Best Free Online Marketing Guide For Online Entrepreneur

30-second summary: The ClickZ Experience 2021 virtual event will see some of the world’s greatest marketing leadership Here’s a sneak peek at one of our keynote speakers Read on for two valuable minutes with Samantha Margolis, VP digital marketing at Christie’s ClickZ spoke with Christie’s VP digital marketing, Samantha Margolis to discover her journey in marketing leadership, challenges, and opportunities.   Q. How did you get into marketing? Samatha Margolis: I graduated with an undergraduate degree in Art History which led me to a career working in fine-art auctions.  I discovered that my favorite part was finding ways to connect people with art and objects that they love and making the auction experience more approachable. I then studied luxury marketing, digital marketing, and product development at the NYU Stern School of Business and transitioned onto the Digital Marketing team at Christie’s. Q. What do you love the most about your role? Samatha: I love g...

Google is rolling out updates to its product search pages — a move that could both improve the shopping experience and help the search engine secure more ad dollars in the ecommerce space. As Amazon’s ad revenue growth rate outpaces Google’s and ecommerce gains steam, Google sees a critical opportunity.  Google’s parent company Alphabet today announced that it will be retooling the look and feel of the tech giant's product search pages. In the new interface, product images will feature more prominently — an attempt to shift away from text-heavy search results and to create the feel of a virtual store.  The move is designed to improve the user experience for online shoppers. “The last year has shown us that while shoppers have increasingly turned to digital for their shopping needs, they miss the in-person browsing experience. Digital has increasingly become a place where people look for inspiration and ideas, it’s no longer just a destination for a quick transaction,” Matt M...

For the first time ever, the face of Apple’s original voice of Siri, Susan Bennett, has been revealed in a campaign for UserWay as the accessibility platform appeals to businesses worldwide to improve their websites for those with disabilities. The global Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the drastic need for improved web accessibility, as the sudden reliance on digital platforms and video conferencing revealed oversights in usability such as working with web readers and subtitling capabilities. Yet despite the growing need, 97% of the world’s top one million websites are currently inaccessible to those with disabilities – an issue that UserWay seeks to address in its new campaign.  The UserWay widget itself uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify any accessibility issues on a website and automatically alters the site’s code in real-time to resolve them. The widget also offers various opt-in usability and accessibility enhancements including increased color contrast, text...

Snapchat  parent company Snap has named ad giant  WPP as its first agency augmented reality (AR) partner as it seeks to deliver a new generation of marketing and commerce solutions for brands. The AR Lab will deliver immersive augmented reality experiences for brands with an emphasis on e-commerce, applying Snap’s expertise in the field with WPP’s broad capabilities across creative, media, commerce and technology. The match will offer a friction-free solution for WPP clients looking to connect with their customers on Snapchat through a medium that is slowly gaining broader acceptance. To illustrate this, a Snap survey found 94% of Snapchat users expect to harness the medium for enhanced shopping experiences at least as much in 2022 as they did in 2021. Under the deal, Snap will share its technology with WPP, including creative production and measurement tools, including the recently-launched Snapchat Trends and its AR Lab Strategy Guide. Both parties will also co-develop ...

Goal , part of the FootballCo group, has become the UK’s first sports publisher to use TikTok’s shopping feature. James Lamon, senior vice-president of content and creative, explains how the publisher used a two-hour influencer-led livestream to sell copies of Fifa 22 and the PlayStation 5. The football publisher, which already boasts 1.8 million fans on TikTok across several accounts, tapped Fifa esports caster and streamer Brandon Smith to showcase his skills at the game – as well as sell it, four PS5 consoles and a bunch of gaming accessories such as charging cables and controllers. James Lamon, senior vice-president of content and creative at Goal, who was previously at BuzzFeed for seven years and reached head of content Europe, has long pondered the question of publisher revenue diversification . BuzzFeed was famously keen to experiment with new models in branded content and commerce that shoppers and the platforms they use ...

Four London independent agencies have joined forces to form Sidekick Group, an agency collective combining video production, experiential, product sampling and full service creative expertise. Sidekick, Many Makers, Kreate and The Sampling Project have combined to form a single entity headquarted in Shoreditch, London and launches with founding clients Amazon, Marks & Spencer, Deliveroo, Sipsmith and EE. Combining the four’s existing service offerings, the collective also announced the launch of a new omnichannel retail service by experiential specialists Kreate. Duncan McCaslin, managing director of Kreate, said: “Uniting our respective strategy, creative and activation teams will deeply strengthen our offering and allow us to deliver a specialized yet comprehensive solution for the clients we work with. “Together, we’ll help brands balance their digital footprint with human-first engagements – pushing boundaries to creatively solve our clients’ problems, while remain...

The overall advertising market is set to grow by 30% on the previous year, according to a GroupM report, with strong TV and digital performances credited for the revenue boost. The forecast, published in GroupM’s This Year Next Year UK 2021 report, is ahead of its June estimates of a 24% growth. TV advertising underwent a ‘resurgence’ during the pandemic, with revenues on track to finish 2021 up 19% year-on-year, ahead of GroupM’s previous 13% forecast.   The Euros and a strong September have been key drivers of growth, along with the shortening of advance booking deadlines, which were credited for reducing barriers to entry. By year end GroupM expects digital advertising to balloon by 34% year-on-year, up against the 27% previously estimated. Higher digital estimates have been down to strong performing digital platforms, coupled with the rise of companies competing for market share with higher propensity to invest in advertising. GroupM’s estimate comes after IAB’s latest Di...

Off the back of  Michaela Coel’s inspiring Emmys acceptance speech , where she alluded to the importance of rest for nurturing creativity, we asked The Drum Network members from the advertising industry to share what practices they have in place for encouraging employees to listen to their needs and reset as necessary.  In an age of overly-popularized self-care, and following a year of working from home, what wellbeing trends are here to stay? And how can agencies better incorporate these into their employees’ working lives? With cultural zeitgeists speaking out about the importance of taking stock, what have we learned about improving the way we navigate work-life balances? Have we actually changed our measures of success – or are we still living in an era of fast-paced, automated transactions? A number of industry experts share their thoughts. Yesterday, we posted the first part to this article, so read on to find out what more industry insiders had to say about the impor...

Hoping to reverse its fortunes, Coca-Cola unveiled its first global campaign in five years. This begins a new chapter for the cola giant which is coming out of a massive restructuring, and sales slump, all while conducting a marathon global agency consolidation review. Will the promise of its new ‘Real magic’ prove prophetic for the company and its trademark brand? The global marketing powerhouse Coca-Cola has been awfully quiet since it kicked off a massive reorganization prior to pandemic. Now as we head into the holiday season, the beverage giant is making some noise with its first global campaign since 2016. Entitled “Real Magic,” the campaign promises to be more Gen Z-focused in terms of look and feel as well as marketing mix. Real Magic “is a new philosophy that will guide everything we do with our brand,” Selman Careaga, president, global Coca-Cola category said during the campaign’s rollout event today. Coke “will invite everyone to embrace the magic of humanity.” In the “Re...

At The Drum, we believe great work deserves recognition and that talented creatives should get their share of reverence for the hard work they put in. So each week we will update our hall of fame, celebrating the 10 best ads from our Creative Works section. Welcome, and don’t forget to vote for your favorite! Fridays for Future: The Denial by Fred & Farid On the anniversary of the Global Climate Strike, one of the most iconic dates in the climate fight, one of the chapters of Greta Thunberg’s Climate Movement Fridays For Future (fridaysforfuture.org) unveiled ‘The Denial’ – a new spot by Fred & Farid Los Angeles. The spot illustrates our denial about the climate crisis with a metaphor: running into a wall. It is literally what we are doing today when it comes to climate change. Vote for the work here. Channel 4: Sweet Return by 4Creative   Loading... Channel 4 whipped up excitement for the hotly-anticipated return of The Great British Bake Off wi...

Google  has updated how marketers measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns by shelving last-click attribution  (LCA) for a supposedly smarter machine learning tool that has a broader view of the conversion pipeline. The Drum probes marketers on how this will impact them. What is last-click attribution? Last-click attribution is a metric designed to quantify what digital ad drove a product sale. From this, the effectiveness of placements can be inferred. But the framework is biased toward crediting and over-emphasizing the importance of that last ad in the chain, sometimes at the expense of a broader marketing funnel that would have created product demand and awareness in the first place. It could also provide a very skewed idea of how humans discover and buy products if religiously followed – especially when considering how much media we consume each day.  Why is Google moving away from last-click attribution? Data-driven attribution will be made ...

Hollyoaks actor Jennifer Metcalfe is  the latest influencer to be ruled noncompliant by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).  According to an ASA report, Metcalfe has been issued a warning from the watchdog after she failed to make clear to followers that she had been paid to promote a HairCybele hair-curling device. What’s the issue? The post in question, an Instagram story promoting Hair Cybele, featured an image of her holding a hair styling device.  The text in Metcalfe’s post read “hair goals”, with further text stating “Me again! Use code JEN70 for 70% off! @HAIRCYBELE Swipe up to view website.” A complainant challenged whether the post was obviously identifiable as a marketing communication. Haircybele said it had entered into a one-off agreement with Metcalfe and provided details of the brief for the ad, which included instructions on what she should say and how to demonstrate the use of the hair curler and display the results of using it, for whic...

The talent crisis has reached the point where agencies are being more selective about what they pitch for. Christine Downton, associate partner, The Observatory International, explains. Earlier this summer we warned that the battle for agency talent would become intense. That prediction is now a reality. Even agencies are admitting it, with Havas London chief exec Xavier Rees recently arguing that the business needs to look beyond its traditional recruiting grounds to find the talent it needs. And it is not just agency talent that has been an issue – demand for photographic studios and post-production facilities has become intense. Warc’s Global Marketing Index has seen activity growth at 64.2% during July and August. In the UK ad spend is forecast to grow by 18.2% in 2021 (Advertising Association/Warc Expenditure Report) – the largest annual growth on record. These resourcing pressures are having an impact across the marketing ecosystem, but the impact on pitch activity h...

How will television evolve as a marketing and advertising channel by the end of the 2020s? And what can brands and agencies do right now to ensure they’re ahead of the curve? A new downloadable white paper by Comcast Technology Solutions, in partnership with MTM London, aims to answer these questions. ‘What’s Next for TV Advertising – four changes that will drive the industry forward’ is a practical, in-depth research report which utilizes experts from Unilever, Discovery Inc, Dentsu, and GroupM to point the way forward for marketers. The fascinating new white paper is part of Comcast Technology Solutions’ TV 2025 initiative, which is an ongoing international research program that explores a diverse array of industry views and ideas in order to assist the TV industry as it prepares to enter a period of transformation. The white paper explores how TV is transitioning from a broadcast-only industry to a multiplatform video market thanks to the rise of digital and on-demand offerings. ...

UK advertisers have shaken off the economic impact of the pandemic, according to new brand value data from Kantar .  Its BrandZ Most Valuable UK Brands 2021 ranking estimates that the top 75 British brands are growing faster in value than the FTSE 100.  What has the research found?  Kantar estimates the approximate collective value of the UK’s 75 biggest brands, based on surveys of 150,000 UK consumers, to have reached $278.8bn.  In 2021, Kantar estimated that the five most valuable brands in Britain were Vodafone, HSBC, Shell, Tesco and Lipton. Startup brands such as Revolut and Deliveroo have stolen a march on competitors, however, with their brand values jumping 41% and 58% in the last year respectively.  Royal Mail, Ocado and Asos were three of the fastest-growing brands in the last year, reflecting better consumer awareness and demand for delivery specalists duri...

In the last couple of years, gaming has emerged out of the shadows of being seen as niche to being a potential treasure trove of engaged consumers. Understanding what makes these engaged, and varied, audiences tick is exactly where agencies have an opportunity to grow, according to industry leaders. The Drum spoke to Nikhil Rao, senior marketing director at Mondelez Southeast Asia, Sunil Naryani, VP of commercial and partnerships, at dentsu APAC, Helen Tan, managing director, Team Unilever Asia (SEA, China, South Asia) at Mindshare and Adrian Watkins, marketing and growth director APAC at AdColony on the panel on potential of gaming at The Drum’s Agencies4Growth festival 2021. This panel brings together brands and agency representatives and gets them to talk about the gaming opportunity, understanding the psyche of the gamer consumer, her media consumption choices and what that means for agencies. It also tells agencies what to do better and what to avoid, in order to get the most fr...

Caution and hesitation have given way to boundless optimism among digital advertisers over the first six months of the year, with new figures recording an eye-opening 49% year-on-year rise to £10.5bn. More impressively, the statistics chart a 42% increase versus ad spend in the first half of 2019, proving that the market is significantly outperforming its pre-pandemic baseline. The turbocharged growth is documented by the IAB’s latest Digital Ad Spend report, which draws on data provided by PwC to record the ebb and flow of sentiment and spending. 2021’s jump is the largest ever recorded by the media company since it began biannual reporting. Attributing the boom to a flourishing e-commerce market, improving production logistics and light at the end of the lockdown tunnel, the IAB also cataloged the changing lifestyles of Britain’s online population, which has increased 6% since the start of the pandemic – driven by the over 75s, where the proportion online surged 43%. IAB UK...

Welcome to So You Want My Job? Each week we ask the people working in some of the industry’s coolest roles about how they got where they are. Along the way, we dig into their philosophies, inspirations, processes and experiences. Hopefully, our interviewees can inspire you to pursue (or create) a job that’s just as exciting. This week we catch up with Suhail Khan, chief marketing officer of GWI [previously Global Web Index]. What did you want to be when you were growing up? Does your job now resemble that in any way? I was born in Pakistan, and when I was in my teens we moved to Chicago. I studied at Loyola University in Chicago and moved to San Francisco with my first job. Over the years I worked in various roles at MCI including marketing and product marketing, comms and M&A. Later I moved from telecom to software and entered the world of the Silicon Valley dot-com boom in the mid-nineties. Growing up, I wanted to be a lawyer. I loved debate, and the idea that one could influ...

Hispanic and Latinx leaders at top agencies open up about combating biases in the industry, bringing young talent into the fold, connecting with Hispanic and Latinx audiences, the value of authenticity and more. This is part one of The Drum’s two-part series in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month.  On overcoming hurdles in the advertising industry and in the workplace “First-gen Latinas are conditioned to be thankful to have a job, to work twice as hard to prove they belong there and to be humble about their successes. It’s a five-star recipe for being undervalued, overworked and underpaid. Everything changed for me the moment I realized no one was as invested in seeing me win as much as I am. Why would they be? No one else is going to ensure you get everything you deserve. Go out and get it.” – Vanessa Toro, vice-president and group director of creative strategy at Digitas “I struggled for many years with my accent. When you move to a different country and the language is di...