MARKETING
11 Apps for Marketers & Why You Should Download Them
Marketers need the advantage of real-time customer data to effectively do their jobs.
The right iPad and iPhone apps can help — in this piece, we’re diving into 11 Apple device applications that can help take your marketing to the next level.
Best Apps for Marketers
- HubSpot
- Meta Business Suite
- Bitly
- Google Analytics Pro
- GoDaddy.com Mobile
- Buffer
- Hootsuite
- Later
- Canva
- Rep
- Grammarly
1. HubSpot
Price: Free
Need a better marketing framework? The HubSpot mobile CRM suite has you covered. Get one-tap access to key documents, stay organized with follow-up actions and quickly review customer calls to help inform both current marketing plans and develop new initiatives. Best of all, and can do everything anywhere, anytime from your iPad or iPhone.
What we like:
Not to toot our own horn, but HubSpot offers end-to-end support for managing contacts, handling emails, tracking tasks, and monitoring marketing efforts.
2. Meta Business Suite
Price: Free
Meta (formerly Facebook) is one of the most popular social marketing platforms, so it goes without saying that you should have the Facebook app installed on your mobile device. The Meta Business Suite takes things a step farther with the ability to view messages that require attention, schedule and manage posts and prioritize key marketing activities.
What we like:
To succeed with personalized, digital marketing efforts Facebook is essential — the Meta suite makes it possible to unlock the business side of this social app.
3. Bitly
Price: Free
Bitly is known for its link-shortening service but the Bitly app is also a great choice for marketers. Teams can easily connect multiple social networks and track the performance of links across the networks to see where campaigns are working and where they come up short.
What we like:
The “Daily Widget” feature lets you see your top-performing links each day with a simple swipe to the right.
4. Google Analytics
Price: Free
True to the original desktop version, the Google Analytics app for iPhone offers detailed information on your website’s visitors, referral sources, top content, and more. The app even supports multiple Google Analytics accounts. All these rich features are nicely packed into a mobile interface.
Any good marketer doesn’t just ‘do’ marketing, but also measures the results of their marketing efforts. Analytics Pro will help get this job done, anytime and anywhere.
What we like:
The sheer amount of data available to Google makes it the clear leader in customer analytics, so it only makes sense to tap the Google Analytics app as part of your marketing efforts.
5. GoDaddy.com Mobile
Price: Free
GoDaddy.com is a popular domain registrar. It helps you buy and manage your online domains. The GoDaddy.com iPhone app provides a neat interface for you to do these things whenever the inspiration or need strikes. You can track activity across websites, product orders, and social media all from the app.
What we like:
See new reviews for your site with just a few taps and gain insight into the effectiveness of your current campaigns.
6. Buffer
Price: Free
Buffer lets you schedule social media posts to the platform of your choice. This is a great way to keep your content current and engaging — without overwhelming customers. The app makes it easy to centralize cross-platform social marketing to cut down on the amount of time teams spend switching apps and scheduling posts.
What we like:
Keep your social content neat and tidy with the option to add the first comment on platforms like Instagram, ensuring the first comment users see is in line with your branding.
7. Hootsuite
Price: Free
Hootsuite lets marketers create, edit and publish social content all from a single iPhone app. Teams can schedule posts to publish on the channel of their choice at the frequency they prefer, and can see what’s coming up with Hootsuite’s easy-to-use calendar function.
What we like:
Hootsuite lets you monitor likes, mentions, and conversations across topics that matter to your brand.
8. Later
Price: Free
Later also lets you schedule posts across multiple platforms, but where it differs from apps like Hootsuite or Buffer is the ability to visually map out your feed on platforms like Instagram. With simple, drag-and-drop functionality, teams can create a content schedule that’s both content-rich and visually appealing.
What we like:
Images and videos can be uploaded directly from your phone, and there’s no storage limit.
9. Canva
Price: Free
A picture is still worth a thousand words, and Canva helps you say it just right. Using pre-built templates, the Canva app lets you drag and drop image elements to create images you want to share — and that reflect the voice of your brand. Plus, integrated social sharing lets you easily push images to social media platforms.
What we like:
Canva’s free tool is a great choice if you need a simple image editor. If you need more features, just $10 per month gets you the Pro edition.
10. Rep
Price: Free
Love it or loathe it, influencer marketing is here to stay. Rep lets influencers and brands connect on a single app to kickstart mutually beneficial marketing relationships. Influencers can search for like-minded brands (and vice versa) and can bid on paid jobs offered by companies.
What we like:
Brands can quickly check an influencer’s engagement metrics via the app to see if they’re a good fit.
11. Grammarly
Price: Free
When it comes to marketing, good grammar matters. It might seem like a small thing, but a poorly-written and worded ad can convince customers to take their business elsewhere. Grammarly can help save the day. This iOS app offers writing suggestions, grammar fixes, and synonym options to help reduce wordiness and improve the impact of your ads.
What we like:
Grammarly automatically provides feedback as you type to provide real-time suggestions.
Making the Most of iPhone Apps for Marketers
All of the apps listed above can help improve your marketing efforts. From social media management to sentiment tracking to influencer partnerships, the right iPhone app can help build marketing programs that align with company goals and deliver on expectations.
Here, your best bet is to try out a few apps and see what sticks. While most offer in-app purchases, all of the applications listed above offer free versions that let your team explore the benefits they can bring to your brand. Once you’ve found the mix that works for you — pro tip, start with HubSpot’s comprehensive offering and build out from there — you can create an Apple marketing ecosystem that captures customer interest and drives increased sales.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2010 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
MARKETING
YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]
Introduction
With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.
Types of YouTube Ads
Video Ads
- Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
- Types:
- In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
- Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.
Display Ads
- Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
- Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).
Companion Banners
- Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
- Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.
In-feed Ads
- Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.
Masthead Ads
- Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.
YouTube Ad Specs by Type
Skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Action: 15-20 seconds
Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
- Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
Bumper Ads
- Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
- File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 640 x 360px
- Vertical: 480 x 360px
In-feed Ads
- Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Headline/Description:
- Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
- Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line
Display Ads
- Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
- Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
- File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
- File Size: Max 150KB.
- Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
- Logo Specs:
- Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
- File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
- Max Size: 200KB.
Masthead Ads
- Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
- File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).
Conclusion
YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!
MARKETING
Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists
Amazon pillows.
MARKETING
A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots
Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.
To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.
Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots
Salesforce’s evolving architecture
It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?
“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”
Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”
That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.
“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.
Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”
Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot
“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.
For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”
Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”
It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”
What’s new about Einstein Personalization
Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?
“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”
Finally, trust
One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.
“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”
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