private Facebook Group—it wasn’t very strategic and we had no idea what to expect…
The results were nothing short of incredible.
Today, we have 7 private Facebook groups and every one of them…
- Increases customer satisfaction
- Reduces refunds on one-time purchases
- Increases retention of our subscription offers
…and increases sales through word-of-mouth.
Today on the DigitalMarketer blog, you’ll get access to the 6-component process we use to build and manage these private Facebook groups—straight from our Community Manager’s mouth.
Ir you’re new to Google Tag Manager, or a salty veteran, you need this 3-Part ultimate guide from DigitalMarketer’s resident Sensei Chris Mercer of Seriously Simple Marketing.
In Part 1, Mercer will teach you:
- The “What” of Google Tag Manager (Think of GoogleTag Manager as a tracking dashboard made for marketers)
- The “Why” of Google Tag Manager (Google TagManager gives you, as a marketer, a whole new level of tracking ability.)
- The “How” of Google Tag Manager (We covered Tags, Triggers, and Variables)
In Part 2, we’ll dive a little deeper with…
- Advanced use cases of variables.
- How to use GTM and the “data layer” to report eCommerce transactions (sales) in Google Analytics.
And, finally, Part 3 will take you cliff diving through GoogleTag Manager:
- How to set up and use customer dimensions.
- How to track users across devices.
RELATED TRAINING: Analytics & Data Mastery: Get our Step-By-Step Plan for Building a Powerful Analytics Dashboard and Get Certified as an Analytics & Data Specialist.
The number of websites you can advertise on in the Google Display Network is in the millions and the number of individual pages you can reach is in the billions.
Your ability to scale on the GDN is virtually limitless.
So… why isn’t everyone using the Google Display Network?
The truth is that it’s pretty dang easy to screw up a GDN campaign — blowing through your budget and showing ads to the wrong people. Most people throw up their hands declaring that the GDN is useless.
But that’s a big mistake.
In Mike’s spreadsheet you’ll find 147 different ways to narrow down your GDN campaigns—PLUS, all 11 different ad formats you can use—to help you scale your business bigger, faster, and more profitably.
Most advertisers, not realizing just how many options are available to them, end up using the two most basic options: managed placements with image banner ads.
As a result, they end up filling only ONE of these 147 squares (and missing out on the other 146):
Don’t be most advertisers — use The Display Grid to unlock the opportunity of Google Display Network.
That’s a wrap for our best content on the blog for 2017… here’s to an even better content-filled 2018!