MARKETING

11 Email Marketing Design Tips to Drive More Revenue

Published

1 year ago

January 29, 2023

11 Email Marketing Design Tips to Drive More Revenue

When you think about what factors and processes are needed to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns, you might consider these first: more sophisticated personalization, leveraging first-party data more effectively, or more precise targeting and timing.

While those are all important, there’s another more fundamental aspect of email marketing that’s just as critical to success: email design.

With more than 333 billion emails sent and received every day, and adults logging more screen time than ever before, it’s never been more crucial to have well-designed emails that can quickly cut through the overflowing inbox clutter, capture recipients’ attention and compel them to take the desired action.

Whether you’re looking to supercharge your email newsletter or inject new life into your lifecycle email campaign strategy, here are 11 email design tips and examples that can drive site traffic, purchase intent, conversions and revenue.

“All aspects of email design – including accessibility, readability, layout and responsiveness – have a huge impact on open rates and conversions. In reality, email marketing design is the gatekeeper to campaign success.”

— Samantha McGrady, Tinuiti Strategist, Lifecycle Marketing

Essential Elements of an Email

You might not consider all these quote-unquote “design” components, but they all play a central role in how an email is perceived and consumed.

Subject line
Pre-header text
Header/headline
Logo
Color scheme
Images
Body copy
CTA(s)
Signature and footer
Unsubscribe button

The Eleven Keys to Effective Email Design

All elements of an email come together to create an overall design. Whether that design is cohesive or advances the objectives of the email depends on how well the individual elements are executed. Here are 11 tips for making email design work for you.

1. Responsive Designs Pay Off

Mobile-friendly email design is a must. While the exact percentage of emails opened on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets vary by source, it’s estimated that over half of all emails are accessed on mobile. That means ensuring an email displays correctly and can be read easily across devices, screens and resolutions are essential. If an email displays poorly, it’s likely to be deleted in under three seconds.

Utilizing a responsive email template will automatically adjust your email to fit the screen it’s being viewed on, whether that’s a desktop, laptop, smartphone or tablet. Most drag-and-drop email builders feature built-in responsive design templates, but you’ll also want to keep mobile formatting in mind when considering image size and the length of copy blocks within the email.

2. Keep Accessibility Top-of-Mind

One key aspect of email design that goes hand-in-hand with responsiveness is accessibility. Accessibility refers to an email’s ability to be received and understood by persons with disabilities or using assistive devices. So just as responsive design ensures that emails can be accessed across device formats, good accessibility practices preserve an email’s usability regardless of the recipient’s circumstances.

An accessible email will have a logical flow and high readability in terms of descriptive subject lines, links and headers, and larger and well-spaced typefaces. It will also use high color contrast and utilize alt-text liberally. Perhaps most importantly, an accessible email will not lean too heavily on visuals or hide information in images, as adaptive tools like screen readers can struggle to convert them.

Keeping accessibility top-of-mind is important for reaching the maximum percentage of your subscribers or target audiences and contributes to good overall email marketing usability.

3. Customize Your Pre-Header Text

Pre-header text used to be an afterthought, and many marketers defaulted to the first few words of email body copy. Now, because of the way emails are displayed in mobile and desktop inboxes, pre-headers are widely recognized as the second-most important text element after the subject line. Pre-header text indicates to the reader what the email is about; it’s essentially a visible meta-description of the email.

As such, the pre-header text should complement the subject line and reinforce the critical call-to-action within the email. It should, like the subject line, entice the recipient to open the email and keep reading while also reading while offering an informative preview of the email itself. And it needs to accomplish all of this concisely in an abbreviated space.

Crafting a compelling subject and pre-header pair can feel like writing poetry, but getting it right can significantly impact open rates and conversions.

4. Use an Effective Layout

The layout is the most recognizable aspect of email design and likely what most people think of first when considering the design elements of an email. Layout determines the flow of your content and the order in which your readers consume information. The most basic principles of email layout are maintaining organization and logical consistency, capturing attention through aesthetics, and manipulating the recipient’s eye where you want it to go.

Organization: In essence, this means establishing a clear visual hierarchy. Try to display the most important information and convey essential details early on (higher) in the email.
Aesthetics: incorporate white space to give your content breathing room and lend a more elevated look. Clutter and “walls” of text are difficult to read and lead to email abandonment. Instead, utilize negative space to accentuate key points and keep the recipient reading.
Guiding the eye: Use directional cues to draw attention to the most essential part of your email. Effective layout templates leverage natural reading and eye movement patterns to focus the recipient on desired email elements.

Many email templates use the following common layout patterns, each of which guides the reader’s attention in specific ways:

Z-pattern layouts place a zig-zag of content within the reader’s typical sight line, starting at the upper left corner.
F-pattern layouts emphasize the left side of the email, inviting readers to return their eyes to that side for most information.
Inverted pyramid layouts, perhaps the most familiar layout, load critical information at the top and create a visual funnel toward a CTA at the bottom.

These principles are laid out in the following two wireframe examples of common email layouts. Notice how both lean on the reading path of the human eye while maintaining a recognizable hierarchy and putting vital information up top:

two examples of email design template wireframes

Remember to rotate your design layout to avoid using the same framework repeatedly – otherwise, your emails will be perceived as stale by your subscribers.

5. Choose Colors Strategically

Color scheme is an essential element in any design, and emails are no exception. The right combination of colors – or the strategic limitation of a color palette – can elicit emotion, direct attention to important content, reinforce brand image or distinguish a single email from a series or campaign.

There is plenty of room for experimentation with color in email marketing. Still, good general rules of thumb are to avoid clashing colors or using too wide a variety of colors, use bright colors sparingly, and stay consistent with color usage across branded marketing assets. And as with accessibility and responsiveness, it’s also important to consider how an email is being viewed; for example, if being read on a mobile device in “dark” mode, pure black text can appear illegible.

It’s important to remember that color isn’t limited to graphical elements or iconography in the email; the text color used and dominant color in embedded images or photographs should also be considered. These colors should work in harmony to support your content, brand and the purpose of the email.

6. Use Clean and Clear Text

An organized layout and strategic use of color will go a long way toward making an email readable and effective. Ultimately, though, the information you want to communicate stems from the email copy itself. One hard and fast rule for text in an email is to be clear and concise.

Remember the 333 billion emails sent and received last year? Your target audience received some of those, and they almost certainly didn’t read every word of every email they received. So many of those emails were probably never opened, thanks to poor subject lines.

Emails should draw the eye with an attractive design but be easy to skim. Get to the point quickly, or risk ending up in the trash.

example of clear and concise email marketing design from Hyperikon

When in doubt, follow these guidelines:

Maintain a good text-to-image ratio
Keep the headline to two lines or less
Keep text on a simple background so that it’s easy to read
Bold or highlight keywords or phrases

“Reduce the cognitive load. We really want to create our emails to be clean and concise.”

— Sammi Nutsongtat, Klaviyo Design Specialist

Portrait of Sammi Nutsongtat

7. Treat Email as a Brand Opportunity

Of all the potential touchpoints a recipient might have with your brand, the email you just sent them is unlikely to be their first. That makes it very important to keep email design consistent with your overall brand design.

Incorporating strong branding – not just a logo or a tagline, but brand-specific colors, imagery, typography and content tone – helps email recipients identify the message’s source and provides a more cohesive experience from the inbox to the landing page. That can reduce your bounce rate as users interact with your brand across different channels.

A good branding evaluation question to ask: If I removed our logo from these email designs, would our subscribers identify our company?

example of good branding in email design from Bryan Anthonys and Diff

Your brand’s identity tells your story, so it’s important to be conscious of your email branding. Branding should remain consistent across all channels, whether email-to-email or email-to-website.

8. Your Typography Style Matters

Using a consistent typeface in email design can reinforce your brand image and identity, though, like color, there is some opportunity for experimentation. The most important thing to remember about typography is that it should be easy to read at a skimming pace and shouldn’t detract or add confusion to the message.

Emails can also contain more than one kind of typeface, for example, one font that looks better at a larger size for headers and another that looks cleaner for entire sentences of body copy. That said, too many different fonts in an email can make it hard to read. A limit of three fonts per email is a good common-sense rule. Again, a drag-and-drop email builder usually has several typeface options and suggestions for specific email elements or sections.

9. Personalize Elements of Your Emails

Personalization is one of the dominant themes across the marketing and advertising industries right now, as technological advancements and the rise in importance of zero- and first-party customer data have made true one-to-one, brand-to-customer engagement possible. Email marketing, which was perhaps the first marketing vector to make widespread use of basic personalization (think mail merge and auto-filled salutation lines), can also incorporate more sophisticated personalization techniques – and should.

The goal of personalization should be to make an email meaningful and valuable to the recipient. That means incorporating bespoke, custom content blocks based on customer data, including insights like purchase history or position in the customer lifecycle or buying journey. Narrow segmentation can help target specific customers, and personal touches like incorporating profile information or preferences can help humanize your brand and create stronger relationships.

In short, you should seize every opportunity to include more personalized elements in your emails.

10. Always Use a CTA

This might seem like email marketing 101, but no list of email marketing optimization tips would be complete without addressing calls to action or CTAs. Usually rendered graphically as a button, a good CTA should concisely describe the exact action the email reader can expect upon clicking and be placed at a point in the layout where the next step is logically implied.

Effective CTAs typically appear at the bottom of a section in a contrasting color to the email’s overall color scheme. Multiple CTAs can be used – some research suggests that having more than one CTA increases click-through rates – but only where the natural progression of the content suggests they appear. As with many of the design tips presented here, CTAs should be used in a cohesive, consistent manner.

11. Avoid Abrupt Design Changes

Consistency isn’t just important within an email; it’s also important across campaigns. Design shock, or suddenly presenting drastically different creative to an existing audience like your subscriber base, can impact the success of an individual email or an entire campaign.

When updating your email designs, consider rolling out the changes in an iterative fashion or testing the new creative out on a small group of subscribers before rolling it out to your entire audience.

example of avoiding email design shock from Ritual

As the example above illustrates, gradually transitioning to a new layout while keeping many other design elements consistent helps minimize the effect of design shock. Keep this in mind as you embark on new email campaigns or make universal changes to your email marketing approach.

How to Use A/B Testing to Improve Your Email Design

You can put as much thought and preparation into email design as possible, and the email might still fall short of performance expectations. The only way to ensure a successful campaign and maximize conversions is to engage in A/B testing by sending slightly different versions of an email to distinct segments of your audience. It’s a straightforward process that many email platforms support, but sadly, nearly 42.9% of marketers don’t know what to test.

When assessing an email design’s impact on an audience, there are various things you can test to help drive higher clicks, conversions, or overall performance. These include:

Call to action button styling
Overall layout
Number of products featured
Lifestyle vs. product imagery
Cheeky vs. simple copy
Animation vs. static

Once you know what to test for and have identified what you’re trying to prove, run a few test emails to sample groups, isolating one variable at a time over a series of weeks. Evaluate which works best for reaching, resonating with, and converting the most recipients, and you’ll gradually improve your conversion rates.

Resources & Tools to Improve Your Email Design Game

There is no shortage of email design tools available to help you get the most out of your email marketing strategy. Some are full-service email-building platforms, while others are helpful stock image sites or graphics libraries. Here are a few of our favorites:

Klaviyo

Klayvio is a well-established, full-service email marketing platform optimized for ecommerce and featuring sophisticated personalization tools. Klaviyo’s robust library of customizable, responsive templates, support for A/B testing, and dynamic content capabilities can help users of all levels put email design optimization tips into action.

Tinuiti Performance Creative

Need a more comprehensive and data-driven approach to email and lifecycle marketing? Our own Performance Creative offering is based on moments that matter and features integration with multiple channels and touchpoints throughout the customer journey.

Adobe Stock

It’s perhaps unsurprising that one of the biggest names in design software also has one of the most robust stock image catalogs available. Adobe Stock allows users to search for specific image types or browse by category, ensuring you’ll find the perfect photos or images for your email campaign.

Figma

Any design process – including email design – can be collaborative. Figma provides a platform to facilitate that collaboration that includes several email-specific features, including a library of visual assets teams can build themselves.

Final Thoughts

Design is a central aspect of email marketing performance, and getting it right can be the difference between a positive ROI campaign and a forgettable brand encounter. You can probably think of several marketing emails in your inbox that slapped a basic template together with uninspiring (and uninspired!) copy and called it a day. Or maybe not, because you deleted them without getting past the subject line.

Your email campaigns can help solidify customer relationships and prospects through accessible designs that embrace solid layout principles, on-brand typography and images, a concise and catchy subject and pre-header, logical CTAs and compelling copy. You’ll ultimately generate more opens, leads, conversions and revenue for your company, too.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published by Greg Swan in August 2019 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

Related Topics:Design Drive email Marketing Revenue seo tips

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MARKETING

Advertising on Hulu: Ad Formats, Examples & Tips

Published

17 hours ago

May 11, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Streaming

By Emily Sullivan

May 08 2024

With the continued rise in streaming service adoption, advertisers are increasingly turning to OTT (over-the-top) advertising, which allows brands to reach their target audiences while they stream television shows and movies. OTT advertising is advertising delivered directly to viewers over the internet through streaming services or devices, such as streaming sticks and connected TVs. One of the most popular streaming ad-supported streaming services today is Hulu.

At just $7.99 per month (with ads) and $17.99 per month (without ads), Hulu is a great deal. And where the deals are incredible, the subscribers follow…

The formula itself is one we’re all familiar with, and it appears to be working out quite well for Hulu.

Low prices attract more viewers
More viewers brings more eyes to Hulu ads
More eyes on ads brings more interested advertisers
Advertising revenue climbs alongside impressive viewer growth

In this particular scenario, everyone wins! And the proof is in the pudding considering Hulu generated $11.2 billion in revenue in 2023.

Advertising on Hulu Ad Formats Examples Tips

In the following article, we will cover everything you need to know about Hulu including how to advertise on Hulu, ad types available, advertising cost, best examples of Hulu ads, and more. Let’s dive right in.

What is Hulu Advertising?

OTT Video Viewers in US by Service Over Time with over 111 million subscribers In 2023

Image Source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/disney-will-become-streaming-heavyweight

Hulu is a service that offers subscription video on demand. Hulu currently has more than 50.2 million subscribers across their SVOD (ad-free subscription video on demand) and AVOD (advertising-based video on demand) plans, translating to nearly 100 million viewers in 2021. eMarketer predictions estimate that number will grow to 115.6 million viewers by 2024.

Hulu notes on their website that their ad-supported offering is their most popular. Previously shared statistics showed that in 2023, 58% of total Hulu subscribers opted for the ad-supported plan.

Hulu subscriptions can be purchased on their own, or as part of a bundle with other services. One such popular option is The Disney Bundle. The new Disney Bundle brings together the extensive Disney+ and Hulu libraries – including beloved characters, award-winning films and series, and 100 years’ worth of inspiring stories – all in one place.

Hulu’s ad-supported and ad-free plans offer subscribers a vast streaming library, inclusive of thousands of movies and TV episodes. Hulu Originals are also included in both plans, as is the ability to watch on the internet-enabled device of your choosing—TV, mobile, tablet, or laptop. As the first platform to introduce viewer-first advertising innovations, like the industry’s first interactive ad formats, Hulu continues to give viewers choice and control over their ad experience.

Outside of the primary differentiators between the two options—ads or no ads, and cost—the only additional distinction to be made is that the ad-supported version does not allow subscribers to download and watch titles on-the-go.

Hulu offers a popular option with an ad-supported tier. This utilizes OTT advertising, meaning ads are delivered directly to viewers over the internet through the Hulu platform, rather than traditional cable or satellite TV. Unlike a typical TV buy where you get a set amount of ad space, these OTT ad buys allow for granular targeting based on demographics, location, and interests, similar to what you might experience on other digital platforms. While these ads are strategically placed before, during, and potentially after your chosen content, they are not skippable. It’s also worth noting that even ad-free tiers might show a few promotional spots for certain shows or live TV events.

Hulu has its very own ad platform that includes a robust set of options for bidding, targeting, and measurement, as well as different ad experiences.

Why Advertise on Hulu?

In today’s media landscape, reaching your target audience effectively is crucial. Hulu offers a compelling advertising platform with a variety of advantages:

Massive Reach – Tap into a vast audience of engaged viewers. Hulu boasts over 50.2 million subscribers, with their AVOD tier reaching a staggering 109.2 million viewers per month.
Targeted Engagement – Go beyond traditional TV’s limitations. Hulu’s targeting capabilities allow you to zero in on specific demographics, interests, and even geographies. This ensures your message reaches viewers most likely to resonate with your brand.
Cost-Effectiveness – Hulu has many buy options, which makes it accessible for any size client to run a campaign on Hulu. Hulu offers campaign minimums as low as $500, which creates a low barrier to entry for most clients. Especially, when partnering with an agency like Tinuiti, where brands can anticipate 2-3x more efficient CPMs when compared to the general market. This makes it accessible for businesses of various sizes to test and refine their advertising strategies.
DRAX – Disney’s Real-Time Ad Exchange establishes direct connections to major media buying platforms for streamlined ad buying across Disney+ and Hulu. This integration increases automation, allowing advertisers easier access to Disney’s inventory. Partnerships with Google and The Trade Desk provide direct paths to Disney’s inventory, offering greater reach, flexibility, and transparency.
Engaging Ad Formats – Hulu offers a variety of ad formats beyond standard video ads. Explore interactive elements to capture viewer attention and create a more immersive brand experience with Shoppable ads, pause ads, takeovers, and more.
Brand Safety – Hulu prioritizes brand safety, ensuring your ads appear alongside high-quality content. This minimizes the risk of your brand being associated with inappropriate content.

By leveraging Hulu’s advertising solutions, you can target engaged viewers, deliver impactful messaging, and ultimately reach your marketing goals.

How Advertising on Hulu Works

Hulu offers brands of all sizes a chance to advertise on their platform. And since Hulu falls under the Disney umbrella, advertising opportunities extend beyond the Hulu platform itself. There are opportunities to buy into inventory cross ESPN, Disney+, ABC and more.

It’s important to keep in mind, the method through which you purchase ads plays a role in the measurement insights you’ll receive. Below are the three primary ways to buy ad placements on Hulu, with additional details regarding programmatic buys, and Hulu’s self-service platform.

Purchase ads directly from Hulu sales teams
Programmatic ad buys
Through Hulu’s self-service platform (currently invite-only, but brands can request access)

If you’re not ready to pick up the phone and collaborate with Hulu’s sales team on a large ad buy, you’re probably going to end up using Programmatic Guaranteed ad buys or purchase ad space through the Self Service Platform. Here’s a little more information on each option:

Programmatic Guaranteed (Reserved Buys) and Private Marketplace (Auctionable)

Ads purchased through a programmatic sales team that works directly with platforms and streaming agencies, like Tinuiti. This offers advanced local and national targeting and measurement capabilities, enhanced reporting, and suite of targeting options at fixed or biddable rates.

Whether you want to target lookalike audiences, specific demographics, interest or behavioral segments, or leverage audience CRM matching for a customized group, you’ll know exactly when and where your ads showed, and be provided with robust reporting that helps measure what’s working best, and where you should continue to invest for optimal performance. You’ll also enjoy guaranteed media buys that ensure you get the expected visibility and reach.

There are certain Hulu ad types that can’t be purchased programmatically, including sponsored placements, pause ads, and ad-selector ads, among other standout units. For these types, Tinuiti makes reserved buys for our clients from opportunities that are only available through Hulu directly.

Not sure which ad types make the most sense for your business and advertising goals? Our team works with clients to determine which campaign initiatives are best for them, and help ensure their creative meets Hulu’s requirements.

Self-Service Hulu Ads (Beta) – Must RSVP and Be Approved as a Brand

Hulu’s self-serve ad platform allows brands to access ad inventory directly, with a modest $500 campaign minimum. These ads are ideal for smaller businesses that don’t have a sizable streaming ads budget, or are just getting started with OTT and want to test the waters.

The Self-Service Ads beta program offers a glimpse into the future of advertising on Hulu. With features like budget management, targeted audience selection, and ad format flexibility (to some extent), businesses can craft impactful campaigns tailored to their specific needs. However, remember the current limitations and the need for approval before getting started.

Reporting Limitations: Notably, when purchasing through the self-service platform, your reporting will only include impression data; you won’t have insights into where your ads actually ran.

While this offering is still in beta, Hulu has already shared some early success stories. Learn more here about how Hulu self-serve ads work.

How Much Does Hulu Advertising Cost?

Unlike traditional ad buys, Hulu advertising utilizes a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) model. This means you pay each time one thousand viewers see your ad, with estimates ranging from $10 to $30 CPM. Factors like targeting specifics, competition, and ad format (pre-roll vs. mid-roll, length) can influence the final cost.

Hulu advertising costs are structured to allow for advertisers of all sizes and budgets, but the total costs, you’ll realize, will largely depend on a number of factors, including:

Whether you’re buying directly through Hulu or a DSP (demand-side platform)
Any restrictions you place on Hulu regarding where your ads display. Specific audience or genre targeting, and/or frequency caps, may incur a premium as well
Which ad types you choose
How much creative you will need to generate for your ads (production costs)
Seasonality—Q4 advertising costs are higher than other quarters
Whether you’re buying through an up-front agreement (advertising commitment for a full TV season), or the scatter market (ad buys that run month-to-month, or quarter-to-quarter)

How to Advertise on Hulu

Here’s what you need to know to advertise on Hulu, from buying and targeting to measurement and optimization.

Hulu offers several advertising reach options for brands:

National: Reach viewers across the US
Local: Reach a localized target audience
Advanced TV: Automated, data-informed ad buys

Within the Advanced TV category, Hulu has 3 different bidding options:

Programmatic Guaranteed: Automated, guaranteed buy with advanced targeting.
Private Marketplace: Non-guaranteed buy with increased targeting control.
Invite-Only Auction: Find your audience, set your price, and optimize from within your DSP

In Hulu’s invite-only auction, advertisers select their target audience, determine their bid price for that audience, and control and optimize their ad campaigns in real-time based on results and performance. You can learn more about Hulu’s advanced targeting options here.

When it comes to executing Hulu ads, at Tinuiti, we can take on all the heavy lifting for you.

Ad Types Available on Hulu [With Specs]

In today’s streaming world, capturing viewers’ attention is more important than ever. When it comes to Hulu ads, pre-roll placements (those shown before your chosen content) are proven to be highly effective, especially earlier slots within the pre-roll sequence. This is prime real estate for grabbing viewers before they settle into their show.

But don’t be limited! Hulu offers a variety of ad formats to suit your needs, including pre-roll, mid-roll (shown during commercial breaks within the content), and even 7-second bumper ads for quick, impactful messaging. Whether you choose a short and sweet 7-second spot or a more detailed 15 or 30-second video ad, Hulu offers the flexibility to tailor your message to your audience and campaign goals.

When creating your Hulu video ad, it’s important to follow their specifications including:

Video Duration: 15 to 30 seconds
Audio Duration: Must match video duration
Dimensions: 1920×1080 preferred; 1280×720 accepted
Display Aspect Ratios: 16:9 preferred; Hulu will accept videos shot with 2.39:1, 1.375:1, 3:4, or 4:3 dimensions, but you must make the video fit a 16:9 ratio by inserting matting on the top and bottom of the video.
Video Format: QuickTime, MOV, or MPEG-4
File Extensions: .mov or .mp4
File Size: 10 GB maximum
Audio Format: PCM, AAC
Frame Rate: 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97, or 30 fps
Frame Rate Mode: Constant
Video Bit Depth: 8 or 16 bits
Video Bit Rate: 10 Mbps – 40 Mbps
Audio Bit Depth: 16 or 24 bits (for audio channel 2)
Audio Bit Rate: 192-256
Chroma Subsampling: 4:2:0 or 4:2:2
Codec ID: Apple ProRes 422 HQ preferred; H.264 accepted
Color Space: YUV
Scan Type: Progressive Scan
Audio Channels: 2 channel stereo
Audio Sampling Rate: 48.0 kHz

Hulu offers what they call “a viewer-first ad experience” made up of an extensive variety of different ad products and solutions, including:

Video Commercial

This is the most ‘standard’ ad type available from Hulu, with your video playing during any “long-form content commercial breaks.” Hulu allows 7-, 15- and 30-second video commercials, and “does not accept stitched Ads.” This simply means that if advertisers want to display a 30-second commercial, they will be required to have an asset of the correct length, and can’t ‘stitch together’ two separate 15-second ads.

Ad Selector

This ad type gives the viewer greater control over their ad experience. Viewers will be given the option to choose between two or three different video ads to watch from the same advertiser. This can increase the chances that viewers will be engaged with your ad as they had some degree of choice in watching it. If no ad selection is made within 15 seconds of being presented with the options, one of the two or three available ads will be selected at random and played automatically.

According to Hulu Brand Lift Norms, 2020, products like these that “give viewers choice and control” have “result[ed] in 70% higher lifts than the average campaign on Hulu.”

Branded Entertainment Selector (BES)

Choice comes into play with Hulu’s BES ads as well, but in this scenario, they are choosing not just their ad experience, but their viewing experience as well. Viewers are given the option to watch their programming of choice with the typical commercial breaks, or to enjoy their programming uninterrupted by first watching a longer ad. We like to think of it as finishing your dinner before eating dessert! This is a popular choice for advertisers who want to tell a story with their ad—or advertise a movie or upcoming event—and need more than 15 or 30 seconds to do so.

Binge Ad

Want to reach viewers dedicating some of their downtime to an hours-long binge session, but don’t want to risk hitting them with the same ad, delivered in the same way, episode after episode? Hulu’s Binge Ad placements are designed with brand safety and a positive watching experience in mind. These “enable marketers to deliver contextually and situationally-relevant messages at the right time and place – during a viewer’s binge session.”

According to the Kantar Brand Lift Study, 2020, ads like these have been shown to “increase[ing] unaided brand awareness by 24% and ad recall by 25%.”

Interactive Living Room

These ads are designed to “foster greater affinity with a brand” through “customizable interactivity” focused on whatever elements of your brand you would like to promote. Whether you want to get the word out about a new product launch, enhanced features of an existing product, a new line of services, a company announcement, or more, these ads make it engaging and easy. Hulu notes that they offer “select functionality via third-party producing and hosting partners,” and that the production lead time is quite a bit longer than for most ad types at “four to six weeks from the receipt of the final assets.”

Max Selector (Beta)

In this ad type, viewers are given a choice over how they would like to learn about the product or service being advertised. Interactive templates are designed to create “a more engaging and immersive choice-based ad experience.”

Branded Slate

Advertisers are given the opportunity to reach audiences before the show has even begun with Branded Slate custom title cards. These brief, static video ads feature your logo with “Presented by” text, with voiceover audio that identifies your brand as the sponsor. Hulu also offers Branded Slate ads specifically tailored to entertainment clients.

Premium Slate

This 7-second ad type is similar to the aforementioned Branded Slate ads, but allows for advertisers to include “their own video, dynamic visuals, and sound” as opposed to a static video with voiceover. If preferred, you can still opt for the voiceover to be handled by Hulu talent, but it is not required as it is with the Branded Slate ads. Hulu also offers Premium Slate ads specifically tailored to entertainment clients.

GatewayGo

These unique ads are designed with conversions in mind, bringing together “Hulu’s traditional living room video ads with action-oriented prompts and personalized offers.” GatewayGo ads harness “second screen enablement technologies such as QR codes and push notifications” by “shifting conversion actions from the TV to mobile devices.” Viewers who wish to learn more can simply scan the QR code using their phone—which is likely within reach, if not in their hand—or choose to receive notifications.

According to a 2020 Hulu Internal Study, “6 in 10 viewers like that they can discover and act on deals with GatewayGO.” For these ad types, Hulu strongly recommends 30-second placements “to increase engagement,” though the minimum required length is just 15-seconds.

Pause Ad

Pause ads are unique in that they reach viewers who have decided they are ready for a break by pressing the pause button, with the ad serving as a screensaver of sorts. These offer an ideal opportunity to reach viewers in the least intrusive way possible, and give you significant opportunity to increase brand awareness—particularly for viewers who pause often, and for longer periods of time.

Poster Marquee Ad

Want to entice viewers to watch a specific series or theatrical release? This ad type makes it possible by leveraging “existing coming soon design components to promote a trailer for an upcoming title.” Hulu recommends that these should ideally be an “extended trailer,” with 15-second and 30-second ad spots not recommended.

Cover Story Brand Placement

Image Source: https://advertising.hulu.com/ad-products/cover-story-brand-placement/

For this ad type, the only thing Hulu requires is your logo, which will be showcased directly within the Hulu homepage alongside the “Presented By” notation, as shown above. Thanks to their prominent placement, these ads are ideal for increasing exposure, and enhancing brand recognition.

Promoted Content Marquee Ad

This unique advertising option “mimics the existing Hulu UI design and only supports long-form full-length episodes or feature films.” Because “Hulu viewers already recognize this design to promote content that is available for them to watch,” they may not even realize what they’re seeing is an ad.

*Note: The ad units mentioned are almost exclusively available via guaranteed IOs (national or local) and not the audience-driven methods.

Best Practices for Hulu Advertising Campaigns

Whether you’re promoting a new product, driving subscriptions, or raising brand awareness, these best practices will help you maximize the impact of your Hulu ads and connect with your target audience effectively. Let’s explore the essential tactics and insights for creating high-performing Hulu ad campaigns.

Follow Creative Best Practices for Video Campaigns

Adhere to Ad Specs – Always adhere to the platform’s ad specifications to ensure your video displays correctly across different devices and platforms. This includes guidelines on resolution, aspect ratio, file format, and maximum file size.

Build a Strong Hook – Grab the viewer’s attention within the first 3-5 seconds. This can be achieved through visually striking imagery, compelling storytelling, or posing a thought-provoking question. The key is to pique curiosity and entice viewers to continue watching.

Consistent Branding is Key – Maintain consistent branding across your video campaigns to reinforce brand recognition and recall. This includes using your logo prominently at the beginning and end of the ad, as well as incorporating consistent color schemes, fonts, and messaging that align with your brand identity.

Stick with Simple Messaging – Focus on communicating a single, specific idea or message in your video ad. Avoid overcrowding the ad with too much information, as this can overwhelm viewers and dilute the effectiveness of your message. Keep it simple, clear, and memorable.

Use Text for Emphasis – Use text overlays strategically to highlight key messaging or calls to action in your video ad. This ensures that important information is conveyed effectively, especially for viewers who may be watching with the sound off.

Provide Variety and Freshness – Rotate your video ads regularly to prevent audience fatigue and maintain engagement. Experiment with different creative strategies, visuals, and messaging to keep your ads fresh and appealing. This also allows for A/B testing to determine which creatives resonate best with your target audience.

Utilize Audience Targeting – Tailor your creative content to resonate with the specific interests, preferences, and demographics of your target audience. This may involve customizing the storyline, imagery, and messaging to appeal to different audience segments and maximize relevance and impact.

By incorporating these best practices into your video campaigns, you can enhance their effectiveness and drive better results in terms of engagement, conversion, and brand awareness.

Use Hulu’s Targeting Capabilities Wisely

Hulu Ad Manager empowers you with a robust suite of targeting options to reach your ideal audience. Here’s how to leverage them effectively:

Audience Targeting:

Demographics – Reach viewers based on age, gender, income, and parental status. This allows you to tailor your message to resonate with specific segments.
Lifestyle Interests – Target users based on their interests and hobbies. For example, target fitness enthusiasts with ads for your activewear line. (Explore the full range of interest categories within Hulu Ad Manager).
Behavioral Targeting – Go beyond demographics by targeting viewers based on their past purchase behavior or browsing habits. This can significantly increase campaign relevance.

Content Targeting:

Genre Targeting – Place your ads within specific genres (e.g., comedy, sports, documentaries) relevant to your product or service. This ensures your message reaches viewers actively seeking content aligned with your offering.
Programmatic Targeting – Target specific shows or programs on Hulu where your ideal audience is likely to be watching. This allows for highly focused ad placement.

Location Targeting:

Geographic Targeting – Reach viewers within specific cities, zip codes, Designated Marketing Areas (DMAs), or regions. This is ideal for promoting local businesses or service-based offerings with a geographical focus.

Pro Tips for Smart Targeting:

Combine Targeting Methods – Utilize a combination of audience and content targeting for maximum reach and relevance. For example, target viewers interested in fitness (audience) while placing your ads within workout-related shows (content).
Leverage Lookalike Audiences – Expand your reach by targeting audiences similar to your existing customers.
Test and Refine – Don’t be afraid to experiment with different targeting combinations and monitor performance metrics to optimize your campaigns for better results.

By strategically using Hulu’s targeting options, you can ensure your ads reach the right people at the right time, maximizing campaign effectiveness and ROI.

Measure and Optimize Campaigns Based on Performance

Data is king when it comes to optimizing your Hulu ad campaigns. Hulu offers advertisers varying measurement and attribution insights for their campaigns, which depend in part on how the ads were purchased. Hulu’s attribution capabilities let advertisers measure brand lift and direct ROI, and business outcomes across QSR, retail, ecommerce, tune-in, automotive, and CPG categories. Third-parties like Tinuiti offer more omnichannel campaign analysis options.

Here’s how to leverage Tinuiti’s expertise to achieve peak performance:

Set SMART Goals and Benchmarks

It’s crucial to begin by defining your objective with a clear SMART goal that aligns with your overarching marketing strategy. This goal should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Once your objective is established, it’s essential to establish benchmarks by leveraging historical data from past campaigns or industry averages. These benchmarks will help set realistic expectations and guide your efforts in tracking key metrics such as impressions, clicks, and conversions throughout the campaign.

Continuous Optimization

At Tinuiti, our omnichannel campaign analysis allows us to compare your Hulu campaign’s performance with other marketing channels like social media and email, giving you a holistic understanding of how customers engage with your brand across different platforms. But it’s not just about data – our team of experts dives deep, uncovering hidden patterns within the data and translating them into actionable insights.

These insights then fuel data-driven recommendations for optimizing your Hulu campaign. We might suggest adjustments to your targeting strategies, ad creatives, or even budget allocation to ensure you achieve the best possible results. We can also analyze viewer fatigue and recommend A/B testing new ad variations, keeping your audience engaged and maximizing the effectiveness of your Hulu advertising.

Putting it into Practice

After a few weeks of your campaign running, revisit your initial benchmarks to evaluate progress. Don’t just rely on surface-level data, leverage omnichannel analysis to understand what elements are resonating and which areas need improvement. This comprehensive analysis allows you to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of your targeting, ad creatives, and budget allocation.

By taking a data-driven approach and utilizing Tinuiti’s expertise, you can continuously measure, optimize, and refine your Hulu campaigns, driving maximum impact and achieving your marketing objectives.

Example of Hulu TV Ad promoting livestreaming sports

Best Examples of Hulu Ads

Let’s dive into some of the most memorable and effective Hulu ad campaigns that have left a lasting impression on audiences.

Filippo Berio Interactive Ads

Hulu Interactive Campaign for Filippo Berio

Image Source: https://advertising.hulu.com/brand-stories/filippo-berio/

Filippo Berio is a brand best known for their selection of olive oils and vinegars, with a legacy tracing back more than 150 years. Their thoughtful use of interactive ad formats helped them in connecting with potential customers, with their Hulu ad campaign resulting in a “2x lift in brand favorability”, and a “3x lift in brand consideration.”

Filippo Berio’s use of the Interactive Living Room ad type “was especially impactful as an awareness-driver, highlighted by a +44% lift in brand awareness and +64% lift in message association”
Other ad types were included in the campaign as well, including standard and situational ads

ThirdLove Contextually Relevant Original Sponsorships

Image Source: https://advertising.hulu.com/brand-stories/thirdlove/

ThirdLove is a lingerie and loungewear company that focuses on body positivity and inclusivity in their marketing, and importantly, their range of products and sizes. The brand crafted a Hulu advertising strategy that aimed to enhance “awareness and overall consideration for their products across women of all demographics” with ads that ran “alongside premium and contextually-relevant Original content.”

ThirdLove saw results that outperformed “both industry and Hulu retail norms,” in part by advertising during women-produced content, and content that focuses on themes and issues that are of importance to women. This Hulu campaign included:

Co-branded ads at the start of every episode of Mrs. America
Creative that included a CTA and a discount code that could be accessed by “visiting a unique URL tied to the Hulu Original series, Little Fires Everywhere”

Best Strategy for Hulu Advertising [from the experts]

Experimentation is at the heart of all statistically-significant data, and Hulu makes experimentation easy and affordable. With more than a dozen distinct ad types to choose from—and an array of ad lengths to suit all advertising needs and goals—you are provided with all the necessary tools to find the ideal methods to reach new and existing audiences.

With Hulu ads, there is no shortage of innovative options to choose from, and we encourage you to experiment extensively, but also strategically. No matter how sizable your streaming ads budget, no brand can afford to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. But you can thoughtfully design combinations of differing visual components, and ad lengths, to see which resonate best with viewers.

These learnings can then be applied across similar streaming platforms as well, many of which won’t have the same robust inventory of options to experiment with.

According to a Nielsen CTV Analytics study, 62% of Hulu viewers never saw a brand’s ad campaign on linear TV, making Hulu a critical partner to brands trying to reach new audiences or their full target audience. And with Hulu’s ability to audience-target based on CRM matching or behavioral segments, Hulu is an important partner in delivering addressable TV at scale.

If you’re interested in advertising on OTT/Streaming TV, check out Tinuiti’s TV & Audio advertising services.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published by Tara Johnson in July 2020 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

MARKETING

Updates to data build service for better developer experiences

Published

2 days ago

May 10, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Updates to data build service for better developer experiences

Optimizely Feature Experimentation users can now benefit from an average of 87% faster data file updates. The ability to generate data files in a faster and more predictable manner enables our customers to make updates to feature flags and experiments more quickly and reliably.

Datafile build service – Performance, stability
Webhooks by environment – Lower latency across all environments. Push notification that a new datafile is ready
Secure environments – Security

Key features

Smoother workflow
It lets you update feature flags and experiments faster and more consistently as a seamless workflow step.
Better developer experience
Developers can expect faster and more predictable feedback when configuring feature flags during local development.
Faster execution
Product teams benefit from “kill switches” to roll back problematic features and flawed experiments to protect user experience and conversion rates.

Finally…

Speed, performance, and usability are key to delivering a better experience, and as such we are always striving to improve the performance of back-end services. Our improved datafile build service enables you to deliver feature flags and experiment changes to your end-users more quickly and reliably.

Optimizely Feature Experimentation generates a JSON datafile that represents the state of an environment in a customer’s Feature Experimentation project, this datafile is polled for and consumed by our SDKs to enable user-level decisions and tracking.

With our new datafile build service, Feature Experimentation customers will experience better performance and reliability when delivering feature flags and experiment changes to end-users.

MARKETING

The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing

Published

3 days ago

May 9, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Email is more than just an informative message; it is a sales tool that helps the brand reach its potential customers. That’s why email marketing continues to find a place in many brands’ marketing strategies. Also considered the most effective medium to reach a potential audience, email marketing is estimated to proliferate to more than 370 billion emails per year by 2025.

Statista’s recent report revealed that there would be a rapid and consistent increase in the use of email marketing as a promotion tool. Another report published on Financesonline.com projects that there will be 4.5 billion email users by 2024 compared to 4 billion in 2020. The rapid increase in the use of email has forced businesses to incorporate them into their marketing strategies.

Therefore, companies that want to attract customers to their brand organically must be aware of the core fundamentals of email marketing. Therefore, in the succeeding part of the article, we will understand in-depth email marketing. Everything will be discussed in the following paragraphs, from its meaning to tools.

The Ultimate Guide To Email Marketing

Experts believe that customers love to hear from the brand they love; that’s why they choose to subscribe to the monthly and weekly newsletters that companies send to make them aware of new products, among other things. So, to understand how to formulate an effective email marketing message, it is important to understand what email marketing is.

What Is Email Marketing?

Often digital marketing definition includes email marketing in it. So, what is email marketing? It is a process that revitalizes email as a promotion and advertising tool. Through email marketing, potential customers learn about new products, services, discounts, and offers, among other things. Therefore, it is an effective marketing medium that bridges the gap between the brand and the customer. It also allows brands to communicate with customers directly.

Due to its umpteen benefits and easy-to-use interface, email marketing has become one of the most popular marketing strategies globally. Large, medium or small businesses can implement email marketing into their brand promotional strategy because of the reasons listed below.

Why Is Email Marketing Important?

It is a cost-effective marketing strategy compared to outdoor, news, and television advertisements.
It has a higher return on investment (ROI) and helps brands reach a wider audience.
It is an effective medium to reach new customers with minimal resources.
It easily integrates into different marketing channels.
It offers personalization by assisting in creating targeted messages for specific customers.

Email marketing is a powerful promotional tool that helps brands successfully persuade their customers. Its unique features and characteristics force customers to take action on them by reading, deleting, or archiving them. Therefore, it is too hard to avoid email. To effectively formulate an email marketing strategy, a marketing manager should follow a few steps that we will be discussing in the next part of the article.

How To Formulate An Email Marketing Plan?

Follow these steps to formulate an effective email marketing plan successfully:

Understand your audience’s needs
Include a call-to-action
Decide the content of the email

Formulating an email marketing plan is an elaborative process requiring the marketing manager to perform various steps to understand the target audience. Once you have understood your audience’s needs, it is easy to formulate the content of the email. Unfortunately, brands often concentrate on writing email content that aligns with the needs of their audience. It is effective but compromises the organization’s goal. So, while formulating an email marketing plan, try to integrate business goals and audience needs into the strategy to get more effective results.

Different types of email marketing incite different results. So, depending on the market, audience, and business size, a company can decide the email marketing type. Below are some of the popular types of email marketing prevalent in the current times.

What Are The Types Of Email Marketing?

• Newsletters

Newsletters are a significant way of informing the audience about new products or services launched by a brand. In addition, it is used to help the users understand the brand better. Therefore, they follow a strict delivery schedule, which cannot be shifted or changed frequently.

• Welcome emails

Welcome emails are sent to new customers or potential users whom the brands wish to turn into consumers. This type of email marketing aims to educate audiences about the brand, its products, services, and brand goal, among other things.

• Promotional emails

Promotional emails’ main focus is to persuade customers to buy a product or service. Therefore, they are designed to influence the audience to buy the product.

• Sponsorship emails

Brands can use different types of email marketing to reach the audience. Sponsorship email is summarized as the process of promoting a product and service on another brand’s email ad space. In addition, it is used to attract new customers to the products.

Email marketing is a marketing activity that can be intimidating and strenuous for marketing managers. Therefore, brands use many online tools to automate and classify email marketing processes. In the last part of the article, we will discuss the tools of email marketing that helps brands promote their product or service effectively.

What Are The Tools Used For Email Marketing?

Here are some marketing tools that brands commonly use.

Mailchimp
Campaign Monitor
Sendinblue
Easysendy
SendPulse

Besides email marketing, there are different types of digital marketing strategy that helps in reaching the targeted audience effectively. To understand the intricate details of different digital marketing strategies, marketing managers can take digital marketing certification courses offered by Emeritus India in association with renowned Indian and international universities.