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Strategic Planning vs. Tactical Planning for SaaS Sales

tatvasoft logo Ever created a clear plan to achieve, be any personal or business goals? Well, it can seem difficult or even discouraging sometimes to handle or achieve the goal without defining clear steps to set for it. In general, there are two common mistakes made by any business when planning and operating their SaaS functions, as the mistakes lie in the area of tactics and strategy. In simple terms, the strategy is a big-picture overview of your plans and actions, whereas tactics are the minute details you can actually do to achieve your strategy. Both the Strategic and Tactic Marketing or Planning does not oppose each other, but instead, they complement each other.

Let us take a closer look at what each type of planning revolves around.

Strategic Planning

You need to go through a complete understanding of the demographics of your consumers and their buying habits for gaining a competitive edge in marketing. Also, the businesses need to be up-to-date on the latest trends to decide what are their future goals to maintain a competitive position. After you have formulated all your goals, it is time to develop a strategy to work on these goals.

Strategic planning wants you to recognize all of the industry-related threats and opportunities to overcome them, including the strength and weakness in one’s area. Ask yourself if your company strong enough to tackle all the threats and grab your opportunities? You can never plan overall strategies for your business as with the market trends, the nature of risks varies accordingly.

In the beginning, you need to focus on elements that can actually fill the gap to gain a competitive edge. Moreover, filling the industry needs becomes your ultimate strategy or your goal. This type of planning also requires long-term goals for your company, be it expanding your business or exploring new demographics or even creating up a new brand name. Therefore, Strategic planning needs to have deeper insights into your financial status to analyze if you possess adequate funds to achieve your goals.

Tactics Planning

We get to know about how Strategic planning looks after the goals of the company, but here, tactical planning will focus more on the details to achieve that goal. With the right strategy at pace, you need proper tactics to reach your goal into the motion. Preparing the appropriate tactics is not only supporting your marketing strategy get involved in the detailed customer profiles, but it also lets you know about your target demographic, so you can select the right advertising media and decide which one is most.

In general, Tactical marketing includes general leads, building the websites, placing advertisements, and following it up. This also includes advertising, sales, and promotions with some other activities which support your Strategic marketing plan directly. Tactical planning also looks after budget establishment, which is included during the Strategic planning phase where it considers financial limitation into the account for carrying out further activities. Strategic planning and Tactical planning are mostly interdependent and worked upon in combination. Your business goal begins with a strategy followed by detailed tactics as the presence of both will enlighten you with successful marketing.

Which One to Choose for your Business?

In wider terms, it is seen that most companies initiate to plan Tactical marketing by selecting activities like email, pay-per-click, SEO, trade shows, and much more. But it can result in a big mistake. Heading on with Tactical marketing without addressing the strategic plans makes it more like building a house without a blueprint that is based on a strategy of hope, which has a guaranteed failure. Therefore, if you want to have the highest impact on your marketing, then opt for strategy first and then move to tactics as it will drive the growth and generate more business. Keep Learning!

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Falkonry Launches Falkonry LRS 2.0 Enabling Customers to Quickly Gain Actionable Insights from Operational Data

Delivers significant enhancements to performance, visualization and scale

Falkonry, Inc., the leading enabler of predictive operations for Global 2000 companies, announced a new version of its flagship operational machine learning system. In field trials, Falkonry LRS 2.0 has provided unmatched performance, visualization and scale, enabling customers to realize rapid improvements in the uptime, quality, safety and yield of their industrial operations.

“From its early days, Falkonry LRS has been the best user interface to design predictive operations”

“Users expect a responsive, scalable, consumer-grade experience, like online maps, when reviewing operational data,” said Dr. Nikunj Mehta, Founder and CEO of Falkonry. “With Falkonry LRS 2.0, we provide one place for users to store, review and analyze all their operational data, where it can be used immediately. This will allow customers to quickly gain insights and solve real operational problems that can save millions of dollars annually.”

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According to a McKinsey & Company report, manufacturing digitization will boost industrial profit margins by 3-5 points – but only if the technologies can work at scale. Falkonry is enabling users to deploy such technology at scale. Over the last six months, Falkonry customers have successfully analyzed more than 4 trillion data points. In just the last three months, they have turned 100 billion points of raw data into 300 million actionable condition assessments. Customers are also addressing more use cases than ever before. A major oil & gas company has built more than 150 predictive models in just the last two months, which is more than double the number they built six months ago. A large steel manufacturer has built over 400 models in that timeframe.

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As companies digitize their operations, manufacturing and process engineers need to review increasingly vast amounts of operational data that is spread across many sources. The new Falkonry LRS product speeds up operational data review and machine learning results for customers and delivers significant benefits in three key areas.

  • Performance: With a 100X improvement in inference speed, the product
    • Allows more data to be processed with fewer devices in edge deployments scenarios
    • Allows vast amounts of historical data to be enriched
  • Visualization: By reviewing and managing all operational data in one place, users can
    • See trends instantly over larger amounts of data
    • See model results and confidence levels alongside the explanation of how individual signals impact those results
  • Enterprise Scaling: Simplifies large predictive operation applications across the enterprise by
    • Securely managing user access in large installations with support for Enterprise Single Sign-on
    • Improving support for common data integration scenarios

“From its early days, Falkonry LRS has been the best user interface to design predictive operations,” said Jolene Baker, Senior Manufacturing Intelligence Specialist at LSI, Logical Systems, Inc. “I think the new design will make it an even more valuable tool in the hands of practitioners who are digitally transforming their operations.”

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ServiceTitan Announces Acquisition of CUC Software, Inc.

No. 1 management software platform for home service and commercial contractors shares common foundation with Montana-based company, plans for adoption of CUC Software customers

ServiceTitan, the world’s leading all-in-one software for residential HVAC, plumbing, electrical and other home service professionals and commercial contractor businesses, announced its acquisition of CUC Software, Inc., an all-in-one service business software system headquartered in Billings, Montana, whose customers are based largely in Canada.

CUC Software was developed by Jack Vannoy and Carolyn Slayden in 1981. Vannoy and his brother owned and operated a successful HVAC and sheet metal company for many years. Vannoy was also an active member of the Sheet, Metal and Air Conditioning National Association, as well as the Montana Sheet Metal Apprenticeship program.

Slayden started out as a computer programming and data analyst for a nuclear reactor research company 40 years ago. Her work includes the development of software for auto insurance, heating and air conditioning, the chamber of commerce, the surveying industry and election reporting.

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Servicetitan’s Platform Equips and Empowers Contractors with the Best Tools to Successfully Operate and Grow Their Businesses

“This decision was very customer-centric,” said Heidi Paulson, vice president of sales and marketing for CUC Software. “ServiceTitan’s platform equips and empowers contractors with the best tools to successfully operate and grow their businesses, enabling $10 billion in service sales. Their team takes a superior approach to service with world-class business success partners that ensure they are supporting customers’ business goals and growth at any stage. That’s exactly what we want for our customers.”

Paulson says the decision to close CUC Software wasn’t easy, but they feel confident in the choice to turn the company’s clientele, 30% of which are commercial-customer focused businesses, over to ServiceTitan. CUC Software and ServiceTitan were both born out of personal connections with the HVAC industry. The founders of both companies recognized a need for software and business management solutions, and rose to meet that need with excellence. This common foundation is one of many similarities the companies share.

“CUC has worked hard to build personal relationships with their customers over the years, and now they’re entrusting those customers to us,” said Ara Mahdessian, cofounder of ServiceTitan. “This is a responsibility and privilege we don’t take lightly. We will make every effort to protect the community CUC Software has made out of its customer base. We look forward to showing them how ServiceTitan can improve their sales, supercharge their team and make managing their business simple.”

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CUC Software will continue to offer customers support through April 1, 2020. A steering committee has been created to ensure the shift is seamless, especially for customers. Resources such as software training webinars are also being developed and will soon be available.

Not only will CUC Software and ServiceTitan be working hand-in-hand to make sure the customer transition process is seamless, but they will also be working together to ensure the migration of customer data between platforms is thorough and secure.

“Our primary goal now is to make the transition as smooth as possible for everyone involved, and we’ve been working closely with ServiceTitan toward that end,” Paulson said. “Our partnership has already proven to be successful. The CUC team is very proud of the business outcomes our customers have achieved thus far. Looking forward, we are confident ServiceTitan is the innovative software solution to drive even more extraordinary results for their businesses.”

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Dell, Splunk Embrace Aviso’s Sales AI Compass to Close More Deals

As Aviso continues momentum, company names former Salesforce leader as new CEO and adds extended series B round

Aviso, the leader in AI-powered guided selling, is introducing an AI compass that guides sales teams to their True North with revenue. Customers from Fortune 500 mainstays to fast-growing startups are winning 20 percent more deals with over 90 percent predictability as a result of Aviso’s AI platform which unifies forecasting and sales execution with capabilities such as:

  • Surfacing key at-risk deals, hidden opportunities, and follow-up actions customized to account history and rep behavior
  • Reducing data entry from hundreds of fields to a few key fields algorithmically identified as most useful to closing a given deal
  • Delivering team-wide “nudges” with AI insights and deal execution recommendations

With companies spending $120 billion annually on CRM, the technology has become ubiquitous with sales operations and management. But while this spend hits an all-time high, only 43 percent of sales reps achieve quota today, compared to 63 percent in 2011.

“Aviso has changed the way we conduct our deal reviews,” said Jay Flanagan, Senior Director of Strategy and Transformation at Dell EMC. “Prior to Aviso, we had no insight into information from week to week. Now, we use the AI-driven Aviso WinScores to understand the reality of a deal, and the key elements that are influencing it. Thanks to Aviso, the sales team now develops proactive action plans to win.”

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“As Splunk has grown, Aviso has grown with us,” said Dave Cheng, Senior Director, Sales Operations at Splunk. “Aviso’s algorithms help accurately forecast run rates to give my team a binary view of transactions and a clearer deal path from projection to close. Aviso takes the guesswork out of forecasting. Without it, my team would have to manually determine a number.”

As of this June, customer momentum has fueled Aviso’s growth to over 100% YOY. To accelerate this growth, the company is adding new leadership and funding. Former Salesforce veteran Trevor Templar, most recently Chief Revenue Officer at Tact.ai, joins as CEO. Additionally, Storm Ventures leads a $8 million extended B round funding, adding to the $33 million previously raised.

“Aviso is leading the next shift in the CRM space to help sales teams unlock dynamic insights with proven predictability. I am excited to partner with Trevor to lead the company into its next growth phase. He has rewritten the rules of selling through his career and is one of the strongest leaders I know in the industry,” said Tae Hea Nahm, Managing Director of Storm Ventures.

“We’re a compass that guides sales teams to their True North,” said Trevor Templar, newly appointed CEO of Aviso. “As a life-long sales guy, I love that my job is to lead our team to help our customers’ sales teams. Legacy sales technologies aren’t able to proactively surface recommendations and they offer zero predictive guidance for closing deals. We give teams AI insights to take the right actions at the right time. This charts the way for reps to build and strengthen relationships with customers – creating lasting value for both sides.”

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“I look forward to helping more companies grow faster while reducing data entry and boosting customer engagements. Our customers close 20% more deals with a 90 percent forecast accuracy rate – something none of the nearly 400 companies in our space dare to measure. And we’re only getting better. As I’ve told the team, we’re going to challenge ourselves to drive even higher rates of customer success.”

“SiriusDecisions CommandCenter™ research reveals sales people, on average, win 23 percent of the opportunities they pursue,” according to Dana Therrien, Practice Leader, Sales Operations Strategies at SiriusDecisions/Forrester. “That means they lose 77 percent of the time and it’s largely because sales force automation (SFA) alone doesn’t guide reps. It records their actions but they use mostly their intuition to decide which opportunities to pursue and what actions to take next.”

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Google Expands App Advertising Opportunities for Buy-Sell Players

Today, Google has announced 6 new app advertising features for its AdMob and App campaigns. These app advertising solutions would help customers to reach the right audiences with the best-in-class experiences using AdMob and App campaigns.

Customer Experience (CX) is now widely accepted as a currency to measure effectiveness of Marketing, Advertising, Sales and Customer Service. Without CX, there is hardly any scope to develop and deliver a finite Marketing and Advertising strategy. App developers are constantly innovating the flywheel of CX goals, putting forward better ways to build and grow app-based advertising businesses. Google, by virtue of its size, scale and level of innovation in app-based advertising, makes CX easy to deliver.

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Idea Behind Google’s Expanded App-Based AdTech Solutions

AdTech is a complex and highly disrupted ecosystem. To meet consumer’s ever-growing demand for Personalization and real-time experiences, app developers are pushing the boundaries. App discovery, App Experiences and Programmatic advertising help to build mobile advertising businesses with recurring revenue opportunities.

Google launched 6 solutions at Think Games at ChinaJoy to help app businesses find more users and grow revenue.

Summary of New App Advertising Solutions

For advertisers on buy-side, Google is expanding App campaigns to serve on new surfaces and inventory on the following.

These include –

  • Discover: Formerly called Google feed, Discover will enable advertisers to find satisfied users across Google Pay, YouTube, Play and 3 million sites and apps. Your reach will expand to 800 million monthly active users who seek information in the form of global news, images, videos, live streaming and mobile games.
  • YouTube Search: Now, developer apps will begin showing up within YouTube search queries based on relevance to prospective app users.

App ad for Tap Titans

  • In-stream Display video: This is a fresh new ad inventory that appears before, during, or after a video a user is watching on all of our Google Display sites and apps. It will be available from next month. (Release date: unannounced)

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For publishers on the sell-side, Google is expanding through three new AdMob updates. These are –
  • App open ad format: Gives developers a natural way to monetize previously untouched inventory as users wait for an app to load
  • Smart segmentation on rewarded ad units: Enables developers to serve ads to users who are unlikely to make in-app purchases, originally launched on interstitial ad units but now coming to rewarded
  • AdMob Insights: Provides alerts to a developer’s dashboard when system detects abnormal changes to key metrics like eCPM, impression volume, or revenue so they can fix under-performing ad placements or learn from over-performing ones.

To learn more, you can join Google’s livestream at 1:40 pm SST during the Think Games event at ChinaJoy in Shanghai, China tomorrow.

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Chorus.ai Announces Only Native Zoom Integration Delivering Most-Secure Recording Compliance for Enterprise

Chorus.ai, the leading Conversation Intelligence Platform for high-growth sales teams, announced the most secure and compliant call recording experience on the market. Chorus.ai is the only solution available that ensures Zoom’s native visual and audio recording notification is activated for any Chorus recorded call, eliminating the need for a sales rep to provide notice to every meeting participant.

In addition to full compliance, the integration delivers a best-in-class user experience with the highest quality video, lowest latency and most control over the recording process in the Conversation Intelligence Category. Stopping and starting recording is now easier, making the overall experience and interaction better for both the sales reps and prospects.

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“Announcing a call is being recorded isn’t awkward for sales professionals, but reps don’t always remember to do it,” said Roy Raanani, CEO and Co-Founder of Chorus.ai. “In the last four years, we have proven the incredible business value of recording sales meetings and using the insights to improve performance across the board. The law requires businesses to notify meeting participants if a meeting is being recorded, which can be difficult to enforce at scale. Our native Zoom integration removes this risk for businesses using Zoom and this headache for sales reps, all while creating a better user experience..”

Call recordings are a sales team’s best asset – much like film review in professional sports. Recording calls and sharing learnings across the sales organization provides the opportunity for reps to learn from the top performers, new reps to ramp more quickly, sales leaders to coach more effectively and even close deals by collaborating within the company. But, Some large organizations have been shy to start call recording because of recording notification compliance risk.

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“Compliance for today’s technologies is an increasingly complex challenge,” said Adam Snukal, a specialist in global privacy and data security compliance obligations and partner at Greenberg Traurig. “Particularly when it comes to technologies that facilitate our most basic human behaviors like the ability to communicate, but in a medium which captures, analyzes, stores and transmits those communications across various ecosystems. The kinds of solutions today that seem to rise above the pack are those that successfully balance utility, commercialization and compliance without detracting from their ease of use.  Chorus’ solution seems to have achieved this unique balance in an otherwise crowded playing field of managed conferencing technology options.”

Compliance warnings are often met through an audio announcement when a participant joins a call, either with automation or by the call leader. This poses problems for those joining late, or sales reps not wanting to start a relationship with a prospect by asking them to record, making the call non-compliant. Additionally, regulations vary from state to state. Chorus’s partnership with Zoom ensures all parties are aware, with the recording message visible on-screen, at all times.

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“As a software provider in the legal space, our team understands the importance, and headache, of compliance,” said Kevin Cohn, Chief Customer Officer at Brightflag. “Remaining easily and fully compliant with all call recording laws without sacrificing the deep insights we can pull from conversations opens the door for our team to create more engaging interactions.”

Zoom not only partners with Chorus.ai, but also uses the technology internally and attributed it as a factor in its explosive growth prior to its recent IPO. Greg Holmes, Head of Sales at Zoom, said, “Chorus.ai has helped us become a smarter sales organization as we’ve scaled. We have visibility into our sales conversations and what is working across all of our offices. We’ve seen a drastic reduction in new hire ramp times and higher sales productivity with even more reps hitting quota. Chorus.ai is a game-changer.”

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Momentum Worldwide Announces New Creative & Strategy Hires in Toronto

Moves highlight Momentum’s focus on Creative Excellence

Leading global experiential advertising agency Momentum Worldwide announced further expansion of its Toronto office.

Executive Creative Director, Raul Garcia, introduced 8 new additions to the creative and strategic teams: Dan Bache, Max May, Antonia Goga, Nathen Ping, Mark Delisi, Rodrigo Coelho and Nisha Sehdev. Sarah Bulmer has also transitioned from the account side of the business.

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These moves mark the first major staff expansion following Garcia’s arrival, who became Momentum Canada’s first ECD in September of last year. “Bringing big idea thinking into experiential is our main focus. These new hires allow us to truly become a fully integrated experiential agency – with the flexibility to focus on any given discipline when needed.”

Showcasing Momentum’s continued dedication to bringing on top talent, each new team member has a proven track-record of success. A strategist with 17 years of experience, Rodrigo Coelho joins as Strategy Director from Momentum Brazil, where he led the Rio 2016 Sponsorship programs. Dan Bache joins as Creative Director after previously helping win national accounts at Taxi and increased exposure for TBWA’s Media Arts Lab on Apple. Most recently with Anomaly and Rethink, Max May joins as Associate Creative Director.  Antonia Goga joins as Creative Director, Design after spending time at TAXI and Overdrive. Nathen Ping and Mark Delisi join as Copywriter and Art Director, both previously spending time at McCann and Zulu Alpha Kilo.  Nisha Sehdev joins as a Content Strategist coming from Mejuri, a jewelry company.  Account Executive Sarah Bulmer has transitioned to Creative & Production Resource Manager to help integrate the new hires.

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“Our vision is to maintain the speed and entrepreneurial spirit experiential agencies are known for, and combine that with top creative talent” said Matt Lewis, President of Momentum Canada. “Creating a company where everyone feels like they have the freedom to be creative will be imperative to our success”.

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Influencers Are Winning the Beauty Contest Across Southeast Asia

A New Study from Meltwater Explores How Social Media and Influencers Are Redefining the Way Beauty Shoppers in the Region Discover, Evaluate and Purchase Makeup

Move over celebrities; shoppers are increasingly turning to influencers to access beauty trends, looks, content and experiences, as the beauty industry fully embraces the power of influencer marketing.

A new report from Meltwater titled ‘Beyond Skin Deep: Understanding the shopping journey of the Southeast Asian beauty buyer’, explores how the industry has welcomed the impact of influencer marketing, and why these relatable and authentic personalities are the top choice for beauty brand endorsements and commercial collaborations.

The report’s key findings include:

  • Social media influencers are now preferred over celebrities for beauty collaborations, given their higher engagement, ROI and credibility among niche audiences.
  • Instagram is the channel of choice for talent-led collaborations, with 8x more beauty influencers on Instagram than on other social channels such as Twitter and YouTube.
  • In Southeast Asia, lip products were the most talked about products on social media, with Estée Lauder’s range of brands dominating the overall conversation.
  • Indonesia accounted for 38% of social media chatter around beauty, leaving behind Malaysia and the Philippines who reported 29% and 27% respectively.
  • J-beauty (i.e. beauty brands from Japan) took the lead in terms of share-of-voice, as compared to Korean and Chinese beauty brands.
  • Selection of the region’s top beauty influencers are: Singapore’s Sahur Saleim (@sahursart), Malaysia’s Farhanah Firdaus (@faafirds), the Philippines’ Anna Cay (@annacay), and Indonesia’s Marcella Febrianne Hadikusomo (@cindercella).

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Supporting Meltwater’s findings is a separate report by Celebrity Intelligence, which found that influencers are pivotal in shaping opinions and buying decisions for 80% of beauty shoppers.

The report also identified key strategies that beauty brands in the region can adopt to fully leverage how customers are consuming beauty-related content. This includes:

  • Creating an immersive experience on digital channels to help overcome existing barriers towards online sales.
  • Focusing on personalised experiences to cater to customer demands of greater inclusivity.
  • Leveraging data to identify the right influencers and evaluate their relevance to a brand’s target audience.
  • Adopting sophisticated social listening and AI tools to stay on top of what customers want, and trends that brands can leverage on.

Meltwater’s report tracked and analysed social media mentions of the top beauty and cosmetics companies across millions of posts from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, blogs, review sites and online forums. Meltwater’s Social Influencer Discovery tool was also used to identify the top influencers and content in each country.

“Consumers today know when they are being sold to and would much rather hear from real people. As such, brands need to be more strategic in their talent collaborations, looking not only at vanity metrics like follower numbers, but also incorporating deeper insights such as average engagement per post, true reach, and demographic data to determine whether an influencer appeals to the right audience,” said Mimrah Mahmood, Regional Director, Media Solutions, Meltwater Asia Pacific.

“As the market matures, influencer marketing budgets and future collaborations will only grow bigger, pushing the $500 billion beauty industry to become even more creative, transparent and accessible.”

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The report also discussed the importance of strategic brand partnerships with credible social media personalities, whose content is relevant to the target audience.

“An integrated influencer marketing strategy is non-negotiable when it comes to garnering consumers’ attention in a cluttered and noisy digital space. By carefully selecting and collaborating with influencers, in addition to continuing our traditional marketing efforts, our brand can be culturally relevant to consumers,” said Bea Asavajaru, Global Senior Manager (Social Media and Influencer Marketing), Clé de Peau Beauté, a Shiseido brand.

“Establishing authentic connections with our audience is of great importance. Since we have curated and worked with influencers who command considerable influence over a sizeable population, we have seen a direct increase in brand awareness and share-of-voice among our competitors.”

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Data Shows Influencer Marketing Is on the up –Tools Are Needed to Empower Micro-Influencers

Micro-Influencers Need a Means to Start Monetizing Traffic with Tools That Allow Them to See All Websites That Have Affiliate Offers Available

The number of influencers connected to affiliate marketing networks is rising every year, according to recent data from affiliate marketing network Admitad. Sales through new traffic channels such as blogs exceeded $5.5 million in their affiliate network over the first half of 2019 a 40 percent increase from 2018.

Micro-influencers are rising in popularity throughout the world and partnerships with affiliate networks are becoming more valuable. Micro-influencers typically have only a couple thousand regular viewers, but their audiences tend to be much more engaged because the content is relevant to their unique followers’ specific interests. For example, a food blogger in a small town may not have the followers of a larger influencer, but theirs tend to be much more likely to listen to any food recommendations they give in their specific region.

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The equally meteoric rise of mobile commerce also plays a role in the increased popularity of micro-influencers. As people trend towards consuming more content with mobile devices on-the-go, they become more exposed to micro-influencers through groups in social media, blogs, and messenger channels. For these micro-influencers, it becomes essential to take advantage of this growth and start monetizing their traffic by partnering with affiliate networks. Due in large part to the increased accessibility of these new traffic platforms, the network also found that advertising turnover has more than tripled while the number of orders has doubled over in the first half of 2019.

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However, this group of people need tools that can be used frictionlessly in order to monetize their platform fast. Without a full team to back them up, they simply don’t have the funds or knowledge of how to efficiently make money out of their role. To address this, Admitad recently released an update to their extension specifically designed for smaller bloggers.

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“Sales and turnover through new traffic channels are growing because people trust the opinions and recommendations of bloggers, microbloggers, forums, and influencers more than traditional advertising formats,” said, Daniil Spitsa, Chief Product Officer, at Admitad, “We are developing new monetization tools to help people quickly and easily enter the world of affiliate marketing and start earning from traffic, even if you have a smaller following.”

Gowthaman Ragothaman Launches Aqilliz to Drive Blockchain Solutions in Digital Marketing

Created in Collaboration with Zilliqa, the High-Throughput Blockchain, Aqilliz Will Unify the Digital Marketing Landscape to Benefit Brands, Platforms, and Consumers

Gowthaman Ragothaman, former Global Client Lead at WPP and affectionately known by the industry as G’Man, has announced the launch of Aqilliz, a blockchain solutions provider. Addressing sector-specific challenges in the field of digital marketing, Aqilliz will facilitate a fairer ecosystem underwritten by greater trust, transparency, and engagement. Ragothaman, the former Global Blockchain Solutions Lead at GroupM, established his career under the WPP group of companies, having worked at Mindshare for almost two decades.

Aqilliz is created in collaboration with Zilliqa, a high-throughput public blockchain, which will provide the infrastructure for secure and scalable futuristic solutions for enterprise clients. Spearheaded by a team of industry experts and experienced blockchain engineers, Aqilliz is uniquely equipped with technical capabilities, direct industry connections, and an academia-corporate understanding.

Having witnessed first-hand friction points across the digital platform ecosystem, Aqilliz leverages on Zilliqa’s technical infrastructure to address three key areas: reconciliation on the digital supply chain; verification and authentication of transaction parties; and risk mitigation in costs and consumer outcomes. This ultimately ensures the fair distribution of value exchanged between advertisers, platforms, and consumers.

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First to implement a functional model of sharding as a scaling solution, Zilliqa is a public blockchain designed with performance, scalability, and security in mind. The project has established key partnerships across the fields of digital advertising, financial services, payments, gaming, as well as digital entertainment. After joining forces with Mindshare in 2017, Zilliqa helped to establish Project Proton, an alliance that explores the benefits of blockchain in addressing issues in programmatic advertising. With Zilliqa as Aqilliz’s blockchain infrastructure provider, the team’s original academic research and technical aptitude will form the backbone of the highly-tailored applications being developed for real-world use.

“In today’s platform economy, tech solutions are trying to address the needs of either the brands, platforms or the consumers, and not the entire platform economy as a whole. With the help of blockchain, we can address these needs equitably and in turn, unify all players in the digital marketing landscape. We’re excited to be at the forefront of this change, as we set a new industry standard that champions greater transparency, cost-efficiency, and trust. As we work together with Zilliqa, we will continue to build on the promising results seen on Project Proton,” said Gowthaman Ragothaman who will join as Chief Executive Officer at Aqilliz in October.

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“Businesses often struggle with moving from awareness to implementation. Aqilliz fills the knowledge gap, identifying key areas where blockchain is well-positioned to offer far-reaching solutions that will benefit all participants of the digital marketing ecosystem. Now that Zilliqa is open-for-business, we are excited to embark on a new venture that will allow our platform to be mobilized as the entry point for enterprise adoption,” said Amrit Kumar, President and Chief Scientific Officer at Zilliqa.

Incubated and taken to market by Anquan, the Singapore-based technology group, Aqilliz equally benefits from its strong understanding of all the participants across the value chain. Aqilliz will actively collaborate with various partners in the advertising, data, marketing, technology, and analytics industries, and will be onboarding clients by the end of the year. Max Kantelia, Co-Founder of Zilliqa and Anquan said, “From technical milestones backed by cutting-edge research to a diverse array of promising partnerships, we are very proud of what has been achieved by Zilliqa over the past two years. By marrying technical strength and industry know-how, the collaboration with Aqilliz is poised to accelerate the mass-adoption of Zilliqa.”

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