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Facebook today released new information regarding a data attack that compromised the personal data of 30 million users.

First reported on September 28 — approximately three days after the full issue was allegedly first discovered — a vulnerability in Facebook’s “View As” feature allowed hackers to gain unauthorized access to private account information for personal user accounts.

It was originally estimated that 50 million users were impacted. That number has now been lowered to 30 million.

Here’s the latest on the issue from Facebook, and how marketers should be prepared for what comes next.

The Latest Information From Facebook on the Data Attack

There were two key items in the update from Facebook today:

1. The number of people affected: Facebook estimates that 30 millions accounts had their private data compromised, which is fewer than the original figure of 50 million.
2. The nature of the personal data obtained by hackers.

Of the 30 million users affected by the incident, 15 million of them had two sets of information compromised: their names and their contact details. Information within the latter includes user phone numbers, email addresses, or both, depending on what each user disclosed on their profiles.

For another 14 million users, hackers gained those same two sets of information, as well as a plethora of personal details. These include:

• Username
• Gender
• Locale/language
• Relationship status
• Religion
• Hometown
• Self-reported current city
• Birthdate
• Device types used to access Facebook
• Education
• Work
• The last 10 places they checked into or were tagged in
• Website
• People or Pages they follow
• Their 15 most recent searches

Users can see whether or not they were affected by the security issue here.

New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac was one of the millions impacted back the attack, and shared the details of what affected users might see on Twitter.

now the negative: if you’ve been affected by this attack, this is the wealth of personal information they’ve accessed.

the below screen is for my personal account, which was affected. thanks Facebook! pic.twitter.com/aa7jaEepro

— rat king (@MikeIsaac)
October 12, 2018

Users who were likely not impacted might see this message on the aforementioned link:

Facebook said today that the FBI is investigating the attack — the latter has reportedly requested that the company not publicly discuss who might be behind it.

What Marketers and Businesses Should Know

Perhaps most troubling about the information revealed today is the nature of information scraped by hackers — particularly user search and location history.

If your password is stolen, you change your password. The damage is done and you move on.

But if all your identifying personal information is stolen? You can’t change that. It could haunt you for the rest of your life.

— Will Oremus (@WillOremus)
October 12, 2018

This is far from the first time Facebook has dealt with high-profile security issues. Over the past two years, the site has been repeatedly weaponized by foreign actors in coordinated misinformation campaigns. The personal data of 87 million of its users was improperly harvested by an app developer. 

Could this latest data attack be the last straw for users?

While 60% of the users we surveyed when news of it first broke said that the breach has not caused them to stop using Facebook, or delete their accounts — these latest details might change their minds.

Feeling good about my decision to delete facebook this week. My email and phone number were hacked pic.twitter.com/08S65RUNIk

— Steve Kovach (@stevekovach)
October 12, 2018

That number could remain steady, and we plan to measure it as news of these details continues to reach the public. But in the meantime, marketers might want to re-examine what their plans and strategies could look like with a drop in their Facebook audiences. 

According to earlier reports, Facebook Business Page engagement has dropped by an average of 50% over the past year. Combined with these latest events, some businesses might reevaluate how they use the site.

This is a developing story that we will update as more details emerge.

One time I tried signing up for a spin class at a new studio. I went to the studio’s website to complete their multi-step sign up form, but by the time I got to part three of of the form, I got an error message that wouldn’t let me complete my registration.

The error message didn’t explain what I was doing wrong. So I attempted to complete the form another four times (yes, I really wanted to try this studio) with no success. To say I was annoyed is an understatement. Finally, I ditched the site (along with the spin class) and went for a run instead.

Needless to say, a multi-step form that requires dozens of field entries can easily become complicated, frustrating and time-consuming for your leads. But there is a way to make registration with a multi-step form a positive experience for your website visitors.

A well-crafted multi-step form means that more visitors will complete your form with less hiccups.

You may be asking yourself how creating more work for your leads by spreading information out across a multi-step form could possibly be a good thing when it comes to user experience — fair question.

The answer is that a multi-step form actually makes the large amount of information required to complete a long form appear more organized and less overwhelming. Plus, multi-step forms are proven to result in more conversions than single-step forms. For example, in one experiment, a single-step form experienced an increase in conversions of 59.2% after it was converted into a multi-step form.

Multi-Step Forms vs. Single-Step Forms: Which is Better?

If you use a multi-step form under the right conditions your conversion rates have the potential to skyrocket. But you need to know when to actually enable a multi-step form versus when to keep it as a single-step form. 

So, how do you get it right? Unfortunately, there is no concrete answer or rulebook to follow. But here are some thoughts for you to consider when creating your own forms.

Multi-Step Forms

By splitting up long forms into multiple steps, you will make your life easier when reviewing the form entries. You will also simplify things for the people completing your form. 

Forms that require a lot of information, such as registration forms or order forms, almost always benefit from being split up into multiple steps.

For example, check out The DryBar’s registration form. The sections in their form range from questions about appointment times to billing information. The form separates each category of questions into segmented steps, making the form easy-to-follow. 

Source: Drybar

The Drybar form does not allow users to move forward in the completion process if they have not successfully filled in all of the blank fields. 

Source: Drybar

Each section of the form also takes users to a new page. This is another way in which the company splits up the form completion process for users.

Source: Drybar

At the end of the form, users are able to easily complete the form by hitting the “Submit Payment” button.

Single-Step Forms

Single step forms are beneficial when you only need one type of information from your users. Meaning, if you simply need a lead’s basic contact information or if you just need their email address, there is no need to create multiple steps.

Lululemon’s “contact us” form is a great example of a successful one-step form. There is only one category of questions and there are few enough questions being asked that a website visitor would not feel overwhelmed reviewing them all at once. 

Source: Lululemon 

Their form has clear fields that make sense for the form type and users have enough space in the fields to answer the form fields completely all on one page and one form.

Multi-Step Versus One-Step Ecommerce Checkout

Some ecommerce sites take customers through a multi-step checkout process while others use a single step process. Although there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong option, businesses have different preferences about which option they prefer on their website. You may choose multi-step or single-step checkout based on what you’re selling, what your customers prefer or what you believe works best for your business.

In a multi-step checkout form, there are several different pages that customers work through that may include form fields asking for the customer to create an account and enter their delivery and billing details. In a single-step checkout form, there are typically the same exact form fields, but instead, they are all visible to the customer at the same time. There is significantly more information visible to the customer at once in a single-step checkout versus a multi-step checkout.  

For example, NOBULL (a training apparel and footwear brand) takes customers through three separate pages during their multi-step checkout process to split the content into sections that make sense. At the top of the form, NOBULL outlines the three sections of the form.

Multi-step checkout works well in this scenario because of the amount of information they are asking for — by splitting it up, it looks simple and manageable for customers to complete. Additionally, NOBULL may assume (or know based on data they’ve collected) that their customers prefer a multi-step checkout process that looks clean and minimalist versus a single-step checkout with all of the information visible to them at once. 

Source: NOBULL

There are also plenty of businesses that choose to keep the entire checkout process on one page, so all of the fields are visible at once, like Sephora. Sephora knows that their client base prefers a single-step checkout form. Although there is a lot of information to consume, it is beneficial for their persona to have everything laid out neatly in front of them to review all at once.

Source: Sephora

There is no rulebook that tells you which option is best for your business. However, you can make an informed decision that works well for both your brand and customer base. If you’re concerned about making the right decision for your buyer personas, then you can always perform an A/B test, or ask your customers for feedback on their buying experience. You can always adapt your form to your customers’ needs.

Now that we have reviewed the reasons why you should consider implementing multi-step forms and the cases in which they are most useful, let’s dive into how to actually create your form.

How to Create a Multi-Step Form

There are many online form builders and tools that you can use to create your multi-step forms. We will work with HubSpot’s form builder as an example. With HubSpot, the form builder is actually meant to work with single-step, one-page forms, but there are a few workarounds that you can implement to create a multi-step form.

Let’s walk through how to create a multi-step form using HubSpot. 

Navigate to your marketing dashboard within HubSpot. Under the “Marketing” drop-down menu, click “Lead Capture” and then “Forms”. Then, follow the steps below:

Create Multiple Pages That Redirect to One Another

Now, let’s walk through these steps to create your multi-step form.

1. Create and publish two different landing pages.
2. Click “Marketing”, “Lead Capture”, and “Forms”.
3. Create a new form with the first set of questions that you want to ask your leads.
4. Click “Options” at the top of the page.
5. Click “Redirect to another page” under the question, “What should happen after a visitor submits this form?”
6. Now it’s time to add the second landing page. Based on your account type, determine which way you need to do this: Marketing Hub Basic, Professional, or Enterprise accounts: Click on your second landing page in the drop-down menu or click “Add external link” to paste the second landing pages URL in the field. HubSpot CRM or Hub Starter accounts: Paste the URL of the second landing page in the “Redirect to this URL” field.
7. Add or embed your form on the first landing page you created.
8. Create a new form with your second set of questions.
9. Click “Options” at the top of the page.
10. Under “What should happen after a visitor submits this form?” you can decide whether or not you’d like to “Display a thank you message” or “Redirect to another page”.
11. Repeat the steps above if you decide you want to add more landing pages and more forms.
12. To keep in mind while creating your multi-step forms with HubSpot: Unless you add the “Email” field on each form that you create, the new forms you add will only be associated with the correct contact if your website visitor has their “cookies enabled”.

Source: HubSpot

Source: HubSpot

There are other ways to create multi-step forms within HubSpot. Learn how to use dependent fields or progressive profiling to build your next form.

Congrats! You have just completed your multi-step form using HubSpot!

Conclusion

Multi-step forms have the potential to increase your number of conversions, create a better user experience for your website visitors, and ensure a smooth registration or checkout process for your leads and customers. With the help of a great form builder, multi step forms are also easy to create and embed on your website. When you provide your leads and customers with a positive web-form experience, you will create customer relationships that last. 

Bitcoin might be leading the crypto arms race right now, but Ethereum is charging right behind. As a software platform that issues the second largest cryptocurrency in the world and aims to create a decentralized version of the internet, Ethereum is a technology you definitely don’t want to overlook.

Distributed Applications

Launched in 2015, Ethereum uses blockchain technology to replace centralized computing systems that store people’s data. Common examples of these centralized computing systems are Apple and Google, which regulate the types of apps in their app stores. Another example of a centralized computing system is Amazon, which stores your credit card information and other personal data.

Since one entity controls an entire system, like Apple and their App Store, they can regulate, censor, and even ban your app if you don’t follow their rules.

Centralized computing systems also have a single point of failure, which means cybercriminals can easily hack into them. For instance, on Amazon, the sensitive information you store on their website is also stored on their servers. If a cybercriminal hacks into their servers, they could steal your credit card number.

By leveraging blockchain technology to create a decentralized app store, Ethereum gives all the power back to the users. Users are the only ones who can modify their apps and access their own personal information. The App Store can’t impose regulations on them, and companies can’t store their information.

Smart Contracts

Another way Ethereum leverages blockchain technology is by validating and securing all the transactions made in its cryptocurrency, Ether, with smart contracts. Smart contracts automatically perform the transactions and other actions agreed upon by both parties, so users can conduct safe and reliable transactions with each other. This prevents any party from reneging on the contract’s terms.

For example, with smart contracts, an insurance company’s customers could submit their claims online and, if they meet the required criteria, the smart contract would instantly trigger an automatic payout to the customer.

If a user wants to make changes to their apps and run smart contracts, though, they need to pay a fee in Ether based on the amount of computing power needed to fuel these activities. Users can acquire Ether by mining or purchasing it.

Ethereum vs. Bitcoin

Even though Ethereum and Bitcoin both use blockchain to validate and publicize every single transaction of their cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is just a currency, while Ethereum is a software platform.

Ethereum and Bitcoin also have two different purposes. Ethereum built their platform on blockchain technology to liberate users from centralized systems that impose rigid regulations and have alarming security vulnerabilities.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is built on blockchain technology to introduce a new global currency and payment system that connects consumers directly with suppliers, which lowers transaction fees and removes the need for a financial middleman, like a bank.

To accomplish their goal, Bitcoin’s blockchain completely decentralizes the cryptocurrency by requiring a network of millions of miners to solve complex cryptography puzzles to validate each of its transactions, instead of asking a central power like a bank to verify them. But this thorough decentralization and validation process also makes Bitcoin much slower at confirming transactions than Ethereum.

Since Ethereum only has thousands of computers or nodes validating activity on the platform compared to the millions of nodes validating each Bitcoin transaction, Ethereum’s average block mining time is a quick 12 seconds, while Bitcoin’s average block mining time is a sluggish 10 minutes.

Blockchain and Ethereum Mining

To truly understand how Ethereum can decentralize an app store and validate all of Ether’s transactions, you need to understand the basics of the Blockchain technology underpinning the platform.

Blockchain is like a digital ledger that records each transaction of a cryptocurrency, copies itself, and sends the copies to every computer, or node, in its network.

To make sure the ledger’s true state is verified and updated, each node in the network cross-references and communicates with each other to see if all the copies are the same. This publicizes and validates every single transaction of the cryptocurrency.

If one of the copies isn’t the same, due to a manipulation of a transaction’s record after the fact, the network rejects the transaction. This security protocol halts people from altering the ledger to spend the cryptocurrency more than once or send someone else’s digital funds to themselves.

To update Ethereum’s blockchain with new transactions, a new block, which is a bundle of these transactions, needs to be created and added to it. But to create and add the block, its transactions needs to be validated by the answer to a complex cryptographic puzzle. So individuals, groups, or businesses use mining rigs, which consists of mining hardware and software, to try and solve it.

These validators are called miners, and the first miners to solve the problem will be rewarded with a payout of Ether. Once a miner solves the cryptographic puzzle, which is verified by each node in the network, the new block is created and added to the blockchain and the winners earn a block reward, which is five Ether, along with however much computing power it took to validate the transactions in the block.

Validation methods like cryptocurrency mining are called proof-of-work or PoW, and they’re one of the reasons why cryptocurrency and blockchain are considered so innovative.

Incentivizing miners with payouts of Ether to validate its transactions makes the cryptocurrency safe, secure, and trustworthy to use. Mining also releases Ether into circulation, which increases the odds that users will build more apps on Ethereum, boosting the platform’s and cryptocurrency’s value.

It’s never easy telling a candidate they didn’t get the job after hours of preparation and interviews.

Oftentimes, the awkwardness leads to generic emails, like “We have chosen not to move forward with your application at this time.”

You might feel like there’s simply no good way to tell someone they’ve been rejected. Fortunately, that’s not true. By wording your rejection letter kindly, you’ll make it easier for the candidate to hear the news.

Additionally, if you were impressed by the candidate, you want to keep the door open. Perhaps another position will open up which you believe to be a better fit, or maybe you’ll reconsider the applicant once she’s had more real-world experience.

Ultimately, there’s no harm in taking the time to craft a courteous rejection letter, and there’s certainly plenty of benefits to doing so. To write a professional yet kind rejection letter, follow the steps below.

Rejection Letter After the Interview

Below is a professional yet kind rejection letter template. Remember, it’s critical you remain positive with your language, and avoid more negative words like “Unfortunately”. Also, focus on language from the job description itself when telling the candidate why she wasn’t chosen — it will remind the candidate this isn’t personal.

It’s important to remember that a rejection letter is a fantastic opportunity for the candidate to receive positive feedback and learn how to do better in the future. Consider how you can include specific and valuable feedback in your letter. 

Dear [Name],

Thank you for interviewing for [position] on [date of interview]. We appreciate candidates like yourself expressing interest in our company. While we are thankful for the time you took, we have selected another candidate for the position.

At this time, we’re looking for candidates with more experience in the field. It was a very hard decision. We would like to stay in touch with you for future opportunities that might be a good fit. Please let us know if you’re interested in remaining in our talent pool.

Our team was particularly impressed with your writing skills, but we felt you lacked experience pitching advertisement campaigns. We’d recommend taking an advertising course to improve. 

Thanks again for taking the time to apply and come in to meet the team. We wish you the best of luck in your job search and thank you for your interest in our company.

Sincerely,

[Name]

Paragraph One:

Your first sentence should include the position and date of the interview, so the candidate knows the letter has been personalized and isn’t a generic template. Next, thank the candidate for their interest in your company. Finally, it’s critical you tell the candidate within the first paragraph you’ve decided to move forward with another candidate. You can let them down kindly by including a compliment in the rejection, such as “While your qualifications are quite impressive …”.

Paragraph Two:

It’s considerate to give the candidate a reason she wasn’t chosen for this role — but your reason doesn’t have to be too detailed (in fact, legally-speaking, it’s safer if it isn’t). Instead, focus on one aspect of the job description you feel the candidate didn’t quite match. If your job description required a candidate to have five years experience, but the applicant only had three, you might say, “At this time, we’re looking for candidates with more experience in the field.”

If you were impressed by the candidate and genuinely feel she’d be a good fit for your company down the road, leave the door open by telling her you’ll put her into your contact database and reconsider her in the future. Additionally, if it was a difficult decision, tell your candidate — it can help soften the blow. 

Paragraph Three (Optional):

The candidate took time out of her week to prepare for your interview process, so if you were impressed by her during the interview, it could make a huge difference to let her know. Simply include one strength of hers you remembered from the interview process, like “Our team was particularly impressed with your writing skills.”

To truly add value, however, you’ll also want to include constructive feedback to help your candidate understand areas she can focus on improving. Take detailed notes during the interview, and when you reject your applicant, provide one or two areas of improvement. Your feedback could help her career success in the future. 

Paragraph Four:

Conclude by wishing the candidate luck in the job search, and thanking the applicant for taking the time to consider your company.

One time I tried signing up for a spin class at a new studio. I went to the studio’s website to complete their multi-step sign up form, but by the time I got to part three of of the form, I got an error message that wouldn’t let me complete my registration.

The error message didn’t explain what I was doing wrong. So I attempted to complete the form another four times (yes, I really wanted to try this studio) with no success. To say I was annoyed is an understatement. Finally, I ditched the site (along with the spin class) and went for a run instead.

Needless to say, a multi-step form that requires dozens of field entries can easily become complicated, frustrating and time-consuming for your leads. But there is a way to make registration with a multi-step form a positive experience for your website visitors.

A well-crafted multi-step form means that more visitors will complete your form with less hiccups.

You may be asking yourself how creating more work for your leads by spreading information out across a multi-step form could possibly be a good thing when it comes to user experience — fair question.

The answer is that a multi-step form actually makes the large amount of information required to complete a long form appear more organized and less overwhelming. Plus, multi-step forms are proven to result in more conversions than single-step forms. For example, in one experiment, a single-step form experienced an increase in conversions of 59.2% after it was converted into a multi-step form.

Multi-Step Forms vs. Single-Step Forms: Which is Better?

If you use a multi-step form under the right conditions your conversion rates have the potential to skyrocket. But you need to know when to actually enable a multi-step form versus when to keep it as a single-step form. 

So, how do you get it right? Unfortunately, there is no concrete answer or rulebook to follow. But here are some thoughts for you to consider when creating your own forms.

Multi-Step Forms

By splitting up long forms into multiple steps, you will make your life easier when reviewing the form entries. You will also simplify things for the people completing your form. 

Forms that require a lot of information, such as registration forms or order forms, almost always benefit from being split up into multiple steps.

For example, check out The DryBar’s registration form. The sections in their form range from questions about appointment times to billing information. The form separates each category of questions into segmented steps, making the form easy-to-follow. 

Source: Drybar

The Drybar form does not allow users to move forward in the completion process if they have not successfully filled in all of the blank fields. 

Source: Drybar

Each section of the form also takes users to a new page. This is another way in which the company splits up the form completion process for users.

Source: Drybar

At the end of the form, users are able to easily complete the form by hitting the “Submit Payment” button.

Single-Step Forms

Single step forms are beneficial when you only need one type of information from your users. Meaning, if you simply need a lead’s basic contact information or if you just need their email address, there is no need to create multiple steps.

Lululemon’s “contact us” form is a great example of a successful one-step form. There is only one category of questions and there are few enough questions being asked that a website visitor would not feel overwhelmed reviewing them all at once. 

Source: Lululemon 

Their form has clear fields that make sense for the form type and users have enough space in the fields to answer the form fields completely all on one page and one form.

Multi-Step Versus One-Step Ecommerce Checkout

Some ecommerce sites take customers through a multi-step checkout process while others use a single step process. Although there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong option, businesses have different preferences about which option they prefer on their website. You may choose multi-step or single-step checkout based on what you’re selling, what your customers prefer or what you believe works best for your business.

In a multi-step checkout form, there are several different pages that customers work through that may include form fields asking for the customer to create an account and enter their delivery and billing details. In a single-step checkout form, there are typically the same exact form fields, but instead, they are all visible to the customer at the same time. There is significantly more information visible to the customer at once in a single-step checkout versus a multi-step checkout.  

For example, NOBULL (a training apparel and footwear brand) takes customers through three separate pages during their multi-step checkout process to split the content into sections that make sense. At the top of the form, NOBULL outlines the three sections of the form.

Multi-step checkout works well in this scenario because of the amount of information they are asking for — by splitting it up, it looks simple and manageable for customers to complete. Additionally, NOBULL may assume (or know based on data they’ve collected) that their customers prefer a multi-step checkout process that looks clean and minimalist versus a single-step checkout with all of the information visible to them at once. 

Source: NOBULL

There are also plenty of businesses that choose to keep the entire checkout process on one page, so all of the fields are visible at once, like Sephora. Sephora knows that their client base prefers a single-step checkout form. Although there is a lot of information to consume, it is beneficial for their persona to have everything laid out neatly in front of them to review all at once.

Source: Sephora

There is no rulebook that tells you which option is best for your business. However, you can make an informed decision that works well for both your brand and customer base. If you’re concerned about making the right decision for your buyer personas, then you can always perform an A/B test, or ask your customers for feedback on their buying experience. You can always adapt your form to your customers’ needs.

Now that we have reviewed the reasons why you should consider implementing multi-step forms and the cases in which they are most useful, let’s dive into how to actually create your form.

How to Create a Multi-Step Form

There are many online form builders and tools that you can use to create your multi-step forms. We will work with HubSpot’s form builder as an example. With HubSpot, the form builder is actually meant to work with single-step, one-page forms, but there are a few workarounds that you can implement to create a multi-step form.

Let’s walk through how to create a multi-step form using HubSpot. 

Navigate to your marketing dashboard within HubSpot. Under the “Marketing” drop-down menu, click “Lead Capture” and then “Forms”. Then, follow the steps below:

Create Multiple Pages That Redirect to One Another

Now, let’s walk through these steps to create your multi-step form.

1. Create and publish two different landing pages.
2. Click “Marketing”, “Lead Capture”, and “Forms”.
3. Create a new form with the first set of questions that you want to ask your leads.
4. Click “Options” at the top of the page.
5. Click “Redirect to another page” under the question, “What should happen after a visitor submits this form?”
6. Now it’s time to add the second landing page. Based on your account type, determine which way you need to do this: Marketing Hub Basic, Professional, or Enterprise accounts: Click on your second landing page in the drop-down menu or click “Add external link” to paste the second landing pages URL in the field. HubSpot CRM or Hub Starter accounts: Paste the URL of the second landing page in the “Redirect to this URL” field.
7. Add or embed your form on the first landing page you created.
8. Create a new form with your second set of questions.
9. Click “Options” at the top of the page.
10. Under “What should happen after a visitor submits this form?” you can decide whether or not you’d like to “Display a thank you message” or “Redirect to another page”.
11. Repeat the steps above if you decide you want to add more landing pages and more forms.
12. To keep in mind while creating your multi-step forms with HubSpot: Unless you add the “Email” field on each form that you create, the new forms you add will only be associated with the correct contact if your website visitor has their “cookies enabled”.

Source: HubSpot

Source: HubSpot

There are other ways to create multi-step forms within HubSpot. Learn how to use dependent fields or progressive profiling to build your next form.

Congrats! You have just completed your multi-step form using HubSpot!

Conclusion

Multi-step forms have the potential to increase your number of conversions, create a better user experience for your website visitors, and ensure a smooth registration or checkout process for your leads and customers. With the help of a great form builder, multi step forms are also easy to create and embed on your website. When you provide your leads and customers with a positive web-form experience, you will create customer relationships that last. 

A new report from eMarketer indicates that companies are spending more than ever on digital video ads.

According to the report, digital video ad spending is predicted to reach $27.82 billion in 2018 alone: a 30% rate of growth.

At that figure, eMarketer says, budget spent on video ads will make up a quarter of all digital ad spend in the U.S. — compared to digital ad formats like static or animated images, or text-based ads.

But where, exactly, is that money going? And what’s responsible for the uptick in companies buying digital video ads? We had a closer look at the report and collected some of our own data to find out.

Where is the ad spend going?

Much of this spending appears to be going in the direction of video ads on social media networks.

Source: eMarketer

Looking at the combined video ad spend on Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter in the U.S., Facebook is taking the lead — earning about 87% of the total. That includes video ad revenue earned on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

In terms of all U.S. video ad spending — within social media and beyond — Facebook earns 24.5% of the total.

Interestingly, eMarketer doesn’t include YouTube in total social media video ad spend — but does point out that the video-sharing platform, which is owned by Google, is expected to earn $3.36 billion in video ad revenue this year. 

That’s less than half the amount expected to be earned by Facebook ($6.81 billion). 

Why Video Ads?

Users Are More Likely to Buy

To figure out what might be responsible for this growth in digital video ad spend, we wanted to take a closer look at consumer buying behavior. We asked 850 internet users across the U.S., UK, and Canada: Which ad format is most likely to lead you to purchase an item online?

Nearly half of all respondents indicated that they’re most likely to purchase an item online after seeing a video ad, over all other ad formats.

That could be one deciding factor for businesses in deciding where to allocate their ad budgets: a higher return on investment, or conversion to purchase, on video ads over other formats. And while that number might look different for each business, 64% of consumers are generally more likely to buy a product online after watching a video.

So what’s to explain that buying behavior? Why is it that video is so compelling?

There are a few possible answers.

A Better Ad Experience

First, video ads are more likely to actually show the user how a product or service is used. Text ads can also be used to explain — but word count on these ads can be highly constrained, leaving advertisers with precious real estate to capture the user’s attention. Image ads can show users how a product or service might benefit them, but only with a single snapshot.

Videos, however, can go a bit further in showing the viewer how a brand might fill a previously unmet need. They can capture multiple moments in a visual way that’s more engaging, and allows the user to imagine herself in the same situation.

Plus, more social networks are increasingly creating more ways for businesses to allow users to natively buy an advertised product (or book an advertised service) within the app.

Finally, let’s dig into that concept of a native, seamless experience. Video ads that appear on social media often do so within the same feeds that we might be scrolling for fun, or out of curiosity and boredom. In that capacity, video ads come more naturally, as opposed to something like a traditional TV commercial break — where the fact that we’re viewing an ad is a bit more salient.

Plus, unlike TV ads, social video ads allow the user to take immediate action on the ad, on the same device where they’re viewing it — to make a purchase.

“Marketers rely on in-feed video ads to capture users’ attention and build brand awareness,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson in the report. It echoes the sentiment that the users are more likely to respond to an ad that exists within they’re something already doing — making it easier for them to to become customers.

Of course, the same principles apply to video ads as they do to good content: be relevant, helpful, and meet users where they are. Make life easier for them. Now — there’s just one more way to for marketers to do just that.

“No one knows your customers better than you do.” We’ve all heard this old adage before, but it has never been truer than it is now.

Our ability to gather our customers’ information has never been greater, and advertisers lean into this data to fuel their ad targeting and audience creation.

In a recent study conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, 62% of marketing leaders stated their use of online customer data increased within the past two years. 70% also said they plan on using more online customer data in the future.

When you’re creating audiences for your ad campaigns, though, you have to choose between two types of data: first-party or third-party data.

<h3>The difference between first and third-party data.

Third party data is information on individuals that’s aggregated by third-party sources and made available on advertising platforms for targeting purposes.

For instance, you might not disclose your household income online, but third-party data aggregators might be able to place you in a specific income bucket depending on other information available to them. They can then send that information back to advertising networks, where advertisers can use this data to create audiences for their ads.

For first-time advertisers, a manual targeting strategy based on third-party data is still commonplace for reaching a specific buyer persona. When HubSpot first introduced our CRM back in 2014, we relied on third-party data and manual targeting to distribute our ads to people with the demographics and interests that reflected our ideal buyer persona.

But once we started to generate visits to our site, we quickly shifted towards a retargeting strategy that used first-party data to serve extremely targeted ads to our audience.

While third-party data is aggregated data on a general group of people, first-party data is information you collect directly from your customers like their interactions with your brand. If third-party data lets you reach a broad persona, then first-party data lets you pinpoint a hyper-specific persona.

For example, you could create an audience of all contacts in your CRM who have bought one of your products or everyone who registered for and attended a webinar you ran.

You could also create an audience based on website data, like everyone who has visited your pricing page. Using CRM and website data, you can create an extremely specific ad that provides your audience with tailored content and propels them along their buyer’s journey.

<h3>The changing tides of ads targeting.

Both first- and third-party data have their place in your advertising strategy, but it’s important to make sure your data is verifiable. Since first-party data comes directly from your customers, you can rest assured it’s accurate information that you can segment your audiences with. Third-party data and its use in ad targeting, however, is becoming more and more suspect.

A recent Ad Age study found that 75% of advertisers don’t fully trust their third-party data sources and 65% don’t understand the source of their third-party data.

This uncertainty surrounding third-party data, coupled with recent regulations like GDPR, has signaled a shift away from third-party data as a primary source of ads targeting and audience creation.

As a result, internet browsers like Safari and Firefox are making it more difficult for companies to track your activity as you browse the internet. Networks like Facebook have even removed third-party data targeting options from their ads manager.

With this move away from third-party data, it’s now more important than ever to use the data you directly collect from your customers to create your advertising audiences.

<h3>Audience options that use first-party data.

When using your own customer data to target ads, ad networks provide a few different options for you to use. But, in general, using a CRM in tandem with an ads management tool is the best way to leverage your customer data and create high-performing audiences at scale.

First, you can create ad audiences of your website traffic. Whether you’re using the Facebook Pixel or the Google Site Tag, embedding this piece of code on your site lets you track visitors and create audiences based on their interactions with your website.

With this information, you could go as broad as creating an audience of anyone who has visited your entire site. Or you could get granular and create an audience of people who have visited a specific page or groups of pages.

To optimize your ad, you’ll want to match its content offer and optimization event with your audiences interests.

For example, if you’re targeting all the visitors of your entire site, you could create ads that provide your audience with specific blog posts and are optimized for page visits. If you’re targeting visitors of your pricing page, you could offer them a discount and optimize the ad for sales.

Ad networks also give you the option to create custom audiences based on specific data you have collected on your customers over time. This could be anything from the information you’ve gathered through forms to your customers’ interactions with your marketing emails.

For instance, you could create an audience of everyone who opened but didn’t click through to one of your marketing emails and create an ad that targets these particular people.

But if visits to your website or possessing contact information in your CRM is a prerequisite for creating ads audiences, how do you expand your reach and acquire new leads? This is where lookalike audiences come into play.

Instead of creating an arbitrary persona based off general demographic characteristics, lookalike audiences let you take an audience you’ve already seen success with and tell ad networks to go out and find individuals who exhibit similar characteristics as these people.

Lookalike audiences can also be used at every stage of your buyer’s journey. At the beginning of your buyer’s journey, when people are just getting familiar with your brand, you can combine a lookalike audience with your Facebook Pixel to drive more traffic to your website.

Later in the buyer’s journey, you could take a list of your most qualified leads based on interactions with your marketing materials and create a lookalike audience to attract more qualified prospects to your brand’s bottom-of-the-funnel content.

<h3>Putting ads targeting into practice.

What does a first-party data targeting strategy look like in the real world? Let’s say you’re going to run a campaign with a focus on driving qualified leads to your sales team. You could host a webinar and create an e-book to pre-qualify leads. You could also create a number of blog posts to raise awareness for your brand and solutions.

At the beginning of your campaign, you could blend your website traffic audiences with lookalike audiences to expand your reach. You could also boost your organic social posts to see which content resonates with your audience and then create lookalike audiences of people who interacted with those specific pieces of content. The goal here is to raise awareness for your brand’s solution and drive traffic to your website. These ads should be optimized for page visits.

Once you have driven traffic to your website, you’ll want to create retargeting audiences based on your web traffic and target them with your two pre-qualifying offers (the webinar and e-book download). You could also create different audiences for each of your offers.

For instance, you could distribute your webinar offer to an audience of previous webinar attendees and your e-book download to people who have visited specific pages on your website.

That said, don’t forget to test different combinations of audiences, ad creative, and content offers. Experimentation is the most objective way to determine what will resonate with a specific audience you create.

Additionally, remember to keep experimenting with lookalike audiences. You could also add a layer of demographic targeting to get even more granular with your ad creative or content offers. With these types of ads, they should be optimized for conversions, either for webinar sign ups or e-book downloads.

Now that you have a good number of people who downloaded your e-book or registered for your webinar, you can create custom audiences based on these groups of people.

At this point, your ads could offer these leads an opportunity to speak with your sales team, a coupon, or a specific deal. You could also experiment with creating lookalike audiences and target that audience with an offer to speak with sales.

Since those individuals will resemble leads that have interacted with your pre-qualifying offers, they might already be ready to speak with your sales team. These ads should be optimized for sales.

<h3>Taking matters into your own hands.

Based on the uncertainty and skepticism of third-party data, it’s now time to double down on using customer data for ads targeting. Using first-party data to create audiences will enable you to be as helpful and relevant at every stage of your customer’s buying journey, producing successful results with your ad campaigns in 2019 and beyond.

Imagine this — you walk into a store and peruse the shoe display, and suddenly your phone pings. The same red heels you’ve been eying online are now on sale, 20% off, just for you.

Shortly after, you need help finding the Nike backpack you saw online. Rather than searching throughout the store for a sales clerk, you log into your app and ask the app to send you someone.

None of this is as sci-fi or futuristic as it sounds. In fact, the technology is already here. Macy’s, Urban Outfitters, CVS, Lord & Taylor, Target, Timberland, and many other major retailers already use beacon technology to take their shopping experiences to the next level.

With the help of beacon technology, retailers are better able to meet customer needs and create a more cohesive online-to-in-store experience.

If you doubt beacon technology’s power, you shouldn’t — Swirl Networks Inc. found over 70% of shoppers say beacon-triggered content and offers increased their likelihood to purchase in-store.

Here, we’re going to explore seven innovative ways retailers are using beacon technology, so you can decide the best strategy for your brand.

1. Track customers in-store movement.

Beacon technology is an incredibly effective way to create a cohesive online and in-store experience. By tracking a customer’s in-store movement, you’re able to deliver targeted information and discounts depending on which products she’s perusing. This can lead to higher conversion rates — for instance, a customer is more likely to use a discount for purses when she’s in the bag section than when she’s checking out the workout apparel.

Macy’s has been using beacons nationwide since 2014. When a customer opens the Macy’s app in-store, the app recognizes which area of the store the customer is in. If the customer is in the makeup area, the app will remind the customer of makeup brands she already liked online. This targeted information can help persuade the customer to make a purchase.

2. Help customers find their way around the store.

Oftentimes, large department stores can be overwhelming. After a while of aimless searching, you might hear a customer say, “I can’t find what I’m looking for. Forget it, let’s just leave.” Fortunately, beacon technology can help combat this problem by offering an indoor mapping experience that makes it easier for customers to find items on their shopping list.

For instance, Target uses beacon technology to create a “GPS for your shopping cart”. Essentially, in-store customers are able to use Target’s app to create shopping lists, and then see where items are located in-store as well as their own proximity to those products. As they move, their location changes in real-time, showing them whether they’re getting farther or closer to their desired item.

3. Send sports fans targeted discounts on food and jerseys.

Picture this — you’re sitting in your seat at a baseball game, and a hot dog vendor walks by. As he does, your phone pings and tells you 30% off hot dogs. You’re so excited about the deal, you order one.

Later, your phone pings again to tell you the jerseys in the merchandise shop are half-off. You weren’t planning on getting one, but 50% off is too good to pass up, so you run to the shop to grab one in your size.

Brick-and-mortar stores aren’t the only businesses that can benefit from beacon technology. MLB currently uses beacon technology at various stadiums to alert baseball fans of discounts on stadium food and apparel, and even team information and video highlights. Ultimately, beacon technology is capable of incentivizing customers to make purchases or visit shops they otherwise would’ve passed by.

4. Alert in-store customers of discounts and coupons.

61% of U.S. shoppers who have never tried in-store tracking before say that receiving discounts and coupons from a retailer would drive them to opt in — so if you want to implement beacon technology for the first time in your store, you might consider sending discounts and coupons to start.

Walgreens, for instance, sends mobile coupons and promotions at its Duane Reade locations. Additionally, they use beacons to alert passerby’s of offers to draw people into their stores.

If you imagine beacon technology as the modern day advertisement, it makes sense to enable your beacon technology to reach people outside of your store, rather than just in-store.

5. Attract customers to in-store events.

During the holiday season, retailers need to work harder than ever to stand out from competitors. Typically, retail locations might plan in-store events like free makeup tutorials, or a free gift-wrapping presentation.

Neiman Marcus is one example of a retailer using beacon technology to alert shoppers of their in-store events. 

Ginger Reeder, VP of Corporate Communications at Neiman Marcus Group, said, “Rather than having to go to your home computer to see what events are happening in-store, this is a way to notify the customer of the event while they are shopping.”

Customers are more likely to stop at your store’s event if they’re already nearby, so consider implementing beacon technology to alert nearby shoppers.

6. Improve in-store conversion rates.

Finnish chain K-supermarket installed beacons across 55 locations to allow shoppers to create digital shopping lists, view recipes, and receive smart advertisements and promotions. K-supermarket found 25% of their shoppers who viewed a targeted message purchased the advertised product.

Sending smart advertisements to customers in-store is an innovative way to improve conversion rates. Plus, the data you can collect using beacon technology is invaluable when targeting your ads. For instance, perhaps your customer puts “cereal” on her digital shopping list. When she’s in the aisle, your app might notify her, “Do you also need milk?” This type of targeted messaging is helpful and will likely lead to higher conversion rates than typical in-store ads.

7. Use beacons as a loyalty program.

A survey from Retail Dive found that roughly two-thirds of shoppers under age 35 research products on their smartphones while in a store. If your brand primarily targets a younger demographic, it’s a missed opportunity to avoid implementing beacon technology.

Your beacon technology can do more than deliver promotions and discounts. Urban Outfitters, for instance, uses their technology to create a mobile-first loyalty program.

When a shopper enters an Urban Outfitters, they’re encouraged to unlock an offer by checking-in on social media. In the dressing rooms, shoppers are shown user-generated content about products. Shoppers are also encouraged to take selfies with a #UOonYou hashtag, with the potential to be featured on Urban’s site.

By using beacon technology in combination with social media, Urban is able to engage with customers online, even when they’re in-store. Ultimately, their strategy enables Urban to use real customers as authentic brand ambassadors, while making a customer’s shopping experience a better one — a win, win.

Bitcoin might command most of the public’s mindshare on cryptocurrency, but Ripple is a company you definitely don’t want to overlook. Founded in 2012, Ripple sells a currency settlement and exchange platform and issues the third largest cryptocurrency (based on market capitalization) in the world.

But its value proposition doesn’t stem from being a Bitcoin copycat. It actually stems from being one of the most unique cryptocurrencies on the market.

Ripple wants to speed up the process of cross-border payment transfers and, in turn, improve the current global payments system rather than replace it like the company’s competitors do.

To accomplish this goal, Ripple decided to design their token, XRP, as a currency transfer tool instead of as a medium of exchange, underpin it with a unique blockchain that can validate its transactions 215 times faster than Bitcoin can, and eliminate mining as the only way to acquire it.

Ripple as a Currency Transfer Tool

Ripple’s cryptocurrency, XRP, is popular amongst huge financial institutions, like Santander and American Express, because the token can significantly expedite these financial institution’s cross-border payment transfers.

XRP is designed to rapidly transfer any fiat currency into another, allowing financial institutions to shift money from one currency to another and move funds around the world in a matter of seconds. In fact, XRP can settle payments within four seconds and process 1,500 transactions per second.

This is refreshing and a lot more convenient for financial institutions who usually have to deal with the typical yet complex global payment system, SWIFT, which makes every bank open a separate account for every country they work in.

Financial institutions who use Ripple also don’t have to deal with cryptocurrencies that have notoriously slow transaction speeds like Bitcoin.

While XRP can process 1,500 transactions per second, Bitcoin can only process seven transactions per second. And coupled with each cryptocurrency’s volatile prices, there’s more of a risk that financial institutions will receive a lower amount of tokens than initially expected once their transaction finalizes if they transact with Bitcoin instead of XRP.

Ripple’s Unique Blockchain Improves Current Global Payments System and Requires No Mining

The XRP transfer process is swift because the cryptocurrency isn’t nearly as decentralized as the other major currencies like Bitcoin. Bitcoin’s main purpose is to introduce a new global payment system that can connect consumers directly with suppliers, removing the need for a financial middleman like a bank.

To do this, their blockchain completely decentralizes the cryptocurrency by requiring a network of millions of miners to solve complex cryptography puzzles to validate each of its transactions, instead of asking a central power like a bank to verify them.

Ripple, on the other hand, wants to improve the existing global payment system. So the currency’s blockchain, RippleNet, requires only 25 independent nodes, managed by various financial institutions, tech companies, and Ripple itself, to all agree on the true state of XRP’s public ledger and, in turn, validate its transactions.

Instead of millions of global miners validating its transactions, XRP only needs 25 nodes to do it. This makes XRP much faster at verifying and processing transactions than Bitcoin.

In conjunction with RippleNet’s validation process, Ripple also owns and issues the entire supply of XRP, which means you don’t have to spend massive amounts of time and electricity to mine XRP like you do to get bitcoins. You can only buy the token on cryptocurrency exchanges.

Ripple’s Similarities to Bitcoin

Just like Bitcoin, Ripple has capped the amount of XRP they will ever create at 100 billion tokens. Ripple owns about 60 billion of the total supply and the rest are in circulation. Ripple can also sell up to one billion XRP each month, but they rarely do this because injecting a huge supply of XRP into circulation like that could tank the cryptocurrency’s value.

A Token With a Different Mission

Ripple might be listed under the same crypto umbrella as Bitcoin, but the two cryptocurrencies have entirely different missions. Instead of gutting the current global payment system and replacing it with its own, Ripple wants to make the global payment system better for years to come.

You wouldn’t design a new kitchen without creating a blueprint first, would you? So, why would you design a website without creating a sitemap?

If you want to launch a website that Google (and your potential customers) can discover, you’ll need a sitemap. Here’s how to create one.

People create sitemaps when they first design their website, add pages to it, and/or redesign it. It’s kind of like a floor plan for the site, which comes in handy whenever the site gets changed. Along with boosting search engine optimization (SEO), sitemaps can also help define a site’s navigation scheme so you avoid internal linking issues.

Visual Sitemaps

You might be thinking to yourself, “But I thought sitemaps were more visual, like a web.” That’s a visual sitemap, as opposed to an XML sitemap — the latter is what we’ve been talking about so far.

Visual sitemaps, on the other hand, are abstract sketches of your website’s structure, like the one below of Google’s website. They’re useful for the internal planning process, but it’s the XML sitemaps that are relevant to SEO best practices.

Image Credit: Wikimedia

XML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps are designed specifically for search engines like Google, which need to be able to find webpages anchored within a website no matter how old or deeply nested they might be in that website’s domain.

Here’s an example of what an XML sitemap file might look like:

Image Credit: Sitemaps.org

For this reason, an XML sitemap is a crucial component of a blog, where article pages are constantly bumped further back into the website’s archive as new content is published.

There are four major types of XML sitemaps you can create, each dedicated to a different type of media you might publish to your website:

• Image Sitemaps structure a website’s image content so that it ranks well in Google Images results.
• Video Sitemaps classify video content so that it ranks well in Google Videos results, as well as rich snippets in organic results.
• News Sitemaps describe your website’s news content so it’s more easily indexed in search results like Google News.
• Mobile Sitemaps optimize website content for mobile phones that don’t use native web browsers, which automatically produce web content in mobile form.

So, how do you structure your website’s XML sitemap? Let’s dive right in.

How to Create a Sitemap

1. Engage Your Marketing, Tech, IT, and Legal Teams

Typically, the teams involved in structuring a website’s sitemap are the marketing team, a technical team (whether that’s a team of developers or an agency), the IT team (or whoever controls your servers), and the legal team.

The Marketing Team

This marketing department is usually responsible for defining the structure of the site. Which pages need to link to one another? Should site visitors be able to get from the “About Us” page directly to the product page, for example? Whether they define the structure using a visual site map in PowerPoint or some other tool is up to them.

The Technical Team

A team of developers will then build an sitemap.xml file based on the structure defined by the marketing team.

The IT Team

Your support team usually gets involved too, assuming you’re using your own servers or some servers that IT controls. Remember, the sitemap lives on that server — so someone has to make sure it’s on there. If you’re working for an agency, they should be able to do this for you, too.

The Legal Team

Lastly, be sure you check with your legal team to make sure everything on your website is legally sound and you don’t have any outstanding copyright restrictions that could pass through your sitemap.

2. Research Each Search Engine’s Sitemap Requirements

When you first begin planning your sitemap, think about questions like: What are your website’s goals? Who’s your target audience, and what do they want to see?

You’ll also want to keep in mind each search engine’s requirements. The last thing you want to do is break the path of a visitor getting from a search engine to your website. Google’s, Bing’s, Yahoo!’s, and others’ requirements are fairly similar, but you’ll want to make sure you’re not breaking any specific requirements for any of them. This is especially true if you see a lot of your traffic is coming from a specific search engine.

To make sure you’re not breaking any rules, check out:

• Google’s sitemap requirements.
• Bing and Yahoo!’s sitemap requirements.

3. Define the Top-Level Navigation Structure

What do you want your homepage to link to? This will provide the foundation for your site’s structure, and will allow your site to grow. 

The structure of your website plays a big role in your site’s SEO, so it’s important to plan your top-level navigation structure carefully. Specifically, pay attention to your website’s depth. The further away a page is from the original homepage URL of your site, the worse it is for that page’s SEO.

In other words, a shallow website (one that requires three or fewer clicks to reach each page) is much better for SEO than a deep website, according to Search Engine Journal.

What are best practices for top-level navigation, you might be asking? Unfortunately, it’s hard to give general advice here as best practices can vary significantly by industry, company type, and so on. For inspiration from companies similar to yours, then take a look at Crayon: It has a huge library of real marketing designs you can filter by industry, traffic level, device, and so on. Check out high-traffic homepages in your industry to get a sense of their structure and get some ideas for yours.

4. Define the Second- and Third-Level Content

This is where creating visual sitemaps can come in handy. Once you’ve defined your homepage’s navigation structure, you’ll want to brainstorm and map out the pages that are two or three levels deeper into your website. This might be your “About Us” page, your team management page, your hiring page, your blog, and so on.

Depending on the complexity of your website, you may only need two levels, or you may need up to four. And as you think out the deeper parts of your website, you may find you need to tweak the top-level navigation — that’s okay.

5. Write the XML Sitemap and Submit it to Search Engines

Once you’ve planned out how your website will be organized, it’s time for the technical team to create the XML sitemap, put it on your web server, and submit it to each individual search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and so on).

When you first publish your website, and each time you go through a significant site redesign, someone on your team will have to submit the sitemap to each search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.) so that those search engines will be able to tell your homepage from your “About Us” page from your team management page.

Unless you’re using a platform that automatically updates your sitemap, you’ll need to update the sitemap yourself and resubmit any time you make a significant changes to your website.

(HubSpot customers: HubSpot will automatically generate your sitemap.xml file when you publish new pages and make changes to your site. But remember, you’ll still either have to rely on search engines to pick up new pages organically. That means if you’ve made a really significant change to your site’s structure, you might want to manually submit it.)

We recommend using a sitemap generator to build your XML sitemap. While the folks at Google no longer maintain their own sitemap generator, there are now plenty of free and downloadable tools you can use to create your own.

To make your choice of sitemap generator easier, here are nine of the best sitemap generators available today.

1. Screaming Frog

Price: Free

Screaming Frog is a web crawler that allows you to assess your website’s on-page SEO. Naturally, the company also offers a tool to develop your own XML sitemap and strengthen your website’s on-page SEO in the process.

To use Screaming Frog’s sitemap generator, you’ll first download the company’s SEO web crawler (also known as a “spider”), which is free for crawling your first 500 URLs. Once your website is crawled, you can create an XML sitemap from it including every webpage that scores a “200” in the initial crawl. This ensures only your strongest pages are included in your new XML sitemap.

2. XML-Sitemaps

Price: Free

XML-Sitemaps requires no registration or initial download to create a sitemap for your website. Like Screaming Frog, which is explained above, this tool is free to websites that carry up to 500 URLs. Once your sitemap has been created, you can either download it as an XML file or receive it via email if you need to transport it to a new computer or coworker.

The paid version of XML-Sitemaps allows you to crawl up to 1.5 million pages (instead of 500), create other forms of XML sitemaps — such as news, video, and image sitemaps — and submit your sitemap directly to a search engine from the sitemap generator.

3. Slickplan

Price: Free trial, plans start at $8.99/mo

Slickplan offers a suite of content planning products that are ideal for freelancers, agencies, and small businesses. One of these products is an XML sitemap builder. This tool helps you build a visual sitemap first so you can determine how your website will be organized, then export your visual sitemap as an XML file.

4. InSpyder

Price: Free trial, $39.95 for full version

InSpyder is a fully downloadable sitemap builder that allows you to crawl an unlimited amount of URLs and synthesize them all in an XML sitemap for you.

The tool, which is free to try, is compatible with Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask.com, so you can quickly submit your XML sitemap in the format the biggest search engines expect to see it. You can also schedule sitemap updates at regular intervals if you know you’ll make frequent changes to your website. A blog that regularly publishes new articles (with new URLs) is one example of a website that would benefit from a new sitemap every so often.

5. Sitemap Writer Pro

Price: $24.95

Sitemap Writer Pro is a fast and simple XML sitemap creator, compatible with seven types of sitemaps depending on the type of content you want search engines to index. The tool can crawl millions of webpages and automatically produce a sitemap file that is ready to be imported into your content management system (CMS).

Sitemap Writer Pro is free to try for crawling up to 10 webpages, and requires a Windows operating system to run.

6. DYNO Mapper

Price: Free trial, $40/mo billed yearly

DYNO Mapper is similar to Slickplan in that it is a visual sitemap builder. Start by outlining your website and its URLs in one of four visual formats, then edit the placement and hierarchy of each webpage included in your sitemap and export your sitemap file so you can easily share it with your colleagues.

DYNO Mapper comes with Google Analytics built in, so you can accurately identify your highest-performing webpages and where they should be placed on your sitemap. This integration also comes in handy when updating your sitemap, in which case you can simply import your sitemap’s XML file and revisit its visual model for quick adjustments.

7. Rage Google Sitemap Automator

Price: Free trial, $29.95 for full version

Rage Google Sitemap Automator is both an SEO auditor and XML sitemap builder. The tool allows you to quickly optimize your website’s on-page SEO so it’s easily crawled by Google, then create a sitemap that’s downloadable to an XML file in a matter of minutes.

This sitemap generator also lets you create your own “filters” for assigning various attributes to the webpages included in your sitemap — making it particularly useful for big websites that have many URLs serving diverse purposes.

8. WriteMaps

Price: Free for 3 small sitemaps

WriteMaps is a visual website planner, helping you create a color-coded flowchart that outlines the content of every URL nested within your website. Once your website — and its webpages — are written and sorted exactly the way you want them, you can export your sitemap as a PDF or as an XML file for submitting to search engines.

WriteMaps’ interface is perfect for team-wide collaboration, making this tool especially useful for companies that are in the process of building a website from scratch.

9. PowerMapper

Price: Free Trial, $149 for standard version

PowerMapper is touted as a “one-click” sitemap maker, used by several major organizations to create sitemaps for their websites in a number of potential mapping styles. The tool uses its own web browser, where you can navigate to your website and click “Map” to create a sitemap from every webpage currently live on that website.

For more options of XML sitemap generators, check out this archive of suggestions by Google. Not all of the links on Google’s list are still active services, but you’ll still find tools that are designed with Google’s website ranking algorithm in mind.

Once you’ve selected a sitemap generator, and created your sitemap in XML form, you’ll need to add it to your website’s source code and submit this sitemap to each search engine on which you want your website to be indexed.

Below are step-by-step instructions for submitting a sitemap to Google, and then to Bing and Yahoo!.

1. Sign in to Google Webmaster Tools.

Google Webmaster Tools will be your dashboard for testing and submitting updated sitemaps to Google, so you can ensure Google is always aware of the latest pages published to your site.

For this step, you’ll first need to register your website with Google. Click the link at the beginning of this paragraph to get started.

2. Click “Add a Property.”

Once you’ve logged in to Google Webmaster Tools, click “Add a Property,” the square red button on the top righthand corner of your screen.

3. Enter the URL for your company and click “Continue.”

Type in the website whose sitemap you want to submit, exactly as it appears in your address bar. This website should just be the domain name — the parent URL to which all of your other webpages belong.

4. Click “Crawl” on the left-hand side of the page, and choose “Sitemaps.”

Once you add your website property, you’ll see a sidebar of options to the left. Click “Crawl” to reveal a dropdown of options and select “Sitemaps.”

5. Click “Add/Test Sitemap.”

To the right of your screen, you’ll see another red button for adding a new sitemap. Click it. If you already have a sitemap submitted, this button will simply say “Test,” allowing you to verify that Google has crawled your current sitemap.

6. Enter “sitemap.xml” after your website’s domain name.

Adding a new sitemap requires you to add a string of text to the end of your website’s domain. Think of it like a tracking tag, allowing Google to examine all the activity that takes place inside your website.

This sitemap tag is “sitemap.xml,” and you’ll want to add it to the end of your domain name. For example, if your domain is www.yourcompany.com, you’ll tag it like this: www.yourcompany.com/sitemap.xml

7. Click “Submit Sitemap.”

Submit your sitemap and you’re all set. Depending on how much page authority you have already accumulated on Google, it might take some time to see the status of your submitted sitemap. Give it time — Google will eventually accept it.

For more information on the sitemap submission process, click here.

How to Submit a Sitemap to Bing or Yahoo!

1. Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools.
2. On the My Sites page, enter the URL for your company (e.g. https://ift.tt/pjifv8). Click “Add.”
3. In the “Add a sitemap” field, enter http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. (Replace “yourdomain” with your company’s URL.)
4. Complete the rest of the required fields on the page, and click “Save.”

(For more details, click here.)

What If I Want to Add Webpages Later?

Once you define and submit your sitemap the first time, chances are you’ll want to tweak and add pages to your website every so often — and that’s completely fine. But keep in mind that if your website isn’t built on a platform that automatically generates a new sitemap and updates it on your web server when new pages are added, then every time you add a page — any page — to your website, that page will be missing from the sitemap that search engines see.

Remember, Google and other search engines will pick up the sitemap organically as long as you’ve updated the sitemap.xml file on your web server. But if you want to try to index your content the fastest way possible, you could resubmit your sitemap after publishing a new page — and it’s possible that Google would pick it up more quickly.

Once you’ve created and submitted your XML sitemap to search engines, you can start working on other fun stuff like your website’s design.

Having an up-to-date sitemap is just one marker of a high-performing website. To see what else you should optimize for your site, run a free Website Grader report.

 

A new report from CNBC says that many advertisers are shaking up their digital budgets, and dedicating more money to Amazon ads.

According to the report, some of these advertisers are reallocating as much as half of the money they previously dedicated to Google search ads, to Amazon: a shift that reflects a few key findings on the growth of Amazon’s ad platform in recent months.

Amazon is now the third-largest digital ad platform, behind Facebook and Google. And according to Ben Winters of Ideoclick — a company that works with companies to optimize online sales — Amazon’s ad revenue is growing at 5X the rate as Google’s.

But can Amazon really overtake two large competitors — Facebook and Google — in the digital ad space? The answer to that question could depend on two things: User behavior, and how it could change over time.

To find out what that looks like, we decided to gather some data. Here’s what we found.

Where Are People More Likely to Buy?

We asked 834 internet users across the U.S., UK, and Canada: Have you ever bought a product based on an ad you saw online?

Based on those who indicated they have bought a product based on an online ad, 30.2% indicated they did so because of an ad they saw on Amazon. That’s more than those who say they bought a product based on a Google-based ad.

To dig a bit deeper into the results, let’s think about user intent. Here are the ads that result from a search for “best dog food” on Google:

And here’s what they look like on Amazon:

The results on both platforms lead with sponsored products. But here’s the thing: On Amazon — a site essentially dedicated to online shopping — it’s more likely that I’m searching for something like “best dog food” with the intention to buy it. On Google, conversely, it could be that I’m just looking for information.

It could be argued, too, that ads are a bit more native on Amazon. When users search for a product there — and nearly half of all online product searches begin on Amazon — they typically expect to see a list of products in the results. On Google, that might be different, and users might expect to see information over product listings, making sponsored results more salient, and less cohesive with the rest of the search experience.

Market Dominance Could Take Time

Even if Amazon does take the lead in U.S. digital ad spending over Facebook or Google, it appears to be a long-tail victory. 

Source: eMarketer

As per the chart above, eMarketer’s predicts that through 2020, Amazon will see its ad revenue growing by about 50% per year, growing its market share from 4% to 7%. 

But even if that somewhat impressive, projected growth comes to fruition, there will still be a considerable gap between Amazon’s digital ad revenue market share, and the percentage owned by Facebook and Google. 

There’s reason to believe Amazon’s share in the digital ad spend market will continue to grow, however, even if gradually. That could be especially true if Amazon can scale its video ad offerings, potentially positioning it as a threat to Facebook’s own video ad platform and the Google-owned YouTube.

eMarketer also predicts to see significant growth in video ad spend — by 30% this year alone — with Facebook currently accounting for 25% of the share. But within that, eMarketer only measures Facebook share among other social networks, like Twitter and Snapchat — not among broader ad platforms, like Google or Amazon.

Source: eMarketer

In any case, Amazon’s ad platform shouldn’t be ignored by marketers and small-to-midsize businesses, even if its growth is slow and steady. As a start, advises IdeoClick’s Andrea Leigh, look at where your brand has a larger or engaged audience, and figure out how that could eventually lead to an Amazon advertising strategy.

“If you have a social following, or do a lot of events, you can send that audience to Amazon,” she says. “We call that ‘juicing the flywheel.’”

And like its competitor Google, there’s a search optimization element to advertising on Amazon — especially when it comes to knowing what your target buyers are searching for on Amazon. Leigh suggests checking out Keywordtool.io‘s tools for finding Amazon search keywords, to help businesses understand what their target buyers are searching for.

But in the end, know that it’s good news. As more platforms compete for advertiser dollars, it could come down to which one provides the best experience and ROI for them — which, if approached with the right growth mindset, can ultimately work in your favor.

Picture this: It’s rainy Saturday afternoon and you’re spending your day indoors at a local art museum. You meander from room to room staring at all the art, but not really absorbing any information. The information next to the art is too small, too crowded, or frankly, too boring. You quickly lose interest and make your way to the cafe.

If you’re anything like me, the situation I just described sounds pretty familiar. Let’s face it, it’s hard to stay engaged at a museum when the information provided isn’t that engaging or easily accessible. But what if there was a different way to consume information about artwork? Imagine if you could receive interesting information about a painting simply by pointing your phone at it — creating a frictionless and delightful experience.

Source: Cuseum

Sound far-fetched? It’s not. In fact, the technology is already in use. And not only is it used in museums, it’s part of your favorite social media apps too. What helps you become a dog and get cultural information at the touch of a button? Augmented reality (AR) of course!

But while this technology is familiar in some settings, it’s definitely not simple. Behind every fun filter is augmented reality, or AR, hard at work — altering and enhancing our reality in real-time. And AR can do much more than transform your face or recognize your favorite paintings. It allows people to interact with digital objects in their home, in stores, and in public spaces.

We understand that augmented reality (AR) can be confusing. That’s why we created this AR guide. Here we’ll walk through what AR is, how it differs from virtual reality, its applications, and how growing businesses should use it.

History of Augmented Reality (AR)

You’re probably thinking, I guess I’ve used AR, but can we do a deeper dive? As we stated above, augmented reality (AR) is an enhanced or altered form of reality where superimposed content gets added to users’ real-world views.

Those Snapchat filters? Yeah, that’s augmented reality. Pokemon Go? Totally augmented reality. Oculus Rift? Well, no. That’s actually virtual reality, and we’ll get to that later.  Augmented reality (AR) assists fighter pilots flying at nearly twice the speed of sound and helps surgeons to perform complicated procedures, but it wasn’t always this advanced or accessible. 

AR technology was born at Harvard University in 1968. Ivan Sutherland, an electrical engineering professor, created a head-mounted display system, nicknamed “The Sword of Damocles.” Sounds intimidating, right? It was. The massive headset weighed so much that it was anchored to the ceiling to operate. Users also had to be strapped into the system for it to work, making the experience pretty uncomfortable.

Over the next several decades, advancements in AR led to helpful aviation, military, and industrial simulation tools, but the technology didn’t gain a national audience until the late 1990s. One of the first widely visible uses of augmented reality came from an unexpected source: the NFL. The yellow line signifying a first-down, the one we have all grown to depend on over the past 20 years, is probably one of the most visible and helpful uses of AR.

Since then, AR has evolved at a rapid pace and is being used for both commercial and individual purposes. Between 2011 and 2013, AR was embraced by companies like Disney, Coca-Cola, and National Geographic to execute campaigns at large events and in public spaces like shopping malls and Times Square. In 2014, Google released Google Glass — the first mass-produced, wearable AR device — making it easy to get digital information simply by nodding your head. Snapchat added the geofilter feature a few months later, allowing users to add graphics showcasing geographic locations to their photos. They then introduced Lenses, a feature that maps users’ faces to add motion graphics to photos and videos. As of the end of 2017, 187 million people used Snapchat daily. And that’s just Snapchat. AR is now so popular that multiple social networks, businesses, and retailers use the technology. That’s a lot of augmented reality.

Cameras and Sensors

To create augmented reality, you first need to capture some actual reality with sensors and cameras that gather information on the users’ actual surroundings. This real-time information is a backdrop for the experience. Smartphone applications simply use your phone’s built-in camera, while more complicated devices like Microsoft’s HoloLens use a variety of specialized built-in cameras. In general, AR experiences work better with cameras that can read images in 3D, like the iPhone X’s TrueDepth camera, since the depth information allows for more realistic experiences.

Processing

Realistic augmented reality also requires enough processing power to analyze inputs like acceleration, position, tilt, and depth in real-time to create immersive interactions. Fortunately for us, this is something our smartphones are now capable of doing without additional hardware. For this reason, we no longer need to mount our AR devices to the ceiling like the Sword of Damocles. But it wasn’t easy getting to this point. It took Google years to shrink the three cameras and spacial awareness sensors to a size small enough to fit into a phone. As AR becomes more advanced, more devices will continue to incorporate the impressive technology.

Projection

After capturing real-world information, the augmented reality device then uses projection to layer digital renderings onto the scene. Currently, the projections display onto a smartphone screen or multiple screens within a wearable device. It’s also possible to project directly onto surfaces, removing the need for any headset or screen at all. 

Types of Augmented Reality (AR)

Although all AR devices share a few things in common, there are actually many kinds of augmented reality, and each one is better suited for different uses. In this section, we’ll quickly go over five different types of AR and some of their strengths and weaknesses.

Marker-based, or image recognition augmented reality, uses a trigger object as a cue to display content. The trigger could be something like a QR code or even a cereal box. This type of AR requires the least amount of processing power and is fairly easy to implement, but it isn’t as versatile as other kinds of AR because it relies on specific triggers being present.

Markerless augmented reality is more versatile than marker-based AR. Instead of trigger objects, this type of AR uses cameras, GPS, and accelerometer information to track where the user is and display relevant information. This combination of inputs is known as Simultaneous Localization And Mapping, or SLAM for short. Most types of AR available today use SLAM for markerless experiences.

As the name implies, projection-based AR projects digital images directly onto objects or surfaces within the user’s environment. With projection-based AR, you could project a functioning keyboard on your desk. This type of AR negates the need for a screen or headset and allows users to create surreal experiences for large audiences. While impressive, projection AR isn’t always the most practical option for smaller scale uses.

Outlining AR is also fairly self-explanatory. Instead of changing an entire scene, this type of AR uses image recognition to outline boundaries and shapes. It is most commonly used to help drivers see the edges of the road in low-light and to guide pilots towards landing strips. If the Titanic was setting sail now, they could have used outlining AR to avoid that iceberg … but then Leo and Kate would never have wowed us with their moving performances.

Superimposition based AR uses object recognition to partially or entirely replace an object within the user’s environment with a digital image. For example, a doctor can use this type of augmented reality to add a digital x-ray over part of a patient’s body during an operation.

Augmented Reality (AR) vs. Virtual Reality (VR)  

We’ve covered some ins and outs of augmented reality, but you may still be thinking, “all of this still sounds a lot like virtual reality.” So what’s the difference? For starters, VR typically gets most of the attention from high-profile products like the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR headsets. Virtual reality also goes one step beyond AR to create entirely new digital worlds.

When using VR, what you see and experience is different from what’s actually around you. What you see and hear is entirely simulated. While this freedom creates lots of exciting opportunities, it also makes VR impractical for many common tasks and means you need to be careful when using headsets to avoid embarrassing situations. AR is less intrusive and easier to apply to everyday life since it combines added digital elements with the physical world around you.

Augmented Reality (AR) Applications and Examples 

As you may have guessed, augmented reality has many uses beyond just digitally imposing flower crowns on your head or catching Pokemon. Because the technology is so adaptable, you can use AR just about everything. Here we’ll talk about some of the more popular applications for augmented reality and provide some examples of it in use.

Transportation

As a frequent flier, I don’t look for too much in my airlines. Just the basics like quality food, complimentary drinks, in-flight movies, a checked bag or two, free Wi-Fi, live TV, priority lounges, and pilots who can take off and land the plane. Augmented reality is helping with at least one of those things. Companies like Aero Glass have created augmented reality headsets that display airports, cities, navigation points, terrain features, other aircraft, and landing approaches for pilots. These features help pilots operate their planes, even when clouds or fog reduce visibility, which keeps flights safe and on time. That’s something I think we can all get behind.

And air travel isn’t the only mode of transportation AR is helping. If you’re like most Americans, you likely spend around 293 hours, or a little over 12 days, driving each year. Tools like WayRay’s Navion are changing the way we drive by projecting navigation instructions onto the windshield of the car. Navion also introduces gesture control commands to prevent drivers from looking down at their phones to enter or change a route. In addition to more intuitive navigation, these kinds of AR integrations have the potential to make roads safer by reducing the amount of time drivers spend looking away from the road.

Retail

While augmented reality can’t assemble your IKEA furniture for you, it can help you decide which Ypperlig or Ekedalen table would look best in your dining room. With IKEA’s new “IKEA Place” app, customers can preview over 2,000 pieces of virtual furniture in actual rooms within their home. This “try before you buy” model isn’t limited to Scandinavian furniture stores — architects and engineers are also using augmented reality to sample building materials, finishes, and layouts before committing to a direction.

And you don’t need to go into a store to try on makeup anymore. Sephora’s Virtual Artist app allows users to try a variety of eye, lip, and cheek makeup by digitally adding it to an uploaded photo. The app also has pre-generated looks created by Sephora makeup artists and interactive tutorials that show how to use different makeup products. Apps like Virtual Artist remove barriers for consumers and help provide a clear path to purchase.

Education

Augmented reality also has the potential to enhance education and learning. AR can transform textbooks and classrooms by turning previously static charts and images into interactive experiences. Geology suddenly sounds a lot more engaging when you can take apart the layers of a volcano or dive hundreds of miles beneath the Earth’s crust using augmented reality.

Even flashcards, one of the simplest studying tools, can be improved with AR. Apps like AR Flashcards Animal Alphabet help young children learn the alphabet by bringing their flashcards to life. The ABCs sound like a lot more fun when the penguin from the “P is for penguin” card is standing in front of you.

Entertainment and Sports

Augmented reality is even changing the way we buy tickets to the Super Bowl. For Super Bowl LII, StubHub rolled out a feature on their mobile app that allowed ticket buyers to see a virtual 3D model of the U.S. Bank Stadium as well as the surrounding area. This wasn’t the first time the ticket exchange company has experimented with AR. Previously, StubHub introduced “virtual view,” which allowed users to see a preview of the view from their seats before they bought a ticket. After launching that feature, StubHub saw engagement double in a year.

Major sporting leagues have also embraced augmented reality as a way to enhance the viewing experience for their fans. The MLB’s popular “At Bat” app plans on adding AR features this season that will allow users to see statistics on each player, ball velocity and distance traveled, and other information in real-time simply by pointing their phone at the field.

Marketing

Augmented reality’s ability to create unique, immersive experiences makes the technology an excellent tool for marketers. Companies like IKEA, TopShop, and Converse use AR to allow customers to “try” their products before purchasing. These digital trial runs make sampling significantly easier and faster for shoppers, which can lead to more sales.

Even advertisements are made using AR. Many popular brands used AR in public spaces to delight viewers and grab their attention. In 2014, Pepsi installed outward facing cameras in a London bus shelter and used a live feed to project UFOs, giant robots, balloons, and a tiger on the loose inside the shelter. The experience made it look as if those scenes were actually happening on the street. The creative use of AR paid off for Pepsi. A YouTube video of the installation topped 6 million views, making it one of the most watched ad campaigns on YouTube at the time.

Healthcare

Some of the most promising applications for AR are within the healthcare industry. Today, medical students and doctors are using AR to learn or practice medical procedures. But AR’s usefulness isn’t just limited to life-threatening situations. AccuVein, a New York-based company, uses AR to help nurses find veins more easily when inserting IVs. This makes nurses’ and patients’ lives easier, increasing successful IV applications by 350%.

AR is also helping some patients with their recovery process. One company, called NuEyes, uses special AR glasses to help people with severe vision impairment. With the technology, NuEyes can help legally blind children see well enough to read and recognize their classmates.

There’s even evidence that AR can help reduce excruciating phantom limb pain felt by amputees. By projecting a digital limb on to the patient, researchers were able to trick their brain into thinking the amputated limb was still there. This projection, paired with electrodes, allowed patients to practice relaxing the digital limb to ease their pain.

How SMBs Should Use Augmented Reality (AR)

With new AR developer platforms from Apple and Google, enterprise companies are beginning to experiment with the technology. Like I mentioned above, IKEA and Wayfair are allowing customers to place furniture in their homes without ever making an order, The New York Times is experimenting with AR news stories, and Starbucks is opening an immersive “coffee wonderland.”  But SMBs can also benefit from AR without writing a single line of code. According to HubSpot Research, businesses who worked with Pokemon Go to make their storefronts into PokeSpots saw a $2,000 average increase in weekly sales due to additional foot traffic. Talk about a growth opportunity! Growing businesses should make it a practice to look out for similar ways to inexpensively partner with existing AR experiences.

If you’d like to create an AR experience of your own, we recommend starting with your customer journey and working outwards from there. Any company can build an AR application, but not all of them will provide value to their customers. AR should make it easier for your customers to interact with your brand in a meaningful way that drives them to purchase. For example, if you sell physical products, let your consumers imagine or try them at home.

If you’re trying to decide between prioritizing AR or VR, we recommend AR. VR requires expensive, unique operating systems that only a small portion of the population has access to through expensive headsets,  while the majority of people have an AR device right in their pocket … a cell phone. For businesses with a great idea and technical abilities, adopting AR early could pay off in a big way.

Conclusion

While augmented reality has been around for several decades, we are only just learning about and experiencing its true potential. AR’s ability to connect both the physical and digital worlds makes it adaptable for many use cases. The technology’s numerous adaptations are helping to increase our productivity, standard of living, and quality of entertainment.

Businesses with the right development capabilities and content ideas should consider how AR could help improve both their business operations and their customers’ experience. Adoption of AR technology may have gotten off to a slow start, but with new developer platforms, there’s no telling how popular this technology could be.