Bee Measure

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Gearing up for 2020 Ad Spend, Internet Trends Report for Data Nerds & Don’t Silo Social Data

Gearing Up For 2020: Political Ad Spend

If you thought the 2016 election was ripe with ads, just wait until the next one. Political ad spending is expected to total $9.9 billion in 2020, according to the latest U.S. ad forecast. Online fundraising isn’t new, but it is bigger than ever. So, expect to see ads for your favorite candidates popping up soon (and often)… if their campaigns get the targeting right. The Dems are all starting from scratch when it comes to digital strategy, while Trump has managed to streamline voter data files to allow his campaign to target people online more effectively. To get an idea of what that means for 2020, I’ll leave you with this quote that stood out to me: “The modern presidential campaign is now largely won and lost online.”

Zuckerburg’s Plan for Privacy

Facebook is working to strike a balance between users’ demands for more privacy and advertisers who, well, pay the bills. Plans for a tool to let people see and manage off-Facebook activity is rolling out in a few months. Zuckerburg said this about it: “It’s designed to give people more transparency and control over the data other apps and websites share with us.” The most important note about this tool is that measurement will remain intact so organizations can understand the impact of their Facebook investment. Sounds like a good move, but I’m waiting to see.

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Better Brand Awareness, Tracking Abandoned Forms & Unraveling the Marvel Universe

Cookies: Sinful or Secure?

This article is a TLDR version of Safari’s latest ITP (Intelligent Tracking Prevention) initiative. If your job involves digital communications, it deserves at least a quick glance. These changes are great for user security and privacy, but not great for people trying to understand their website users. Prior to this change, Google Analytics cookies expired after two years. That means — theoretically at least— you’d recognize a repeat visitors to your site even if their previous visit was 23 months prior. ITP means that cookies expire after a week. Now when someone doesn’t visit your site for two weeks, their next visit is counted as a new user all over again. Basically, if your organization has goals around growing an “audience of loyal users who visit the site once or twice a month,” Safari’s making it a lot harder to measure your progress.

Europeans, They Are Just Like Us

This newsletter is a sucker for survey results. This time, European charities tell Salesforceabout their marketing challenges. Here are my favorite stats:  For 75% of nonprofits in Europe, “raising awareness of their cause” was the top reason to use social media. But 96% (!) said they aren’t using digital marketing “to its fullest potential.” What’s holding them back? These organizations report struggling with selecting the right social platforms, using paid search (including their Google Ad Grant) and measuring outcomes.

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Stop Siloing Digital, Brewing The Nation’s Best IPA & A Much-Needed Perspective Change

Maximizing Your Resources

Strategy and marketing consultant Anne Boyle has a strong opinion about nonprofits that claim they “can’t afford” to create a marketing strategy. The idea is simple: organizations should be putting strategy and planning first in order to maximize their resources. One of her tips that’s actually really helpful, in my opinion, is to not try to be perfect but to just get it done.

Ditch The Digital Department

This article really threw me for a loop. “Digital” has been a buzzword for a while now, but do organizations even need someone solely dedicated to it? The short answer is no. The long answer is still no, but with more nuance. Basically, it’s advised that your organization “hire digitally skilled staff to populate every department” rather than invest in a digital department.

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Passé Website Trends, Writing Better Surveys & 2018’s Top Social Campaigns

Don’t Forget the Pictures!

When your organization’s work is, um, less than visually compelling, it’s easy to make images an afterthought. But before you download yet another boring stock photo, check out Hubspot’s list of statistics why visuals matter. Compelling images can impact not only viewers’ attention spans, but also result in higher retention and engagement. Here’s my favorite fact from the piece: “When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later.” Nice!

The Best of the Best

The Digital Agency Network presented their picks for the best social media campaigns in 2018. I love this list because it features sophisticated uses of a medium many consider, well, “basic” and, um, narcissistic. And as a bookworm, my favorite is NY Library’s InstaNovels campaign.

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Google’s Big Birthday News, Picking Your A/B Tests & Painting Data

Happy Birthday, Google! (And What That Means to You)
Most media celebrated Google’s 20th birthday with retrospectives of Google Doodles. More interesting to me, however, is the future. The tech giant shared how it expects to change search in the coming years. I had two big takeaways: an increased emphasis on making images (and video) really work on search and new features to keep users on its platform (reducing the need for them to click off to websites). Stay turned! I’m sure this newsletter will cover more about what’s next for Google.

Maybe You Don’t Need to Test…. Everything
For most nonprofits, just finishing a website redesign is a huge achievement. (I’ve been there. Extra bonus points if it’s on time and in budget.) The idea of A/B testing everything before launch is so daunting. Here’s one consultant’s take on what to test and what to push out and refine later.

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