We Want to Hear About Your Experience With Marketing Analytics Tools

As fellow analytics fans, we’d like to ask for your feedback in a short 15-question survey. Not surprisingly, it’s about analytics tools and what you as marketers need the most from your systems.

We promise this is not entirely self-serving. Not only will the results inform the topics we consider for upcoming blog posts, we’ll share the results with you as soon as they’re in. After all, what’s the point of insights if you don’t share them?

Participate in the survey here: https://sidra2.typeform.com/to/n3X3qu

And of course, sound off in the comments with any stream of consciousness thoughts on analytics tools, data exhaustion, how marketing budgets are determined, and so on.

About the Author: Maura Ginty is the VP of Marketing at Kissmetrics.

How Portable Solar Power Is Set To Take Over

With increasing pressure from alternative energy sources, it is not surprising that this movement resulted in the creation of several portable solar devices. Harnessing the sun’s energy is not only friendlier to the environment than other energy sources, on a sunny day, is limitless and easy to find. Solar energy devices for attachment of portable are available to charge mobile phones, laptops and other small electronic devices. There are also outdoor solar lamps and ovens that are ideal for campers who want a less flammable source of light and food.

Solar panel technology has come a long way since the days of huge solar panels in the gardens or on top of the houses. The science behind solar panels was conveniently reduced to a much more manageable and modified to suit different situations and environments size. Small portable solar chargers are affordable and can charge not only phones, but also MP3 players and blue-tooth headset. For a person on the road, traveling around the world or someone staying in a warm climate, with little or no electricity, a solar fan is practically a necessity to keep you comfortable. Find an outlet available is not only difficult, it can sometimes be impossible, and solar chargers eliminate the need to stick to where power lines run.

One of the greatest resources for laptops is their portability. Unfortunately, the lifetime of the battery usually is not long enough to meet the needs of its users. In an effort to fill a need, there are several types of loads compact solar panels designed both responsible and operate a laptop when the outlets are not available. Some of these portable and even flexible panels can be connected to other units to increase the harness solar energy and therefore the energy they produce.

Despite its size, the solar panels that are used to harness the sun and provide power to a home is only able to use one-sixth of the potential energy. One of the latest advances in solar panel technology is tiles, which are specifically designed to absorb sunlight, near its full potential. These tiles were created by an American company and use solar energy thanks to its dark color and film solar cells in which it is thin enough to be mounted in the form of tiles. New advances in materials for solar technology increases the efficiency of solar panels up to 20%. The number of owners who want to produce their own energy through the use of solar energy is increasing every year and the industry is working hard to meet their needs.

The design of portable solar panels is changing every day.

Why Marketing Technology and Advertising Technology Need to Sing the Same Tune

"That’s why combining data-driven advertising and marketing is a big deal. It’s also why ad technology and marketing technology departments shouldn’t be singing a different tune—but working closer together in harmony."

This is from a piece out today on AdWeek entitled Why Now Is the Time for Advertising and Marketing Technologies to Converge. Written by Kevin Akeroyd, GM & SVP at Oracle Marketing Cloud, the article lays out some of the benefits of ad tech and mar tech love connection, as it were including the all-important unifying marketing and advertising data to deliver personalized content and ads across all digital channels.

But as Akeroyd points out, the most important long-term benefit is fixing the fragmented experience that consumers experience every day.

As to how to go about aligning ad tech and mar tech, Akeroyd lays out three methods.

1. Connect Online and Offline Interactions to One Customer. Connect interactions to individual consumers across all devices and channels and achieve a higher level of personalization.
2. Bridge Anonymous and Known Marketing. Connect all proprietary and third-party data to increase relevance and target more efficiently with a laser focus.
3. Adapt with Behavior-Based Orchestration. Empower the consumer to dictate their own path rather than force them in the rigid paths of your personas.

Across All Digital Channels

The importance of delivering personalized content across all digital channels cannot be overstated. That's why we created the Modern Marketing Essentials Guide to Cross-Channel Marketing. Download it today to start creating the most cohesive, valuable, and frictionless customer experience possible.

Oli Gardner Wants to Improve Your Campaign Landing Page. For Free.

Ever have a brilliant marketing campaign that just isn’t living up to expectations?

It’s easy to tell that something isn’t quite right — your poor conversion rate screams it loud and clear. But pinpointing the squeaky wheel is no simple feat.

Is your landing page the problem? Your emails? Ads? Remarketing? Do people just think you’re a jerk?

Quit wondering — we’re here to help with our latest web series: The Landing Page Sessions.

Oli Gardner, our resident landing page expert, will focus on one page per episode and help show where you might be leaking conversions. He’ll even rebuild the page with his suggested changes, and show you how a few tweaks can make all the difference.

Sound like something that could be valuable to you?

Just send us your landing page along with the ads and emails that sent people there so that Oli can evaluate your page in the context of the larger marketing campaign. If your submission is chosen, Oli will dedicate an entire episode to reconstructing your campaign.

What’s the catch?

Yo, there is no catch. What are you waiting for?! Submit your landing page today.

How Brands on Facebook Should Use Measurement

New in Sprout: Attach Images to Your Twitter Direct Messages

More and more, customers are reaching out to businesses on Twitter. From asking for store hours to reporting a service issue to troubleshooting a technical difficulty, Twitter provides the right channels (both public and private) to help people solve everyday challenges.

Several recent improvements to Direct Messages in particular have helped to better facilitate the private side of the business-consumer conversation, and Sprout Social has been quick to incorporate these updates.

Today, as we continue building upon these enhancements, we are excited to provide an even better experience for our customers. Because of our deepened partnership, Sprout is one of the first Twitter Official Partners with access to new functionality for attaching images to Direct Messages.

Use Images to Communicate More Effectively

The ability to add an image is an important part of the Twitter Direct Message experience. There are several instances where including an image would help both parties communicate more effectively. For example:

• When troubleshooting a technical issue, customers can safely share screenshots that may contain personal or confidential account information.
• Social customer support agents can save time by attaching a visual asset, such as a step-by-step tutorial, to their DMs rather than transcribing instructions as text only.
• A brand can demonstrate personality in the same way it might on a public Tweet by including a lighthearted image after resolving an issue.

Attaching an image to a Direct Message from Sprout is easy. Whether replying to a DM from the Smart Inbox or initiating a conversation, simply click the camera icon in the lower left of the compose box, then upload your file.

Twitter as a Platform for Customer Care

As detailed in the Customer Service on Twitter Playbook released earlier this summer, “Twitter offers a one-to-one-to-many interaction, which allows the broader community to form an opinion on your service interaction. Tweets are conversational and public.”

What’s more, as an increasingly important backchannel, Twitter DMs empower businesses to meet growing customer expectations with a tailored, one-to-one experience. In doing so, Twitter not only offers businesses a platform to deliver exceptional social customer service, but it also can enhance operational efficiency to save time and money.

As Twitter expands upon its platform, Sprout will continue working closely with the company to incorporate any new features in a timely manner. This will ensure you have the most up-to-date and powerful set of tools to communicate as openly and as effectively as possible with your customers.

The post New in Sprout: Attach Images to Your Twitter Direct Messages appeared first on Sprout Social.

Transform recyclables into practical items for our Vine challenge

Recycling not only benefits the environment, but it also can help you save money and breathe new life into waste.

For this week's Vine challenge, use recycled materials — paper, plastic, metal, fabric or glass — to create something useful. This theme is brought to you by Mashable and PepsiCo, as part of its sustainability microsite #HowWillWe.

See also: Recreations of your favorite games in 6-second Vines

Think DIY or upcycling: you can easily repurpose discarded materials into practical items like room decor or even clothing. Come up with a fun stop-motion animation, or shoot a time lapse video while transforming your scraps into gems. ​ Read more...

More about Pepsi, Recycle, Vine, Social Media, and Mashable Vine Challenge