Web Marketing Checklist: 42 Tactics for Traffic and Sales

Businesses looking for more traffic and sales turn to marketing. This checklist of potent marketing tactics is a starting point for success.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization communicates a page’s purpose and relevance to Google and others to help align user queries with results.

Technical SEO is a critical subset that addresses a website’s structure so that search engine bots can efficiently crawl and index its pages. Unlike other strategies that concentrate on content and link building, technical SEO involves behind-the-scenes work.

1. Improve Core Web Vitals

Google launched Core Web Vitals (CWVs) in 2020 to help developers and website owners understand how it thinks about user experience. CWVs are evolving standards for page speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Until March 2024, the CWVs included three metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint to measure loading performance,
• First Input Delay to measure interactivity,
• And Cumulative Layout Shift to measure visual stability.

Google announced last year that it would replace First Input Delay with Interaction to Next Paint in March 2024. Google Search Console reports CWVs, and site owners should use them as the gold standard for website performance. CWVs directly impact how Google ranks websites.

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2. Focus on mobile

Smartphones are the dominant internet device worldwide. Hence in 2015, Google released a “mobile-friendly” update to show in search results more web pages that look and function well on mobile devices. A year later, in 2016, Google started crawling and indexing mobile-first.

A website should meet or exceed Google’s CWVs thresholds on a mobile device. Doing so will clear a significant ranking hurdle.

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3. Include structured data markup

Structured data helps search engines understand and classify a web page. It also assists with voice and AI-generated search. Structured data markup can take three forms: JSN-LD, RDFa, and microdata. Schema.org is a helpful resource.

Structured data markup on an ecommerce product page can identify the item’s price, image, availability, shipping options, and return information, enabling Google and other search engines to provide relatively better and more visual results.

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4. Build a robots.txt file

Here is a tip for websites with thousands of pages: Use a robots.txt file to manage the crawl budget. Google and other search engines balance indexing web pages quickly without overwhelming their (the search engines’) servers. “Crawl budget” describes the number of pages Googlebot will access on a site in a given time frame.

The robots.txt file tells the search bot which pages it should focus on. Thus, you can help the bot avoid duplicate content, resources like files or images, and similar issues. There is no guarantee the bot will crawl only what you want, but it can help.

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5. Publish a sitemap

Every website, large and small, should have a sitemap.

Sitemaps provide search engines with a list of all indexable pages, making it easier to find and crawl and likely speed up indexing. An owner can publish sitemaps specifically for pages, images, videos, and even news in some cases.

Most content management systems or related extensions will automatically generate well-formed sitemaps, but they must still be submitted to search engines. With Google, this is done in the Search Console.

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6. Confirm indexing

Google Search Console is not just for Core Web Vitals and sitemaps. It’s an excellent tool for confirming a site’s pages are indexed. Common problems preventing indexing include:

• Server errors (5xx).
• Redirect errors.
• Improper blocking in robots.txt.
• Not found (404) errors, meaning Googlebot couldn’t find a page.
• “Soft 404” wherein Google interprets the page as a 404 even though it doesn’t return a 404 status code.
• General crawl anomalies where Googlebot encountered unspecified errors.

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7. Replace or update broken links

Broken links on a website provide a poor user experience and can negatively impact a site’s organic search rankings. Regular website audits can find and fix or replace broken links, ensuring both search engines and users can access content without issues. Search Console can help, as can specialized broken link checkers in Ahrefs, Semrush, and others.

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8. Remove or resurrect zombie pages

In the SEO context, “zombies” refer to web pages that exist on a site but add little to no value. Zombie pages might be outdated, have duplicate content, or no longer align with the site’s goals. The pages can negatively impact SEO by diluting the site’s authority and wasting crawl budget — especially for sites with thousands of pages.

Identifying and dealing with these pages — either updating or removing them — is crucial for maintaining a healthy, SEO-friendly website.

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9. Use HTTPS

Search engines prefer secure websites and may rank a secure site above a non-secure one when all other ranking factors are equal. The reason is simple. Search engines want to protect users.

“HTTPS helps prevent intruders from tampering with the communications between your websites and users’ browsers. Intruders include intentionally malicious attackers and legitimate but intrusive companies, such as ISPs or hotels that inject ads into pages,” wrote Kayce Basques of Google’s Chrome Dev Team.

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10. Produce clean, accessible URLs

Your site’s URLs should be keyword-rich, unique, and brief. The path should also be easy for a person to read, accessible to users with disabilities, and free of clutter. A URL consists of three parts: the domain, the sub-domain, and the slug.

https://subdomain.domain.tld/slug

The domain is the name of the site. It can be helpful to have a keyword in the domain name. The subdomain is still part of your site, but Google and other search engines may treat a subdomain as a separate entity when considering site authority. So be careful how you use subdomains.

The slug is the part of the URL that describes the particular page in view. It may include the year, category, or similar, but it should also describe the specific page in view. The slug for this article, for example, is checklist.

Separate words in the slug with hyphens, remove articles and propositions such as “the” and “of,” and avoid using a keyword more than once. Google hates keyword stuffing.

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11. Optimize images

Optimizing images offers at least three benefits for technical SEO.

• Site speed. Optimize for performance.
• Context. Include keywords in alt tags and captions to assist search bots in understanding the image.
• Links. Users search for images related to a topic. Linking the company’s website drives traffic.

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Link Building Strategies

Search engines such as Google treat inbound links as a measure of authority. Links are important for top rankings, but obtaining links can be a lot of work.

12. Ask colleagues for a link

Recently, a family member self-published a book on Amazon. She shared the link with everyone in the family. I bought the book, becoming her first customer. Marketers can do the same thing with links. New online shops can ask suppliers, top customers, and agencies to mention the business in a blog post or article and link to the site. Just be sure that the friend you ask has a clean and respected domain.

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13. Help out a reporter

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) connects journalists with sources for their stories. By responding to journalists’ queries, individuals and companies can get their names and expertise featured in articles and publications.

This exposure often includes a backlink to the source’s website. It’s a good way to get quality, authoritative backlinks from reputable news sites or industry blogs. These links can significantly boost a site’s visibility and search engine rankings.

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14. Create broken link alternatives

A broken link points to a page that is no longer available. Sites should avoid them. Use tools such as the W3C’s Link Checker, Dead Link Checker, PowerMapper’s SortSite, Ahrefs, or Semrush to create a list of sites with broken links. Next, create content that genuinely replaces the no-longer-available content. Then contact each publisher. Point out the broken link and ask her to consider your new and fresh content as a replacement.

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15. Help out a blogger

Blogging and email newsletter writing are experiencing a renaissance thanks to growth in the creator economy. And every one of those creators needs something to write about. As a link-building strategy, identify top bloggers and newsletter creators in your company’s industry. Reach out to them, offering resources and topic ideas.

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16. Unlinked mentions

Positive mentions of your business on other websites or social media raise visibility and otherwise send shoppers your way. Those mentions can also be an SEO link-building opportunity. Try to find unlinked mentions using a search engine or a monitoring service such as Mention, Ahrefs Alert, or Awario. Then contact the site owner with those mentions, thank him, and ask for a link.

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17. Link from sites you control or influence

This is a longstanding and still effective technique. In a video (below) describing how to get the first few links for a site, Rand Fishkin — founder of Moz, SparkToro, and SnackBar Studios — explains how to search Google for the name of your business or the name of its founders to identify sites you might influence, to obtain a direct link.

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18. Guest blogging

Guest blogging benefits both the contributor and the host site. It’s one of the most challenging yet rewarding ways to build inbound links. Guest bloggers identify industry-related websites and then contact the owner, pitch the article, and earn a link. It sounds straightforward; just expect to receive a “no” 50 times for one “yes.”

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Content Marketing

Content marketing is the act of creating or curating content and then publishing or broadcasting it. Content drives SEO, social media posts, and email newsletters.

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19. Put the keyword in the page title

For each page on your site, write a descriptive, accurate, and engaging title that includes the primary keyword phrase for which the content should rank. Think of the title tag as an advertising headline. It will help your page rank in search engines and encourage humans to investigate.

“The title tag is typically the most weighted on-page element, so it’s important that you optimize it correctly,” said SEO practitioner Greg Gifford in a lecture from Semrush’s Academy’s SEO Fundamentals Course. “Remember, this will be the blue link on the search result page.”

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20. Lead with the keyword phrase

Position your keywords early in titles, headings, and the first few sentences. It helps readers and search engines identify the topic.

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21. Build topic clusters

Content topic clusters begin with a comprehensive “pillar” page linked to detailed “cluster” pages addressing specific aspects. This structure communicates to search engines the depth and breadth of a site’s content on particular subjects. Plus, topic clusters distribute link equity from the pillar to the cluster pages. This tactic has been around for years and is still one of the best ways to encourage organic website traffic.

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22. Use the help-hub-hero tactic

Help-hub-hero content provides answers and solutions to a target audience’s questions and challenges. It also establishes expertise and trust in the merchant publishing it.

• Help content is typically detailed and instructional, such as guides, FAQs, tutorials, and explainer articles or videos. For example, craft retailer Michael’s has published over 600 classes on its YouTube channel and website, helping customers and prospects learn a skill or complete a project.

• Hub (or “hygiene”) content keeps your audience coming back. It consists of recurring material such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, and email newsletters that align with your audience’s interests. It acts as a hub — thus the name — for your community, fostering engagement by providing value.

• Hero content is the blockbuster that captures wide attention and showcases your brand. It’s ambitious, often longer than help or hub content, and aims to impact a broad audience. Hero content includes viral videos, extensive guides, groundbreaking research, or information that stands out for its creativity, quality, and ability to engage and drive immediate attention to your site.

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23. Delve into definitions

There are at least two ways to incorporate definitions into a content marketing strategy. The first is “what is” articles such as dictionaries or glossaries — competing for a top spot on search result pages for a target term and also optimizing for voice or generative AI. For example, an online store selling outdoor adventure gear could publish a glossary of “Adventure Racing Jargon” with definitions for “TA” (transition area), “bikewhacking,” and “dotwatcher.”

A second way is to include a definition at the top of an article. An online guitar boutique with an article teaching “Travis picking” could start it with a definition, such as “Named after musician Merle Travis. Travis picking is a fingerpicking technique for the guitar that features alternating bass notes struck with the thumb while playing treble notes using any of the other fingers.”

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24. Include FAQ sections

Done well, content builds trust, explains complex products or topics succinctly, and earns prominent search engine rankings. A section for frequently asked questions on your site or product detail pages can accomplish all these.

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25. Produce a podcast

Podcasts can be a highly effective promotional tool, an opportunity to engage with customers and prospects. The audio (or video) format allows for deep storytelling, putting a voice (or face) to your business while directing listeners (or viewers) to your site.

A podcast can also be a source for more content, such as a show-notes article, social media posts, or a newsletter. And podcasts breed inbound links, especially from guest interviewees.

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26. Construct calculators

Businesses have long used calculators for content marketing and conversions. For example, marketing guru Ryan Pearson noted, “One particularly effective type of interactive marketing content is the calculator. Calculators allow users to estimate their potential savings, returns on investment, or other financial metrics. This type of content can be extremely valuable to users, especially those making important financial decisions.”

Retail, B2B, and direct-to-consumer companies use calculators. For example, Lowes.com contains a mulch and soil calculator that estimates the required material for a gardening project.

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27. Create a newsletter

Editorial newsletters are the new blogs. For example, Brian Dean of Backlinko noted in March 2024 that Substack — a newsletter platform with social-media-like features — was home to more than 17,000 editorial email newsletters. Newsletters combine content marketing with email, one of the most powerful marketing mediums.

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28. Promote on social media

Promotion is an essential aspect of content marketing. An effective strategy is repurposing long-form articles or podcast episodes into smaller social updates. For example, a listicle or video podcast containing 10 ways to prepare for a marathon can morph into 10 social posts or even 10 short-form videos on TikTok, Reels, and the like.

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Email Marketing

Email marketing is direct communication with customers or prospects. Marketing via email encourages recipients to visit a site for information, purchases, or special deals.

Email performance is easily tracked with open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, providing valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences.

Email marketing drives website traffic and fosters loyalty, making it indispensable for digital marketing.

29. Ask for subscribers

“If you want to get subscribers to your email [list], you’ll need to work hard at it. Include a subscription form on every page of your website. Promote signups through free whitepapers, ebooks, or other products,” wrote Dr. Ralph Wilson, the founder of Web Marketing Today and the original author of this checklist.

Always use a double opt-in signup wherein subscribers first initiate the action on your site and then confirm it via a subsequent email. Double opt-ins reduce spam and help with deliverability.

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30. Develop a welcome series

An email welcome series contains at least three messages triggered when someone subscribes to your list. The first message should deploy moments after the subscriber completes the double opt-in registration, confirming her status and what to expect.

About two days later, send another message encouraging her to engage with your business. It could be an invitation to connect on social media, discover content on your blog, or shop on your site. Finally, send a special offer if the new subscriber does not purchase in the first week, perhaps offering free shipping or a discount.

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31. Create a post-purchase series

There are several potential email messages to send a customer after a purchase. The goal is to communicate about the order, encourage feedback, and earn additional orders. These messages typically include:

• An order confirmation thanking the customer and listing the purchased items. This message should include links to customer service personnel and methods to contact your business.
• A shipping notice when the order leaves your warehouse. Remember the tracking information.
• A delivery confirmation with an invitation to a Net Promoter survey.
• A few days after delivery, send an email requesting a product review and social media post.
• A week later, send a personalized product recommendation, inviting the customer back.

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32. Be a good sender

In 2024, Google and Yahoo enacted new email-sending policies to reduce the volume of unwanted email messages.

“We firmly believe that users worldwide deserve a more secure email environment, with fewer unwanted messages for an improved overall experience,” said Neil Kumaran, a Gmail group product manager, in a published statement.

To meet these policy requirements, marketers should:

• Authenticate email messages using the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) protocols.

• Make it easy to unsubscribe. Senders who deploy 5,000 emails in one day to Gmail or Yahoo Mail must offer a one-click unsubscribe link.

• Send emails folks want. Email senders must keep spam rates reported in Google Postmaster Tools below 0.3%.

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33. Segment recipients

Not everyone on your list is the same. Segmenting your email list may seem obvious, but many businesses still err by sending the same message to every subscriber. Contributor Andrew Aversa revealed his secrets of email segmentation, such as focusing on top customers, lapsed customers, and customers’ preferences.

Email segmentation is not new. What is new is the amount of available data.

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34. Use BIMI

Brand Indicators for Message Identification is an email specification that allows businesses to display a logo in line with an email message’s subject or sending address in the inbox of clients such as Gmail, Apple Mail, Yahoo Mail, and more.

A July 2021 report from Entrust (a payment security provider) and Red Shift (a data connectivity firm) stated that adding BIMI could boost email open rates by 21%; increase brand recall by 18%; and raise average purchase likelihood by an incredible 34%. Even a 3% increase would prompt most marketers to set up BIMI immediately.

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Advertising

Advertisements connect businesses with potential customers. Facebook, for example, does its best to connect advertisers’ products or services with interested users.

Advertising is often measured in return on advertising spend.

35. Buy search engine ads

Advertising on Google and other search engines is one of the easiest ways to promote a website. Pay-per-click or pay-per-impression ads are available via Google’s self-service platform, can be set up in moments, and are relatively easy to optimize.

Search ads can drive ecommerce sales, encourage newsletter subscriptions, and promote content. They are the Swiss Army knife of modern advertising. Google’s Smart Shopping campaigns simplify advertising for small and mid-sized businesses. Finally, you can run many campaigns with search ads, so it is a good idea to have a plan for organizing them.

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36. Advertise on social platforms

Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and Snapchat all offer quick, customizable advertising campaign setups that can boost website traffic. Social media ads are more than visibility. They’re conversion machines for generating sales, driving traffic, or increasing signups — a marketer’s secret weapon.

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37. Leverage retargeting ads

Retargeting ads operate like digital boomerangs, gently reminding visitors who didn’t purchase to return for further shopping.

These ads rely on the familiarity principle, capitalizing on the previous interest to nudge potential customers closer to conversion. Google, Facebook, and many more search and social channels offer retargeting. Retargeting ads are quick to launch and typically include granular control over whom you target and how. The Loves Data channel on YouTube contains a helpful tutorial (below) on setting up retargeting ads.

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38. Invest in podcast sponsorships

Podcast hosts have a strong influence on their listeners. Folks hear or see a podcaster and develop trust with that person. This connection makes podcasts an opportunity for ecommerce brands. Podcast advertising can drive top-of-the-funnel awareness. AG1 (formerly Athletic Greens) is an example advertiser, a direct-to-consumer merchant promoting its product on dozens of podcasts.

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39. Advertise in email newsletters

Third-party tracking cookies will soon disappear. That might be good for privacy advocates, but many advertisers will have less visibility into performance and attribution. Email newsletters are, in a sense, cookie-proof. Advertisers have two options. First, they can insert newsletter ads programmatically, targeting individual subscribers similar to search and social media ads. LiveIntent and Paved are examples of programmatic ad providers.

Second, advertisers can target email subscribers contextually. The ads often include a direct endorsement from the newsletter creator.

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40. Advertise on YouTube

YouTube ads can connect your business with a massive audience of potential customers. The video format is powerful for communicating the value of products and services. Create a YouTube channel for your video ads. Define campaigns that make sense for YouTube, create your video ad, define your target audience using YouTube’s extensive demographics, and run your campaign.

Then monitor the campaign and optimize it for conversions.

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41. Create an affiliate marketing program

Affiliate marketing connects businesses with independent marketers willing to invest time and money to sell the company’s products. As with other forms of performance advertising, companies pay when affiliates deliver a specified customer action — typically a purchase. This pay-for-what-you-get approach makes affiliate marketing cost-effective.

Setting up an affiliate program takes some work but can be very effective. Affiliate marketing networks (ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, many more) can help. However, you must still define campaigns, set the payment (commission) per action, monitor how affiliates promote your business, measure campaign effectiveness, and optimize conversions, sales, and profits.

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42. Promote via shared direct mail

Valpack is a leading U.S. shared mail provider. Each month, it sends an envelope full of coupons to millions of qualified homes. Frequent shared mail advertisers include Best Buy, Target, Old Navy, Macy’s, Lowe’s, and Sam’s Club.

Create a coupon code for your direct-mail flyer. Then, measure the number of coupon codes redeemed. Update the coupon, and test again next month. Broad offers tend to work better than narrow ones. Some brick-and-click retailers have reportedly earned more than $20 in sales for every $1 invested in shared mail promotions.

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This Checklist’s Lineage

Internet marketing pioneer Dr. Ralph F. Wilson wrote the original Web Marketing Checklist for Web Marketing Today, his popular online magazine published from 1995 to 2016.

Wilson sought to help businesses succeed online. Many companies benefited from his work. In 2012, Practical Ecommerce acquired Web Marketing Today and in 2016 merged its content into this site.

Second-party Data Could Unlock Ad Targeting

Digital advertising networks searching for new ways to target individuals across websites and devices could turn to second-party data sharing.

Internet cookies come in two flavors. First-party cookies store session data and facilitate website personalization by “remembering” a visitor and her preferences. For example, these cookies keep users logged into a website over distinct visits.

Third-party cookies track individuals across websites and have powered performance marketing for years. These tiny bits of code lead to relevant ad targeting and, for many businesses, superior returns on advertising spend.

Such tracking cookies, however, justifiably raise privacy concerns. Hence many observators, regulators, and companies have collaborated to remove most third-party cookies this year. This includes leading web browsers such as Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Brave, and Arc.

Despite the privacy enhancements, eliminating tracking cookies is not entirely positive. Visitors will see many offers for products and services they are not interested in, while advertisers — including ecommerce merchants — will spend more on ads to generate the same revenue.

A solution could be second-party data sharing, adopted already by many display networks.

Let’s explore three implementation techniques.

Programmatic Email Advertising

Programmatic email ads use hashed email addresses to identify specific people and show them relevant ads — without cookies.

The example below uses one of these ads for TactiStaff, a military-style walking stick.

The ad appeared in a daily email newsletter that offers sugar-free dessert recipes. That might not seem like a good place for a walking stick ad, but the ad was not aimed at the context. It targeted the subscriber.

The ad uses a simple HTML structure within the email: an anchor tag wrapped around an image tag.

Both the link and the image path include a hashed version of the subscriber’s email address as a parameter, making the process privacy-compliant.

When it tries to load the image, AOL mail, for example, calls the ad server, which includes that hashed email address. The ad server matches the hash to a known identity graph and produces a relevant, targeted ad.

This targeting works because the newsletter publisher shares its first-party data — the hashed email address — with the ad platform.

Informed Web Ads

Continuing with the recipe newsletter, assume this same publisher also shares data via the links to its own content.

The publisher appended each link with the subscriber’s hashed email address or similar identifier. If she clicked to read a sugar-free brownie recipe, that subscriber’s information would be passed to JavaScript on the website responsible for showing targeted ads.

The script would send the hashed email address to the ad server. The ad server would compare that hash to its database and deliver a targeted ad without a tracking cookie.

This data-sharing technique is a current and popular practice.

Active Logins

Another cookieless technique, less popular, for sustaining ad performance involves active logins.

The process requires three and sometimes four parties collaborating to deliver targeted ads: a publisher, an ad network, a community software provider, and an email service provider.

The individual shown an ad must have signed up with the publisher’s community. The parties share hashed email addresses or similar unique identifiers. This can be complex, but it functions as follows:

• An email service provider appends an email hash or other identifier to every link in every message its customers send — likely billions of emails.

• When he clicks a link and lands on a publisher’s website with the community software loaded, a subscriber is automatically logged in to the community based on the identifier.

• Once the subscriber logs in, the publisher shares first-party data with the ad server and generates a relevant, targeted ad.

Impact on Ads

Programmatic email advertising, informed web ads, and active logins are examples of advertising networks sustaining ad relevance and performance when cookies disappear. Advertisers using leading demand-side platforms may currently benefit from these approaches without knowing it.

Thus eliminating third-party cookies will disrupt advertising, but targeting is far from done.

Shopify ‘Audiences’ Boosts Cookieless Ads

Shopify Audiences is a data-sharing, machine-learning co-op that gives participating Shopify Plus merchants an edge in digital ads. It could be a model for cookieless advertising.

Regulators, big software companies such as Apple and Google, and many shoppers have demanded better personal privacy protection.

These demands upended the advertising industry. Advertisers and platforms alike are experiencing “signal loss” as the internet community collectively ends third-party tracking cookies.

ROAS and Relevance

Few folks would argue against more privacy in the digital world. Yet eliminating third-party cookies disrupts consumers and companies as advertising becomes less relevant to individual shoppers, increasing advertisers’ customer acquisition costs and return on advertising spend.

These side effects are at least annoying to shoppers and downright harmful to online sellers. The former see loads of ads they don’t care about or even dislike. Imagine the 22-year-old who sees spots for adult diapers. The latter — ecommerce merchants— becomes less profitable.

Audiences

Shopify released Audiences in May 2022 for U.S. and Canada-based Shopify Plus accounts that also use Shopify Payments.

Audiences uses first-party data from participating ecommerce sites to create custom ad-targeting audiences for Meta, Google, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, Criteo, and other large platforms. The result is better ad performance for those Shopify Plus merchants.

To borrow the example from Shopify, consider a store selling swimsuits. For this merchant, Shopify Audiences does not create a list of folks who recently purchased a swimsuit but rather shoppers who bought sunglasses, sunscreen, a sun hat, or pool supplies.

Shopify rolled out Audiences 2.2 last month. It’s a significant update, with some sellers reporting a 50% drop in acquisition costs.

This co-op approach could be a model for groups of advertisers working together to restore ad relevance and ROAS in the absence of third-party cookies.

Here’s why.

Privacy-compliant data sharing

With Shopify Audiences, merchants share anonymized data in a privacy-compliant manner. By pooling transaction data, Audiences respects privacy laws and enables merchants to collectively gain valuable insights without infringing on individuals.

First-party data sharing could be an alternative to third-party cookies so long as it respects personal privacy.

Shopping-intent signals

Meta and similar ad platforms have experienced privacy-induced signal loss, which makes ads relatively less successful, driving up customer acquisition costs.

A solution for advertisers is to upload first-party audience data. Such pooled info from co-op members could provide insights into consumer behavior and trends unavailable to individual merchants, mitigating signal loss.

Machine learning

With access to comprehensive data, merchants can improve ad targeting thanks to artificial intelligence.

Shopify Audiences employs machine learning algorithms to predict purchasing behavior so that shoppers see more relevant ads. That’s a takeaway for similar co-ops: Machine learning makes the targeting possible, as success requires crunching big data from many sellers, not a handful.

Trust

The Audiences feature works because the participating merchants trust Shopify. They believe Shopify will not misuse their data or pit one seller against another.

This mutual trust is essential for similar data-sharing co-ops.

Regulations

Shopify will presumably ensure Audiences complies with privacy regulations. Shop owners won’t need to become experts on privacy laws or rules from every jurisdiction.

Cookieless Solutions

Many inventive solutions are coming to improve advertising relevance. We can expect Meta, Google, Shopify, and others to find ways to share and use first-party, privacy-compliant data.

Shopify Audiences is one of those approaches.

iOS 17 Will Impact Podcast Ad Metrics

A change to the way Apple’s iOS operating system manages automatic podcast downloads may impact a key performance indicator for advertisers.

For years, Apple Podcasts automatically paused episode downloads when a follower’s device storage was full or when she hadn’t played any of the last five episodes for more than 15 days. Then, when the follower (i.e., subscriber) resumed, Apple would download all unplayed episodes.

But no more. In an October 2023 notice to podcast creators, Apple stated iOS 17 would not download unplayed episodes automatically once a follower removed a pause.

Storage and Reality

The update has at least two advantages over Apple’s previous practice of downloading all episodes.

First, the new iOS 17 automatic download procedure preserves device storage. Episodes won’t automatically download if a follower has not played any of the last five episodes for 15 days.

Second, download counts will more closely reflect listens, improving the value of a “download” as a marketing metric.

Advertising

This iOS 17 update may also impact how podcast advertisers measure performance.

For many advertisers, the number of times an episode is downloaded indicates how many people listened and therefore the campaign’s reach.

What’s more, downloads are among the easiest podcast metrics to track and are frequently quoted along with others that include:

• Subscriber counts,
• Subscriber growth,
• Rankings,
• Reviews.

For businesses running brand or awareness campaigns, downloads are a key metric. Thus, if the goal is to get impressions — actual listeners — then the primary KPI just got better on the Apple platform.

On the other hand, the download metric is less meaningful for performance advertisers — those looking for specific outcomes, such as signups or sales. Even with iOS 17, some (or even many) downloaded episodes are not listened to. Say a podcast is published twice weekly. A follower would need to listen to just one of them in the previous two weeks for all to be downloaded.

Better Metrics

Certainly downloads will continue to be the primary podcast metric. But performance advertisers are likely better with alternative tracking methods.

Here are a few examples.

Promotional codes. Include a promotional code in the podcast advertisement. An ecommerce shop selling high-tech gadgets could include in its ad the promotional code “FUTURE20” for a 20% discount. Customers who use that code signal to the merchant it came from the podcast.

Vanity URL. Somewhat less effective for tracking performance is a vanity URL. Imagine you operate an eco-friendly home products brand. You advertise on an eco-focused podcast and include a unique URL, such as yourstore.com/eco, in the ad message. You might even offer unique content at that URL. Visitors to the URL presumably came only from the podcast.

Website traffic or sales. A business advertising in relatively few channels could likely use analytics data to identify traffic or sales from a podcast ad, especially if it is a unique offer, such as a specific product or service.

Surveys. A business might also implement post-purchase surveys, asking customers how they heard about the product or the brand. This is typically less accurate than a promotional code or vanity URL but helpful nonetheless.

Podcast Ads

An effective podcast ad before iOS 17 will remain that way afterward, regardless of the download counts. What has changed is using “podcast download” as a metric.

10 Outstanding Marketing Campaigns from 2023

Reviewing successful digital marketing campaigns can generate ideas and strategies for your own brand.

Here is a list of outstanding marketing campaigns from established companies in 2023. The campaigns feature generative AI, celebrity spots, unusual partnerships, retrospectives, looks to the future, new audiences, mission-led content, physical pop-ups, and user-generated content.

McDonald’s: Grimace’s Birthday

In the summer, McDonald’s ran a campaign to celebrate Grimace’s birthday. Customers could order a Grimace Birthday Meal featuring a limited-edition purple shake. McDonald’s also launched an exclusive video game and Grimace-inspired merch, and fans could visit McDonald’s Instagram story and share a picture of their favorite birthday memory via the “add yours” sticker. For every photo shared, McDonald’s donated $5 (up to $200,000) to Ronald McDonald House Charities.

In response, campaign follower Austin Frazier created a simple 10-second video on TikTok of him trying the shake, then a cut to him lying on the ground with the purple shake all around his mouth. Then Gen-Z took over, posting a viral assortment of Grimace shake horror scenes. According to Guillaume Huin, McDonald’s head of social media marketing, the campaign and resulting user-generated content created billions in reach, millions in engagements and mentions, a top trend for at least eight days on X, and the top three hashtags on TikTok. To answer all the questions from campaign followers, Huin posted an insider’s view from the social media team of what happened.

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Dunkin’ with Ben Affleck

Throughout 2023, Dunkin’ created a series of comedy spots with Ben Affleck and his production company, Artists Equity. In the spots, Affleck celebrates the Massachusetts-based brand and his connection with the area. The spots are a reminder of the power of the simple, funny video on social media with young audiences.

The campaign also highlights Dunkin’s ability to capitalize on an opportunity, as the origin for the series likely stemmed from a Saturday Night Live parody of a Dunkin’ commercial starring Casey Affleck as an actual Boston customer.

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Heineken’s ‘Not All Nights Out are Out’

Heineken launched this year the “Not All Nights Out are Out” marketing campaign, its first targeted at the gaming culture. Celebrating online entertainment and gaming socialization, its main video spot, “Just Another Night Out,” tells the story of four individuals navigating end-of-day obstacles to a fun social night of multi-player gaming and their shared digital space.

In another installment, Heineken unveiled “TH3 G4M1NG FR1DG3,” a custom-made PC designed to cool both the hardware and bottles of Heineken inside so gamers can enjoy a cold beer while keeping the PC performance high. While it isn’t actually for sale, the fridge-PC hybrid highlights Heineken’s perspective on the importance of socialization within the gamer culture, connecting gamers with the brand.

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Coca-Cola’s ‘Create Real Magic’

This year, Coca-Cola joined the generative AI discussion when it invited digital creative pros to generate original artwork with iconic assets from the Coca‑Cola archives. Built exclusively for Coca‑Cola by OpenAI and Bain & Company, Create Real Magic leverages GPT-4, which produces human-like text from search engine queries, and DALL-E, which produces images based on text.

Four AI artists kickstarted the crowdsourcing campaign by creating custom art using the platform and Coca‑Cola assets. Artists could submit their work to be featured on Coke’s digital billboards in New York’s Time Square and London’s Piccadilly Circus. A group of 30 creators were selected to travel to the company’s global headquarters in Atlanta for the “Real Magic Creative Academy,” a three-day workshop curated by Coke’s Global Design and Creative teams in partnership with OpenAI.

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Pepsi: 125 Years

On August 28, Pepsi kicked off 125 days of promotions leading into New Year’s Eve to celebrate the 125 years of the brand’s founding. Fans received free Pepsi products for texting “PEPSI125.” The campaign includes nostalgic marketing spots from the past, such as the Pepsi Challenge, and a look to the future with the unveiling of its new logo.

Pepsi deployed traditional spots, social media content, SMS promotions, and an experiential component. In October, the brand opened The Pepsi 125 Diner in New York City, which served a hybrid Pepsi-milk beverage called Pilk and a soda-infused condiment called Colachup.

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Patagonia’s ‘What’s Next?’

For its 50th anniversary, Patagonia ran the “What’s Next?” campaign, using the occasion to look forward to life on Earth and prioritize purpose over profit to protect the planet’s ecosystem. The campaign also featured a montage of moments from the brand’s mission-led history.

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Heinz + Absolut: Tomato Vodka Pasta

In one of the most unexpected partnerships of 2023, Heinz and Absolut Vodka launched a limited-release Heinz + Absolut Tomato Vodka Pasta sauce. The campaign celebrated the two iconic brands combining to create a much-loved pasta sauce.

The campaign is an example of how brands can join a social media discussion. The recent attention on pasta and vodka began in 2020 when influencer Gigi Hadid shared her recipe for the sauce, which went viral. The reaction created an organic opportunity for the Heinz-Absolut collaboration.

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Barbie’s Selfie Generator

Ahead of the release of the Barbie movie, Warner Bros. partnered with PhotoRoom, an AI photo-editing app, to create the official filter that allowed fans to turn themselves into Barbie characters.

According to PhotoRoom, the interactive tool Barbieselfie.ai, used over 13 million times, took less than an hour to implement and provided fans with an instant, sharable Barbie-aesthetic image. Fans, influencers, and celebrities such as Rihanna and Pedro Pascal participated in the event.

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Dove: #FreeThePits

In 2004, Dove established the Self Esteem Project to ensure the next generation grows up with a positive relationship with their appearance. The company also created the Dove Real Beauty Pledge, vowing to portray women honestly and respectfully as they are in real life.

This year, Dove continued its mission to build a positive body image by launching a #FreeThePits campaign, a series of initiatives encouraging women to reject underarm stereotypes and embrace their pits in all forms. Dove ran ads on New York City’s subway lines and then ran a Dove “Pit Stop” pop-up shop during fashion week to celebrate underarms and give away Pit Kits containing Dove deodorant, free MetroCards, and other items to help women feel confident.

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Apple’s ‘Shot on iPhone’

Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” campaign began in 2015 to highlight the upgraded 8-megapixel camera on the iPhone 6. Photos from 77 users across 25 countries and 73 cities highlighted the camera’s capabilities and users’ diverse experiences with the iPhone.

In 2023, to showcase the capabilities of the new iPhone 15 Pro, the Apple release event was shot on that iPhone and edited with a Mac. This behind-the-scenes video shows the director, colorist, and editor sharing their production experiences with the iPhone. More importantly, it inspires users to produce their own videos and share their vision.

Tools to Monitor Competitors’ Ads

Ad transparency tools make it easy to monitor ads from any company, including a competitor. The tools provide valuable creative insight, from photography style to video formats, ad copy to call-to-action messaging.

Paid tools, such as Similarweb and Semrush, collate activity across platforms and provide performance detail.

Free tools are helpful, too. Native features on TikTok, Meta, Google, and LinkedIn reveal any company’s past and present campaigns.

Free Ad Transparency Tools

TikTok ad library

The TikTok library includes all ads — active or paused — published after October 1, 2022. Search by keyword or the name linked to the advertiser’s TikTok account. The shared data includes views and audience targeting.

Campaign metrics on the search results page provide an upper and lower range, but clicking a specific number reveals a detailed breakdown. TikTok takes up to 24 hours for new ads to show in the tool, and it won’t show any ad removed for breaching the terms of service.

This example overview page for fashion retailer JD Sports shows 10-100K ad views.

Meta Ad Library

The Meta Ad Library allows searching across Meta platforms by brand, keyword, and region. The tool launched in 2018 for, initially, Facebook alone.

The ads link to an advertiser’s Facebook page. (Always check the page’s follower count to ensure you’re on the right company.) Info on inactive campaigns is available only for ads addressing social or political issues. That includes many companies, such as the outdoor brand Finisterre, which promotes social causes.

Google Ads Transparency Center

The Google Ads Transparency Center includes ads active in the previous 30 days across search, display, YouTube, and Gmail. Search by advertiser or website — with filters for text, image, and video campaigns.

The example below shows ads for the haircare brand JVN, which I found by searching the Transparency Center for that company’s site. Note Google identifies the company running (purchasing) the ads. In this case, it’s JVN’s parent Ameris Clean Beauty Inc.

Google discloses additional details for political advertising — providing for seven years the spend, reach, and targeting criteria.

Note that new campaigns can take up to 72 hours to appear, and ads won’t show if the advertiser removed them or they violated Google’s policy, resulting in a takedown.

LinkedIn company pages

LinkedIn has no searchable ad library, but there is a workaround. First, find a company’s LinkedIn page, then navigate to the “Posts” tab and click “Ads” to see those published in the last six months. Paused and completed campaigns show here, too.

What about Twitter?

Twitter removed its ads transparency tool in 2019 when it banned political ads from the platform. There is no replacement thus far.

Retail Media Networks: Promise or Peril?

Retail media networks use first-party data such as transaction history to connect brands with prospects close to the moment of purchase, driving revenue.

RMNs can produce relatively low customer-acquisition costs and may disrupt other forms of advertising or even traditional retail co-op relationships. But they are not perfect.

RMNs on the Rise

Amazon was among the first marketplaces to experiment with retail media. From the beginning, Amazon collected first-party data such as customer behavior and purchases with unparalleled precision.

Through RMNs such as Amazon, Walmart, and many others, brands can reach consumers in decision-making modes. A shopper looking for shampoo on the Walmart marketplace is an opportunity for a brand to pitch its related (or competitive) product. The result is often very low customer acquisition costs.

The impact of RMNs is more than cost efficiency. As they expand from mere product providers to ad platforms, retailers challenge traditional co-op relationships.

Retailers and manufacturers have traditionally shared marketing costs for mutual benefit. But retailers with their own media networks might not need that co-op funding. Instead, they can generate ad revenue independently, disrupting the conventional marketing model (and supply chain).

These advantages are counterbalanced by potential problems, including privacy concerns, data management, and an evolving digital landscape. The hurdles are significant but surmountable.

Advertising Ecosystems

RMNs’ ecosystems are different from other digital ad platforms.

First, there’s the precise targeting built on first-party data. RMNs identify shoppers likely to buy certain products in the next few seconds.

The result is a win-win-win. Retailers profit from ads, brands enjoy improved conversions, and consumers see relevant product promotions just when they need them.

The uniqueness of RMNs extends beyond precision to a virtuous sales cycle. More sales generate more data, leading to better targeting. Better targeting boosts sales.

Moreover, RMNs offer ad diversification. Brands can utilize many and varied RMN channels and ad types.

RMN Challenges

Despite their promise, RMNs face challenges.

Among those are privacy concerns, advertising standards, tech compatibility issues, and the struggle to maintain relevance amid dynamic consumer behavior.

Privacy is a significant worry despite RMNs’ reliance on first-party data. Laws and regulations could apply, such as the E.U.’s  General Data Protection Regulation, the California Consumer Privacy Act, the Colorado Privacy Act, and Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act. Thus RMNs must strike a critical balance between data thriftiness and effective targeting.

Tech compatibility poses another challenge. Data must flow smoothly between retailers, brands, and other participants. Achieving this integration can be complex given the many systems in use. There is no common language or industry standard for retail media.

Keeping up with dynamic consumer behavior is difficult too. Relevant and engaging ad creative is a continual effort. RMNs must be agile, ready to respond to market shifts.

Opportunities and Trends

Despite the challenges, the RMN landscape is ripe with opportunities and promising trends.

Data privacy regulations impact other advertising platforms much more. That alone could push advertisers towards RMNs. The impending demise of third-party cookies coupled with increasingly stringent privacy regulations could make first-party data options more appealing.

Further, RMNs can take advantage of the growing demand for personalized advertising. Consumers increasingly expect personalized experiences, and RMNs can deliver highly targeted, relevant ads that meet this expectation.

Also, RMNs can leverage emerging tech trends. Artificial intelligence and machine learning can improve targeting, while augmented reality can enhance ads.

Lastly, the creation of common standards could boost RMNs. Developing a shared language and protocol could ease many compatibility hurdles.

In short, the future looks promising for retail media networks.

Demand-side Platforms Automate Ecommerce Ads

When the competition for popular keywords on Google Ads and Meta Ads reaches a feverish pitch, marketers can turn to other platforms to find pay-per-performance value.

Advertising is a crucial component of ecommerce marketing. Frequently the ads are pay-per-click, pay-per-impression banners, and similar. This is where demand-side platforms come in.

Demand-side Platforms

A DSP enables marketers to purchase advertising space across various digital media, including websites, mobile applications, streaming video, digital out-of-home billboards and screens, and streaming audio.

DSPs automate the process of buying and optimizing online, mobile, and streaming advertising, making it possible for ecommerce advertisers to reach specific audiences with relevant ads. This includes detailed audience targeting that is often based on both demographic and psychographic audience data. All of this complies with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018.

While some might argue that Google Ads and Meta Ads are more appropriately described as ad networks and refrain from calling them DSPs, both platforms meet the DSP definition and provide an excellent analogy for how all DSPs function. In this way, the marketing teams at retailers, ecommerce shops, and direct-to-consumer brands are already very familiar with how to use and work with a DSP.

Why Use DSPs?

DSPs work by connecting to multiple ad exchanges and real-time bidding systems, allowing advertisers to bid on ad space in real-time — similar to using Google Ads or Meta Ads.

DSPs can help some online brands reach potential customers at the right time and place, producing the targeting and conversion opportunities many ecommerce companies are accustomed to with Google and Meta.

If an ecommerce marketer is looking to get started with DSPs, there are a number of options, including:

Adding DSPs

DSPs are potentially a powerful tool for ecommerce businesses.

If a business is already enjoying excellent returns on Google Ads and Meta Ads, it might not make sense to look further. But when competition for audiences or keyword phrases is high, an advertiser could reach a similar audience through a DSP.