Search advertising revenue continues to grow. In 2021, according to the IAB, search accounted for $78.3 billion of all U.S. digital advertising revenue, which came in at a whopping $189 billion.
However, the IAB noted in their Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full Year 2021 report that the growth of search wasn’t as strong as other formats, such as digital video, which was up 50 percent year on year (YoY). As a result, search lost 0.8 percentage points in total revenue share.
Paid search remains king. With 41.4% of all digital ad revenue in 2021, paid search is still the leading format. Mobile accounted for $54.7 billion (up from $39.7 billion in 2020), while desktop accounted for $23.5 billion (up from $19.3 billion in 2020).
Top advertising format by share/Internet Advertising Revenue Report: Full Year 2021
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Social media advertising rebounds. Social media advertising plateaued at the start of the pandemic. In 2021, revenue from social platforms (including Meta-owned networks, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok) hit $57.7 billion, up from $41.4 billion in 2020. What helped fuel this growth? In particular, the IAB noted that 80% of brands now work with influencers and content creators, which began during COVID-19.
The state of digital advertising. It’s strong. Of note from the IAB report:
Total U.S. digital ad revenue increased by $50 billion in 2021.
YoY growth was 35.4%, the highest increase since 2006.
YoY growth was strong in each quarter of 2021. (And that is expected to continue in 2022.)
Q4 2021 digital ad revenue hit a new record: $55 billion. That’s up nearly $10 billion from the same 2020 holiday season.
Why we care. At the start of the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty about whether we’d continue to see online advertising continue to grow. In 2020, we wondered whether we’d only see single-digit growth heading forward. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened. Search – like all other digital channels and formats – shows strong growth.
The IAB predicts digital ad growth to continue across all channels. However, the IAB notes some potential challenges, including privacy regulation, the deprecation of third-party cookies and measurement. What else could impact digital marketing this year: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ongoing supply chain issues in the U.S. and other economic issues. That said, as the IAB notes, “brands have spoken, and digital is where they are putting their dollars.” That will again be true in 2022. You can view the entire report here (note: the report is free, but you must log in or create an account to download it).
Marketers are still adapting to the major disruptions of the past several years. Buyers, though, still expect marketers to provide personalization and enjoyable experiences.
Luckily, the technology and data that can help are becoming more accessible.
In partnership with Ascend2, Oracle surveyed 853 marketers across the U.S., Canada, India, and the UK. The results showed what trends and technologies are helping marketers pivot where necessary, connect with customers, and drive conversions.
Top challenges marketers face in 2022
38% of marketers said maximizing performance across channels was one of their most difficult challenges. Audiences are now digitally everywhere. They consume and engage with content across a variety of channels and devices.
Somehow, marketers have to keep up with them, stay consistent and relevant with their messaging, and deliver value. Customers tell you everything you need to know about how to please them with their online behaviors. The right technology helps by taking in that data, so marketers can use it to connect with customers and adapt their strategies necessary.
Tactics and technologies for marketing success
43% of marketing organizations plan to offer more personalized content and offers in the year ahead. Videos and virtual events will make much of this content easier for customers to consume. Personalization will also help marketers put more focus on retaining customers rather than only acquiring new ones.
What technologies will help?
A customer data platform (CDP) allows you to anticipate customer needs
A content management system (CMS) helps you manage and create more innovative content
A customer loyalty program incentivizes and rewards customers that keep engaging with your brand
Go all-in on AI
59% of marketers who say they can’t live without AI have highly successful marketing strategies. 30% of marketers surveyed overall fear they’re missing out on AI’s ability to predict customer behaviors and adjust campaigns.
AI creates efficiencies and maximizes resources, especially with manual, repetitive tasks, such as:
Setting up campaign workflows
Testing different offers, subject lines, and copy
Customizing content
42% of marketers say they already trust AI to personalize content and offers in real-time.
Marketers look forward to big things in 2022
An impressive 94% of marketers thought their 2021 was successful. 37% are confident 2022 will also be a successful year.
Find out what trends and technologies will make it so.
Customizing your brand is really important to help you become more consistently noticed. It helps you stand out from other agents. According to Constant Contact: “Real estate marketing has two primary goals:
To get the attention of people who want to buy or sell a home
To establish your knowledge of real estate and your market
Branding helps you do both. By giving your professional identity an aesthetic and a voice, your brand sets you apart from the crowd”.
Print Marketing
AgentMarketing has ways for you to customize your brand and keep it consistent across digital and print marketing. First, there is the Print Shop. From this area in your AgentMarketing account you can order property-specific print material, as well as custom print items. If you want to order custom print items, just scroll down to the bottom and click on Contact Our Print Shop. There you can start choosing what you want to customize. Describe your ideas or what you want for that piece of print marketing. Don’t forget about your property-specific print material. This can be customized too! Then your custom layouts will be ready to order anytime you want for a specific property. Remember, you want all of your print marketing to stay on brand (same colors/theme/look). Once you put in your Print Shop customization, our graphics team will get back to you with a quote (it’s a small price to pay to stand out from those other agents!). Then they will work up the design.
Digital Marketing
Second, there is the Customization Request. This is for your digital marketing customization. For this, go to your Dashboard and at the very top of the page click on Customization Request. You can request customization for things like a single property website layout, personal website, landing page, and just about any other digital marketing in your AgentMarketing account. You want to make sure to give a very detailed description about what you are wanting. The more detailed, the better the graphics team can see your vision! Just like the Print Shop customizations, our graphics team will get back to you with a quote (if needed), then a design.
Wrapping It All Up
Lastly, wrapping it all up. Once you have all your branding consistent across digital platforms and print, people will start to notice. You want people to have your business card, then maybe get a postcard from you – same branding. Maybe that same person drives down the street and sees a For Sale sign of yours in a yard – same branding. What do you think this does for you? It keeps you top-of-mind for people when they are looking to buy or sell a home. And it makes you easily recognizable if all of your branding is consistent. Constant Contact also tells us: “A strong brand unifies your online and offline marketing strategies. When you have a set brand color scheme, logo, and voice, your printed materials and digital marketing all clearly come from you. This unified image helps people to remember who you are and what you have to offer, and it instantly boosts your professionalism.”
A listing presentation is a first impression for someone getting ready to make a very big decision – selling their home. The goal of the listing appointment is to make them your client. How do you do that? Create and use a listing presentation that makes you stand apart from other agents. You want to tell them about yourself, your values, your marketing strategy and anything else you feel would benefit you and help you stand out from the crowd.
AgentMarketing has digital listing presentations that will definitely help you stand out! (We even have a video on that!) Our listing presentation template showcases some of the things you will do to market the listing using features of AgentMarketing. Some of these features include a virtual tour, single property website, text code, signage, etc. With our template, you can also edit any of the information in the presentation or even add new pages or delete ones you don’t need.
Customize
How do you customize your listing presentation? All you have to do is go to the Flip Shows area of your AgentMarketing account (under the Personal tab). Then click on the edit pencil to start customizing. You should definitely add a few slides about who you are, your goals and other information you feel is important. Towards the end of the listing presentation you could also add some client testimonials that could help seal the deal. Also, be creative! Don’t be afraid to step outside the box when adding/editing slides, just make sure to stay professional.
Great Strategy
A great strategy for your listing appointment is to first create a single property website for the listing. Go by the house and snap a few pictures of the outside, or just try to find some photos of the house online. Why do I want to build a single property website for it before I have the listing? When you create this single property website, we automatically create a property specific listing presentation for you. Done! Just like that. This will help you really stand out. When you go to your listing appointment you will be able to show them the work you have already put in for them, even though you don’t have the listing yet! They will be able to see the single property website you created and the virtual tour. They will even be able to test the text code for more information on the property. These things are all presented in the listing presentation. Tell me that doesn’t help you stand out from the rest of the pack.
The Balance Small Business tells us, “As a real estate agent, you are responsible for your business success, so put together a presentation plan and package that puts all your services forward to the seller prospect in the best light. If you show up and they perceive you as prepared, professional, and competent, you have a leg up on the competition”. Using the digital listing presentation is a great way to show the seller that you are ready to take that extra step to get their house sold.
Who are we kidding? Mistakes are easy to make, but when you are talking about your business they can be costly. We already covered 5 mistakes agents make when marketing their business in a previous blog. Here we continue with 5 more mistakes. Michelle Fradella Barfuss has a great course on udemy.com with certain things agents do that could be detrimental to their business. Here, we review some more of those mistakes and give some remedies for them.
One
Not building relationships with online users. Do you offer your visitors something of value? Something that would make them stay on your site and even give out their email address to you? Getting these email addresses/phone numbers are important because they allow you to start building rapport with your visitors. This, in turn, will hopefully make them a client! Your website needs to offer your visitors information, videos, reports, etc. about things that matter most to them. Being able to connect with them and start building rapport with them will keep you top-of-mind when they are ready to move forward. You can also use landing pages that allow them to fill out their info to get access to or get emailed reports, tutorials, information, etc.
Two
Not having a Call-To-Action in ads. Any advertising that is not geared towards your target audience and doesn’t have a call-to-action so that you can communicate with them, is money wasted. Your purpose for these ads is to gain leads. You can’t stand out and get a lead if your marketing looks like all other agents. You want to give them something they need/want, but the point is to lead the prospect to connect with YOU. For example, you could create videos about the home buying or home selling process. Then create that landing page ad with a call-to-action – “Give me your info and I’ll send you the video”.
Three
Not using video. YouTube is one of the top search engines. People go here and search for topics they are interested in or need information on. Video is a great way to connect with visitors. Guess what else? Google loves videos! Videos can rank higher than regular websites. Think about what your target audience would love more information about. Take those thoughts and turn them into videos for your audience. The content you produce is important. Don’t stress about hiring a professional or buying special equipment. Just start with the basics – start with what you have! After you make a video, put it everywhere you can and make sure to link back to your website or landing page. This will drive more traffic your way!
Four
Forgetting past clients. Just because your transaction is over with a client, doesn’t mean you throw them to the side and move on. You need to keep nurturing and marketing to these past clients because you never know when they will need you again, or refer you to someone else they know. How do you keep nurturing these clients? You can send them market reports, birthday cards, your monthly newsletter, community events, or anything else you can think of. Be creative! The point here is this…keep up with those past clients! Failing to do so is one of the biggest ways you, as the agent, leaves money on the table.
Five
Not taking advantage of social media. Why social media? You know what they say – social media is king! Some of you have avoided social media, maybe because of privacy issues, no interest in it or maybe just simply because it’s overwhelming for you (we’ve got a good basics article to help you with that). Want to hear a statistic that will make you rethink staying away from social media? Backlinko.com tells us: “3.96 billion people use social media worldwide, according to platform reports on the current number of active users. 58.11% of the world’s population is active on social media when looking at eligible audiences aged 13+ years, rising to 82% in North America”. 82%? That is a lot of people to not reach. There is a lot of good information out there about social media platforms. Do some research, start simple and ramp up from there where and when you feel comfortable.
I hope diving into 5 more mistakes agents make when marketing helps steer you in the right direction. It’s easy to overlook some of these things, but making sure to take advantage of these tips can help you reach more people and stay in touch with past clients. Remember, you want to build your business and keeping up with technology will help generate leads and keep you top-of-mind!
Let’s face it. Leads are important. You need them in order to get business. Landing pages are a great way to generate leads. Landing pages can be pre-built or you can build them yourself. HubSpot says: “A landing page eliminates distractions by removing navigation, competing links, and alternate options so you capture your visitor’s undivided attention. And complete attention means you can guide your visitor where you’d like them to go, i.e., to your lead form. In sum, landing pages are specifically designed to create conversions.”
AgentMarketing has pre-built sites that are great for generating leads. We call them pre-built because we “built” them for you. There is nothing you need to do to create them. You just need to go out there and use them! They are already branded with your information, photo and logo. They also come with information that is geared to a specific audience. Each one of the pre-built sites also has a contact form that interested people can fill out with their information.
First, there is a My Listings pre-built site. This one showcases your active listings as well as any listings you have sold that are in your AgentMarketing account. The nice thing about this is you can send this site to anyone or advertise with it and people can click on any home to see the single property website for it! The layout is simple, your information is at the top and the contact form is at the bottom.
Then there is the List With Me pre-built site. It can be used to generate more leads and listings. Find more homes to sell by highlighting all the services you offer. Help home-sellers see the value in choosing you as the real estate agent they can trust. It gives them different things you can do to market their home (using features from our system) – like a YouTube video, flyers, virtual tour and more. This is a great site to post on your Facebook business page or even create Facebook Ads with it.
The third pre-built site is the CMA Report. This is another good lead generation tool for your arsenal. We all know that setting the right price from the start is among the most important steps toward successfully selling a home. This CMA Report allows a home-seller to enter their address and their information. Then you can whip up a comparative market analysis right from your AgentMarketing account for them. Again, feel free to use this pre-built site to advertise wherever you would like!
The next pre-built site is for FSBO Prospecting. Want to work with For Sale By Owners? This would be a great site to use for that. Send prospective FSBO clients a quick page about your services and how you can offer them a good commission with fast results. This site explains how you can easily help them market their listing better, get more exposure for it and sell it faster. Don’t forget! It also has the contact form down at the bottom. People can fill out their information here.
Now, if you are a loan officer, check this out…we even have a special pre-built site for you to help with Agent Prospecting. Yep, we built you a site to help you approach agents and grow your team! Show agents all the quick and easy services you can offer them by utilizing AgentMarketing tools. This site gives an overview of what is included. It even has a nice little video for agents to watch to give a fun visual! We want to help you be successful with agents and this is the first step toward that success.
One last thing, you will notice on your Pre-Built Sites page that some of the sites have multiple URLs. We just wanted to give you a choice of which one you want to use. For example, for the CMA Report site you have a choice of three different URLs. They all lead to the exact same page, it’s just the URLs that are different. Choose the one you want and start marketing to get more leads!
There are definitely mistakes agents make when marketing themselves and their business. There is a lot of information online about the “mistakes agents make and what not to do.” Michelle Fradella Barfuss has a great course on udemy.com with certain things agents do that could be detrimental to their business. Here, we review some of those mistakes and give some remedies (like niche marketing) for them.
One
Trying to be everything to everyone. When you are new you try and take everything from everyone to try to get that first lead or first transaction, which leads to frustration and burn out. According to Floyd Wickman (CSP, CPAE Hall of Fame), “Roughly seventy percent of all real estate agents quit during their first year in business.” The answer to this problem is niche marketing. A niche market is a specialized market that is very targeted to a specific group. Examples could be First Time Home Buyer Specialist, Relocation Specialist, Luxury Home Specialist, etc. With a niche market, you find the specialty that really interests you (and that is needed) which allows you to absorb any information you can on it. Then you are really able to help out your customers because you are so knowledgeable and passionate in your niche.
Two
Doing what everyone else does. Don’t advertise yourself like everyone else. Think about it, you need to STAND OUT to customers. How are you going to get them to connect with you? They care about what you can do for them. These people will be your leads coming in. You need to generate those leads or you have no business. Make sure you have marketing in place that helps you stand out from other agents. You don’t want your advertising and other things to be run of the mill.
Three
Relying solely on a Brokerage’s website. It is good to be listed on the brokerage site to create trust and that you work for that brokerage. Most brokerages’ give agents their own site – BUT it will usually look like every other agents’ site in that brokerage. These sites can bring you some business, but nothing like your own web presence. Have your own site that is “custom” and that stands out from other agents. This will give you better leads coming in than from the “broker site.” Remember, the brokerage sites are cookie cutter, all looking the same. Google (or other search engines) don’t like this duplicate content and therefore won’t rank the site. So make sure you have your own website with your custom content. This is where your niche marketing comes in as well! You can have great information about your specialty on your custom website. What is this going to bring you? Those quality leads that you really want.
Four
Believing that just having a website will generate leads. Your website needs to tell a story, contain really useful information and show that you are the go-to person in your community or niche. It isn’t enough to just “have a website”. You actually have to drive traffic to it. I’ve heard so many agents say, “Well I have a website but it isn’t doing anything for me?” My response is always, “Well are you doing anything with it?” Meaning, you have to do some work too. First you could use blogs to drive traffic to it. Make sure they provide useful information that your target audience would find appealing. Start writing blogs on your niche or community and make sure your website link is on those blogs. Remember, the more blogs you write, the better. However make sure your focus is on quality not just quantity. Also remember to share these blogs/articles on social media. This gets these articles and your website out to more people. In your blog you could even give them instructions and a link to your website/landing page so they can fill out a form to get “something.”
Five
Not targeting your market. You need to know your target market! Michelle Fradella Barfuss says: “You need to build your business around what your clients really need. The only way to know that is to know them really well. That only comes from doing the research and the thinking that is necessary.” Once you know who your target audience is, you can create marketing materials that will attract these types of clients. According to UnionStreetMedia.com: When you identify your target audience and center your messaging on their wants and needs, then your marketing strategies will likely see better ROI, better cost efficiency, and better conversions. When you speak directly to your target audience – instead of blasting your content to everyone on the internet – then you’re more likely to build an audience that listens to you.
As you can see, these are some mistakes that agents may make but there are ways to remedy them as well. Basically, stand out! Know your niche and your target market! Be different! You have to put some work in to get the results you want out. Stay tuned because in the next blog, we will cover 5 more mistakes agents make when marketing themselves and their business.
28% of small business owners have no visibility into how their marketing agency uses their budgeted spending. The last thing your clients want to do is chase down reporting across multiple tools and channels and try and make sense of it themselves.
The biggest value you can provide to your clients as an agency is transparent and actionable reporting. And in this article, we’ll walk through the top pain points small business owners experience and how you can provide the right reporting to enhance trust and retain more clients.
Problem #1: Your clients lack insight into their most effective marketing campaigns and find it difficult to budget for the next year.
Usually, a marketing strategy involves multiple channels, such as digital ads, organic and paid search, marketplace listings, offline outreach and so on. But when you multiply that by the number of campaigns an average business runs in a year, reporting can easily get out of hand.
If you or your client lack the right tools to effectively manage and gather this data in one place, you have to pull from different reports from different platforms to piece together a cohesive data story. Therefore, the lack of insight makes it very difficult to properly plan next year’s campaigns based on the successful campaigns of this year.
The solution: Build a report with a tool like CallRail’s Multi-touch Cost Per Lead Report. It ties all of your lead sources’ data together across every channel where your client markets. The report will tie in your inbound calls, texts, live chats, and form submission data to attribute leads to online and offline marketing efforts. From there, you’ll be able to see which campaigns earned the most revenue for your clients, and those campaigns will help inform future campaigns.
Problem #2: Your clients aren’t clear on where their inbound phone calls are coming from and can’t tie them back to the right marketing campaigns.
Remember those days when sales reps would make between 50 to 100 calls a day, without proper reporting in place? And think about how easy information can get lost in the process, especially if your client is relying on their reps to ask “How did you hear about us?”
To understand marketing campaign effectiveness, you need to know where those inbound leads are coming from, whether it was your client’s Instagram ad, email outreach, bus wrap or any other channel. A full timeline of the lead’s journey can be incredibly helpful for understanding campaign success and improving the lead experience, too — turning more leads into customers.
The solution: Build a report that provides insight into the sources and interactions that drive traffic and generate inbound calls, texts and chats. With something like CallRail’s Call Attribution Report, you’ll be able to share the entire customer journey, which campaigns are most successful when it comes to generating new customers and revenue, and which campaigns could use some work in the new year.
Problem #3: Your clients aren’t able to identify which keywords are successful for their marketing program.
A clear understanding of ROI is crucial for marketers in any size organization. With call tracking and analytics tools, you can help your clients figure out which marketing campaigns and keywords are converting leads and driving new business.
But, it’s challenging — not only for your clients but for you and other agencies as well. You might not have visibility into your client’s interactions with their customers and might not be able to fully understand the common language of that business or industry. So, you can see how this makes reporting on certain keywords and phrases difficult.
The solution: Build a report that provides a full breakdown of targeted key terms and phrases that are used the most during your client’s business calls, such as a tool like CallRail’s Key Terms Spotted Report. From there, you can provide your client with a list of calls containing those key terms that were marked as qualified leads.
Quick tips when building reports
Use the right tools and grow with your client and their needs over time. Keep in mind that your reporting will change as your client grows revenue and expands marketing efforts.
Set the right goals from the beginning and establish a baseline. KPIs will help you and your clients track success and identify areas for improvement. And with a baseline, you can easily show growth and prove your agency’s value.
Make sure that your client’s data tells a story. Numbers are great, but what’s the meaning behind them? How do they tie into the bigger picture? Be clear on your reporting to your clients and actionable steps they can take from those reports.
Support your clients and grow your revenue with the CallRail Partner Program
Your clients rely on you to provide reporting that’s clear and transparent, actionable and translates to improved ROI. As a CallRail partner, you’ll help your clients succeed with all of the reports and insights we’ve discussed with the bonus of support from the CallRail team and a dedicated account manager. Earn a 20% monthly revenue share, become eligible for quarterly cash bonuses, and grow your business — and your clients’ businesses — by becoming a CallRail Partner today.
Are your Mother’s Day paid search campaigns ready? If not, now is the time. Microsoft Advertising today released new data and tips that provide some useful consumer search insights.
Although search queries typically peak the week before Mother’s Day, searches start picking up five weeks before the holiday. That would mean queries already started increasing on April 3. If my math is correct, that was a week ago. So if your campaigns haven’t started yet, you’re already a week behind consumers, according to Microsoft.
Hare three trends from last year that search marketers need to know in 2022.
Trend 1: Most popular queries. For the past three years, these have been among the top “Mother’s Day” queries:
Mother’s Day gifts
Mother’s Day images
Mother’s Day cards handmade
Mother’s Day gift box
Happy Mother’s Day gif
Printable Mother’s Day cards
Mother’s Day rings
Mother’s Day shirts
DIY Mother’s Day gift ideas
Trend 2: Gifts. As is typical, flowers, sweets, cards, and jewelry were among the most popular gifts for Mom in 2021. Here’s some data from Microsoft:
Greetings cards, flowers and special outings (e.g., meals or restaurant gift cards) were the top three most popular Mother’s Day gifts.
Restaurant-related searches increased 46% YoYthe week of Mother’s Day. Microsoft noted this was significantly higher compared to the three years prior to 2021.
Jewelry searches increased 26% YoY the week of Mother’s Day.
Trend 3: Local. The second most clicked gift last year was spas – and more than 20% of mothers surveyed said they would like a spa visit in 2022, Microsoft said.
Spas are an example of this local buying trend. More than half of those surveyed by Microsoft said they planned to shop at a local store or restaurant for Mother’s Day. But don’t worry – the same people said they still plan to search online first for information, offers and deals.
Why we care. Mother’s Day is one of the biggest retail holidays of the year. To maximize profit, it’s critical to always optimize campaigns based on what consumers are searching for, and when. Hopefully, this data will help get you started on the path to higher conversion rates and more revenue. Most important of all, don’t forget that Mother’s Day is May 8 – and quality time really is the greatest gift of all.
