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How To Use Cybersecurity As An Effective Marketing Tool

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How To Use Cybersecurity As An Effective Marketing Tool

Most online business owners are fully aware of the value of cybersecurity to keep their customer data and business records safe. But far fewer business owners are aware of the significant value that cybersecurity also brings to the table as a marketing tool to win the trust of everyday customers.

In this article, we’ll explain the importance of marketing cybersecurity so companies can continue to gain customers, retain their loyalty, and ultimately, improve the bottom line. We’ll also discuss how organizations can build cybersecurity into their marketing strategy and witness the payoffs of this investment.

Why advertising your cybersecurity measures helps to build trust with customers

We live in an era where the majority of online customers simply do not trust retailers to keep their personal information safe. A report conducted in January of 2021 by digital security provider Entrust, for instance, found that only one out of every five respondents trusted established brands to keep their personal information secure.

As a result, if a customer who is browsing on your online store or perhaps is even adding items to their shopping cart has any reason to doubt the security of the information they need to provide to complete the purchase, the chances of them abandoning that purchase rises dramatically. In fact, a lack of customer confidence in cybersecurity is one of the biggest reasons for shopping cart abandonment today.

And in almost all cases, providing effective security measures is actually fully necessary for online businesses. For example, any business (including start-ups) that handles cardholder data is required to ensure compliance with the PCI-DSS standards for card payments. At the bare minimum, this means that all customer data must be kept encrypted and only shared amongst members of your team on a need-to-know basis.

But having these effective security measures in-place is not good enough. You also need to make sure that customers and people visiting your website are acutely aware of the security measures that you’re providing.

That’s why you need to take things a step further and incorporate the security measures you’re taking directly into your marketing efforts. The idea is simple: customers need to know about the measures you’re providing and trust that they can provide their personal and financial information to your business without running a risk of it being hacked.

How can you accomplish both of these goals? The answer is to utilize cybersecurity as a literal marketing tool.

How exactly can you utilize cybersecurity as an effective marketing tool?

When utilizing cybersecurity as a marketing tool you need to do more than just alert customers to the fact that you have security measures in-place. You also need to educate them in a clear and succinct manner as to why the security measures you’re taking are effective.

Here are the easiest ways to share your cybersecurity efforts with customers in order to utilize security as an effective marketing tool:

Email

Email is arguably the most effective tool you have available for communicating directly with customers who are directly interested in what your business has to offer. After all, they’ve provided you with their email address for you to reach out to them in the first place.

Email marketing is effective for nurturing leads and helping them along the buyer’s journey, and another perhaps lesser-known role for email is to inform your customers about the cybersecurity measures you’re implementing. Simply inform your email list of the most common security risks that customers take when purchasing online, and why the measures your business has taken will mitigate those risks.

Besides creating original email content, you can also include downloadable content (such as case studies to provide readers with a more in-depth understanding of the issues) or link to your own content such as your blog posts. Speaking of which…

Content

Another option to educate your customers about your security measures is through online content such as blog content. This is your chance to provide even more in-depth information than you can via email. Offer readers real-world examples that showcase the risks of buying online, specific measures that have been developed to counter those risks, and how your company has adopted those measures.

It’s important to ensure that your content is comprehensive and clearly demonstrates how the security measures that you’ve adopted help stop real-life cybersecurity attacks. Try to offer your own specific and unique examples of how your security measures have stopped cyberattacks (including unique screenshots if possible is also a good idea in this regard) so you’re not essentially regurgitating existing content.

Case Studies

Case studies offer an opportunity to go even more in-depth than blog posts. This is where you can include specific data about how your security solutions have stopped cyberattacks and benefited your clients. For example, you can include specific figures such as the number of attempted hacks that were blocked in the last month.

Your case studies don’t have to be lengthy; an overall word count of just five hundred to a thousand words or so, for instance, should be fine. Just be careful that you don’t over exaggerate the results. If 99 out of every 100 attempted cyberattacks were blocked, for example, don’t say that all attacks were stopped. Be honest and raw about the true figures.

Conclusion

Implementing effective cybersecurity measures is equally important for business growth as it is for ensuring that customer data is kept secure. You can use the above strategies to inform your customers about the security measures you’ve implemented to help build trust with them so they are more comfortable buying from you.


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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]

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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples

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!

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Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists

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Why We Are Always 'Clicking to Buy', According to Psychologists

Amazon pillows.

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

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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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