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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Janna Stark, a trend forecaster, knows how trends evolve over time and what makes them sticky. Here she details examples of brands that have been successful in reading the temperature of their time and how they used that information to launch still-trending campaigns.

Tip: Learn more about trendspotting, trend forecasting, and trend detection.

Not just any trend. Not a fad, or a fly by night kind of trend, but a trend that soars, that’s successful not only in product sales or market recognition, but one that becomes part of the cultural conversation. When we’ve seen it happen, it occurs to us, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Then we start looking for the next big thing. Hoping to hit it big ourselves, but when the excitement wanes or the process becomes overwhelming, we tend to push our ideas aside and replace them with more practical notions and seemingly “achievable” goals. Then it happens again, someone comes up with another idea that shakes the global community, and our eyes widen with envy once more.

In a bygone era, trend evolution had a top-down trajectory. Innovators, product developers, and idea people came up with concepts. The good ones stuck and gained momentum. Ideas, as well as a physical product, were then handed over to marketers who with some savvy media manipulation attracted the appropriate consumer base. Well, gone are the days of the top-down marketing trajectory. Bottom(s) up as we say in the fashion industry! It’s time to let the consumer lead.

The big gun advertisers and marketers don’t want to give up the front line so easily. They are continuously waving cool shiny objects in front of our eyes, hoping to distract us from the critical task at hand, listening to the consumer and letting insight (not hype) drive the creative process.

Let’s get a few things out of the way; AI, VR, IoT, sharing economy, cloud migration, crowdsourcing, FinTech, social media trends, fake news… so shiny!

Don’t jump on a trend because it’s there. To initiate a trend, a new cultural zeitgeist, it is necessary to look at the big picture of how trends evolve. Then, see how that fits into your business and speaks to your audience.

In our current socio-cultural landscape with trust seemingly out the window and new shiny technological advances appearing around every corner, it seems the consumer may want something familiar and safe to hold. Respond to your audiences’ emotional needs and tell a story that connects past and future in a succinct, linear, and comforting way. And while I stand behind my advice to avoid the hype, it should be clear that scanning the cultural landscape both near and far can help you see how changes in society can impact how new ideas are accepted and what becomes a trend.

Let’s Take the Experience Economy as an Example

You don’t have to dig too deep to discover that consumers are currently interested in community building, experiences, and lifestyle over brand-specific messaging. They desire both entertainment and experiences that say something unique about them. They are eager to get offline and go out and meet like-minded people including those who love the same brands they do and are happy to share these experiences via social media.

Savvy companies are figuring out how to change the brick and mortar environment in response to this need. While the giants are failing, smaller players are figuring out how to reinvent the store experience for the 21st century, focusing on authenticity and community while, in many ways, thinking about sales second. Stores are becoming brand meeting places and touchpoints. Whatever your business, there is an opportunity to create a comforting experience for your audience. After all, experiences help shape identity and create lifelong memories. This evolution is a win-win for strengthening brand loyalty and creating a buzz.

Take a look at one of the most innovative viral campaigns in history from 20 years ago. The MasterCard, “Priceless” campaign launched in 1997 and highlighted the priceless human connection between a father and son. The tagline was: “Real conversation. Priceless.” Before social media there was social (a.k.a. word-of-mouth). The campaign went viral without the Internet. Fast forward to today, though the campaign has evolved to include curated “priceless” experiences, the basic premise has remained the same is stronger than ever.

The MasterCard “Priceless” campaign is still going strong two decades since it’s creation. It’s so successful that it is the foundation of all of MasterCard’s campaigns, both domestically and internationally.

Consider This, Consumers Are Looking for the Familiar and the Safe

So, how do you think they feel about the overwhelming choices we have? Personally, it makes me feel very anxious and confused. Bombarding consumers with too many options instead of honing in on what they really want is counter-productive. While our intention may be to simply give people choices, what is actually happening is the opposite. Analysis paralysis due to the paradox of choice is a reality. The danger of this phenomenon is that the consumer may decide to react to this feeling of paralysis by deciding to opt-out of the (consumer market) experience altogether.

If we aren’t able to take a step back from the market-driven race, focusing on trying to keep up, we might be missing the whole point. It’s something I think of as “clutter” (as opposed to choice). Why not decide to be the brand or company that simplifies the clutter? Curate heavily and speak not only to your audience’s emotions but also to their core values.

Brandless.com, which launched in July of this year, is making an effort to take the reigns of the simplicity trend in the food and household product category. They’ve addressed their customer’s core values of good products that work and simplified their product offering. This philosophy is reflected in all aspects of their visual identity. And, by using the direct to consumer model, they have taken out the middleman, offering consumers great value at $3 for every product on their site. Focusing on quality, simplicity, and value is not a bad trend to take a closer look at in our overly cluttered marketplace.

Brandless.com has simplified their product offering and the consumer experience.

If you are looking to create the next big trend, find something that people can relate to. Endear them. Base your strategy on core (global) human truths and values that evoke emotion. Don’t be a storyteller, be a story maker, and most importantly, listen to the people who have already made your business a success with a media monitoring tool or social listening software.

Start a Trend with This Essential Ingredient

In this blog, Rob Ashwell, from Fourteen Comms, sets the context as to why we shouldn’t be using advertising value equivalent (AVE) as a measurement of public relations value and campaign success. AVE is a controversial topic in the PR world. Find out why he thinks social shares may be a better way to analyze, measure and evaluate the success of your campaigns. 

What to use Instead of Advertising Value equivalent (AVE)

Read most PR blogs and you’ll see that evaluation is a significant buzz word in PR circles. As an industry, we (mostly) know that we shouldn’t be using advertising value equivalents as a tool for evaluation. But that isn’t stopping us.

A study by PR Week / the PRCA showed 35% of agencies were still using the AVE metric. As were 23% of in-house teams. But other data suggests these figures are likely to be far too low and PR evaluation is, in fact, rarer than many, such as the PRCA and Amec, would hope.

In 2016, research found 83,000 people worked in the UK’s, and 226,000 in the US’ public relations industry’. So, according to Google AdWords, how many searches for “PR evaluation” are made in all English speaking nations each month? 210.

Google Trends (which gives relative Google search volumes) backs this figure up with a highly erratic graph of weekly searches – and if your marketing and PR teams ask the tool to break this down by region it simply says “Hmm, your search doesn’t have enough data to show here.”

Fig 1: Given there are more than 300,000 PRs in the US and UK and two-thirds of these (in the UK at least) have ditched AVE as a reliable metric, why are so few searching for new analytics and ways to evaluate public relations value?

So if advertising value equivalents aren't right for PR measurement, what is? 

How can your PR and marketing teams use Meltwater’s media intelligence tool to start to evaluate results and plan what has the greatest likelihood of working?

Meltwater alerts PR and marketing pros to new coverage as well as allows them to search retrospectively. This makes it a great starting point when analysing a campaign, or planning for your next one. 

Now, it should be said up front, coverage is not an end goal. Editorial volume is just a step towards creating awareness. AVE has been widely discredited as an evaluation metric. In my work for clients, I often see more traffic come from a niche title such as EE Times (Engineering) or Bicycling than from a national paper or from TV. Rather than just looking at quantity or reach, we should bring in a range of data points for example website traffic, social media shares or sentiment. 

For example – wire services can guarantee PR coverage on huge publications, but is this coverage worth the fee?

This question can be answered nicely using PR measurement insights from a simple Meltwater search. In the graph below you can see the number of shares of wire coverage vs the number of shares on editorial coverage. This lack of reaction to paid for wire coverage indicates that in many cases, other activities will deliver a great return on investment.  

Fig 2: If a wire distributes a press release and nobody cares enough to share it, does it justify its fee or does it depend on the context of the the example?

Data is from a Meltwater search on the term “Semiconductor” over a three month period. Share analysis was performed via Shared Count (Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Stumble)

How to measure the value of social shares

Social share is not always perfect as a metric (see below), but then again neither is AVE. Social shares are a way to quantify how many people have reacted to coverage (and therefore a campaign).

Most social networks’ APIs let public relations and marketing teams analyze and measure the number of likes and comments. For example, most news sites such as the Guardian show how many times a story has been shared. 

There are several free tools that track shares from a URL. Meltwater helps you both measure PR coverage over time and gives a total share count for any given press release, just by pasting in its URL.

Alternatively, if you’re working off a Meltwater coverage list for an entire year’s coverage you can use services such as SharedCount. You can measure more than one URL at a time – however it only tracks Facebook, Pinterest and StumbleUpon shares. You can then cross-reference the shares in Excel or Google Sheets (tip the v-lookup function allows you to do this – see image below for example).

Being in a spreadsheet you can then easily manipulate the data to pull out key time periods, key influencers or other key trends graphically. Note: if you’re a Meltwater client, you can view key trends, key time periods and key influencers within the tool. 

One project we did last year helped an agency client to understand how to best prepare for a major product launch using PR measurement insights. Their client was one of the product’s two distributors. We used Meltwater to identify all PR coverage from a previous product launch. By analysing editorial coverage and shares, we were able to discover potential media targets, and when to time our promotion. 

We broke it down in several ways to identify media targets and activity to prioritise. But, one of the key elements showed that the type of PR coverage and the publication it appeared in was less important than timing, with distributor 2 getting more (but later) coverage, but distributor 1 getting the shares (and as we’ll see in part 2, Google searches too).

Similarly to advertising value equivalents, it should be noted that using shares alone as an evaluation tool has weaknesses.

Firstly, people are less likely to share something if it doesn’t put them in a good light. In the same way photos on Instagram never represent real life, nor do shares. This limitation can be seen in the circulation and share figures of the National Enquirer tabloid and Atlantic magazine.

Both publications have roughly the same readership figures and the same number of monthly Google searches, yet the highbrow Atlantic gets 27 times the article shares of the lowbrow tabloid. Whether the reason is fear of being ridiculed by friends, or desire to make yourself look ‘better’, the limitation can cause a title to appear more/less influential than it actually is. 

Its second weakness is that share count alone doesn’t give a sentiment. Too many replies (rather than likes) and it’s likely a sign that people are speaking negatively. This rule of thumb is called The Ratio and is based on the fact it takes more effort to write something than click a button. As Luke O’Neil more succinctly wrote in Esquire “The lengthier the conversation [from the post] the surer it is that someone royally messed up,”. This is particularly worth bearing in mind for crisis comms. 

Blend a range of data points to build up a full picture of your media coverage. For example, share counts, sentiment and reach. 

Rob Ashwell has worked in PR since 2002 and through Fourteen Comms helps agencies and companies evaluate what has worked and how to make their budget go further.

There's no denying that PR evaluation has come along way in the past 10 years, much to the joy of communication professionals who previously felt that researching whether their PR efforts moved the needle was an uphill batter. Communication pros now have a variety of analytic tools to add to their kit to help them prove PR ROI.

Hopefully by now you have a better understanding of alternative methods you can use to analyze and measure the value of your PR, asides for advertising value equivalent. By measuring the metrics that matter, it's a lot easier to tie PR strategy success back to overall business goals.

What to use Instead of AVE – Shares

In today’s dialogue-driven business environment, it’s critical to learn how to build a strong social community – and that goes for B2B as well as B2C.  If you have experience in B2C community-building, here’s the good news: B2B isn’t all that different.  After all, B’s are just a collection of C’s – the C’s are just consuming B products.

Yes, that sounds a bit like a song I might sing to my toddler.  But building a B2B community really isn’t all that different fundamentally than building a B2C community in terms of the high-level goals and the requirement that one act like a human.  That being said, there are 5 big differences between the B2B and B2C consumer, and understanding them will get your B2B community marketing initiatives off to a good start.

5 Differentiators Between B2C and B2B Community Members

1) Your B2B Community Wants You to Solve a Business Problem

A business consumer is your consumer because whatever it is you’re selling is theoretically something that they need to do their jobs – or do them better.  The #1 thing that you can do for a B2B customer is to help them do their jobs better. This is something to keep in mind when crafting a content marketing strategy.

2) In B2B Community, Industry & Discipline Supercede Company & Brand

Business consumer purchasing habits are largely determined by the industry and discipline in which they work – and that industry or discipline will most likely follow them for quite awhile.  What this means for you, as a B2B brand, is twofold:

1) You can form long-lasting relationships with a person that will follow them even once they leave their current position, and

2) There isn’t a whole lot of brand loyalty here that’s more important than product functionality.  Unlike a B2C world wherein consumers will forgive shoddy performance because they have immense brand loyalty, we revisit differentiator #1 here: these consumers want you to help them do their jobs better.  If your product isn’t up to snuff, they’ll choose a new one regardless as to whether your logo is cute and they used you in their last job.

3) B2B Influencers are Influential within Their Industry

Here’s where B2B marketing is actually easier than B2C: your influencers are pretty darn easy to find.  Typically, a B2B influencer is going to be a seasoned professional in the business industry you target.  What this means is that any decent social media marketing tool will allow you to identify and engage influencers a lot more easily than you might if you were selling ice cream.

The other bonus here is that industry influencers typically consider their thought leadership position to be part of their jobs.  What this means for you is that, if you can figure out a way to engage an influencer with a program that increases that person’s influence and reach, you can create some happy and long-lasting partnerships – and some of those will (per point #2) last after both of you move on to other companies.

4)  B2B Community Members are Generally Polite Online

It’s not that often that you see a B2B customer ranting online about a company.  After all, per point #2, people are likely to stay in the same industry and discipline a lot longer than they are in the same job, and it’s simply not professional to go off on a rant.  The good news here is that you run less risk that you’re going to cause some sort of social media crisis or be called out on social channels for whatever it is that’s annoying people.

But remember: just because people are obeying the “If you can’t say something nice…” rule doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be trying just as hard to please your B2B customers.  You should be trying harder, because the engagement can last a lot longer.

5) Your B2B Content Marketing Can’t Be All Fun & Games

Yes, pictures of cats are fun.  But B2B consumers have a job to do, and while being entertained is most certainly a nice way to lighten up the workday, real value to business professionals is in content that (per #1) helps them do their jobs better and more easily.  Please don’t take this to mean that engagement in B2B necessitates pedantic, dense educational material; you can still get creative with what might help folks do their jobs better.  Hubspot is expert at creating cool template downloads, for example.

5 B2C vs. B2B Community Marketing Differentiators

It’s the end of the month again, and every marketer knows what that means: end-of-month reporting. It feels like just yesterday we were knee-deep in numbers and charts and graphs trying to sort through the data and make sense of it all. Why is inbound marketing reporting so important, anyway? Why do we spend so much time analyzing? Because it connects the dots between our marketing activities and the goals we set out to accomplish. It can help us draw conclusions from our tests, learn from our mistakes, and spot opportunities to replicate success. Inbound marketing reporting can also help us prove the ROI of inbound marketing efforts and eliminate wasteful activity.

Simply put: Proper inbound marketing reporting gives us a blueprint for success when it comes to growing business through inbound marketing activity. But you don’t have to wait until the end of the month to start. Here are some ideas for breaking your reporting down into daily, weekly, and monthly analysis to help you keep better tabs on your inbound marketing activity.

For more information on the inbound methodology, how to apply it toward growing your business, and how to track your success, download The Growth Hacking Cheat Sheet: Plan, Execute, See Results.

In the meantime, here’s what you can be reporting on daily, weekly, and monthly to grow your business:

While you shouldn’t get yourself tied up in too much reporting on a daily basis, it’s good to get in the habit of checking in on a few activities to make sure things are going smoothly. Set a few minutes aside every day to take a quick glance at the following items:

Website traffic is the lifeblood of inbound marketing for obvious reasons—you must attract your audience to your website before converting them into leads. Taking a glance at website traffic using a tool like HubSpot or Google Analytics on a daily basis can help you monitor sudden spikes or drops in traffic.

Posting and interacting on your social media channels regularly will help you expand your marketing reach and attract visitors to your website. Research reveals that links shared on Facebook and Twitter have a shelf life of about three hours. So, generally speaking, when you post a link on social media, you’ll be able to determine how engaging that post was and how much traffic it sent to your website within 24 hours. Make checking up on your recent social media posts a morning or afternoon ritual. You can learn a lot from successful and unsuccessful posts.

Monitoring activity on a weekly basis will help ensure there are no breakdowns in performance that will affect month-over-month progress. Here are a few things to report on each week:

Glancing at website traffic on a daily basis will help you identify trends that you can circle back to weekly. Check back in to see if sudden drops in traffic have been resolved. Consider the week’s marketing activity and try to identify whether or not tactics are working like you planned. Which days performed better than others? It shouldn’t be surprising to see a bump in traffic on days when you post a blog article or send an email, but if that bump is higher than typical, make a note to yourself for monthly review.

Studies show that within one week of posting, a blog article’s traffic drops, on average, by 90 percent. When a blog article is optimized for SEO, it can build significant organic traffic over time, but check back on recent blog posts each week in the meantime to see how they performed. For articles that didn’t generate much traffic, consider the topic of the article and the audience that read the article. Does the topic speak to and help your desired audience? From the promotion strategies you used, were you able to reach the right audience?

Leads should be monitored frequently for the same reasons as traffic: to catch any drops in performance before they affect monthly goals. As your campaigns are running, check in on the number of leads you’re generating. When lead performance drops, consider your CTAs, emails, and landing pages.

Monthly performance reports help ensure that you’re hitting your goals month over month and that your marketing activities are paying off—resulting in steady growth over time. They can also inform you where to shift focus in order to get better performance from your inbound marketing efforts. Here are a few things to take a look at monthly:

Track overall website visits each month and expect to see an increase in month-over-month traffic. Track website traffic by channel to identify the activities that are working when it comes to attracting visitors. Here’s a breakdown of traffic to consider:

Organic Traffic – Organic visits from unpaid search results

Referral Traffic – Visits from another website that isn’t a search engine

Social Media Traffic – Visits from social media channels

Email Traffic – Visits from the emails that you send out

Direct Traffic – Visits from offline sources such as print advertisements or brand recognition

Paid Traffic – Visits that come from paid advertising

If month-over-month traffic happens to decrease from one month to another, you’ll be able to pinpoint the reason why by identifying channels that also decreased.

Take a look at your best and worst performing pages, including landing pages and blog articles. You’ll want to identify the pages that are not only getting the most views, but the ones that are converting well too. Make sure that the most viewed pages provide a next step for visitors to take, whether that step is to read or subscribe to the blog, download premium content, or to fill out a bottom-funnel form. Consider using prominent, action-oriented CTAs at or near the top of the page. Pinpointing traffic sources and successful CTAs for each of these pages can help you lay out a strategy to increase traffic and repeat success.

As you build out and execute marketing campaigns, don’t forget to check in monthly to see how they performed and what takeaways you can learn from. First, consider the number of campaign views, new contacts and new customers generated. Are these increasing or decreasing month-over-month? Break that performance down by channel to determine which activities had the biggest impact on recent campaign performance. This insight can help you decide where to spend most of your efforts and your budget.

Increases in website traffic month over month indicate that you’re attracting an audience. Increases in leads month over month indicate that you’re attracting the right audience and that they’re converting on your offers. Track your overall leads each month and, again, expect to see a steady increase over time.

This is the total number of visitors divided by the total number of leads. Keeping an eye on your VTL conversion rate helps you determine how effective your landing pages and offers are in converting visitors into contacts. When your VTL rate is low for the month, consider whether or not you’re bringing in the right audience to your website. Then consider how well your offers are resonating with them. A/B-test some variations to find out.

This is the total spend on marketing activities divided by the number of leads gained. Track cost per lead by channel (organic, referral, social media, email, direct, and paid) to determine which efforts are the most cost-effective and which ones could be scrapped altogether. Keep in mind that inbound marketing strategies require an investment of time and hard work before you start to see results, so measure monthly, but give it time to come to fruition.

Your inbound marketing efforts don’t truly pay off until you’ve turned your leads into customers for your business. So obviously you want to track your customers every month and (once again) which channels they’re coming from (organic, referral, social media, email, direct, and paid).

This is the total number of customers for the month divided by the total number of leads (multiplied by 100 to get the percentage). This tells you how well your leads are converting into sales. When the lead-to-customer rate is low, consider ways to nurture leads a little longer before handing off to sales.

While this breakdown of reporting is sufficient for some, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. 

This article originally appeared in The SmartBug Inbound Marketing Blog, was written by Mike Wolfe from Business2Community, and legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

How to get your inbound marketing reporting off the ground

Over 15 000 social media mentions on ‘#adidasxIVYPARK’ globally, resulting ina social reach of 146 Million people on 18 January 2020. That is just a quick glance at the impact that American artist, Beyonce, had when she launched her IVY PARK collection in collaboration with Adidas. Already, her name is a brand that easily sends her fanbase, affectionately known as the ‘Beyhive’, buzzing at the slightest peeks into her life. But with the launch of the much anticipated collaboration with Adidas, Beyonce’s marketing strategy extended far beyond just using herself as the face of the collection. 

Number of Social Reach vs Social Volume, Globally, on #adidasxIVYPARK [caption for the above image]

With the use of high-profile influencers and creating content that her fans continually engaged with, Beyonce relaunched her IVY PARK athleisure wear. It sold out in a matter of minutes. It trended on the day – all because her marketing strategy was designed in such a way that ensured this success. So, what can you learn from the Queen Bey? Let’s explore more.

Using the Right Influencers for Your Brand

As an industry that is set to reach $10 billion by 2020, influencer marketing is highly lucrative for any brand and business. While some fans would have wanted Beyonce to send press drops of her collection to loyal members of the ‘Beyhive’, there was a reason why celebrities and macro-influencers were used predominately for this campaign.

For one, celebrities and macro-influencers have a much higher follower – from 500 000 followers upwards – which increases the exposure that a brand receives when working with influencers like this. For a global launch like ‘#adidasxIVYPARK’, it makes sense to use some of the biggest influencers to not only create global exposure, but target their market in a way that was cost effective and would have a higher return on investment. From the Generation Z appeal that Zendaya has to Reese Witherspoon, who represents the modern working mother, reaching wider buyer personas through influencer marketing was made possible for this campaign, resulting in the collection selling out in minutes.

If you look at the Instagram post from Ellen DeGeneres below, her post received over 2 million views and over 260 000 likes – all of which are potential buyers. By using influencer marketing in this way, your chances of reaching a wider audience are greater.

Thank you, @Beyoncé. I love my big orange box. Your new clothes are really cool too. @WeAreIvyPark @adidas

Second, one of the social media trends on the rise in 2020 is the use of vertical video platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram Stories. More online users are consuming video content, and when it comes to vertical videos, the more followers the user has, the bigger the success in views and engagement. This proved to be true for the celebrities and macro-influencers used for this campaign.

From the Live video that Laverne Cox shared as she tried on clothing items, to the IGTV videos from Yara Shahidi, the combination of using vertical videos and top influencers resulted in an increased awareness on the upcoming collection, the brand trust being built throughout the campaign, and ultimately turning these viewers into buyers.

What can you take away from this? That no matter the size of your business, you can utilize the power of influencer marketing. Global fashion brand, Zara, localised their #DearSouthAfrica campaign by using about 60 South African micro-influencers to achieve their own success. If you know how to find the right influencers for your specific brand, you can achieve the same success.

Marketers know that with any campaign, you need to have a hashtag. They’re important for cutting through all the other digital noise that arises but also helps finding posts easier, particularly on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. This makes standing out of a digitally noisy crowd easier, which is exactly what Beyonce did. 

Trending Themes on #adidasxIVYPARK in South Africa [caption refers to the above image]

If you wanted to look for all the content that was coming up for the launch, but only typed the word ‘Beyonce’ in the search bar on Twitter, a variety of posts would come up, and you would have to scroll through it all to find anything ‘Adidas’ related. But because there was the branded ‘#adidasxIVYPARK’ hashtag, this categorised the content specifically to the clothing collection, creating a user experience where people interested only on the collection had an easy way of finding content for it. Hashtags like this also allowed for a community of people to come together and join the conversations on the hashtag, which then creates an engaged community.

BEYONCÉ LEGION on Twitter: "❤️🧡 #BeyHive! Reply to this tweet with your adidas x IVY PARK pics 🧡❤️

#adidasxIVYPARK… "

From a business point of view, using a branded hashtag increases your social media presence by making your content accessible to those interested in your brand. As social media users use hashtags to engage with each other, brands can do the same. If, for example, you use a media monitoring tool to help you discover trending topics, like #adidasxIVYPARK, you’ll participate in high-traffic conversations that lead to more brand visibility. And the more brand visibility you have, the larger the audience you reach which can then generate more leads for you.

Everyday, millions of content marketing pieces are being created. With that, the question becomes: how do you stand out? The answer? By ensuring that the content you create is valuable, relevant and connects with your audience. 

For Beyonce, the content marketing for her #adidasxIVYPARK collection already began in December 2019 for an interview with ELLE magazine. Not only did Beyonce wear clothing from the collection, but she answered questions that were asked by her fans, allowing her to connect with her audience while providing valuable and relevant content for her collection.

But, there’s more to her content marketing strategy:

If there is one sure way to grab the attention of an online user scrolling through Instagram, it’s  by using great visuals. Because people process visuals faster than text, our attention is drawn more to better looking imagery. 

Ivy Park on Twitter: "adidas x IVY PARK January 18 #adidasxIVYPARK  https://t.co/TnQqOEXquZ… "

Looking at all the images and videos that Beyonce released for this collection, you’ll notice two things:

That a consistent colour scheme was used. The warm, bold orange and burgundy colours compliment each other, and stand out against the white backgrounds on Twitter and Instagram, making these images more eye-catching on social media.

Hardly any text was displayed on the visuals, other than the IVY PARK branding. ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ and this was true for this campaign. As one of the 3 E’s of visual branding, the content created for #adidasxIVYPARK was easy to consume because there were very few words used and the images and videos were high quality, making it easier for people to share and engage with the content.

While Beyonce did create teaser images and videos during her ELLE interview and in early January 2020, once celebrities and macro-influencers received the collection, the online frenzy began as they shared their own images and unboxing videos showcasing #adidasxIVYPARK.

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#ivyparkxadidas street style so far ✨ ~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•
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#beyonce #beyoncé #queenbey #ivypark #ivyparkxadidas #adidas #athleisure #fashion #clothes #jayz #jayonce #thecarters #like4likes #likeforlikes #photooftheday #jayz #hov #hova #athletics #beyhive #beychella #newyork #la #australia #usa #adidasxivypark #athleisure #athleticwear

It was the images of these celebrities walking in the street or the unboxings that happened in their homes, shared all over Instagram and Twitter, that helped generate thousands of online mentions. By having these celebrities and macro-influencers create their own user-generated content, their global recognition gives brands free exposure as their content reaches audiences quicker.

While this was a global launch, there are aspects of this campaign that you can take away, localise and apply to your own marketing strategies:

Make sure you have the right influencer that are the right fit for your brand.

Use a branded hashtag to keep track of mentions and engage with your audience.

Have a killer content marketing strategy that incorporates visuals and user-generated content.

From finding Social Influencers to tracking mentions during your campaign, we have a solution for you: Check out Klear's leading Influencer Marketing platform.

3 Things to Learn from Beyonce’s #adidasxIVYPARK Marketing Strategy

The airline industry is infamous for difficulties in maintaining profit margins amid a number of internal and external factors that consistently threaten to throw them off balance. From rising competition and consumer demands, to labor deficits and union strikes, to fluctuations in fuel prices, airline decision-makers need to constantly adjust their strategies and find new ways to cut costs and increase revenue in order to remain above ground.

Large carriers and low-budget airlines alike are facing mounting struggles globally to maintain profit margins while facing a number of external factors that are causing disruption.

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Start a Trend with This Essential Ingredient

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How to get your inbound marketing reporting off the ground

3 Things to Learn from Beyonce’s #adidasxIVYPARK Marketing Strategy

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