The Design Department and its place in our marketing boutique

1 August 2022/12.1K read

Working in an agency, a simple designer gains a lot of experience, as it turns out with a high profitability of tasks and the likelihood of professional growth.

The responsibilities of a marketing designer are to create:

• Banners that should break through banner blindness and grab the attention of potential customers;
• Videos, which from the first 3 seconds will attract the audience and explain the product or service;
• Presentations describing the value proposition of the product or service;
• Websites that meet all UX/UI requirements;
• Social Media Marketing;
• Creation of identity.

Thanks to various clients, the designer in our marketing boutique becomes savvy in different areas and knows the peculiarities of working with a varied range of products, from digital products and devices to jewelry, because you can’t always use the same design techniques for all clients.

A marketing designer is a mini-campaign-manager.

CTR, ROAS, QUALIFIED LEAD and so on, all these concepts are familiar to the marketing designer in our boutique. Before each creation of a new set of creatives, the designer studies the updated indicators from Data Studio, thus choosing not only the most successful creatives, but also the concepts. To make the work more productive, each designer has at their disposal reports on creatives that are compiled by campaign managers, a table with concepts for each client, which are maintained by the designers themselves, and each designer communicates closely with the campaign managers. After the set of creatives has been worked out, the designer will analyze all the results and record the learnings in the report.

But that's not all.
Each designer is assigned a specific client, for which the designer makes a monthly work schedule to make sure that everything is on time, takes into account all tasks and coordinates deadlines; solves the tasks of the CEO team, monitors the performance. This personalized approach fosters stronger relationships and more impactful designs

Pros of working in a marketing boutique:

Working as a designer in a marketing boutique, you can gain experience working with different clients, products that are completely different from each other, get acquainted with the principles of work of different departments, such as BI, Development, and so on.
In addition, the result of the work is always visible in the reports, which greatly motivates each designer to work more effectively.

Minuses? Yes, they are few, but they still exist.

The biggest disadvantage of working in a marketing boutique is burnout. Unfortunately, this is a reality of every job and there is no getting away from it.
The most well-known way to save yourself from burnout is rest, but according to statistics, the design-departments go on vacation less often than campaign managers, because there are often times higher volumes of design tasks.

In essence, a creative team in a marketing boutique is a blend of talents, skills, and collaboration that creates a synergy capable of producing innovative, effective, and visually appealing marketing materials tailored to a variety of clients and industries. It's a dynamic environment that requires adaptability, continuous learning, and a passion for creativity.

Drive Growth with Rakuten's Winning Formula for Merchant Success

14 August 2023/9.8K read

In this article, we will explore the ins and outs of starting a Merchant marketing program, key factors to consider, common pitfalls to avoid, and the potential for exponential growth.

Analyze your competitors

In the competitive world of affiliate marketing, understanding and analyzing your competitors can significantly impact your program's success. By creating an Affiliate account and conducting a thorough analysis of competitors' strategies, offers, and strengths, you can gain valuable insights to refine your approach and outperform the competition.

By signing up as an affiliate on the platforms where your competitors are active, you gain access to their program details and promotional materials.

Studying these assets can provide you with a wealth of ideas and inspiration for improving your own promotional materials and marketing efforts. Pay special attention to the key proposals your competitors are making to their affiliates. What sets their program apart from others? Do they offer higher commission rates, exclusive products, or special incentives? By understanding their unique selling points, you can identify opportunities to differentiate your program and attract more affiliates.

Moreover, scrutinize their policies, terms, and conditions. Analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of their policies will allow you to refine your own policies and create a more attractive and competitive affiliate program. Look for any gaps or shortcomings in their offering, and use this knowledge to your advantage. In addition to identifying successful aspects, take note of any mistakes or shortcomings made by your competitors.

This analysis can help you avoid making similar errors and improve your program's overall performance. Keep an eye on feedback from affiliates who may have worked with your competitors before, as it can reveal valuable insights into what works and what doesn't.

This knowledge empowers you to fine-tune your program, stand out in the crowd, and attract top affiliates who will be eager to promote your products or services.

Create an appealing offer

Creating a compelling offer for your product is crucial in attracting affiliates and maximizing sales. Start by offering a higher-than-average base commission compared to your competitors. This initial incentive motivates affiliates to promote your product enthusiastically. As revenue stabilizes and sales volume remains steady, consider gradually decreasing the commission rate while ensuring it remains competitive in the market.

Finally, continuously monitor and analyze the performance of your affiliate program. Track sales data, conversion rates, and affiliate activities.

By providing your affiliates with the necessary tools, support, and incentives, you create a mutually beneficial partnership that drives sales and expands your product's reach. With a well-crafted offer and attentive affiliate management, your product can stand out in the market and attract a loyal and motivated affiliate network.

Know your data

It is crucial to ensure that you gather data from accurate sources and pay close attention to the attribution model used by the platform providing the data.

Certain platforms, we won’t point fingers (GA4), may mistakenly attribute sales to the wrong sources. 
This can lead to skewed insights and misjudgments about the effectiveness of marketing efforts. To overcome this challenge, it is essential to compare data from different attribution models and platforms. By doing so, you can uncover hidden discrepancies and obtain a more accurate understanding of the true sources of success.

Unlocking the power of GA4 for
businesses: the vital issues you need to know

02 April 2022/8.8K read

The constant changes in the digital world keep online businesses and specialists from different spheres in shape.  Everyone is used to GDPR, CCPA, and iOS 14 updates, and now we have a new challenge – Google Analytics 4. 

What was the necessity of switching to GA4?

The new version of Google Analytics isn’t just an interface update. It is a fundamental change in the logic of the tracking and analytic processes. The necessity of changing Universal Google Analytics to GA4 (Google Analytics 4) stems from several factors:

• Evolving Consumer Behavior
• Need for Enhanced Cross-Platform Tracking
• Future-Proofing
• Privacy and Data Regulation Compliance

Let’s figure out each of the factors in more detail.

Source: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/companies-using-ai

How can GA4 improve the effectiveness of your business?

The new version of Google Analytics has five main improved directions: Data Collection, User Identification, Reporting, Machine Learning, and Privacy.

Improved Data Collection to reduce losses 

GA4 and UA differ in how data is collected. In UA, data is collected using cookies stored on the user's device. GA4 uses event-driven data models that track user interactions on your website or app without relying on cookies. This allows GA4 to capture more data, including events, before users identify themselves.

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/989896/users-consent-in-advertising-tracking/

Reporting

GA4 and UA's reporting capabilities are different. In UA, reports are organised into categories such as Real-Time, Audience, Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversions. GA4 reports are organised around user-centric events such as user engagement, retention, and acquisition. This makes it easier to analyse user behaviour and identify opportunities for improvement.

“Feel the difference: Universal Google Analytics had over 100 ready-made reports, while in GA4, there are only 5 ready-made reports.” 

Machine Learning

One of the most exciting features of GA4 is its integration with Google's machine-learning technology. GA4 includes several AI-powered insights that can help you identify patterns and trends in your data. For example, GA4 can automatically identify your top-performing pages, most engaged users, and most valuable segments. This makes optimising your marketing campaigns and improving your user experience easier.

Privacy

Finally, GA4 has been designed with privacy in mind. With increasing data privacy and compliance concerns, GA4 offers several new features to help you protect your users’ data. For example, GA4 includes a new data deletion tool that allows you to delete user data on request. It also has new data retention settings that will enable you to control how long user data is stored.

Why isn’t GA4 as good as it has to be?

Even though Google Analytics 4 has a lot of unique and valuable updates, not everything is so smooth and everyone should be ready to be faced with some GA4 cons.

What is going to happen with all the data from Universal Google Analytics?

Keep in mind!
All users will lose access to the Universal Analytics API and UI on July 1, 2024.

Source: https://support.google.com/analytics/

Universal Analytics resources have stopped processing data since July 1, 2023. This means the website traffic will no longer be tracked, and reports will not be updated. You will be able to access previously processed data in Universal Analytics until July 1, 2024. After that, all users will lose access to the Universal Analytics API and UI. To save your data from Universal Google Analytics, export all reports off past periods up to this date.

7 mistakes in creatives that reduce the effectiveness of ads

13 Oktober 2021 / 11.8K read

Based on the experience of our marketing boutique, we have collected the main types of errors, the elimination of which can improve your creative’s performance and results.

TOP #1

Misalignment with the Platform

Each advertising platform has its own unique characteristics, and ads should be tailored accordingly. An ad designed for social media (Meta, TikTok, and others) might work less effectively on, for example, Bing, Taboola, Acuity, etc.

It is also important to familiarize yourself with the specification and gallery of creatives of competitors or companies with the same target audience as a first step. This will help you see all the limitations of the platform and its capabilities.

TOP #2

Ignoring the Target Audience

Not understanding the target audience's preferences, needs, and pain points can lead to irrelevant or unappealing creatives. Successful ads are tailored to resonate with the specific demographics they aim to reach. Showing visuals of the target audience in ads is essential because it helps create relatability, authenticity, and a stronger emotional connection between the audience and the brand.

When the target audience sees visuals representing people who look like them, share similar lifestyles, or face relatable situations, they are more likely to feel that the ad speaks directly to them. This relevance and identification increase the chances of capturing and engaging their attention  in the message.

What to do?

A strong value proposition is the cornerstone of a product and the key to a deeper understanding of your target audience. Visuals that depict the target audience's experiences, challenges, or aspirations can evoke empathy. This emotional connection can motivate the audience to consider the advertised product or service as a solution to their needs.

The most well-known approach to creating a value proposition is using Canvas Template by Osterwalder. The value proposition canvas comprises two major components: the customer profile and the value map.

After you identify all types of target audiences, describe a profile for each one. Gender, age, geography, average income, field of activity, interests, time of activity, character traits, marital status, and more. Collect footage and images of what your audience might look like. And try to use only this visualization in 80% of the cases, experiment with the other 20% of creatives and make minor adjustments. With rapidly changing trends and changes in the market, you will always be the first to see a new audience interested in your product.

TOP #3

Irrelevant visuals for different geographic regions

*This item applies only to selling your product/service to different geographical destinations.

TOP #4

Lack of Clear Message

If an ad lacks a clear and concise message, it can confuse the audience, making it difficult for them to understand what the product or service is about. A robust and focused message is crucial to communicate the value proposition effectively.

What to do?

Create a list of titles that describe your value proposition in clear language. It is also important to strive to make more capacious and memorable slogans to fit into any composition.

The more specific your message is, the more quality audience you will be able to attract to your creatives. If your partner's product/service has several value propositions at once, try testing each one separately.  For example, for one of our clients, we launched 3 such creatives and each of them talks about a different functionality of the same product. So we could attract a narrower audience and show its different pain relievers.

TOP #5

Absence of Call-to-Action (CTA)

With a clear and compelling CTA, viewers might know what action to take next. A strong CTA is essential to drive conversions, whether it's making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or visiting a website. A well-designed CTA can turm a potential passive viewer into an active participant.

An effective CTA often includes language that creates a sense of urgency. Words like "limited time offer," "act now," or "don't miss out" prompt users to take immediate action, fearing they might miss a valuable opportunity.

A compelling CTA captures the user's interest. It addresses their pain points, needs, or desires, making them more likely to take action. Also, a well-placed CTA helps direct their focus toward what the advertiser wants them to do.

CTA ideas for some types of ad campaigns

Remember, an effective CTA should be clear, action-oriented, and convey a sense of urgency or value. It's also a good idea to test different CTAs to see which resonates best with your specific audience and drives the desired action.

TOP #6

Absence of UGC format

UGC stands for User-Generated Content. It refers to any type of content, such as text, images, videos, reviews, or testimonials, created and shared by users or customers rather than by a brand or organization. UGC has become increasingly important in the digital age due to the rise of social media and online communities.

TOP #7

Overcomplicating the Design

Ads cluttered with too much text, excessive graphics, or overwhelming visuals can overwhelm the audience and dilute the message. This can lead to confusion and prevent potential customers from losing interest quickly. Simplicity often works best in grabbing attention and conveying the main idea.

Сomplicated designs with numerous graphics, animation, and effects can result in slow loading times, especially on mobile devices. Slow load times can increase bounce rates and negatively impact user experience. Remember that optimizing files for mobile ads involves a trade-off between file size and quality. The goal is to provide a visually appealing experience without causing slow load times, especially on slower network connections.

Simple and clear designs are more memorable. Complex designs are harder to remember, and viewers might not retain the key information or remember the brand.

What do you think? Which of these creatives brought the best result?

It is also crucial to follow the rules of composition when making a creative. Common compositional rules include the rule of thirds, balance, symmetry, contrast, and leading lines. These rules provide a framework that assists in arranging elements for maximum impact. A well-organized layout guides the viewer's eye to the focal point, preventing confusion or misinterpretation.

In conclusion, simplicity and clarity are often crucial to creating effective ads. Overcomplicating the design can hinder message delivery, user engagement, and overall campaign success. A well-balanced and well-designed ad should make it easy for the audience to understand, engage with, and remember the message.

See It to Believe It!

Click the link below to explore our portfolio

and witness the power of creative ads.

Expanding FB Capabilities for E-Commerce: Advantage+ Campaigns

10 May 2023/9.7K read

For most e-commerce businesses, the main challenge they face is the seasonality of sales and the need to maintain a solid, stable ROAS even during weak sales periods.

Meta Best Practices in E-Commerce

In the Meta environment, based on best practices, most of the budget (up to 60%) is distributed among campaigns with broad targeting settings. Another 40% of the budget is allocated equally between audiences narrowed by interests and hypothesis testing.

Campaigns with broad targeting settings limit platforms only by geolocation, age and gender. In this case, Meta provides more opportunities to find the most suitable audience and get the cheapest CPA.

Key features of Advantage+ campaigns

Since August 2022, Meta has offered advertisers a new campaign type to Increase Sales and Drive Growth. Advantage+ shopping campaigns use AI to eliminate the manual steps of ad creation and automates up to 150 creative combinations at once.

At their core, Advantage+ campaigns are an improved version of broad targeting, but they have several differences:

• The Campaign and Ad Set customization level have been merged as a result,  the number of customizations available has been significantly reduced;
• Of the targeting settings, only geolocation is available;
• Useful is the ability to add several custom audiences that contain information about your customers and allocate a certain % of the budget within the same campaign to retain the customer and encourage repeat purchases.
• It is also possible to set up an optimization event, attribution settings and add a special ad category if needed.
• On the Ad level, you will be able to publish 150 ads instead of 50 as in other campaigns.

Thus, you spend much less time launching, managing, optimizing ads and getting simplified campaigns structures using the power of machine learning.

Case study

We tested this type of campaign on one of our E-commerce clients in Q4 in 2022.
The purpose was to test Advantage+ campaigns in parallel with the main campaigns using 35% of the budget and comparinge the performance.

We knew that the results in Q4 would be good. It was important for us to understand whether machine learning in a new type of campaign would really help us find more relevant markets and customers with a cheaper CPA.

The results surprised us: Advantage+ cost per purchase (CPP) was 20% lower and ROAS was 125% higher than in our main campaigns with ROAS & Value optimizations.

Creatives and messaging during the test were the same. The only difference was the campaign type.

Ethical UX/UI Design: Balancing Experience & Privacy

8 August 2021/4.5K read

In today's digital era, the role of UX/UI designers has become increasingly vital in shaping user experiences across various digital platforms. As we strive to create intuitive, engaging, and aesthetically pleasing interfaces, it is crucial to also consider the ethical implications of our design choices. Ethical UX/UI design goes beyond aesthetics and functionality; it focuses on respecting user privacy, promoting inclusion, and making responsible data-driven decisions. In this article, we will explore the importance of ethical design in the digital landscape and discuss key principles that can help us strike the right balance between user experience and user privacy.

The Impact of Dark Patterns

Dark patterns can have serious consequences on user trust and brand loyalty. When users feel manipulated or deceived, they are likely to lose faith in the product or service and may even spread negative feedback. This can lead to a decline in user engagement and, ultimately, a loss in revenue for businesses. Instead of relying on dark patterns, ethical UX/UI designers focus on building trust and long-term relationships with users by providing genuine value through design.

Balancing Personalization and User Privacy

Personalization is a powerful tool for enhancing user experience, as it tailors content and interactions to individual preferences. However, personalization should not come at the expense of user privacy. As designers, we must find ways to strike a balance between offering personalized experiences and respecting user data privacy. Implementing privacy-focused design practices, such as obtaining explicit user consent for data collection and providing clear data usage policies, can help build trust with users and ensure the responsible handling of their information.

Inclusive Design for All Users

Inclusive design is an essential aspect of ethical UX/UI design. It taking into consideration considering the diverse needs and abilities of all users and ensuring that digital products are accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. By adopting inclusive design practices, we create interfaces that are not only user-friendly but also socially responsible. Examples of inclusive design include providing alternative text for images, using color contrasts that accommodate color-blind users, and offering keyboard navigation options for users who cannot use a mouse.

“Ethical UX/UI designers prioritize transparency in data handling. This means being open and honest about the data collected, the purposes for which it will be used, and how long it will be retained.”

User-Centered Design for Social Good

UX/UI designers have the unique opportunity to use their skills for social good by addressing societal challenges through design. Whether it's creating apps to support mental health, designing educational platforms for underserved communities, or promoting environmental sustainability, ethical designers can positively impact society through user-centered design solutions.

We create websites for our clients.

Click the link below to explore our portfolio and witness the power of websites.

Look

We create websites for our clients.

Click the link below to explore our portfolio and witness the power of websites.

Look

Boosting Your Search Impression Share in Google Ads: Essential Tips for Success

14 August 2023/9.8K read

In the competitive world of online advertising, maximizing your Search Impression Share in Google Ads is crucial for driving engagement and achieving advertising success. Search Impression Share is a metric that reflects your ad's performance on the search network, showing how well your ad is reaching its potential audience. Improving your Search Impression Share can lead to higher visibility, increased clicks, and ultimately, better results for your ad campaigns.

Here are some essential tips to help you boost your Search Impression Share in Google Ads:

Packing an Instagram business
from scratch

Packing an Instagram business from scratch

30 June 2022/8.8K read

In the vast digital landscape, Instagram has emerged as a prominent platform for businesses to establish their presence, engage with their target audience, and promote their products or services. However, to truly stand out and capture the attention of users, brands must invest in the art of Instagram account packaging. In this article, we delve into the science behind packaging a brand's Instagram account and explore the significance of each step based on research and statistics.

What is Instagram Business Packaging?

Instagram business packaging refers to the strategic curation and presentation of a brand's Instagram account to create a cohesive and visually appealing representation. It involves careful consideration of profile elements, content creation, and the overall aesthetic to capture the essence of the brand and resonate with the target audience.

What is Packaging For?

Effective packaging of an Instagram account serves multiple purposes. Firstly, it enhances brand recognition and awareness. A visually consistent and well-curated account attracts users' attention and makes a lasting impression. Secondly, it helps to establish brand credibility and trust. Research has shown that users are more likely to engage with and trust brands that present a professional and cohesive image. Lastly, packaging facilitates brand storytelling by creating a cohesive narrative through visual elements and content.

Is it Possible to Do Without Packaging?

While it is technically possible to have a functional Instagram account without a defined packaging strategy, research suggests that brands that invest in packaging tend to outperform those that do not. A study conducted by Sprout Social found that 75% of users admit to making purchasing decisions based on a brand's social media presence. Effective packaging can significantly impact user perception and increase engagement, ultimately leading to improved business outcomes.

We packaged social media accounts for our client.

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art of allocating e-commerce budget across traffic sources

14 June 2022/9.7K read

The best traffic sources for e-commerce can vary depending on your business niche, target audience, and marketing strategy.
However, some of the most effective and commonly used traffic sources for e-commerce are: