Remember that marketing funnel you used to create your strategy? Turns out it might not be so linear after all. Over the last year more research has come out hinting at the theory that there are multiple dimensions of consumer intent—of which few (if any) fall easily into a nice, clean line formation.

At this point, it’s fair to say there’s no longer one clear path to purchase, which makes discovering consumer intent more valuable than ever. In fact, user purchase paths are beginning to more closely resemble star constellations than anything remotely linear. In this chaos of purchase paths, consumer intent is the driving force—a force that we, as marketers, must open our minds to understand, and then adapt our strategies accordingly.

Marketers who have a clearly defined understanding of consumer intent are able to better produce content that, in turn, produces actionable results. But how do you determine consumer intent if it can’t be easily traced in a linear fashion?

1. Don’t Just Collect Data; Collect Actionable Data

Every action, no matter how minor or repetitive, should be captured: purchase views, video or other rich content views, registrations, sharing, searching and everything else that involves a user interacting with your site. The more information you have to start with, the more easily you can start to determine patterns—which should consistently be reevaluated and refined.

2. Determine Real Starting Points

You know the buyer cycle starts before a user lands on your site, but how far back does it go? Often it’s further than you think. When users search, they do so with one of four intents: I want to know; I want to go; I want to do; I want to buy. Obviously, users who want to buy are the easiest to create profitable content for, but these purchase paths are becoming less and less direct as a whole.

A user could want to go, and then want to know, and then want to buy. Or a user could want to know, then jump right to wanting to buy. Regardless of the path (the concept itself becoming less and less important) your content needs to reach the user in aspects of his or her intent.

3. Strategize Content Around Pre-Intent

With some strategic thinking, you can capture the ‘I want to buy’ users before they realize they want to buy something. To do so, think about what likely sparks an, ‘I want to buy’ moment, and produce content around such topics to make your site a go-to resource for that user.

For example, if a user wants to invest in a painting service for his or her home, think about what sparked that intent and create content around it. Perhaps it was due to destruction from a rough winter or leaky gutters. Maybe this was the user’s first year as a homeowner and he or she didn’t know to look for signs of a poor paint job before purchasing. Or, on the flip side, the user could be looking to sell his or her home. All of these pre-intent moments are content ideas you could, and should, be catering content towards.

4. Identify Hidden Agendas

We all know about the big retail holidays, but there are many other situations in which a user will have money to spend. Tax season is an excellent example for working professionals, as are the summer months before college for high school graduates. Don’t let traditional holidays dictate your content. Instead, consider the lifestyle and major events of your target audience and base content around these areas.

5. Familiarize Yourself With Query Classification

Among SEO professionals, search engine queries are generally classified as either navigational, informational, commercial or transactional. However, as with most aspects of SEO, there are various theories around this subject. Understating query classification helps you identify consumer intent through keywords, which you can then base your strategy around. RIMSEO has an excellent list of keyword intent resources to get you started.

As we so often say with marketing concepts and ideas, the only constant is change—and the ways that consumers make purchase decisions is no different. Each new advancement in technology (especially in mobile technology) has the potential to disrupt your vision of your target market’s path to purchase. Collect actionable data, learn the logic of consumers in your vertical and study their behaviors to learn their true intent. Then you’ll be poised to help make those intentions reality.

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What makes great sponsored content? A piece that people consume not just because it’s bombarded into their streams, but because they actually enjoy it and learn from it.

We recently took a look at some sponsored content “fails” – pieces that did the exact opposite and left readers wanting. So now we’re going for something a little more positive; let’s dissect three pieces of native advertising so amazing, readers came back begging for more.

Buzzfeed & Acuvue: Finally Seeing the Light

Previously, we picked on an article sponsored by Acuvue that failed in almost every way imaginable – it was trite, rehashed content that had nothing to do with eye care, and was a real drag to read through.

Fortunately, Buzzfeed and Acuvue really redeemed themselves with another piece, “11 Impossibly Cool Facts You May Not Know About Your Eyes.”

From the brand perspective, it hits the mark by bringing up a topic that’s well within Acuvue’s wheelhouse and will have people associating their name with smart eye care.

As for Buzzfeed and their readers, the article is actually quite fun and informative. With facts like “[a]round 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, everybody had brown eyes, and then the first blue-eyed person was born,” the content is actually educational. Pair that with some fun illustrations, and you’ve got a great article. More of this, please!

Forbes & Toyota: Driving Content Marketing Forward

As we mentioned last time, Forbes has delved into native advertising with more energy than most publishers. While some of their branded verticals end up publishing weak content like Teradata’s misfire on big data and Kevin Bacon, others are smashing successes. As soon as you take a glance at Toyota’s interactive piece, “Fueled by Skepticism”, you know it’s a cut above.

To start with, the interactive design is responsive across screens both big and small (smart!) with clever graphics to accompany it. The content itself is interesting, featuring a timeline of great human accomplishments you may not have known about.

Beyond that, it doesn’t just shove “cars, cars cars – buy a Toyota” in your face. While some of the topics are automotive, others are anything but. This cleverly makes the reader associate Toyota with innovation and ingenuity in general, sure to pay off the next time that person is pondering whether or not they should buy a technology-packed Prius.

The Atlantic & Cathay Pacific: How Revelatory

When we last checked up on The Atlantic’s sponsored content work, they were pairing up with The Church of Scientology and made a piece so ill-received that they ended up taking it down. Since then, they’ve seen the light, so to speak, and have been creating much more appropriate pieces with their brand partners.

In “For This World Traveler, the Best Souvenirs Are Ideas” the venerable magazine teamed up with Cathay Pacific airlines to create a real winner. Not only is the story clearly marked as “Sponsor Content” (one of the many omissions and errors in their Scientology piece) but they’ve also created a photo-heavy article so enjoyable that readers won’t mind that it’s an advertisement.

The photo themselves truly grab the eyes and strongly sell Beijing and its fashion & clothing manufacturing scene. The accompanying story is great, chronicling an up and coming designer’s rollicking trip to China’s capital city. Not once does the article prod readers to “fly Cathay Pacific” but it certainly piques one's interest in traveling to China. And once you’ve started your search for airfare, Cathay Pacific’s offerings are sure to sound all the better to the fashionable traveler.

What Worked & Why

Creating great branded content isn’t always easy; but these companies showed that when you work hard on it, it pays off. The trick is to tell a story that really captures the audience, whether by telling them something they didn’t already know, or using a new technique to update an old favorite. Don’t just harp on the benefits of your brand – make an impact on the reader, and they’ll connect the dots for you.

Ad blocking is nothing new for most internet users. Closing a pop up is practically instinctive, and more and more people are downloading ad-blocking software to their computers each day.

Ad-blocking software prevents ads from being served. While most internet users are fine with this, many also don’t realize how much of an adverse effect it has on advertisers and publishers.

In response to this, cross-channel marketing technology leaders Signal have put together an infographic and guide that covers the rise of ad blocks and what advertisers and publishers can do about them.

Here are a few highlights and takeaways:

The Rise of Ad Blockers

The main purpose of ad-blocking software is to stop ads from being served. This limits advertiser’s potential views or Cost per Thousand Impressions. Ads are paid for only after they’ve been served. This means that publishers aren’t being paid for visits to their site from any browser that has an ad-blocker installed.

Because of this, U.S. publishers are set to lose nearly 10 percent of total ad revenue due to ad blockers. In some industries with tech-savvy readerships, this number can jump to nearly 50 percent. The total cost of ad blocking is projected to cost publishers nearly 22 billion in 2015. As you can see, this is a serious loss for publishers as a result of ad-blocking software.

Globally, ad blocking has seen growth of nearly 41 percent over the past 12 months with nearly 200 million people now using ad-blocking software. This number is expected to continue to rise with the ad-blocking functionality that was just released on iOS9. Previously, most ad blocking had occurred on desktops; however, that will soon change with the recent iOS9 update.

What Can Advertisers & Publishers Do About Ad Blocking?

Ad blocking software is here to stay and has the potential to negatively impact both advertisers and publishers. But there are a few things that they can do to help rescue their cost per impressions.

Crafting the right message is important. Make sure you truly know your customers. Don’t rely on third-party data, which is often old and unreliable. First-party data is far more accurate for developing and serving relevant ads so that you target the right audience.

Real-time marketing is also important. Consumers are more likely to buy from a brand when they’re in a buying mindset. Be sure to connect all of your channels so that you never miss a chance to reach customers when they are in the market for your product.

Embrace native advertising. Native ads are a great way to reach consumers who have already adopted ad-blocking software. Consumers are also far more likely to share native ads then they are to share banner ads, and they view native ads more frequently than banner ads.

Ad blocking is only going to continue to grow. Most consumers see popups and display advertising as intrusive and are eager to take the steps necessary to block it. By committing to using better data to make better decisions about whom and when you target, you’re doing your part to keep advertising relevant. And by experimenting with native, you’re helping advance the field of marketing communications in a new and radical way—a win-win for everyone.

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Whoever said that the best things in life are free wasn’t talking about great monetized content. In a world where someone has to pay the bills, advertisers are more than happy to help fund your website. That's assuming, of course, that your great content generates great traffic.

Publishers can’t just hang their hats on quality content and hope to thrive. Almost all publishers have to figure out a way to drive and monetize traffic that their content produces.

Operating a website is an extremely competitive endeavor. Thus, publishers should develop an aggressive approach to properly monetize content and use traffic to keep their websites funded.

Here are four ways you can more effectively drive, maintain and monetize content as a publisher:

1. Constantly Promote Your Content

Publishers can’t rely on sufficient ROI with minimal marketing. Recirculating content not only keeps traffic on your website, but also puts evergreen content in front of your audience to keep them interested. The ad units on your website don’t just have to promote advertisers’ content; they can also be used to engage your audience and inspire increased exploration of your site.

Once you’ve got interested visitors perusing your content, the likelihood of them engaging with ads increases. So, then, by increasing viewership on your website via content recirculation, you’re also maximizing your potential revenue from advertising.

2. Utilize Native Advertising

While some advertisers may continue to use banner ads and other more “traditional” forms of digital marketing (despite their drawbacks), many are turning to native advertising as another way to engage with consumers.

Native advertisements offer advertisers a fresh way to interact with readers without disrupting their experience on your website. Native ads often cost less to produce than banner ads and provide a more versatile, engaging experience for readers.

For example, mobile banner ads can interfere with readers’ natural flow through a piece, prompting some to flat-out ignore the display or, worse, leave your website altogether.

Conversely, native advertising units fit seamlessly within content, and consumers end up walking away feeling like they’ve been informed rather than feeling like your ad intruded on their reading experience.

Moreover, native advertising yields financial dividends. Native advertising revenue is expected to hit $10.7 billion this year. Embracing native advertising will allow you to attract new advertisers and increase your profit, which will allow you to continue publishing.

3. Don’t Neglect Mobile

Next time you take public transportation — or are anywhere in public, for that matter — take a quick scan of the people around you. Where is their attention fixed? Most of those eyes are probably glued to some sort of mobile device.

Such mobile-savvy consumers are quick to click away from a page that doesn’t have an enticing mobile layout. With so many content platforms to compete with, an optimized mobile aesthetic is key. Fifty-five percent of readers’ time on The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Insider and About.com is spent on those outlets’ mobile offerings as opposed to their desktop counterparts.

Mobile revenue isn’t matching readership in terms of fervor, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. Make sure the ads on your page can be optimized for mobile, or you’ll be losing out on potential revenue you probably didn’t even know existed.

4. Keep Tinkering

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to monetizing your audience; it’s a process that requires patience and dedication.

Just as you constantly tweak your content to appeal to your audience, put the same effort into testing new ad units to see what works best. Any ad network you work with should be happy to do this and provide great suggestions. After all, the network wants to succeed just as much as you do.

Securing your place in the web traffic business is difficult, but the above steps construct a viable path to creating profitable content. Crafting quality content and working with an ad network to properly drive, maintain and monetize your product will aid you in staving off content-producing competitors.

There’s nothing like a good infographic about good infographics.

And that’s exactly what Siege Media is serving up with its new study, The Science Behind the Most Popular Infographics.

In partnership with Buzzsumo, Siege analyzed the 1,000 most-shared infographics of the past year to find out what they had in common—and what advertisers can do to make their multimedia assets more shareable.

So, what did the agency dig up? Let’s just say this: Before you start stressing over the actual content of your infographic, there are easy format and distribution tips you can use to make your infographics pop.

For instance, on average, the most popular infographics include 396 words and are 3683 by 804 pixels wide. The most popular color for infographics is blue, and the most common colors across the business, health, and entertainment industries are blue, green, and red.

Speaking of industries, infographics about health do best on Facebook and Pinterest, while infographics about social media are shared more on Twitter. Additionally, you might be able to get away with wordier infographics on Twitter, seeing as the most-shared infographics on the platform average 442 words.

To find out more for yourself, check out the infographic below. Oh yeah, and in case you were wondering, “The Science Behind the Most Popular Infographics” is exactly 396 words and 3683 by 804 pixels wide. So meta, much clever.

This article originally appeared on The Content Strategist.

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We’ve all heard the adage “practice makes perfect,” right? As it turns out, that’s just plain wrong.

I was at lunch with a psychologist friend, and we were discussing perfection. “I’ve learned in my counseling that where humans are involved, nothing makes perfect,” he said. “Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent.”

Now that’s an adage marketers can work with. How many times have we envisioned a “perfect” marketing campaign only to find flaws in the end result?

In truth, the best marketing strategy intentionally plans for less than perfect results. Prepare for mistakes - with clear “imperfection” demarcation points to dictate course corrections or pivots - because marketing campaigns today are better served with a reactive mentality versus a proactive one.

When Perfection Breaks Down

In the ’90s, I was a young vice president of corporate communications for AT&T Wireless. We were about to launch a revolutionary new service and planned a large-scale rollout announcement with a host of media and advertising options set to crescendo at the launch.

We thought we were prepared for everything. Then, our perfect plan sprung a leak.

Bloomberg Business broke the story the night before the announcement - effectively stealing our thunder. After the initial panic, our head of media relations asked one simple question: “What can we do now to make this announcement go better than we originally planned?”

She suggested using the leak to fuel effective, more extensive broadcast media coverage the next day. The adjustment resulted in millions of dollars of positive media impressions and a wildly successful campaign launch.

The Lesson I Learned

Recovering from a mishap requires experience, brains and the courage to pivot mid-step.

“Some people work so hard to get it absolutely right that they don’t have the bandwidth to do all the other things that go into making a business successful,” said Mark Cuban.

Instead of expecting a perfect result, try these four strategies that will boost your chances for success:

1. Recognize that the perfect plan requires imperfection

Your plan isn’t perfect until you build systems to account for imperfections. In athletics, the best practices involve situational decision-making drills; the same is true for marketing. Run through your plan: What could happen — good or bad — that would alter it? Could you do anything beforehand to improve the potential outcome?

Once you’ve run through the pitfalls, it’s a good idea to set early warning systems and if-then scenarios to signal appropriate times to pivot. “If this happens” warnings give marketers the courage to make “then we make this change” decisions and removes last-minute indecision from the equation.

2. Understand your audience

Smart marketers spend time considering exactly who their audience members are and what motivates them. Consider the 18- to 49-year-old demographic; what do a 49-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman have in common? A current trend in marketing is to use audience-based marketing personas as a segmenting strategy. It’s a good idea and one worth considering in every “perfect” plan.

3. Find the key to the consumer’s wallet

In our agency, we’re big fans of what we refer to as “wallet” differentiation. With this concept, you’ve found something that’s different from what your competitors are offering and that customers would gladly pay for. It’s challenging to find real wallet differentiation, but without it, your perfect plan doesn’t stand a chance.

4. Look the customer in the eye

Every plan lives and dies by the feedback you receive after the plan begins.

Study the success of your plan early in the launch and at each subsequent milestone. Don’t wait until the plan is finished because with the digital marketing analytics available today, there are plenty of ways to quickly get iterative feedback that pinpoints content engagement. Make sure you’re getting the data, running your if-then formula against it, and making proper adjustments.

In my more than 25 years in the industry, I’ve never seen a more dynamic, fluid environment for marketers than today. It may seem paradoxical, but with a volatile climate that seems virtually impossible to control, planning in marketing has never been more important. And the “perfect” marketing plan begins and ends with imperfection.

My last article discussed why it’s important to have a strategic content distribution plan in place; this one focuses on the how.

You don’t have to lift your eyes from the screen to see all the conversation around content marketing, its importance and how to do it well. But once you have the content, publish it and share it, how does the conversation around it grow? It’s pretty simple: more eyes. Here’s how to get more of them on your content:

Start by Measuring

In my last article, I asked seven questions to begin thinking about your content distribution plan, but we didn’t give consideration to where your competitors distribute their content and where they spend their time online.

Here are some fundamental questions to ask:

1. Do they have a website?
   1. Is it current and active?
   2. What is their page rank and domain authority?
   3. Do you know their spam score?
   4. How much traffic are they getting from search?
   5. Do they have a newsletter and offer subscriptions?
   6. Do they have any gated content on their site?
2. Do they have a blog?
   1. When is the last blog entry and how often do they blog?
   2. Does their blog attract relevant comments and/or shares?
3. Where do they spend their time on social media?
   1. How many social mentions have they had over the last 30 days?
   2. Do they have a LinkedIn company page and/or group? How many followers and how often do they post?
   3. Do they have one or more Twitter accounts with how many followers?
   4. Do they have a Facebook page? Is it active and how many like their page?
   5. What about Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Vimeo, SlideShare and any other platforms that may be relevant?

If you’re looking to create a strategic content distribution plan that provides measurable results against your unique business objectives, why spend all this time on your competitors? So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Figure out their website domain authority and spam score to determine their level of credibility in the online world. Determine if they take their brand and reputation seriously by the quality and frequency of their blog posts and social media activity.

If they don’t excel at these things, you’re not far from gaining an edge on them. If they do excel in these areas, you now have an idea of how to measure what you’re up against.

Who To Measure

When you measure your competitors, be brave. Do it for real. I like to measure not only one or two of our honest competitors but also a couple of organizations we want to emulate.

ALPFA is the Association of Latino Professionals For America. Education, leadership development, and professionalism are all important to us because we understand the correlation between those things and career advancement. So I measure us against other Latino organizations focused on education, an association of professional women, an association of association executives, and a national chamber of commerce.

Why? These are organizations similar enough that they are attracting comparable members and they are modeling industry best practices. They are also of similar relative strength in social media and domain authority, and they give me ideas for other important metrics to track.

We don’t just want to be the best in our neighborhood; we want to be the best in the nation. To do that, we must aim high. Therefore, we must set stretch goals that are higher than those whom we might initially think of as our immediate competitors.

How to Measure

Not sure how to get it all done, or don’t have time? I use Preznc Report to affordably collect the metrics and deliver condensed recommendations I need to make my best decisions. Using one intelligent service means I go to one place to track all the data, and I have a knowledgeable consultant that I trust who helps me by confirming what I believe to be my next best steps, validating the decisions I’ve already considered before I implement them, and deciding what I need to work on next and when.

Preznc has been the most powerful and concentrated resource to amplify my time and effort. They stay ahead of the curve on measurement (the “what”) and keep me on top of my defined competitors (the “who”) so I don’t have to. Rather, I can focus on creating great content and distributing it smartly in ways that get us noticed.

Remember that strategic content distribution planning “begins with a foundational understanding of the environment, who your audience is and where they spend their time.” Knowing what your defined competitors are doing will also help you stay ahead of the curve. You want to know not only what your current competitors are doing but also, much like the chasing the fastest NASCAR drivers, looking ahead to who you really want to compete against (i.e., the pole-starters) will keep you focused on where you want to be.

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We used to think we wanted to live in a world where robots and artificial intelligence make our lives easier and more convenient. In the 1960’s the type of technology we dreamt about was so unfathomable it was practically a joke.

But fast forward to today and various forms of automation have infiltrated every aspect of our lives—from smart homes that turn the heat up when they know you’re coming home to programmatic buying and selling of advertising inventory.

I’m sure that last one wasn’t on the minds of Joseph Barbera and William Hanna when they dreamt up the robot-assisted fantasy world of George Jetson in the early 60’s, but the pace of technology has taken us there—for better or for worse.

The ubiquitousness of the internet has made for both a smaller and larger world at the same time. The human species is now more informed and better connected than it ever has been in history. So why, then, are content creators and publishers clamoring about the state of our media in 2015?

Because when something is good, someone will always find a way to take advantage of it—that’s why. They will exploit what is not theirs. They will use something intended to benefit all for their own personal gain.

That’s what has happened with digital advertising. And while my colleague Chad Pollitt posits that display advertising isn’t going anywhere any time soon, we can all agree that it’s getting harder and harder to make a real impact when it comes to consumer engagement and brand awareness online.

The Rise of Ad-Blocking & Traffic Fraud

Ad-blocking and traffic fraud are the culprits that most point fingers at when discussion turns to the dismal state of publishing we face today.

Consumers are blocking ads because the offerings aren’t relevant (or they’re just plain bad advertising). And traffic fraud—whatever the source and cause may be—plays a direct role in serving up the bad ads, as the longer the bot sticks around, the further down they drive bids and, consequently, the quality of ads.

The solution? Dave Hendricks (US President and Managing Director of LiveIntent LTD) suggests that publishers “simply need to start to reduce their reliance on anonymous ad-serving via display ads on their website and migrate to a logged-in audience approach.” By doubling down on a subscriber-based mind-set, Hendricks says, publishers can wipe the dollar signs from their eyes and get back to focusing on providing real value to their readers.

The idea is that they’ll encourage loyalty by continuing to supply free content for subscribers and users who log in with an email address. When publishers can identify users, they can serve them more relevant (i.e., unblocked) ads and continue to pull in revenue.

Hendricks points out that while, yes, asking for an email address in exchange for access to content is interruptive, it’s also not a lot to ask of someone who truly cares about the content behind the shadowbox.

“Publishers who want to survive the current extinction event should take cues from those asking more of their audiences,” he advises. “Retailers ask for credit cards and email addresses in the normal course of their business.”

It’s time to stop guessing about who anonymous readers are and what’s relevant to them, which takes us back to the issue of bots. You’ve got to get people to “sign up” if you’re going to identify and collect data about them—and practically anybody can write a program to sign up for millions of accounts.

In other words: damned if you do; damned if you don’t.

Solve Media Solves the Problem

A little creative brainstorming and you’ll likely arrive at a number of possible solutions to this challenge of true and organic audience growth. One of the newest and most engaging solutions is Solve Media’s branded TYPE-IN™ ads. Recently acquired by Adiant, TYPE-IN™ is an ad platform that transforms CAPTCHA into a consumer touchpoint for brands that actually facilitates participation in the transfer of the message.

“In today’s digital world of ad blockers and fraud, engagement has become one of the most important metrics to measure digital advertising campaign success,” stated Ash Nashed, CEO Adiant. “During our evaluation of the Solve Media product suite, many top tier brand agencies said that Solve Media’s TYPE-IN™ products consistently generate the highest brand and message lift metrics in the digital industry, delivered through a highly targetable and low friction execution.”

According to Nashed, it’s one of the few major branding vehicles where consumers actively type in a brand’s key message, as opposed to the passive display and pre-roll models. By asking consumers to type in a marketing message (rather than laughable, nonsensical words and phrases) the advertiser succeeds at brand/message lift, the publisher succeeds at generating revenue, and the consumer succeeds at accessing desirable content.

Ultimately, it’s about creating a positive content consumption experience for the reader. But publishers need money to create content, and that money typically comes from advertisers. With TYPE-IN™, both parties can scale efforts without sacrificing quality.

How’s that for futuristic fantasy?

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Five years ago Pinterest, the image-sharing social network, had around 5,000 users. Today, it has over 100 million active users, is worth over $11 billion and is continuing its steady growth—both at home and abroad.

Early Pinterest users displayed a passion for design, so CEO Ben Silbermann built a good relationship with design bloggers, which kick-started Pinterest’s close engagement with the blogging community. This was an enormous help to Pinterest in the early days since it gave the fledgling social network access to a large, engaged audience that was full of potential new members.

When it comes to reaching a larger audience, bloggers are often the gatekeepers. As such, you should only approach them with open and sincere intentions. Bloggers guard their audiences with care (rightfully so) and they know they have valuable influence. Annoy too many influencers with insincere, generic emails and gaining access to their audience becomes difficult and expensive. To avoid getting shut down in your blogger outreach, here are some important rules of engagement:

Be Sincere

This point can’t be stressed enough. Generic, copy-and-paste email blasts to hundreds of bloggers won't work. First, you have to be sure that a blogger outreach approach is right for your business, target customers, and audience.

Great content is crucial, but without amplification, it can take noticeably longer to generate high-volume, high-quality traffic to your website. It’s far better to have tens of thousands of viable customers than hundreds of thousands who found you through an expensive PPC campaign. Working with bloggers places your content or marketing copy in front of a highly targeted audience, which you can only earn access to if you do your homework.

This is the worst kind of email bloggers receive on a daily basis: “Dear Sir or Madam attached you will find some information about a new product we have just released. We would appreciate it if you could write a positive review about it on your blog.”

Best case, it’s ignored. Worst case, the “Dear Sir or Madam” will share the email on social media, alerting other bloggers to the latest insincere pitch landing in their inbox. Don’t be that brand.

Instead, take the time to be sure the blog is a good fit for the campaign, and then send a friendly email that addresses the website owner by their first name.

Make Blogger Outreach an Ongoing Activity

Much like journalists, bloggers don’t like to receive generic, press release-style emails unless it's directly relevant to their audience. Make time to maintain consistent contact with bloggers in your network on a regular basis.

Read their blogs, send them links when you see something relevant to them, follow them on social media. By providing value and support now, you build goodwill and increase the likelihood that they’ll reciprocate when you want them to write about your brand or publish a guest article down the road.

Don’t Try to Control the Message

Bloggers are fiercely independent and opinionated. Trying to make sure they stick to your script simply won’t work. Even when you pay for a sponsored post, they can lose credibility with their readers if they don’t feel able to express their views.

What they write will be based on their experience of your product or service, the brand and the interactions they have with you. Attempting to control the message will only harm the relationship and could damage the brand's reputation.

As you work with bloggers, remember that these contacts could develop into some of your strongest brand advocates. Always be sincere, genuine and take the time to ensure you are working with the right bloggers for your brand. Do your homework before starting outreach by reading the blog to make sure it’s a good fit for both parties. Finally, let go of the idea that you can control what they say. Earned media mentions do not come from a paid spokesperson for your business. Rather, bloggers need editorial independence to maintain the credibility that makes their endorsement valuable.

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Despite the rising influence of social media platforms and messaging services, email has maintained its position as a primary online communication method, and many of us struggle to keep up with the ongoing flow of new messages in our inbox each day.

Boomerang for Gmail, a popular browser extension for Chrome, Firefox and Safari, has earned a wide and reputable following for helping people better manage this problem. Notable features include the “send later” button, snooze messages, read receipts and more.

Following its early launch in 2010, word of mouth played a big role in growing Boomerang’s user base, with fans recommending the product to friends and colleagues that shared similar headaches over managing their daily email flow. Search and referral channels also proved successful in recommending Boomerang to audiences that were actively seeking out email productivity “hacks.”

More recently, as Boomerang continues to ramp up its user acquisition strategy, the company has been looking for ways to share its story with people who may not know that such email workflow solutions currently exist. In order to reach these new audiences, Boomerang teamed up with Taboola to promote its story on top publisher websites across the web, leveraging the power of content discovery to educate people about its innovative service.

The two companies just published a case study about the partnership, and I sat down with Boomerang’s Head of Marketing, Chris Cichon, to learn more about his approach and advice for fellow digital marketers working at fast-moving startups.

1. Now that Boomerang is ramping up its “discovery” strategy, how do you balance or optimize your overall acquisition strategy across multiple channels (e.g., search, social, referral, display)?

At Boomerang, we use data as much as possible to inform how we allocate budgets and resources in our acquisition strategy. The cost of acquiring a new customer varies by channel and by week, so we have to remain flexible and keep our eyes on the analytics.

Of course, we optimize towards the channels that are providing the highest return on investment (ROI), but we also try to keep a balance of channels to engage potential customers in multiple places across the web and throughout the conversion funnel. So we look for the optimal mix of strong ROI while also engaging customers and prospects throughout the customer lifecycle.

Taboola’s “discovery” channel has helped us cast a broader net for potential customers in many different places online, and has been effective for us, particularly at the top of the funnel.

2. As evidenced in the case study, your team really puts a priority on analytics and optimizing campaigns through testing. Are there any particular metrics or measurement capabilities that you find to be the most valuable?

It’s important to start by deeply understanding the metrics that drive your business. In order for growth marketers to be successful, you need to know what things are critical to your company’s success and focus relentlessly on those.

Since we’re a SaaS company, we focus primarily on cost per acquisition for our paid channels. We’ve calculated that if we can acquire a new customer under a certain cost then we will have a positive ROI. We test and optimize channels to lower our cost per acquisition. Depending on industry and business model, other people’s mileage may vary, but find the one metric that you can hone in on and experiment to find channels that work for you.

We also put a priority on regularly measuring and reviewing our analytics. We look at our marketing metrics as a team every week and do a deeper dive every month. This enables us to stay on top of trends and quickly reallocate our budgets towards the optimal mix.

3. It’s amazing to see the impact and scale that Boomerang has achieved in such a short time. Can you provide three tips for other digital marketers that are working in a startup setting for the first time?

Thank you, we appreciate that—hats off to the entire team who have worked really hard over the last few years to build a great product that our customers love and that we’re proud of. Thank you also to all of our incredible customers (including you guys at Taboola!) who have made all of this possible.

1. Start with marketing MVPs (minimum viable products) — Engineering time is precious, especially at a startup. Avoid taking engineering or design time when you don’t need it. For this recent test, we built our test pages on Wix instead of hard coding the pages ourselves because it was faster and didn’t take up our engineering team’s time. Once we found the pages that converted the best, only then did we have the engineering team hard code them. Doing this enables us to run experiments faster and more efficiently from a cost standpoint.

2. Pay attention to every part of the funnel — You can’t do this all at once, but systematically analyze and move your focus to each part of the funnel over time. Fix the biggest leaks first. If customers are coming to your site but are bouncing, do some user testing to figure out why they aren’t finding the value that they thought they would when they came to your site. If users are churning, figure out why they stopped using your product and address it.

3. Focus on your process — We frequently test new channels and look for ways to improve the ROI of current ones. We’ve established a process for how we approach, test, and optimize new channels. Sean Ellis has a helpful framework, particularly for new startups, called High Tempo Testing.

Early on, we used to make the mistake of leaving our test campaigns running as they were after finding a new channel that was successful. We’ve since improved our process and now when we find a new channel that has a strong ROI, we double down and expand on our early successes.

This case study is a perfect example; after promising initial results, we took the top performing pages and made more variants of them and did another test to find our best performing page. Once you find a successful channel, seek to understand why it’s working—keep testing and optimizing. Don’t stop after one test, there’s likely more success you can squeeze out.

4. Boomerang is a favorite tool for many of us at Taboola. Are there any exciting plans slated for the coming months that we can be on the lookout for?

That’s great to hear! We have some really cool stuff coming down the pipeline that I can’t share quite yet, but we did just launch our newest product, Boomerang for Outlook. We’ve had great reviews already from people who use Outlook or Office 365 for work.

I can also say that an iOS app is on our radar. Hang tight with us! We love when customers write in with their thoughts and ideas, and use what they say to guide and influence our product roadmap. Feel free to email us with requests or questions.

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