Author Archives for Igor Belogolovsky

Your ad copy is often where a customer experiences their first impression of your business.

What happens if those critical words are misspelled?

According to this extensive study by the team at Website Planet, you can expect to pay 10-20% more for clicks than other advertisers (depending on geography).

You could also see 70% fewer clicks than your competitors.

Which makes sense! Typos and misspelled words, especially in an ad headline, look unprofessional. Sometimes, they make your product look like malware. Overall, it’s a poor first impression that erodes trust.

Potential customers look at your storefront as a reflection of what using your software or product will be like. If the experience starts off with poor attention to detail, their faith in how you’ll attend to their needs as they use the tools is quickly demolished.

In the digital world, typos are often dismissed as inevitable. They sneak into texts, tweets, and sometimes, our website copy. But how do these little blunders affect the way potential customers interact with ads and landing pages? The folks at Website Planet were curious and decided to put spelling and grammar under the microscope. Let’s dive into the study. What they found was both surprising and enlightening.

They kicked off their investigation with a set of hypotheses. They figured that a typo in an ad might turn users off, leading to a dip in the click-through rate. Similarly, a typo-ridden landing page might not sit well with visitors, possibly causing a spike in the bounce rate.

So, they rolled up their sleeves and set up some A/B tests for Google ads and landing pages. They crafted three variants of an ad; one clean, one with a moderate typo, and another with an extreme typo. They also whipped up two landing pages; one typo-free and the other generously sprinkled with errors.

Now, the results?

First off, the typo-infested ads saw a decrease in clicks by up to 70% compared to the clean ad. And here’s the kicker, the geography mattered. In native English-speaking regions like the US and the UK, the clean ad won the day. But in India, an ad with a grammatical mistake unexpectedly took the lead. When it came to the cost, typos weren’t so forgiving. In the US, a typo could cost up to 10% more, while in the UK, the penalty for typos soared to 20% and a whopping 72% for grammatical errors.

Shifting the lens to the landing pages, the typo-laden page saw an 85% increase in bounce rate and an 8% reduction in time spent on the site. Despite a popular belief (backed by a Cambridge University study) that the order of letters in a word doesn’t matter much as long as the first and last letters are right, typos turned out to be quite the party poopers.

The takeaway? Good grammar isn’t just the hallmark of good communication; it’s a business imperative. Whether it’s the ad that introduces people to your brand or the landing page that welcomes them, a typo could be the difference between a bounce and a conversion. So, the next time you shrug off that typo, remember, it might just cost you a click, or worse, a customer​¹​.

As competition intensifies, a great example of a crowded SaaS digital marketing space is the web accessibility platform. In today’s post, we’re going to dive into this competitive digital space where a few major players are fighting for leads using the obvious digital ad platforms and other demand gen strategies.

In today’s digital world, ensuring that websites and applications are accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities, has become a critical component of successful online businesses. As the global population becomes increasingly diverse and digitally connected, web accessibility platforms are rapidly gaining prominence. These platforms enable businesses to comply with accessibility guidelines and create inclusive online experiences for users with disabilities.

The web accessibility platform space is dominated by several key players, each striving to provide the best solutions for businesses looking to make their digital assets accessible to all. Some of the most notable names in the industry include AudioEye, AccessiBe, UserWay, and Siteimprove, among others. These companies offer a range of tools and services to help businesses achieve compliance with accessibility standards such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

These platforms are typically geared towards decision-makers in various industries, such as marketing managers, IT directors, and business owners, who are responsible for ensuring their digital assets are accessible and compliant with accessibility regulations. In addition, these platforms are designed to cater to diverse sectors, including retail, healthcare, education, and government organizations, among others.

As the demand for web accessibility continues to grow, companies in this space are constantly innovating and refining their offerings to help businesses create accessible and inclusive digital experiences for all users.

Consider, for example, this fierce battle for Google brand name searches:

AudioEye can implement several strategies to protect its brand name and improve its ranking on Google Ads when its competitor AccessiBe is ranking first for “AudioEye” brand name searches:

1. Bid on branded keywords: Start bidding on “AudioEye” and related branded keywords to ensure that AudioEye ads appear above AccessiBe’s ads. Branded keywords tend to have a lower cost per click, so this can be an effective way to push competitors down in the ad rankings.

2. Optimize ad copy: Make sure your ad copy highlights AudioEye’s unique selling points and differentiators, like superior features, customer support, or pricing. This will make your ads more compelling to users and improve click-through rates, which can help increase your ad’s ranking.

3. Use ad extensions: Implement ad extensions such as sitelinks, callouts, and structured snippets to provide more information about AudioEye’s product offerings and services. This will make your ad more informative and visually prominent, increasing the likelihood that users will click on it instead of the competitor’s ad.

4. Improve Quality Score: Focus on improving your Quality Score by optimizing your landing pages, ad relevance, and expected click-through rate. A higher Quality Score can result in higher ad rankings and lower costs per click.

5. Monitor competitor activity: Regularly monitor AccessiBe’s ad strategies and adjust your bids, ad copy, and targeting accordingly. This will help you stay one step ahead and ensure your ads continue to outperform your competitor’s ads.

6. Target competitor’s keywords: Bid on AccessiBe’s branded keywords, positioning AudioEye as a superior alternative. This will help capture some of their audience and increase your brand visibility.

7. Leverage remarketing: Implement remarketing campaigns to target users who have previously visited the AudioEye website but didn’t convert. This will help to bring them back and increase the likelihood of conversion.

8. Optimize targeting: Refine your audience targeting to focus on users who are more likely to be interested in AudioEye’s offerings. This can include targeting based on demographics, interests, and in-market segments.

9. Increase ad spend: Consider increasing your ad budget to outbid AccessiBe for top ad positions. This can help to secure higher rankings in the short term, but it’s essential to monitor the return on investment to ensure the additional spend is justified.

10. Report trademark violations: If AccessiBe is using the “AudioEye” trademark in their ad copy, you can report it to Google for trademark policy violation. Google may take action and disapprove AccessiBe’s ads containing the trademark.

By implementing these strategies, AudioEye can effectively fight back against its competitor’s Google Ads tactics and protect its brand name in search results.

What else can a company like AudioEye do to reach decision makers and land more customers like Calvin Klein, Olive Garden, and WebMD?

1. Leverage Clever Zebo’s experience in accessibility

At Clever Zebo, we’ve had the pleasure of achieving a big revenue bump for our user testing platform client, Loop11, who has done a lot of accessibility work. By improving revenue and lead flow, we demonstrated our expertise in this area. AudioEye can tap into this experience to enhance their marketing efforts and reach their target audience more effectively, and if luck shines down on us, get a 43% revenue boost the way Loop11 did with Clever Zebo’s expertise.

2. Clean up typos in marketing materials

It might seem minor, but typos can have a significant impact on conversion rates. Research has shown that a single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half. AudioEye should meticulously proofread their marketing materials to avoid sending the wrong message to potential customers.

3. Utilize LinkedIn’s advanced targeting capabilities

LinkedIn allows you to target specific job titles, industries, and even company names. By leveraging these capabilities, AudioEye can directly reach decision makers at companies like Calvin Klein, Olive Garden, and WebMD.

4. Partner with industry influencers

Influencer marketing can be a powerful way to reach decision makers. AudioEye can partner with industry influencers who can vouch for their product and open doors to valuable connections.

5. Create case studies and whitepapers

Decision makers love data-driven content. AudioEye can create case studies and whitepapers that showcase their successes and establish them as industry experts.

6. Host webinars and workshops

Webinars and workshops offer a unique opportunity to engage with decision makers directly. AudioEye can host events that tackle relevant topics and showcase their expertise.

7. Offer exclusive content

By offering exclusive content in exchange for contact information, AudioEye can build a valuable database of potential customers, including decision makers from target companies.

8. Utilize remarketing campaigns

Remarketing campaigns allow AudioEye to target users who have shown interest in their services but have not yet converted. By staying top of mind, they increase the likelihood of decision makers taking action.

9. Invest in content marketing

High-quality content can position AudioEye as an industry leader, attracting the attention of decision makers. They can create blog posts, videos, and podcasts that demonstrate their expertise and engage their target audience.

10. Join and participate in industry forums

Active participation in industry forums can help AudioEye establish credibility and connect with decision makers. By sharing their expertise and engaging in discussions, they can create valuable networking opportunities.

11. Monitor and counter Accessibe’s SEM bidding

As previously mentioned, AudioEye faces tough competition in the form of Accessibe’s aggressive SEM bidding strategy. To combat this, they can monitor Accessibe’s bidding activity and adjust their own bidding strategy accordingly. This can involve bidding on long-tail keywords or focusing on ad placements with less competition.

12. Develop a robust referral program

Referral programs can be an effective way to acquire new customers. AudioEye can incentivize existing customers to refer their network, potentially reaching decision makers at target companies.

Now, diving deeper into #10, it’s easy to say companies should be partnering with industry organizations and participating in industry forums, but which ones specifically should a web accessibility platform like AudioEye team up with to strengthen its position as a leader in the web accessibility space, collaborate with other experts, and contribute to the ongoing development of accessibility standards and best practices?

For AudioEye to build strong industry partnerships and expand its network, collaborating with the following forums and organizations would be highly beneficial:

1. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): A leading organization that develops accessibility guidelines, WAI is part of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Partnering with WAI can help AudioEye stay up-to-date with the latest accessibility standards and contribute to the development of future guidelines.
2. International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP): As a professional association dedicated to individuals and organizations working in the field of digital accessibility, IAAP offers certifications, resources, and networking opportunities. Partnering with IAAP can help AudioEye gain recognition as an industry leader and collaborate with other professionals in the field.
3. Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict): An advocacy organization that promotes digital accessibility policies and practices worldwide, G3ict offers resources, tools, and support to drive the adoption of accessible technologies. Collaboration with G3ict can help AudioEye expand its reach and promote its platform on a global scale.
4. Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Working Group: As part of W3C, the ARIA Working Group focuses on developing accessibility standards for web applications. Partnering with this group can help AudioEye contribute to the development of new accessibility techniques and stay current with industry trends.
5. National Federation of the Blind (NFB): As one of the largest organizations advocating for the rights of blind and visually impaired individuals, NFB is an influential partner for companies like AudioEye. Collaborating with NFB can help AudioEye gain insight into the needs of blind users and promote its platform within the community.
6. American Foundation for the Blind (AFB): Similar to NFB, AFB is a national organization focused on improving the lives of people with vision loss. Partnering with AFB can help AudioEye reach a wider audience and work together to address accessibility challenges.
7. Industry-specific forums and conferences: AudioEye should consider partnering with industry events and conferences that focus on accessibility, such as the annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, the M-Enabling Summit, and the Accessibility Camp series. These events provide opportunities for networking, collaboration, and knowledge sharing with other professionals in the accessibility field.

These are just a few thoughts on how web accessibility platforms like AudioEye can stand out in the crowded digital landscape and get a leg up.

If you’ve read this far, we are blown away.

Seriously, write in and tell us.

We’ll buy you a frappuccino.

Until next time, farewell.

When it comes to running display advertising on the web, there are finite publishers, but hundreds of display ad networks who promise to run your banner ads with the best chance of conversion, the hottest technology and the most efficient algorithm.

Whether you call them ad exchanges or programmatic display advertising, there is one key question that plagues digital marketing managers who hear ad network reps beating the drum in one ear and upper management expecting measurable results in the other. That question is: does display advertising really work?

By that, I mean, is there tangible, incremental conversion lift coming from the display ads you run with Rocket Fuel, Quantcast, Chango and the like?

This post attempts to unpack how success is measured, what red herrings often crop up and how you can really get to the bottom of display advertising’s contribution to your company’s top line.

Defining the jargon in display

Clicks-through and view-through conversions, multi-touch attribution — what does it all mean?

Let’s quickly define our terms.

1. Your customer sees a display ad or banner ad. S/he clicks on it and converts. That’s a simple click-through conversion.
2. Your customer visits a page where your display ad is shown, but does not click on it. Later, s/he converts. That’s a view-through conversion.
3. Because view-throughs are measured based on whether the ad loaded on your customer’s computer, we don’t really know if your customer saw the ad, consciously or subliminally. It might’ve loaded at the bottom of the site, while s/he never scrolled that far. To get at this calamity, there’s a metric called viewability that some tools attempt to measure. It answers the question: was your ad actually viewed? Or did it just load somewhere on the page, falling on deaf ears, so to speak?
4. The traditional conversion path used to be measured against simple click-through conversions. Whichever ad or channel had the last touch, or the last click, that led to your customer converting — that was the channel that got credit. That’s last-touch attribution.
5. The new(er) hypothesis about complex advertising programs that touch a customer at many different moments on the way to a conversion — let’s say your customer saw a banner ad but didn’t click, then Googled your brand name, then searched for coupons, and finally converted on a newsletter click — the perspective that considers all of these touches and gives some equity to all of them is called multi-touch attribution.

So what’s the right way to understand whether display ads are working? Should we spend thousands of dollars to implement multi-touch attribution technology, or apply Draconian rules that only reward channels for closing the deal with a customer on the final click?

It’s a confusing problem. But you have options to measure what’s going on in your conversion funnel.

Here are some things you can do to truly measure the impact of display.

A/B test your ads against a placebo

There is something called a Public Service Announcement (PSA) test. In this experiment, you serve your display ads to 50% of your audience — business as usual — but the other half of your audience is shown a placebo. This half sees a PSA. One former client, for example, used a “Smokey the Bear” ad about preventing forest fires.

This type of test can take some time to gather meaningful data — it can take a month or more and be quite costly — but the results will demonstrate whether the potential customers who saw your real display ads have a higher propensity to convert than those who saw Smokey the Bear.

Consider this example of a real PSA A/B test we ran on behalf of a client in the home decor e-commerce sector.

Here’s what we uncovered by running this PSA test with Quantcast, an advertising partner:

The “Brand” group of ads, meaning the client’s regular ads, yielded 980 conversions (these are view-throughs) while prospects who saw Smokey the Bear ads converted 871 times.

When you factor in the number of cookies — in other words, how many times each ad was shown — the regular ads brought in 30% more conversions than Smokey the Bear. For you marketing statisticians, the confidence level here was 95%. You can find more info on statistical significance and what it means for marketers here.

Is this a good result? On the one hand, it’s nice to see 30% incremental conversions. On the other hand, what should we make of the fact that almost 900 people saw Smokey the Bear and converted anyway? Is the handful of incremental conversions enough to justify the display ad spend here?

For this particular client, it wasn’t.

We didn’t only test IAB-standard display ads as shown above. We also tested ads on the Facebook Exchange. There, we found no statistically significant conversion difference between the client’s real ads and PSAs.

This type of testing is one way to assess value. Advanced attribution tools are another.

Advanced attribution technology

If you’re touching prospects on many levels and via multiple channels, some experts argue you’ll benefit from an advanced attribution platform. This technology takes into account all the touches that contribute to a single conversion and algorithmically estimate how each channel fits into the larger whole.

Convertro is one such tool. It’s useful for estimating how many real conversions a given channel is contributing based on all the (possibly hundreds) of touchpoints in the sales cycle.

It can also show you data like this:

What we found interesting was the tool’s ability to show how often a given ad network played the role of Introducer (meaning that the ad network served the very first ad this prospect saw in your sales funnel), Closer (the ad network showed the last ad viewed or clicked by the prospect before converting), or Influencer (the ad network participated somewhere between introduction and conversion).

This breakdown can be useful in thinking about how important each ad partner is when it comes to guiding prospects to eventually buy.

The table above tells us that the ad networks pictured here acted as an influencer 97% of the time. That means they weren’t likely to be sourcing brand new prospects or “closing the deal” with soon-to-be customers, but probably contributed awareness along the way.

Last-click attribution

The conservative play when it comes to evaluating many different channels is to give maximum weight to last-click conversions and revenue.

That’s because only one lucky ad or channel can be responsive for the final click or view before a conversion. If you credit each channel with view-throughs, you might be praising multiple channels for the same conversion. But using a tool like Google Analytics to report on conversions and revenue from a given traffic source will, in the traditional view, tell you which channel drove the last click. Revenue resulting from each channel will be counted exactly once.

Some experts argue that last-click attribution has gone out of style and a more holistic view is in order for how prospects interact with your business on their journey through the conversion funnel. It’s true that tracking ROI has become more complex with the advent of drip campaigns, inbound marketing and many kinds of interactive ads. Still, a more rigid reading of the analytics can offer checks and balances against overspending.

The best thing you can do for your business is to look at attribution in more than one way. If you can afford a PSA A/B test, it’s quite informative (and in our example case, quite sobering). Otherwise, assessing ad network performance via multiple free tools will give you more insight than simply trusting the dashboard of your ad partner(s). With several perspectives at your disposal, it’s easier to make a call on which channels should be expanded and which can be cut.