So this is a follow up from a previous blog. In it, I talked about how Snapchat was primed to IPO, and with it, open up the advertising floodgates. If you recall, Facebook and Twitter very much followed the same path. In the early days of Snapchat advertising, you had to create a campaign with a very prolific agency and it could cost you a lot of money.

Now, you have the creative freedom to use the self-serve tools they have rolled out. The standard Snapchat ad will be a vertical video that will run after a user watches a snap (or a few snaps) of the people they are following. After your video ad runs, which can have a maximum duration of 10 seconds, the user will have four potential calls to action.

The first one is to download a native app from the App Store or Google Play. The second one is to read an article that is relevant to the video they just watched. The next option would be a link to your website. And lastly, the fourth option would be for the user to watch a longer form video and have your video ad act as a teaser to the services your company can provide.

Now with the ease of use of the platform there comes some drawbacks from an advertisers point of view. Unlike YouTube, which offers both the ads that do not allow for the first 5 seconds to be skipped and full length ads that can not be skipped, Snapchat offers nothing of the sort. If they are not compelled after the first second or two, they can tap your ad and will skip right past it.

This is all very interesting and we at Globe Runner can’t wait to see how it develops. We are currently not running promoted Snapchat ad campaigns, but we are actively developing one for one of our clients and will keep you posted with results and good data.

Snapchat. It’s the platform that started out misused but now has become arguably one of the most important social media platforms, especially if you want to reach Millennials aged 18 to 35.

They’re there. They’re using it. And they’re loving it. It went so well that it went public this year.

Why do we care? Because it’s time to get serious about a Snapchat strategy that works for your business. If you’re trying to reach that consumer base, Snapchat is the platform to be on.

Why are they there? Think about it for a second. It’s because of the ephemeral nature of the photo and video sharing that Snapchat allows users to do. It’s temporary, in the moment, and exciting.

It’s going to go away. There’s some limit to this photo experience and you need to be there to be involved with it. That’s what Snapchat’s all about.

When we’re thinking about developing a video strategy to go along with Snapchat, think about its use and how people are using it, and why they are there.

I think successful brands will be brands that embrace that concept, that live with it, and that grow with Snapchat.

With its recent IPO, there is a big opportunity for us to advertise. They have opened up the floodgates, allowing everybody to advertise on it just like Facebook did.

We’d love to help you start thinking about what your Snapchat strategy is going to be and how you’re going to capture your brand. We would love to help you share it with a user base who’s truly engaged and excited about being in the moment with you and your brand.

If you’d like help with that, please give us a call. Reach out to us. I look forward to chatting with you about it.

If you have any other questions that you’d like addressed in a future video, please leave them in the comments. I look forward to hearing from you.

What if you could take the functionality of an app and put it into a website? That’s what we call progressive web apps.

It’s a new technology, a new way of writing code, that allows you to install information on somebody’s phone through your website and give you a lot of the functionality that an app has.

Some of the pieces of functionality include my personal favorite, push notifications. Another one would be offline functionality.

You’re literally installing an app on their phone (with their permission, of course) without them downloading and installing an app.

From a conversion point of view, it’s a much easier conversion to get somebody to give you permission to send them coupons later than it is to get them to install an app right then and there.

You’re going to get a higher percentage of people to convert and install your progressive web app and allow your brand to stay top of mind on their device.

Now there are some limitations to progressive web apps. The biggest one is it’s not supported by Safari. You have to keep in mind that you’re going to develop a fantastic website that delivers on every aspect of a web experience for your customer.

It’s not an either/or, and that’s why we use the word progressive. It progressively gets better depending on which browser they’re using. If they’re using Chrome or Firefox, it’s going to go well, but it’s not going to do well on Safari.

If you’re interested in developing a progressive web app, let me know. I’d love to talk with you about it.

A lot of potential clients walk in my door and they’re missing huge traffic opportunities and massive potential return on investment. The reason is because they’re missing a Bing Ads strategy.

I’m a big proponent of Bing Ads. The reason being that I have clients that make amazing returns through their Bing Ads.

Back in the day, Bing did not have as good of an ad platform. Today, however, their platform has caught up and they represent almost 30% of the search market. That’s a huge amount of traffic that you’re missing if you’re not advertising on Bing.

Here’s the last point that I really want you to take home. Bing has a significantly skewed older audience. The reason for this is that Bing is the default on PC’s. Every PC that you buy, Bing will be the default search engine through Internet Explorer. It’s a Microsoft product.

Now, your older users are not changing their defaults as often. They’re just not as tech savvy. For that reason, you’re going to get a slightly older audience, and you’ll get buyers in that demographic.

We’ve had a lot of success with Bing Ads. I encourage you to try a Bing Ads strategy. If you’d like to know more about it, feel free to reach out to us and we can help set one up for you.

How much is a lead worth? This is a question I get almost every day. The other question I get is, “How much is a lead going to cost me.” But I think that’s really irrelevant until you know what the lead is worth.

It’s actually very easy to figure out. I’ll just run through the math really quick. You take a business and you say, “What is your average customer value?”

Let’s give an example of business‑to‑business sale. Let’s say they a sell a $100,000 annual contract, or something like that. That’s the top‑line revenue. Then, you want to discount that and take out the cost of goods sold, and take the gross profit. That’s what’s left over.

Let’s just say its half, so $50,000 of gross profit is what a customer relationship is worth. There’s your number. That’s what we’re looking to get to. How do I make sure that I make that $50,000 back?

Then we look at what percentage of people do I close? What percentage of leads come in the door that actually signed a $100,000 contract and I make $50,000 on?

Just for easy numbers, let’s say it’s 10%. That leaves us with $5,000. A lead in that situation is worth $5,000. Now, that would mean that that lead would take 100% of your gross profit, so it’s not a good buy.

We usually discount that by half, and then you’d be doubling your money. If you want to be conservative, you discount it by half again because you’re thinking, “We want to make sure that we’re really getting 1 out of 10 quality leads.”

A lead in this scenario that I just gave would be worth $1,250 up to $2,500.

When you’re doing your numbers, they’re probably not as simple as the ones I just laid out. Look at what your customer value is. What’s your cost of goods sold? What percentage does your sales team actually close?

Then, discount it so you make a profit. Ultimately, you can come up with a fairly easy number that will inform you, “If I can get a lead for this amount of money, it’s a good deal.”

Then you can build all your marketing campaigns around that. You can look at your organic campaign. You can look at your paid campaign. You can look at your print ads. You can track leads from TV or radio. Examine all of your different funnels.

Make sure that you’re hitting or exceeding that target cost per lead that you’ve set for yourself in advance.

This is one of my favorite exercises to do with a customer. I love to help them develop that target cost per lead, and really start building strategies around that. Once you do that, you can harness the power of your business’ engine because you know what makes it tick.

If you’d like some help coming up with your target cost per lead or executing on the campaigns once you go through the exercise, I’d love to be a partner for you and a resource to help grow your business and develop that engine.