Welcome to My Blog

If you thought your research days were over when you graduated from high school or college, think again. If you create any kind of content as part of your role, your arguments should be well-supported with data.

Why is research so important? It makes your claims credible, your content authoritative, and helps you earn more social shares and backlinks.

In fact, an analysis of over one million articles from Moz and BuzzSumo revealed that research-backed content generates more shares and more backlinks than other content types.

The thing is, finding the research to cite is tough sometimes. The original source data can be hard to track down and citations might be incorrect or missing, among other issues. 

For all of you content creators, bloggers, SEOs, and market researchers, we feel your pain. So we put together a comprehensive list of sources with original research data about all things marketing. Bookmark this blog post to have ideas handy for where to go when you need a stat to support your claim, or if you’re looking for great sources to learn about forthcoming trends in the marketing world.

19 Marketing Research Websites to Bookmark

1) Nielsen

Nielsen specializes in consumer media research on topics like TV, internet, social media, and app user behaviors. Whether you write blog posts about social media behavior or report to your team about trends, Nielsen is a great place to start your research. It frequently publishes new data in its Insights section marketers might find useful to cite, such as:

• Yearly Nielsen Social Media Report, which readers can access for free after sharing their contact information.
• A New Megaphone: Social Media Gives Consumers a Chance to be Heard on What They Watch

Source: Nielsen

2) Bloomberg News

Bloomberg News publishes business stories and data on a variety of topics, including global technology and digital media news. Bloomberg breaks a lot of technology and marketing news stories, which makes it a great resource for covering newsjacks, creating timelines, or simply keeping up with what’s new in digital media. Here are examples of Bloomberg content you might cite:

• Twitter Planning Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week
• Snapchat Passes Twitter in Daily Usage

3) Gallup

Research organization Gallup conducts public opinion polls about business and technology, among a variety of other topics. Recent, original survey results provide excellent data to cite, and Gallup provides meaningful insights in addition to the raw survey data. Below are surveys it conducted about brand marketing:

• Brands Aren’t Winning Millennial Consumers
• Failed Brand Ambassadors

4) Pew Research Center

The Pew Research Center conducts nonpartisan surveys and research on trends and habits among internet and technology consumers. Another source for poll results, Pew publishes lots of valuable information you can cite. Make sure you cite properly — instead of “100% of Americans use social media,” phrase survey data as “100% of Americans surveyed use social media.” You might find these Pew survey results useful:

• The Modern News Consumer
• Yearly Social Media Update

Source: Pew Research Center

5) Ipsos

Ipsos conducts market research and analysis of a variety of global audiences and their consumption behaviors. Research from Ipsos is great to cite to provide global data instead of data only from your home country. Here are two of its latest reports that intrigued us:

• Emotional Attachment & Profitable Customer Relationships
• Confessions of the Admen

6) Content Marketing Institute & MarketingProfs

Every year, Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs conduct massive surveys of B2B and B2C marketers in North America and distill the findings into reports full of original, useful data about how marketers do their jobs in the current year. We cite these surveys, and we think you should too:

• B2B Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America
• B2C Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America

Source: Content Marketing Institute

7) Ahrefs Blog

Ahrefs offers SEO marketing tools and a blog that includes original research and analysis. If you’re in the business of search engine marketing or linkbuilding, Ahrefs is a must-bookmark. Here are a couple of fascinating studies on the blog we recommend:

• How long does it take to rank in Google? (A study by Ahrefs)
• What’s The Cost of Buying Links in 2016? I Reached Out To 250 Blogs To Find Out.

8) Fractl

Marketing agency Fractl publishes interesting research about growth and content marketing strategies, including linkbuilding, writing, and social media. We love that Fractl visualizes research results in infographic format, too. Check out some of its latest studies here:

• The Motivation for Sharing on Facebook
• How Effective is #Sponsored Content on Instagram?

Source: Fractl

9) WordStream

WordStream provides online advertising software and tools, and the brand publishes helpful marketing advice and original research on its blog. WordStream constantly evaluates and analyzes its own practices and publishes its findings, which is highly useful whether you write about online advertising or do it yourself. You can cite WordStream’s SEO data from studies like these:

• Bing’s Expanded Text Ads Even Outperform Google’s [Data]
• Does Dwell Time Really Matter for SEO? [Data]

10) eMarketer

Market research company eMarketer publishes research data about all things digital media — from social media, content marketing, SEO, and mobile device use. It publishes research data from markets around the world, so it’s a highly comprehensive resource to cite. It also publishes lots of projections for the future of different industries, which is useful information whether you’re publishing an external blog post or reporting internally. Read a couple surveys and estimates below:

• New eMarketer Estimates Show Huge Snapchat User Growth in UK
• US Digital Ad Spending to Surpass TV This Year

11) comScore

Marketing and advertising research company comScore produces data and insights into media and technology trends. Lots of its research focuses on consumer habits and market research in regions around the world. Additionally, comScore produces content in written, visual, and audio formats for its followers who want to consume data in different ways. Here are a couple new studies we recommend:

• Smartphone Usage Has Doubled in the Past Three Years
• Millennials Use More Apps, but Spend a Greater Share of Time on Top Apps

12) Siege Media

Siege is a content and SEO-focused marketing agency and publishes fantastic advice, case studies, and original research on its blog. Its research takes a closer look at the science and data behind common content marketing strategies, which are useful whether you create content or want to learn how to do it better. Here are two of Siege’s “closer look” research articles:

• Which Keywords Have the Worst CTR?
• The Science Behind the Most Popular Infographics

Source: Siege Media

13) Social Media Examiner

Michael Stelzner’s Social Media Examiner publishes tons of content about how to do social media, and how to do it well. Once yearly, he publishes the results of a social media marketing survey of over 5,000 marketers, which offers valuable insights into how your peers and competitors run social. Check out the free report below:

• Social Media Marketing Industry Report, which readers can access for free after sharing their contact information.

14) TrackMaven

Marketing analytics company TrackMaven publishes lots of actionable research data about its own practices and those of other content marketers. Its research does a great job of answering the tough questions not all marketers have the answers to — questions like “why aren’t my efforts driving results?” Here are some of TrackMaven’s latest research results:

• Blogging Report: How to Drive Results from Your Company Blog
• The Content Marketing Paradox Revisited, which readers can access for free after sharing their contact information.

15) dscout

Mobile research and analysis platform dscout publishes fascinating research about how people interact with mobile devices and apps. From user experience to how excessively we use our mobile devices, dscout’s research covers it all — check out some of its insights here:

• Putting a Finger on Our Phone Obsession
• Mobile’s not eating the world; it’s eating our days

16) Chute

Chute helps brands publish user-generated content (UGC), and its research dives into UGC on different social media platforms and how consumers use and create content about the brands they interact with. One of its biggest initiatives analyzes branded hashtags on Instagram so brands can see how people interact with them on social media. Check out Chute’s database of Instagram hashtags and other research below:

• UGC Brand Trends
• How User-Generated Content Shapes Millennial Habits

Source: Chute

17) Contently

Content marketing platform Contently publishes blog posts, webinars, and research about how to create organic and ad content consumers will actually engage with. Its analysis goes beyond organic content marketing and dives into newer trends, such as native advertising and content distribution, as in the examples below:

• Fixing Native Advertising: What Consumers Want from Brands, Publishers, and the FTC
• B2B Paid Content Distribution: Facebook vs. LinkedIn

18) BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo’s social analytics software helps users see what content is shared and linked to most frequently, and its research about how to get shared and go viral is a must-read for any marketer.

• The Content That Gains Shares and Links on Medium: BuzzSumo Research
• The Magical Content That Gets Links and Shares — New Research

19) HubSpot

You may already be familiar with what we do here at HubSpot, but just in case: We’re an inbound marketing and sales platform. We publish free, original marketing, sales, and business technology data, and we’ve rounded up a list of go-to marketing statistics for easy sharing and reference, both of which are linked below:

• HubSpot Research
• The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics
• State of Inbound

Source: HubSpot

Get Searching

We’ve taken some of the legwork out of the research process for you here, but make sure to always do your due diligence. Fact-check all data points you find, make sure your sources are reliable and credible, and cite your stats properly. For the latest free research on all things marketing, subscribe to get the latest reports and surveys from HubSpot Research.

What’s your go-to source for research data? Share with us in the comments below.

Emerging technologies always encourage scrutiny and critical analysis, and ad tech is no different.

This discipline has been around for a few years, but it’s only recently caught the attention of savvy ad tech agencies. In the era of big data, they’ve recognized having ad tech company relationships makes them more powerful and attractive to clients.

The age of social media has forced agencies to investigate innovative ways to interact with relevant users, rather than relying on typical broadcast or digital media buys. And the advantages for agencies investing in ad tech are plentiful: 74% of marketers want to work with ad agencies who know how to make use of ad tech.

But there’s still one issue: many young ad agencies are still trying to figure out what exactly ad tech is — and how they can best use it to their advantage.

What is Ad Tech? And Why Should You Care?

The first step to leveraging ad tech is understanding exactly what it is. Ad tech (short for advertising technology) is the umbrella term for the software and tools that help agencies and brands target, deliver, and analyze their digital advertising efforts.

If you’ve ever scratched your head at the terms “programmatic” or “omnichannel,” you’ve likely already heard a little about what ad tech does (though you may not have even realized it). Programmatic advertising, for instance, buys target audiences instead of time slots: Think about buying ad space that reaches a particular demographic wherever it is instead of buying a prime time TV spot and hoping the right people are watching.

Omnichannel marketing reaches target consumers across all channels — mobile, video, desktop, and more — within the context of how they’ve interacted with a brand (those first seeing an ad will receive a different message from those who have engaged with that brand a number of times). Omnichannel and programmatic aren’t the only two tools within ad tech, but they are two of the most revolutionary.

That said, ad tech is designed to help advertisers make better use of their budgets. Ad tech methodologies deliver the right content at the right time to the right consumers, so there’s less wasteful spending.

Elephants and Ad Tech: A Story

Imagine being asked to wash an elephant’s ears while conserving water. You could always bathe the whole elephant — you would definitely get his ears clean, but you’d use much more water than you need to, so that method doesn’t make much sense.

To save your resources, you could concentrate on the head instead, using less water but still more than you’d like. Or you could figure out a way to use just enough water to scrub those ears and make him the happiest pachyderm in the herd.

Now, take this analogy and put it in the context of online ad placements.

The traditional method of pushing advertisements to web users involves a broad-brush approach, much like showering the whole elephant just to get to its ears. Remember that publishers are not based on ad networks, they’re based on content. Advertisements slipped alongside content that may or may not have relevancy for the viewer forces exposure. This method can work, but it can be inefficient, annoying, and wasteful. It’s still not the best use of an agency’s resources.

Today, ad tech methods supported by influential data allow agencies to make wiser placements that effectively position advertisements when and where they are needed most. This helps reduce wasted efforts and gets ads to users at critical touch points, meaning it’s helpful for both brands and consumers.

Instead of the standard sort of placement buys, ad agencies can integrate their ads using high-level data and technology. It’s a logical next step toward seamless integration and high-impact, value-added placements. And it’s redefining how agency planning and strategy teams look at media.

Ad Tech Traction and Benefits

Ad tech has plenty of moving parts, which means there are countless opportunities for agencies to set themselves apart. The diversity of ad tech data allows for more granular and relevant targeting and integration. It also necessitates leaning upon trusted ad tech solutions and platforms to get the most out of every ad campaign.

One major effect for agencies and their clients is noticeable improvement in prospect interactions. Thanks to ad tech, brands can now connect all advertising channels. This means saying goodbye to clunky, unnatural advertising that irritates users and frustrates agencies and their clients. Instead, cross-platform uniformity ensures brands are reaching users consistently and logically.

Ad tech has also allowed retargeting to enjoy growing popularity — so much that it represents about 90% of all advertising costs. In other words, it’s not going away.

The problem is that it can be too intrusive, which leads to reduced effectiveness. By taking advantage of RTB options fueled by ad tech data, agencies can drill down and target only those audiences most likely to convert, without badgering those who aren’t.

Connecting the Dots Between Ad Tech Companies and Agencies

Knowing that they need each other to thrive, agencies and ad tech companies are on a joint mission to figure out how to forge long-lasting relationships. Deeper connections tend to occur naturally through regular communications, realistic expectations, and thoughtful customization.

Communication

Touching base regularly and working transparently between both parties is essential. There can no longer be a “set it and forget it” attitude in the online ad industry.

With new integrations between data, tech, and content, there needs to be consistent party involvement from start to finish. To this end, media publishers are having more discussions with their agency partners about content and other creative efforts than ever before. That makes it imperative for ad tech organizations and agencies to have an “open door” policy.

Expectations

Quick turnarounds are another key factor to keep an eye on in the relationship between agencies and ad tech pros. Everyone wants rapid turnarounds, but sometimes things can get lost when too much is happening at one time, and sometimes quality is compromised.

Do you want something mediocre that’s finished tomorrow or something impressive you have at the end of the week? You likely want the latter. Project management helps smooth out the flow between ad tech and agencies and ensures more successful campaigns.

Customization

Imagine you’re a consumer who just saw a mobile ad that piqued your interest. When you go to browse on your laptop, you see the same ad. Then you see the same next time you’re on YouTube, then again before your next Hulu binge session. Seeing the exact same content becomes annoying, and your interest inevitably lowers.

That said, there can’t be a repurposing of content and strategy across all channels — that’s a dinosaur-era approach destined to backfire. Agencies and brands are realizing that they need to customize creative for each channel and integration. It’s no longer acceptable to have a mentality of “matched luggage” when it comes to media. Agencies can work hand-in-hand with an ad tech partner to achieve exceptional outcomes through data interpretation.

Reaching Higher With Ad Tech

Ad tech has grown rapidly, and it’s showing zero signs of slowing down.

As it continues its spread, agencies will be able to take advantage of ad tech’s opportunities to develop more integrations, more data sharing, extended reach across all channels, and cleaner integrations against content.

According to some stats, up to 39% of agencies already talk about their ad tech connections when wooing prospective clients. 

When ad tech and agencies partner up, user experiences will be increasingly polished and positive, and agencies will get the reward for their commitment to embracing the benefits of a lasting relationship with ad tech providers.

Have you ever registered for a webinar and then totally forgotten about it? Or perhaps you got an email about an upcoming workshop, but you were busy and forgot to put a reminder in your calendar for it? Yep, I’m guessing that’s happened even to the most type-A of us.

Well, if you’re an email marketer, you’ve been on the other side of this, when half of the registrants for an event you promoted never showed up. It sucks.

Luckily for you, you don’t have to worry about that anymore, because we’re about to share a marketing hack with you: how to insert Outlook, Apple Calendar, and Google Calendar invites right into your email in a few easy steps. That way, registrants can add the event directly to their calendars, and then be much less likely to forget about your event.

Download our free guide here for even more tips to optimize your email marketing.

Unless you somehow magically know what type of calendar your target audience uses, your best bet is to include all three major calendar invites in your email, giving recipients a choice that works for them. Outlook and Apple Calendar users will get an .ics file and Google Calendar users will use a URL-based custom invitation.

Note: All screenshots and steps were taken on a Mac, but if you’re on a PC, the process is similar.

Step 1: Create a New Event

If you have a Mac, you can create your invitation in Apple Calendar. If you have a PC, you can create it in Outlook. For Google Calendar, you’ll create the URL directly from your calendar application (you’ll need to be logged into your Google account to do this) — it doesn’t matter which type of computer you have.

Apple Calendar

Open Apple Calendar and click on the “+” sign in the top left corner of the window. A pop-up will appear. Enter the name of your event in the “Create Quick Event” box and hit return/enter on your keyboard. This will create an event on your calendar, but it will place the event on the current date and time and leave the rest of the details blank. You’ll need to change this information to reflect the details of your event (more on that in the next section).

Outlook

Open up Outlook Calendar, then click on the “New Items” icon or click “New Appointment” in the navigation bar and select it from the dropdown. You’re setting up an appointment, not a meeting, because this is an individual invite and other people from your recipient’s calendar will not be included on it. A calendar invite will pop up for editing.

Google Calendar

Open Google Calendar in a new browser window. You’ll need to be logged into your Google account. Click the red “Create” button on the top left side of the screen. A new event window should open.

Step 2: Set Details for Your Event

While Outlook, Apple Calendar, and Google Calendar events have slightly different formats, you’ll still need the same components for each one:

• Event name
• Location
• Time
• Event description
• URL of your event’s landing page
• Optional event alert

Below are examples of how these details look in the different applications, as well as a clarification of what information and format to use for each of these components.

Apple Calendar

Outlook

Source: Northern Arizona University

Google Calendar

The Details You Need to Include

Event Name (Subject field in Outlook)

Make sure the name reflects what your actual event name is called on your website and in your other promotions (this is a no-brainer, but we’re being thorough here). You may want to also include your company name at the end so registrants can quickly remember who is hosting the event when they stumble on it in their calendar later.

Location

Physical address of the event (one line, such as “123 Business Ave, Springfield, TX”) or the landing page URL, in the case of an online event.

Time

Enter the start and end dates and times of the actual event. Adjust the timing of the event to your time zone, as you’re the one creating the .ics file. It will automatically change the time to correspond with each person’s time zone. For example, if you’re creating the event file in Boston for a webinar in San Francisco that starts at 10 a.m. PST, you should enter the start time as 1 p.m. EST.

Alert (Optional)

You can set up alerts so attendees don’t forget about the event between when you sent the invite and the time of the event. In Outlook, you can set a time for one reminder to go off (such as one hour before). In Apple Calendar and Google Calendar you can set multiple alerts.

It’s important to not overwhelm people with too many alerts, as this creates a negative, intrusive experience. Below is an example of an alert sequence in Apple Calendar that reminds folks about your event but isn’t in-your-face:

URL of Event Landing Page

Do you have a specific landing page for your event or webinar? Include its URL, as it acts as a refresher for those who may be fuzzy on the details of what the event is about. Include it in the URL section of an Apple Calendar invite as well as in the body text of your Gmail or Outlook invites if you haven’t already included it in the Location section.

Description

Here, you should include a snippet of the event’s details. This goes in the “note” section of your Apple Calendar invite, in the body of your Outlook invite, or in the “description” text box in Google Calendar.

It’s also helpful to provide your contact info in this section. That way, people can reach out if they have any questions.

Step 3: Save Your Event

Once you’re all set editing the invite, you can save it to use as an attachment in your marketing email.

Outlook

Click “Save and Close” in the top-left of your Outlook invite to save it to your calendar. Then, click and drag the appointment from your Outlook calendar to your desktop to use for your email invite.

Apple Calendar

Click “done” to save it to your calendar. Then, navigate to the event date on your calendar, click on the event, and drag it to your desktop. Now you’ve saved your .ics file to use for your email invite.

Google Calendar

Click “Save” to save your event to your calendar. Re-open the event and click on “Publish Event”. A pop-up will appear with an embed code and a link you can easily copy and paste into your marketing email.

Step 4: Insert Invites Into Your Marketing Email

Now that you have events created for Outlook, Apple Calendar, and Google Calendar, you can insert these into your marketing email. You can either link your invites to text or a call-to-action button.

For Apple Calendar and Outlook invites, you’ll need to attach the .ics file link to text or a button. Most email tools, such as HubSpot’s, have a file manager in which you can upload these files directly from the editing window. Highlight the text or click on the button you want to link to, then upload the .ics file to your file manager and attach it to that text or button.

For the Google Calendar invite, link the text or button to the event URL you grabbed in Step 3 of this tutorial.

Here are some examples of how your invite might look in an email once it’s hyperlinked (PS — you can make your own buttons easily using this template):

Ultimately, even if you go to the ends of the earth to promote your event, it’s up to event registrants to actually show up. Everyone’s busy — work, kids, 5K training, you name it — and it’s easy to lose track of events. Lend your audience a helping hand with a calendar reminder so they remember to attend that workshop or webinar they signed up for.

What strategies do you use to reminds attendees of your marketing events? Share with us in the comments below.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in June 2014 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.