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    Author: Alex Wilks

    Alex Wilks has been working as a copywriter and digital marketing strategist since 2018, with added specialties in social media and email marketing. With a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and Communication, she is a natural content writer with the ability to connect well with her target audience.

    3 of the best PPC ad networks

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    In terms of access to pay-per-click ad networks, the choices have boomed in recent years, with an opportunity to choose between traditional search engine results pages, native advertising on popular websites, and a wide variety of social platforms. Since PPC ad networks are expansive, it’s important to consider all avenues before allocating your business’s marketing budget. Listed below is a selection of the best PPC ad networks to use to strengthen your digital marketing strategy.

    Google Ads 

    As one of the biggest players in the game, Google ads possess a huge market reach which includes the following PPC ads:

    • Search engine results pages (SERPS)
    • Display Network (ads and videos on partner websites)
    • YouTube advertising
    • Google Play app store advertising
    • Gmail in-app advertising
    • Google Shops advertising

    If you’re after one of the above ad placements, you will need to bid for it. Listed below are examples of some Google PPC bid options:

    • CPC (automated and manual cost per individual click)
    • Enhanced CPC
    • CPM (cost per mille)
    • Target ROAS (targeted return on ad spend)
    • Target CPA (targeted cost per acquisition) 
    • Maximize conversions
    • Maximize clicks
    • Target Outranking share
    • Target Impression Share

    Since the cost of Google ads can vary massively, you should first need to calculate your budget before considering this investment.

    Microsoft/Bing Ads

    Next to Google is Microsoft Advertising, also known as Bing Ads. Offering business owners a cheaper price tag than Google, Microsoft Ads are also associated with a wide assortment of formats, including:

    • Xbox
    • Windows App store
    • MSN
    • Outlook Email
    • Websites for display and native advertising managed by various sales partners

    Although not quite as comprehensive as competitor Google, Microsoft Ads also require bidding:

    • Enhanced and Manual CPC
    • CPM
    • MaxClicks
    • MaxConversions
    • Target ROAS
    • Target CPA 

    With the lower volume and less competition, your bids are bound to be cheaper, which offers a greater opportunity to stand out on the Bing Ad network.

    Facebook Ads

    With the ability to add some targeting potential, Facebook Ads is one of the best PPC ad networks on the market, especially with Instagram as an extension—offering marketers and business owners alike the potential to reach those with specific interests, demographics, education, age, and location data. 

    Facebook Ads can appear on:

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Facebook Messenger
    • The Facebook Audience Network (apps and websites on the partnership network)

    Even cheaper than Bing, Facebook Ads pricing is based on cost per thousand impressions (CPM) or cost per click with the option to target CPA (cost per action) and Target ROAS. Moreover, since Facebook Ads aren’t activated by searching, businesses have an opportunity to get in front of their audience much easier.

    All of the best PPC ad networks can be managed by the PPC team at Trek Marketing. Comment below to get started!

    What did you find most interesting about this digital marketing service? Drop a comment below to get connected.

    How to craft an effective social media marketing strategy

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    The social media content that you choose to formulate and post holds great power for your brand. However, aimlessly posting is not the best method for turning followers into fans, which is why it’s important to develop a social media content strategy before you can fully explore the potential of each platform. Since it can be challenging to get noticed on the wide web, the best way to stand out on social media is to identify your specific goals and distribute them across the right platforms. This ensures that each post is valuable, aligned with those goals, and measurable, which allows you to fine-tune your strategy over time. Since there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to crafting an effective social media marketing strategy, you must first access your industry and audience, then build a plan that promotes longevity and growth for your brand. 

    Identify and set your goals 

    The first steps toward having a long-term social media marketing strategy are to set goals for your content. This includes the type of content you will post, how often, what time, and so forth. Having goals in mind helps you to plan, create, and facilitate content that embellishes brand values and reaches your audience. While you can start by making some generic marketing goals, such as increasing your following, it’s best to create a lasting social media marketing strategy that serves all of your goals long-term. Specifics allows you to tailor content to better meet your goals and to convert high sales by moving followers to a landing page as part of your marketing funnel. 

    Plan out your social content

    Once your goals are clear, it’s time to look at the content that you’ve created so far and make note of which posts are performing well and what platforms are getting the most recognition. Appropriately tagging your content will allow you to utilize analytics to achieve a holistic view of your social media content’s performance. Many social platforms also allow businesses to view page analytics directly. 

    During this phase, be sure to look closely at the language and tone you’re using on the underperforming content. It’s important to use your brand’s authentic voice so that followers know what to expect from your content. 

    Build a content calendar

    Part of distributing great content is planning, which is why it’s now time for you to build a social media content calendar. This allows you to have a space to organize and visualize your ideas so that they can be strategically executed.

    When planning, don’t be afraid to repurpose content and schedule it across different platforms at different times. This allows you to learn more about your audience’s engagement so that you know when and where you can get the most reach. 

    Promote and distribute content

    Since your social media marketing strategy goes beyond what you post on each channel, you will want to set up distribution allowing your posts to be shared widely. If you actively blog, be sure to post a snippet of this content on your social channels. If your audience admires what’s written, they may choose to share it among their friends, which offers you free distribution to new followers. Another way to effectively promote and distribute your content is to remember to ask questions. Encouraging people to share their answers on your post increases your engagement rate and keeps the post active.

    While posting content to go live immediately is a great way to show your followers that you’re an active business, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity. Pre-scheduling content and utilizing hashtags create a further reach, which allows you to network with others within your niche. You can also join other pages and link your comment in the comments section if it relates to the conversation. 

    Are there other methods that your brand uses as part of your social media marketing strategy? Drop a comment below to let us know.

    5 advantages to Amazon selling

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    When it comes to online shopping, it’s no secret that many consumers order off of Amazon. With its convenient delivery methods and free shipping options, it’s a great way to introduce small e-commerce businesses to shoppers worldwide. This very attractive sales channel is an opportunity for vendors everywhere, however, it’s important to see if the advantages of Amazon selling are worth the cost for you. 

    Is Amazon selling right for your business?

    Amazon has brilliantly established itself as the world’s largest online retailer and while this company has a lineup of basic products under its name, most of what it sells is from other retailers. 

    That said, what are the pros of Amazon selling that draw in so many vendors?

    • More sales 
    • Gaining new customers
    • Possibility for international expansion
    • Low marketing costs
    • No stock

    More sales 

    Millions of active customers visit Amazon each month in search of products making it the number one place to shop online.

    By listing your products on Amazon, it’s far easier to gain credibility and trust with the consumer. That’s because of the great policies and customer service set in place. Rather than buying from a company a customer has never heard of, they purchase from that company with Amazon as the middleman. This ensures Amazon’s promise and excellence. 

    Gaining new customers

    As mentioned above, it’s likely that Amazon will help e-commerce businesses increase their sales and with that, build up their customer base. Since most users who utilize Amazon focus on finding the perfect product rather than who sells it, it works as an advantage for businesses who want to gain a wider audience. Plus, once they make their first purchase, they can be retargeted for other products by your company in the future. 

    International expansion

    As a globally trusted selling and buying platform, it makes it easy to branch into different markets. Shipping to over 100 countries worldwide, Amazon selling allows businesses to bridge new markets. 

    Low marketing costs

    Since Amazon already attracts millions of customers to its website daily, you don’t need to spend as much money to access them. Depending on your niche and how crowded the market is you can make significant marketing efforts will little effort or spending. After all, who does want to piggyback on Amazon’s success?

    No stock

    With 175 fulfillment centres around the globe, you can ship your products in bulk to Amazon and they will store your inventory, package it, and ship it when customers order. This allows business owners to not get bogged down with shipping so they can spend more time sorting through other important elements of managing business operations. 

    While Amazon selling is a great way to advertise your products, there are other ways you can utilize the platform to target new customers. Our digital marketing team knows the ins and outs of Amazon selling and would be happy to help you achieve your online sales goals on a budget. 

    Are there any advantages to Amazon selling that we missed? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    Reach vs. impressions: What’s the difference?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Are you working towards building brand awareness? Have you done what seems like everything possible to grow and influence your audience using a wide variety of digital marketing services and tools? If these explanations resonate with you, it’s critical for you to better understand the difference between reach vs. impressions. Since each metric requires a different strategic approach, accurately measuring these metrics will help you to find areas to increase your efforts without wasting time and money. 

    Reach vs. impressions: What’s the difference? 

    In terms of digital marketing, “reach” refers to the total number of people who see your content, whereas, “impressions” refers to the number of times your content is displayed, no matter if it was clicked or not. This is a metric primarily that’s used in social media marketing and pay-per-click advertising.

    Since every social media follower can’t see all of the posts that you publish organically, if your goal is to increase engagement on a particular platform to ensure content is delivered to your target audience, reach and impressions are great analytics to examine.

    Let’s dig a bit deeper

    There are many similarities between reach and impressions, however, there are some underlying differences as well. Let’s use an example to further your understanding. If your company has 1000 followers on Instagram and you publish a post, if every one of your followers sees that post, you have a reach of 1000 users—along with 1000 impressions. However, if you update your post and all of your followers, once again, see your post, your reach doesn’t change, but you now have 2000 impressions. This is partly why you may notice that your impressions can be higher than your follower count.

    Learning more about engagement

    Building brand awareness is about getting your message to the right people. This can be done by improving your reach and impressions. To ensure that you get the most out of each social platform and ad campaign, you will want to analyze the metrics offered by each network. While it would take many pages to break down the process for each social media platform, for this blog, we will focus on Facebook.

    On Facebook, reach falls into three different categories:

    • Organic: The number of unique people who see your content in their news feed.
    • Paid: The number of unique people who see your paid content (ex. Facebook Ad).
    • Viral: The number of unique people who see your post or page mentioned in a story published by a friend. These stories include actions such as liking, sharing, or commenting.

    Similar to reach, Facebook impressions are also split into the same three different categories:

    • Organic: The number of times your content was displayed on someone’s news feed.
    • Paid: The number of times your paid content was displayed.
    • Viral: The number of times content associated with your page was displayed in a story published by a friend.

    A great understanding of building brand awareness must be before engagement, reach, and impressions can drive your target audience to take action. If you’re ready to get your social media marketing and pay-per-click marketing on track, please contact Trek Marketing’s Sales Team to get started.

    What did you find most interesting about the above blog? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    Increase web traffic with these 4 strategic services

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Every online business wants to increase website traffic to drive sales and conversions. After all, an attractive website amplifies brand awareness and revenue. However, it isn’t easy to get noticed in the vast depth of organic search results, which is why we have four digital marketing services to strategically bring quality traffic back to your website. 

    Search engine optimization (SEO) 

    SEO encompasses a wide range of tactics for helping your website rank well in search engine results for relevant keywords and phrases. Since organic searches are most likely to begin via search engines, this digital marketing service has the potential to dramatically increase the quantity and quality of your website traffic by attracting users who’re interested in completing a sale.

    Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

    PPC advertising drives traffic to your website through the use of paid advertisements. These ads are strategically placed on search engine result pages (SERPs), social media sites, and other websites. While digital marketers are in charge of creating and managing these ads, with PPC advertising, businesses only pay when the ad has been clicked, making this a cost-effective way to increase website traffic. 

    Social media marketing

    Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are an excellent way to grow your brand, expand your audience, and drive more website traffic. By creating a social media following you offer added opportunities for users to link back to your website, which increases traffic and incentivizes viewers to learn more about what your business has to offer. 

    Content marketing

    Blog post submissions, infographics, videos, and podcasts are all elements that fall under the realm of content marketing. Whether you choose to create and publish content that aligns with the interests of your audience or keep things simple by outsourcing content marketing to a digital marketing agency, it’s important that you be strategic to increase page session times and conversions.

    Did you know that the following content marketing is more likely to drive website traffic?

    • Long-form content (more than 2000 words)
    • Informational pages
    • Product and service pages
    • Guides

    Trek marketing offers all of the above strategic digital marketing services, so perhaps it’s time that you found out more?

    If you had to prioritize, which digital marketing service would you try first to increase your website traffic?

    5 social media content writing tips

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Social media is an ever-changing aspect of digital marketing and as more people become more technologically savvy, it’s increasingly harder to generate engagement. However, by applying a variety of simple writing tips, you can better your social media content and make it more appealing to the customers you’re targeting. In this post, we will share five content writing tips to assist you with inspiring engagement!

    Spend some time researching

    While spontaneity is part of what makes social media content so fun, if you want your target audience to notice and engage with your social posts, you should spend a bit of time researching what they want to see and what your competition is doing. Although relevance is important, taking some added time to better understand what your audience wants and needs will help you to create a long-standing relationship with them. Start by making a list of challenges that might be prioritized by them and research how you can develop content that will provide them with the perfect solutions. You can also strive to connect with your audience on an emotional level by adding some human interest to your social posts. This means that you can share videos of your team interacting with the products, which helps the audience to envision how they would put your products to the test.  

    Speak their language but develop your voice

    Once you have completed the research phase, the next step is to learn what language your ideal clients use to communicate their needs or challenges. When writing social media content, your posts must resonate with the demographics of your target audience. For example, if your product(s) and/or services cater to retired seniors, it’s best to describe them in more detail and to avoid using slang terms in your writing. However, if your audience is younger, feel free to throw in some hip lingo to better resonate with them. Also, be sure you post on the right social media platform to speak to their needs.

    That said, the voice of your brand should also be consistent across all marketing activities and social interactions. While that voice should always be professional, it’s an opportunity to influence your company personality and a great way to better your engagements by building trust with prompt responses and customer service. 

    Don’t make your posts too long

    While an older demographic might appreciate the added explaining, people value their time, and if you take too long to get your message across, you risk losing their attention altogether.

    Here are some tips we have for developing short, punchy social media content:

    • Use simple language (slang for when the target audience is younger)
    • Use bullet points often to make your posts easy to scan through
    • Keep it short: two to three sentences is plenty

    Use images and include a call-to-action 

    Have you ever heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”? Images, graphics, and video content help to tell a story when words aren’t possible, and many customers prefer visuals over other forms of social media content. Many platforms even possess “live” video features, which are greatly beneficial for providing a more emotional, human connection to your audience. Whether you jump on live to update about product shipment or simply ask your audience how their day is going, it’s a great way to provide a high level of authenticity, which is often lacking in the high-quality marketing videos of big companies. 

    Moreover, at the end of your social media content posts, consider also prompting your audience with an action that you would like for them to take. For example, you could ask them to comment on their favourite summer activity or even use emojis below to describe their day. Keep in mind that engagement is engagement and it doesn’t always have to be about promoting your business. 

    Do you need help with your social media marketing strategy?

    Trek Marketing offers a social media content writing service where we handle all of the postings for you! Simply connect with one of our team members and let us know your vision for your brand to get started.

    Are there other ways in which you keep your social media content fresh? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    Tips to managing a cookieless future

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Rest assured that we’re referencing third-party cookies being tossed aside and not the popular baked treat. After Google officially announced in 2020 that it was banning website cookies from its web browser Chrome—a platform that the digital advertising industry has used to monetize content—the future of data and analytics has become less clear. To help you ease the transition, listed below are some ways your business can strategically work to conquer a cookieless future.

    What are cookies?

    Known as website cookies, these snippets of code are unique IDs that is assigned to website visitors. Remembering each user, the first-party website cookies collect information to deliver a more personalized experience, whereas the third-party website cookies allow brands to re-engage targeted audiences across domains for digital advertising. 

    Why is Google killing website cookies?

    Following suit with competitors Firefox, Safari, and Apple, Google’s browser has been pressured to step back from the use of website cookies with ongoing concerns surrounding data privacy and regulations. 

    How do businesses and digital advertising companies manage a cookieless future?

    While website cookies helped to underpin audience-based digital ad campaigns to allow businesses to retarget and reach lookalike audiences in the hopes of completing a sale, there are other ways in which brands can contextualize and build their audience segments. 

    Listed below are some cookie-free techniques:

    • Use site lists for alternative targeting: Discover which referral sources account for the top sectors of your incoming traffic and build a whitelist to reach your target audience. Conversely, building a blacklist so your ads don’t appear on the wrong domains. 
    • Leverage the intelligence of your competitors: Cross-browsing behaviours can help to identify the top competitor audiences to convert to your own.
    • Monitor pay flows: Pinpoint channels that drive subscriptions to your competitors by monitoring pay flows. This will help you to allocate the budget between paid channels and search engine optimization (SEO). 
    • Power your pitch: Boost customer acquisition by optimizing your ad sales. You can harness granular traffic information and pitch to clients through ad sellers. 

    Do you have any other tips for business owners and digital marketers when Google gets rid of website cookies? Drop a comment below to share. 

    Performance marketing: What is it and why should you care?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Although many tools facilitate how to plan, track, and optimize digital marketing campaigns, measurable actions are best handled by those who know how to understand the data. Not only does this further the insight on how, when, and where to allocate a business’s spend but it allows businesses to be vigilant on what’s most important. Listed below is our summary of performance marketing and why you should care.

    What is performance marketing? 

    Performance marketing is an umbrella term that’s used to describe any online marketing activity that can be tracked and attributed to a specific action and/or result. 

    There are three main types of performance marketing payment models:

    • Percent of sale: The advertiser pays a commission on each sale generated
    • Leads: The advertiser pays a commission on each sale generated
    • New customers: The advertiser pays a fixed amount for each new customer acquired

    There are also situations where performance marketing models become hybrid and encompass many payment types. 

    Performance-based marketing tactics such as paid—where advertisers only pay when a user clicks on an ad—are not performance marketing. While pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, campaigns focus on action—the ad click—they don’t always lead to performance-based outcomes such as sales or sign-ups. 

    Why do businesses care about performance marketing?

    Since performance marketing opens up opportunities beyond traditional marketing, it’s important to focus on web destinations and creators across various digital landscapes. With platforms that help to bridge these relationships by offering means of measuring goals and compensation, businesses can achieve desired results through the assistance of performance marketing. 

    Who uses or works with performance marketing tools?

    Since performance marketing is data-driven, it’s best handled by digital marketing professionals. However, many people can utilize its strategy. 

    • Marketers plan and execute performance-based campaigns
    • Publishers track performance and get paid for results
    • Influencers find opportunities, set goals, and measure performance
    • Advertisers find publishers and influencers to work with

    How reliable is performance marketing? 

    While performance marketing is a critical strategy that offers advertisers the insight they need to run campaigns successfully, digital fraud is something that shoppers, 

    business owners, and advertisers need to be aware of this.

    Why does ad fraud happen?

    • Bots simulate real user traffic on the website to generate ad impressions
    • Invalid traffic is generated by humans who click on ads to deplete a competitor’s budget
    • Fake websites are created to inflate impressions
    • Domain spoofing imitates a premium website to sell fake inventory

    Since performance marketing campaigns look at actions rather than metrics, the best way to ensure validity in the actions you pay for is to hire a professional agency to manage your digital marketing services. This ensures that the leads you pay for are real people who have been contacted and are interested in what you’re selling. 

    What did you find most interesting about the above blog? Please leave a comment below to start a conversation.

    3 digital marketing services that help online businesses boost sales

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Regardless of whether you run a small, medium, or large-scale business, you will face competition in an ever-growing market. While your company may be unique in your eyes, there are others that cater to similar wants and needs, which means you’re forced to find ways to stand out. There are many digital marketing services that act as pillars to granting success for online businesses by building brand awareness, leads, sales, and boosts in revenue. Here are three digital marketing tools that you should leverage to boost website conversion within your sector. 

    Email marketing

    While some people might argue that email communication is outdated, rest assured that it’s very alive and well in the world of e-commerce. As the oldest form of electric communication, it remains the most effective way to reach customers, both past and prospective. However, the trick to successful email marketing is to build a list of contacts who are interested in engaging with your brand. 

    Since many entrepreneurs need time to focus on other needs within their businesses, agencies like Trek Marketing offer an email marketing service that is created and managed by a team member. This service includes: 

    • Email strategy and audit
    • Email campaign management
    • Email marketing automation
    • Email template production 
    • Subscriber management and maintenance
    • Creative design and copywriting
    • Deliverability optimization
    • Analysis and reporting of campaign performance

    If you think email marketing is right for you, click here to email a team member and get started. 

    Social media marketing

    With so many channels available to effectively market to your customers, investing in social media marketing is a no-brainer for business owners these days. Also known as SMS, social media marketing utilizes a variety of platforms to interact with customers, including popular options like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. While communication is key to building your brand, SMS also helps to increase sales and drive website conversions and traffic. 

    While posting on social media is easy to do, it’s the strategic posts that successfully reach your growing audience. If you need help expanding your social reach between platforms or figuring out the preferences of your customers, allow Trek Marketing to extend its social media marketing service to you and your business. This package includes: 

    • Proactive customer engagement
    • Targeted follower/like growth
    • Improved search engine rankings 
    • Custom curated content
    • Regular posts and management

    If you think social media marketing is right for you, click here to email a team member and get started. 

    Content creation

    Not only does content allow you to tell web visitors about what your business does but it also allows you to gain a place among other popular search engine rankings. Content marketing can include posting an industry-related topic on your blog or simply updating product and service information to provide quality copy that helps web traffic roll in. 

    Since writing is a skill that requires a lot of time and effort, it’s often the first task that is outsourced to a digital marketing agency. Get the right content in front of your audience by relying on Trek Marketing to do it for you! This service includes: 

    • Taking professional product or service photos
    • Researching and writing blogs
    • Creating landing pages 
    • Updating product and service descriptions
    • Researching search engine keywords and incorporating them successfully into popular landing pages

    If you think content marketing is right for you, click here to email a team member and get started. 

    Which of the above three services would you prefer to outsource? Drop a comment below to share with other readers.

    How often should business owners be using their Instagram account?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    How often businesses post or share on Instagram is entirely dependent on what their company goals are. While a good rule of thumb is to schedule a post to publish at least once a day on average—with some added time needed to respond or like the comments—there are many other elements that should be considered when you’re in charge of managing this trendy social channel. For example: Is your business hoping to increase its following? Is having a high engagement rate the most important to your brand? How about meaningful content over sales-based content? The blog below offers businesses an opportunity to better understand Instagram’s influential platform by sharing in-depth insights that will better assist entrepreneurs that manage their social media. 

    What’s Instagram and why do businesses need it?

    Arguably the most popular form of social media, Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking platform that’s designed to only be used as a smartphone app. Founded in 2010 and recently acquired by Facebook Inc., the app allows its users to upload media, add filters and edits, and then organize them via hashtags and geographical tagging. 

    If you don’t already have an Instagram account for your business, continue reading to learn about the benefits below:

    • Instagram has a huge audience: With so many eyeballs on the platform each day, it’s important for businesses to strategize their online presence. 
    • Businesses of all sizes thrive on Instagram: While well-known brands have a thriving presence, small businesses can also reach their target audience by keeping an active presence and maintaining a practical posting schedule.
    • Businesses can make money directly from Instagram: Having evolved from on-platform e-commerce sales, Instagram allows users to shop and purchase directly from brands through Instagram. 
    • Businesses can relate to the consumer via the Instagram stories feature: Photos and videos are a fantastic opportunity to show potential customers that your products and services deserve a lasting impression. Be sure to include behind-the-scenes insights like employees’ packaging orders. 
    • Businesses can effectively engage with customers: The Instagram platform allows users to like, comment on, and share their favourite posts—it’s safe to say that the more interactions that are happening on your post, the more visible your company becomes. Be sure to engage with your growing audience by answering their comment and story questions. 

    If there’s anything that ties the above benefits together, it’s that more people are paying attention to Instagram than ever before, and you’re ignoring millions of potential customers by being a business that does not effectively manage social media on Instagram. We employ you to take the tips you learned here and use them to build your online presence or hire an agency that can help your business grow via Instagram—start with just one post a day and see where things go!

    Are you a huge fan of Instagram? If so, what’s your favourite feature?