Next Wavelength

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Digital Marketing

A Guide to the newest Helpful Content Update from Google

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Helpful Content Update from Google 2022
Helpful Content Update 2022

There has been a lot of chaos around the recent “Helpful Content Update” from Google. Content marketers, content writers, and SEO teams are working hard to see the results of this update. As the algorithm comes to fruition, websites with content solely targeting the search engines will be penalized. There are chances that the website might be blocked forever.

Google works hard to provide helpful content and value to the reader. Today we will cover how this update works.

What is the update?

Google believes in content pieces that are helpful to the readers of the content. The recent Google update focuses on the content written by and for the people. It aims to ensure that the content pieces are original and helpful. 

But how to ensure that the content you produce is SEO optimized AND people-friendly? Let us take a look.

How to produce content that adheres to the newest Google HCU update?

When content writers produce content, they always include all the SEO keywords. Traditionally, using these keywords resulted in the desired website rank. But, with this update, the content pieces that offer a satisfactory experience will rank better. 

But if a content piece does not meet reader expectations will not be able to perform better on the Google search engine results. To ensure this, the content creators should create content with people in mind. 

The content should not be written with the sole purpose of optimizing for search engines alone but should also include content helping people out with their queries.

To provide the best content piece, you have to focus on two things:

  • Prioritize producing helpful content for the readers
  • Use SEO best practices to curate SEO-friendly content

Your content should be able to go through the following parameters to ensure that your website does not get punished:

  • A well and clearly defined target audience for the content you are publishing.
  • Ability to define first-hand experience and understanding of the product/service.
  • The content is in-depth and well-researched
  • A clear purpose of your website
  • Does your content piece provide enough information and understanding of the topic?
  • Will your reader be satisfied with the content you have written?
  • Does your content follow Google’s core updates and product review guidelines?

You have no reason to worry if your content goes through all these filters and still looks perfect.

Stop producing content that targets the Search engines

SEO practices should be implemented only after the content is focused on educating the reader. Firstly, as a writer, ensure that the content is human-first, not search engines. Secondly, optimize the content once the draft is ready. 

In general, the content piece that targets search engines primarily is very dissatisfying. Therefore, a piece of advice here is to avoid writing for search engines. Instead, analyze how your content piece can be a valuable piece of information. 

The following pointers help you understand what kind of content looks valuable to Google and your visitors:

  • The content piece provides valuable information to your audience. 
  • Don’t push out the content just for a rank. 
  • Avoid using automation tools to produce the content. 
  • Give in-depth research into the content you have to offer instead of putting out a summary.
  • Write about something that provides value to your audience and visitors.
  • Producing valuable content, so the users don’t have to look elsewhere to find what they are looking for.
  • Creating content that has a quality, not just word count. 
  • Addressing a niche with evident expertise without thinking about traffic. 
  • Answer a question that you know of without an official announcement about the topic. 

A word of caution

A website with unhelpful content published to attract web traffic using SEO practices has a high chance of penalization. There will be a lot of changes in the website ranks after the rollout. 

With the release implementation from next week, many websites will tumble off the results. Other websites may start ranking better. It all depends on what kind of content you produce and whether it is focused on people or search engines.

Want to know more about the Helpful Content Update or SEO in general? Reach out to us.

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4 bold changes Meta made in Facebook Ads Targeting

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While creating an audience for a Facebook ad campaign for one of our clients, I noticed some changes in Facebook ads targeting options. Facebook no longer gives the targeting option related to breast cancer. Digging deep into the issue, I found that Facebook has removed some categories from their audience targeting option.

It was a pleasant surprise to see that Meta takes some initiative by removing some sensitive parameters from Facebook’s audience targeting options.

What changed in Facebook ads targeting

After doing some more research, we found that four categories in the audience targeting options are gone.

  • Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures
  • Religious beliefs and religious groups (like “Catholic Church”)
  • Sexual orientation (like “LGBT community”)
  • Health issues and causes (like “Breast cancer awareness”)

These changes in Facebook’s ad campaign started today, January 19, 2022, and the rollout will happen throughout the week across different regions.

From the past couple of years, the growing concern related to personal data of people being used through different advertising platforms has challenged companies like Meta to scale back their targeting options and stay away from individual characteristics.

How to minimize the potential impact of these changes

These changes will not drastically impact how most businesses create their Facebook ads. However, if it will somehow affect your marketing strategy or target audience, there is still a way to minimize the impact of these changes on your ongoing campaigns.

Meta has released a statement on their developers portal. They have mentioned that the campaign-level edits can still be made (like budget amount or campaign names) on campaigns created before January 19, 2022. But after March 17, 2022, it will no longer be possible to edit previous campaigns without triggering audience changes.

Edits at ad set level or ad level will trigger audience changes immediately from today itself. 

What to expect in future

This update will not go unnoticed by other digital advertising platforms, and soon we can expect similar changes to them as well. 

For the time being, it is interesting to see that finally, Meta is listening and taking some action for the enormous amount of feedback related to data privacy that has been mounting up for the past 2 to 3 years.

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15 Awesome Facebook Marketing Statistics You Need to Know in 2021

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Facebook connects more people online today than any other company. Its popularity has prompted businesses to rethink their marketing efforts and how to best engage with potential customers online. 

Here are 15 statistics that will help you understand the social network better and craft your Facebook marketing strategy accordingly.

1. For your Facebook marketing your daily active users has risen to 1.91 billion

About 1.91 billion users are active on Facebook each day, up 7% or 123 million compared to last year. Daily active users represented approximately 66% of the 2.90 billion monthly active users in June. Meanwhile, monthly active users grew by 194 million (or 7% compared to last year).

(Facebook, 2021)

2. Users between 25–34 years constitute the biggest demographic group

As of July 2021, amongst global Facebook users, 18.8% were male between 25 and 34 years old and 12.5% were female in the same age range. While Facebook users are a diverse age group, 71.9% are within the 18–44 years old range.

(Statista, 2021)

3. India has the highest number of Facebook users in the world

India far outnumbers other countries with its 340 million users. It is followed by the United States with 200 million users and Indonesia with 140 million users. Since global usage distribution is widespread, businesses and brands who are considering an international expansion can not ignore Facebook when it comes to marketing.

(Statista, 2021)

top 15 countries based on number of facebook users

4. 1.1 billion Facebook users talk in English

Every marketer knows that Facebook is fundamental to most marketing strategies on an international scale – with the capacity to reach billions of users. Despite living across diverse locations it is heartening to know that 1.1 billion Facebook users speak in English. 

(WeAreSocial, 2021)

5. Almost all users exclusively use mobile to access Facebook

98.5% of users accessed Facebook via any kind of mobile device and 81.8% of users accessed it via only a mobile phone. Businesses with Facebook Pages should keep this in mind. When creating ads and posts, you should focus not on desktop only but ensure that they look good on mobile devices as well.

(Statista, 2021)

6. More than 1.8 billion people are using Facebook Groups every month

As people seek new ways to stay connected due to COVID-19 social distancing, Facebook group activity has seen a significant uptick, with more than 1.8 billion people actively using Facebook Groups every month.

(Facebook, 2021)

7. Facebook’s total ad revenue was $28.5 billion in Q2 2021

In the second quarter of 2021, Facebook’s total revenue was $29.1 billion, which is a 56% year-over-year increase. Of which, their advertising revenue amounted to roughly $28.5 billion. In 2020, Facebook’s advertising revenue worldwide amounted to $84.2 billion. Needless to say, Facebook is still one of the most important platforms for advertising and growth.

(Statista, 2021)

8. Facebook has the most ads & highest CTR

Facebook Ads Manager offers four different ad placements: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network. Of these four, Facebook is the dominant platform with the most ads (45.2%), the highest average CPM ($5.82) and the highest CTR (3.90%), while the CTRs on Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger fall under 1%.

Facebook – $5.82 CPM & $0.33 CPC

Instagram – $5.33 CPM & $0.98 CPC

Audience Network- $4.47 CPM & $0.52 CPC

Messenger – $4.15 CPM & $0.52 CPC
(Social Insider, 2020)

Average facebook ad click through rate by placement

9. Conversions are the main campaign objective for 26.94% of Facebook ads

There are various options to choose from – from metric goals like engagement, reach, or clicks, to broader objectives such as brand awareness or store visits. The main of most Facebook ads is to achieve conversions (26.94% of ads). Meanwhile, 24.19% of ads are aiming for post engagement, and 22.64% are seeking link clicks. Brand awareness, event responses, and store visits are even less popular objectives and ads with either of these three aims make up only 2.03% of the total.

(Social Insider, 2020)

Most common campaign objective in facebook ads

10. Status ads have the highest click-through rate

Among the creative types available in Facebook ads, status ads have the highest click-through rate (6.65%). This is a little surprising, given that status ads are averaging only $58.27 in ad spend while video ($157.15) and share ($146.16) have the two highest average spends.

(Social Insider, 2020)

11. 15% of all Facebook content is video

Between Facebook Live and native videos, video content totaled 15% of all content. In 2020, 71% of video content was published by Pages with over 100k fans.

(Social Insider, 2021)

12. Vertical videos generate the highest engagement rate

Vertical videos with a description length of up to 10 words increased engagement rates from 0.29% to 0.44%

(Social Insider, 2021)

Average engagement rate by video format over time

13. There are more than 200 million small businesses around the world using Facebook marketing tools

One of Facebook’s most popular tools is the Facebook Page where businesses can publish and share their information like address, contact details, and a description of their products or services. Using this tool brands can greatly increase their online presence and connect with people who might be interested in what they have to offer. There are over 200 million small businesses on Facebook from around the world.

(Facebook, 2021)

14. Users spend an average of 19.5 hours per month on Facebook

Facebook plays a big role in consumers’ lives. It’s the most popular social media app. People spend a similar amount of time on WhatsApp (19.4 hours per month). This is followed by Instagram at 10.3 hours per month.

(DataReportal, 2021)

15. 48.5% of B2B decision-makers use Facebook for research

Facebook is amongst the topmost social networks for B2B research. Only YouTube comes in higher at 50.9%.

(Hootsuite, 2021)

If you are interested in scaling your Facebook ads, read about the 6 advance techniques for scaling facebook ads in 2021

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5 most effective tips to manage your PPC Campaigns during COVID-19

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COVID-19 has affected customers and businesses in various ways. Customers are buying more of their essentials online while some businesses are scrambling to break even. Altered buyer behavior and current market situations have caused some businesses to end their online PPC campaigns while others are contemplating it. It might turn out to be the wrong move that will cause more harm than good.

Scale Down, But Don’t Kill Your PPC Campaigns

Buying habits and priorities have changed for now. If your conversion rates have dipped, take a look at other businesses in your industry. If they are in a similar predicament, reduce your ad spend but do not kill your campaigns completely especially if they were working well. The data will get messed up and you will have to start from scratch to rebuild your targeted audience. 

When you come across logistics issues such as stuck deliveries or trouble restocking the goods, don’t remove your ads entirely. You can pause them for a while and mark them as “currently out of stock”.

Pounce If You Have To

Most people are staying home in isolation and their use of the internet has increased significantly. There is a lot of traffic and huge amounts of wasted potential because businesses are scared to market their offerings.

PPC rates have been fluctuating but right now the cost of ads is low. While the conversion rates are different based on industries, it is still an amazing opportunity for proactive businesses to build their brand. The usual oversaturated market is facing less competition as many marketers and companies have retreated.

After figuring out how the market is evolving, businesses that dare to act now have a potential to grow that should not be squandered. 

Due to uncertain business conditions, there is a window of opportunity now where your competitors are not spending on particular keywords. You can increase rankings for the more competitive and high traffic keywords by spending less and increasing your conversion rate.

Connect With Your Audience

Use emails and go live on your social media accounts and build relations. Being open and wishing good for your consumers health and livelihoods would improve brand image and conversions. 

Pivot slightly and increase your offerings by factoring in certain activities that have been on the rise like homeschooling, working virtually at home offices, social distancing, reconnecting with old friends and family. Mention them when in your ad campaigns too.

Get inspirations from some of the top businesses in the world and how they are conducting themselves during this pandemic.

Change Your Messaging

We are still living in uncertainty. Be considerate of people’s feelings and critically examine the context and tone of your messaging. Mention your services accurately in your ads such as “free home delivery” or “same day delivery”. Avoid showing large gatherings of people. 

You should experiment and run campaigns on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other social platforms. Find out how people are searching for terms and topics related to the Coronavirus and adapt your marketing to help them in any way you can.

Take Advantage Of Cash Grants

Last but not least, eligible small businesses should take advantage of grants offered by the likes of Facebook and Google in their efforts to support and empower Small Business owners. Besides 

Facebook is offering $100 million in cash credits to support SMBs in 30 countries. To be eligible, you must:

  • Have between 2 and 50 employees
  • Have been in business for over a year
  • Have experienced challenges from COVID-19
  • Be in or near a location where Facebook operates

Similarly, Google will provide ad credits to “Small and medium-sized businesses globally, who have spent with a Google Ads account in ten out of twelve months of 2019, and in January and/or February of this year. Eligible customers are those who advertised directly with us or through a partner, and adhere to our advertising policies.”

PPC Campaigns

Wrap Up

While there is a positive impact amongst local grocery retailers and education industries, some of the most negatively impacted verticals include travel, tourism, leisure, car rentals and alternative medicine. We would advise you to observe the landscape well, gain up to date knowledge before making any big decisions. It is easier to experiment with new pricing and messaging and scale upwards when your PPC campaigns go right – than to completely start from scratch hoping for a miracle.

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The Best Way To Effectively Scale Your Facebook Ads (6 Advanced Techniques)

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When it comes to scaling Facebook ads, most people suggest the same tactic – A/B testing. “A/B test your copy. Then A/B test your landing page. A/B test all your creative. In fact, A/B test your entire campaign!”

I mean, aren’t you a little tired of listening to the same old yapping about A/B Testing over and over again?

Yes, A/B test has its place in Facebook ads but it is not a ninja technique to magically improve your conversions! A/B testing requires costly software and heavy traffic to run experiments that can return statistically meaningful results.

Here are six powerful techniques that will help you in scaling Facebook ads while staying profitable.

1. Managing your daily budgets

This is something a lot of Facebook Advertisers struggle with, how do you decide your daily budgets?

There’s no doubt Facebook provides high-quality traffic to campaigns with higher daily spends. But if you haven’t tested your audience, creative and copy – the better option is to always start with something like $20 per day. 

Once you have done tests and seen results, you can start scaling your campaigns by setting up higher daily budgets like $100 or $200 per day.

It’s all about providing Facebook with more data, if you can spend more, that does not necessarily mean your ads will start performing better.

Optimize first, then scale.

2. Continuously fed lookalike audience

To scale your campaigns and boost sales, it’s really important to keep your Audiences fresh.

One way to achieve that is by following a strategy we call ‘Continuously Fed Lookalike Audiences’.

Can you imagine the return on your Ad spend if you could only target people who are more likely to convert?

Assuming you’ve already implemented Facebook Pixel on your Landing Page or Website, you can create custom conversions and track everyone who is converting from your ads. You can then create a Lookalike audience of people who are converting and create new Ads from it.

The data will keep getting stronger, as your custom conversions feed your lookalike. This technique is guaranteed to scale your conversions and amplify your ROI.

3. Facebook automated rules for scaling Facebook ads

Facebook has an automation feature in Ads Manager called ‘Rules‘. Which has different parameters for automating actions like ‘turning on’ or ‘turning off’ a Campaign, an Ad Set or an individual Ad. 

For example, if Cost per Result goes above an amount which is not profitable for your business, Facebook will automatically shut off your ads. 

Automation rules help in minimizing the risks like over-spending on Ads that don’t deliver results without having to monitor your ads all day long. 

You can also set an automation rule to increase your campaign budget and scale if your ads are profitable.

4. Lookalike audience from video engagement

It is a powerful technique where you can really leverage your video marketing.

Facebook allows you to create a custom audience based on video views. For example, people who watched more than 50% of your video.

If people watch your video (or at least 50% of it), there’s a decent chance that they are interested in your offer, or at the very least motivated by your marketing. 

When you build your campaigns based on lookalikes of an already engaged audience, it will have a higher probability of targeting more individuals who are interested in your offerings.

5. Avoid audience overlap between your ad sets

Audiences you create on Facebook can be checked for overlap.

The ‘Audience Overlap’ tool will show what percentage of people are common among the different audiences you have created. If you are not keeping this factor in check, you can count on Facebook doing it for you, as it’s a part of their algorithm. 

Ad Sets with more than 25% of Audience Overlap will have delivery issues. Ads can simply stop showing, or worse, they will end up competing against each other in Facebook auction. 

As if you don’t have enough competition already.

6. LTV (Lifetime Value) lookalike audience

Over the years Facebook has been gathering information from their pixels all across the web.

Pixels have gathered up the data for conversion values and revenue tracking for whoever has been using them. 

Facebook can tell how much an individual spends over their ‘lifetime’ with businesses, those who spend more are segmented as ‘high quality’ traffic.

When creating a custom audience from an email list, Facebook also provides an option to add value to each individual, how much they have profited your business. 

That’s why this technique of creating ‘LTV Lookalikes’ is really great for businesses who have a well segmented CRM database. 

By following this technique you will be able to closely align your Lookalike audiences with high value individuals across Facebook.

Wrap up

These are some of the most powerful techniques that when scaling Facebook ads. Start using these techniques in your campaigns, and you will be able to tackle scaling and profitability issues with ease.

If you are interested in Facebook marketing, have a look at 15 Awesome Facebook Marketing Statistics You Need to Know in 2021

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Why is digital marketing important for businesses?

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Business owners have to make very important decisions like how much to invest in digital marketing, which social channels to pick, whether to assemble an in-house team or hire an agency. Understanding these issues well is extremely vital to identify your current situation and achieve your goals.

To understand digital marketing importance here are the answers to some of the most common questions about digital marketing.

Why should I care about digital marketing?

Digital marketing is an integral part of how a business operates and caters to its customers. Traditional marketing favored big companies while modern digital marketing allows smaller companies a chance to compete as well. The only catch is having an integrated marketing strategy which will be data-driven and optimised as the campaigns go on. 

Some small businesses have used digital and reached globally – making sales in 3 continents within 18 months and increasing revenue by over 200%. This would not be possible with traditional marketing.

The main benefits of digital marketing include:

  • Your customers are online. Reach out to them where they hang out at the time they can see you.
  • Making it a level playing field for smaller businesses who have the right approach towards digital marketing.
  • Advanced analytics ensure that you know what is working and what is not. An ad on TV costs a lot and you don’t really know what was the outcome of running it.
  • You can track every action immediately – measure the time, money and efforts you spend, cut the losses and double down on what works.
  • The more thorough and thought out your marketing strategy is, the better you can target your audience and personalise the marketing.
  • Can be highly automated saving you time so you can focus on your product and services.
  • When done right, gives extremely high ROI.
  • Flexibility – it can scale as you grow and expand.
  • You can talk to your customers and create brand loyalty and retention. Answer them when they have any queries. 
  • Reviews and testimonials add social proof which helps in persuading skeptical customers.
  • Reach a global marketplace and understand them better.
  • Your competitors are online. You can position yourself in a way to compete with them.

How much time will it take to see the results? Can I get sales immediately?

The short answer? It depends.

On what?

On the nature of product/business, market awareness and demand, competitors, and saturation. Digitally speaking, it depends on your website’s state, how long it has been around, how much content is on it.

Anyone guaranteeing super-quick results needs to take a lie detector test. 

There is no magic formula to determine the exact time it will take to see any sales.

We get it, you want to see immediate results. So do we, but that happens very rarely. Some results might come immediately and some a few months later.

The main reason why many companies don’t taste the fruits of digital marketing is that they stop too soon and pull out when they feel things are not working out. 

Digital agencies rely on experience and processes – not just mere tactics. This way the returns of SEO, content, PPC or any other service can be measured, monitored, and optimised. 

 A good website, branding, SEO, content marketing and social media strategy will work with each other and eventually increase traffic and generate sales.

Which digital channel should I use to sell?

This doesn’t have a straight one-size-fits-all answer.

Yes, you want to get the most out of whichever channel you invest time or money into.

Every business should work on content, SEO, email marketing. 

This is because the price of Google, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn ads fluctuate and not everyone can afford to market on all platforms simultaneously. In 2019, 97% of marketers were investing in paid social. But you can’t just throw some money on paid channels and expect to acquire leads and customers.

The ultimate aim should be to create a multi-channel funnel which will generate leads and sales. This funnel strategy will develop gradually and depend on your budget, keeping in consideration your short-term and long-term goals.

At Next Wavelength we use a lean methodology that starts with the least amount of risk and is experimental in nature. We monitor the campaign, discarding what doesn’t work and improving what does.

How much money should I invest in digital marketing?

Today, most companies are not relying solely on billboards, television ads, flyers or pamphlets. Their prime focus is on digital marketing.

As per, Gartner’s Annual CMO Spend Survey, 61% of CMOs said that they were expecting budgets to increase for 2020.

There is no absolute number. Of course it is easier to justify the cost when someone already wants to scale a marketing funnel that is already generating sales. It becomes extremely uncomfortable for someone to shell out money when setting up digital assets for the first time.

The branding, logo, website, marketing funnel – all require detailed research before they can be executed. Keeping in mind a user-centric approach will make your life much easier. A user-centric approach is when you understand your customer’s needs and objections they may have and work towards providing a smooth experience.

Do your website and landing pages convert users or will they need to be revamped? Do you have access to necessary tools and are they integrated properly?

How much you should invest in digital marketing ultimately boils down to the state of what you already have such as a website, landing pages, tools etc. and where you need to go.

I have already tried digital marketing before and it didn’t work

For many companies, digital marketing doesn’t work out the first time. Here are some of the reasons that might happen:

  • Using a cookie cutter approach and merely copy-pasting templates. Instead of understanding the objectives and developing a custom solution.
  • Not having a consistent look and messaging across the various digital channels
  • Bad communication and not highlighting the benefits of your product.
  • Having little budget and not knowing how to create a process where you start targeting the low hanging fruit, get tangible results and move upwards.
  • Not taking the time to research prospects and customers. This results in poor understanding of the target audience due to flawed buyer persona.
  • Undefined goals, no tracking and measurement of success, unreasonable expectations.
  • Copycat marketers who can’t formulate strategies based on market conditions, but only follow tactics that worked for others (in a certain context).
  • Trying to find unethical means to sales like buying lists containing leads data, blackhat SEO and content tactics, buying fake likes and views etc.
  • Lack of education

Can I do digital marketing by myself?

Yes, and no.

If you have the resources, you can assemble an in-house team for design, development, SEO, content, performance marketing etc. But if you don’t already have a proper digital marketing specialist or experienced HR, you wouldn’t know the right person to hire.

Furthermore, can you afford to pay the costs of hiring and maintaining an entire team? You need to facilitate their training to make sure they are up to date with the latest developments and best practices.

If things go well, that’s awesome. But allow us to play the devil’s advocate here for a moment.

What if you spent all that money, months have passed and you’re not seeing any results? How will you find out the root cause of the problem or who needs to be held accountable?

Maybe you’re thinking of not hiring a team and just doing everything by yourself?

With competitors focusing on content marketing, visual storytelling, demand generation, data analytics – here’s our advice. No one can do it unaccompanied, that’s why you need to work with specialist agencies.

You see, with an agency you get what you pay for. Everything is taken care of and they can help you within a reasonable budget. They have the tools, experience and resources in-house with skilled specialists to use them to meet your target goals. But best of all, when your agreed-upon goals aren’t met, the agency will be held accountable.

Wrap up

So there you go. As you can see, it’s very important to choose experienced specialists to prepare your strategy and decide the tactics to meet your objectives. Digital marketing is extremely necessary to understand your customers’ pain points and how you can help them in their journey. A data-driven approach removes the guesswork out of your marketing.

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