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Bottom-of-the-funnel Marketing Strategies to Drive Your Sales Pipeline

Author: Ciente Editorial Team

BOFU-Marketing-Strategies
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Bottom-of-the-funnel Marketing Strategies to Drive Your Sales Pipeline

Bottom-of-the-funnel Marketing Strategies to Drive Your Sales Pipeline

When your customers reach the end of the sales funnel & are just a step away from garnering new clients, these marketing tactics will help you win leads.

The bottom funnel is a closing stage. Your potential customers are done with their research (TOFU) and have weighed the options well (MOFU). By now your prospects have thoroughly investigated their problem and are well aware of the potential solutions available in the market. All they need is a final push to take things ahead from the BOFU phase. And the next step is converting them into buyers.

That said, the last leg of the sales funnel pipeline may have the least number of leads. The number of prospects at this stage will probably be few, but all of them chose to come this far. You can be sure that they align with your offerings and are ready to make the purchase. Your prospects have liked your brand and are one decision away from sealing the deal.

These prospective clients fairly have an idea of how your brand will address their pain points, over the conversations or messages you probably exchanged before they reached this stage. They could be regularly visiting your website to understand how your product or service resonates with them. By the time your prospects reach the Bottom Of the Funnel stage of the funnel, they have interacted with your TOFU and MOFU content, instilling brand awareness and building trust in what you have to offer. The BOFU phase is also a point where you are banking on garnering more leads and getting worked up about how to make this happen. In this article, we have provided insights to guide you toward successful interactions with BOFU customers.c

Your BOFU marketing objective needs to center around convincing your prospects that they should buy your product or services. Building an effective marketing strategy for BOFU is a catalyst for driving revenue and accelerating brand growth. It is the process of marketing to a narrow, highly qualified audience to nurture the decision-making process and persuade buyers to purchase your product or service. For converting more prospects to leads at this stage, you need an effective BOFU marketing plan to convince potential customers that they need to go ahead and make the buying decision.

Bottom-of-the-funnel Marketing Tactics: Content Ideas to help you shine

Ideas to increase engagement in BOFU

In a marketing funnel, a well-crafted BOFU will make a big difference to help your brand shine. The goal of your marketing strategy is to amplify personalization and highlight your brand’s trustworthiness.  Although in-person interactions are considered impactful, robust content can also attract customers for the long haul.  

While launching a bottom-of-the-funnel marketing campaign, remember that your end goal is to take people across the finish line, converting them into paying accounts. An impactful digital marketing strategy will serve as a roadmap to convince potential customers to purchase your offering. And this is possible by delivering informative content that motivates prospects to take action.

The bottom-of-the-funnel content framework focuses on prospects familiar with their pain point and actively seeking the best solution. These are the people who are very close to buying your offering. This is the perfect stage to use the power of content to persuade the purchase decision. BOFU content takes personalization up a notch, helping the potential leads decide to follow through and convert. Your content must convey why your offering is the best solution for their pain point.

We have compiled ideas for effective BOFU content to inspire action and increase the lead conversion rate.

Product Guides and Tutorials

Publishing how-to guides and tutorials for your products or services are good content forms to consider. Utilize them to convince your prospects that your offerings will deliver the results and outcomes they’re counting on.

Free Trial Experiences

A free trial is a great way to advertise your expertise. More customers would be willing to give a free trial a go than jump to the purchase. If your business is product-based, a free trial will help provide customers with more details. It is perfect to provide an opportunity to find appealing features about your product, convincing you to purchase. When your prospects enjoy a free trial experience, the probability of them converting into paying customer could be higher.

Case Studies

Case studies work well for the bottom-of-the-funnel marketing strategy to support the final nurturing and the much-needed persuasion. The feature of case studies that stands out is that you can create interviews narrating buyer personas and provide deep insights into what made them take the plunge of purchase decisions. These case studies can also draw upon why the customers think your product or solution is amazing and how well it solves their challenges. Add the benefits of integrating your offering and why they recommend prospective buyers. You can use case studies as an opportunity to highlight features of how other customers are benefitting from your product or service.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are amazing marketing tools for bottom-of-the-funnel. You can launch short and pillar blog posts to communicate key features of your offerings and how they will help your prospective customers. The idea here is to develop blog pieces for specific buyer personas, so they find it highly relevant and can resonate with them. All the blogs can then be distributed through various channels, such as websites, emails, social media posts, and so on.

Infographics

These forms of content are visually appealing and work well to catch the audience’s attention. With infographics, you can showcase complex solutions in a simple and visual format. This content can also feature customer experience and how your brand helped them overcome pain points.

Paid Advertising 

Set a clear budget plan for advertising your offering to the right client network. Launching paid ads can help you remarket to customers you previously interacted with and who showed interest. Collect relevant data to share your ad campaign with and use the channels frequented by prospective customers.

Email campaigns

Once you have drawn a niche audience in the BOFU phase, you can persuade them with an effective email. Sending out personalized email campaigns to potential customers can work in your favor. Personalize your messages so you connect with them better. This marketing channel remains a great way to guide the buying journey of prospects and enhance their interest in your offerings. While engaging with customers, think carefully about how to leverage emails to earn a conversion at the BOFU phase.  In your emails, you can add a combination of targeted content, such as useful tips and promotional offers.

Customer success stories

Success stories can be uploaded on your web page, giving potential customers confidence in your brand. Provide potential customers with stories that highlight the positive experiences that people have had in the past. Share a link to a video demonstrating successful user experiences with products or services.

Wrapping up

The bottom-of-the-funnel is pretty much the end phase of your sales cycle— the last step before converting prospects into paying accounts. A strategic plan can help push prospective customers to make the purchase decision. Your marketing plan for BOFU customers needs to focus on the incentive and accomplish the lead conversion with impactful content marketing. The types of content that will work well for bottom-of-the-funnel marketing differ from the TOFU and MOFU stages. Rather than utilizing it to build trust, you’ll need to leverage content strategies to increase lead conversion. With these marketing efforts, utilize BOFU to highlight your offerings directly to prospective customers.

Sanctions-Screening-Tools
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Sanctions Screening Tools: The Key Takeaways

Sanctions Screening Tools: The Key Takeaways

As brands adopt digitization globally, stringent regulations are a must to prevent risks. Find out which screening tools can help you comply with these.

Businesses worldwide are becoming more interconnected in the digital revolution. This expansion calls for compliance with international regulations, which raises the need to integrate sanctions screening.

The process is significant for protecting your brand’s reputation, preventing financial loss, and strengthening the integrity of the global financial system. It performs a comparative analysis of an organization’s reference or transactional data with sanction lists. Sanctions are important for preventing financial crime and emphasizing the need to align with regulations to safeguard against potential risks. It is a process to help businesses remain compliant with international sanctions while ending money laundering, disrupting financial crime, avoiding penalties, and protecting the national security of the area of operation. A sanctions list is publicly available and issued by national or international authorities. This document is updated periodically and mentions important details about individuals, entities, territories, or countries subject to economic or legal restrictions. The advantage is that the most suited tool to flag any overlaps with sanctioned parties for further investigation.

Key Benefits Of Sanctions Screening

Effective sanctions screening tools allow you to comply with relevant regulations for anti-money laundering and KYC by detecting financial risks and crimes early on. You can benefit the most when you apply these at different stages to prevent thefts and ensure compliance. Initially, conduct risk assessment while onboarding a new client or business partner. The same goes for business transactions– verify the client or partner’s identities. The companies mentioned on these sanctions lists may not receive access to financial systems, be restricted from trade, or be subject to other restrictions as part of preventive measures.

Let’s take a glance at some of the advantages offered by this software.

Key Benefits of sanctions screening

Preventing money laundering

Sanctions screening allows the identification and blocking of transactions involving illicit funds.

Reputational protection

Keeps risks at bay through efficient compliance. The reputational protection allows you to comply with regulations and prevent illicit activities.

Preventing financial losses

You can avoid going through a financial crisis with this software since it helps you identify and block transactions that may involve sanctions breaches.

Safeguarding national security

Quick and efficient sanctions screening prevents fund transfer to companies that may be a threat. Your national security objectives get complete protection from risks or breaches.

Protecting the financial system

Integration of robust sanctions security software results in a stronger and more resilient global financial system. It achieves this resilience through transparency, integrity, and accountability in the transactions.

Top 4 Features Of The Sanctions Screening Software

This software simplifies streamlining and compliance with legal regulations. It allows you to save your brand from risks and reputational damage. Here are some of the key features to watch for:

7 Best Sanctions Screening Tools

7 Best Sanctions Screening Tools

KYC Hub

KYC Hub, marked by its comprehensive solutions and advanced compliance capabilities, emerged as a robust platform capable of addressing the complex needs of various industries. This sanctions screening provider is designed to fulfill the multifaceted requirements of all industrial domains. KYC Hub is equipped with tools, such as OpsFlow and FinCAI Knowledge Graph to improve compliance and risk management processes.

NICE Actimize

If you are a fintech company looking to boost accuracy and compliance efficiency, this is the best fit. It provides an autonomous AML suite that modernizes AML programs. NICE Actimize executes this with AI integration, machine learning, and intelligent automation, thus giving you a holistic overview of customer activities and potential risks. The suite and the Actimize portfolio produce an entire coverage across the AML value chain. It comprises all components, from onboarding to ongoing monitoring, ensuring that your brand remains ahead in complying with regulatory requirements.

SEON

This sanctions screening is notable due to its money laundering and anti-fraud features. It is popular for its efficient solution which includes a rules engine for adhering to regulatory requirements. SEON’s flexibility allows the assigning of a risk score to all transactions. It promotes the decision-making of whether the software requires approval, rejection, or must be subject to thorough evaluation.

Alessa

Alessa is an efficient anti-money laundering and fraud prevention software integrated with tools to enhance compliance and operational efficiencies in the banking, finance, and insurance sectors. This solution comes with a series of capabilities, such as a flexible rules engine, and a teamwork-oriented setting that allows you to implement supreme risk and compliance monitoring.

Sanction Scanner

This software solution offers sanctions to prevent financial crimes and ensure compliance with international regulations. The process involves making sure that companies are not among blacklisted entities globally. It allows you to apply the necessary controls to fulfill the mandatory sanctions regulations.

HyperVerge

Its specialty lies in streamlining and automating multiple sanction screening processes, and at the same time making sure there is AML compliance. The software has advanced capabilities to help conduct comprehensive verifications with major sanctions. HyperVerge utilizes autonomous systems to refresh entity profiles 24/7. It is a great tool to receive real-time updates on worldwide sanctions and mitigate false positives. The software is embedded with custom filtering options to complement the updates, thus enhancing accuracy in large-scale data processing.

ComplyAdvantage

This sanctions screening software offers advanced solutions to organize the complaint process and eliminate risks with financial crimes. It is powered by AI algorithms that allow the identification and evaluation of risk profiles with sanctions, adverse media, and enforcement data. ComplyAdvantage provides a user-friendly interface and customizable solutions that minimize screening backlogs with in-depth audit trails and optimized workflows. 

Best practices to measure success

Sanctions screening will vary for every organization, depending on your business objectives and risk appetite. However, implementing these practices would help measure the effectiveness. We have listed out some key benchmarks for you to ensure the best performance.

Low False positive rate: This indicates a system that marks the differences between legitimate transactions and potential matches to sanctioned entities. Therefore, this reduces the need for processing manual reviews and escalates operational efficiency.  

Response time: Verify whether the sanctions screening program is robust by evaluating its ability to detect and incorporate updates. This feature minimizes the risk of delayed processing while ensuring compliance.

Onboarding time: Estimate the successful performance for enhancing the customer onboarding process in a shorter period. Some solutions have reported an 83% reduction in onboarding time, achieved through the streamlined optimization of the onboarding procedures.

Remediation time: When an alert is flagged, how quickly it gets resolved is the key to improving the efficiency and efficacy of compliance analysts. This should include an intuitive way to document the decisions taken for audit purposes. 

Final thoughts

The B2B landscape is as dynamic as ever— sanctions screening is a must-have mechanism to avoid falling afoul of compliance regulations. These tools provide real-time and accurate updates. The top sanctions screening software in the market highlights the unique features, applications, and technological advancements that set each apart. They help select a tailored solution aligned with your business goals. Integrate the best-suited solution to prevent money laundering and improve compliance with international regulations.

Bluesky-becomes-a-refuge-for-700_000--members
Blogs

Bluesky becomes a refuge for 700,000+ members who want to avoid false data

Bluesky becomes a refuge for 700,000+ members who want to avoid false data

In the wake of the U.S. election, Bluesky reached 14.5 million users after members left X.

The world is abuzz with social media engagement. And during impactful events like elections, there is a high reliance on these channels and their updates. But all said and done, members lean toward sources providing accurate and righteous information. The surge in Bluesky members is a shining example of this trend.

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(Source: CNN)

X, previously Twitter, flooded with election updates as Elon Musk joined hands with Donald Trump. Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022 and since then, its reputation has taken a hit. Plus, showcasing his alliance with Trump on the social media platform didn’t sit well with several users. Musk rooted for Trump, taking advantage of the channel to increase support for the new U.S. president, and this seems to have further worked against X. Brazil, for instance, banned X and witnessed a rise in Bluesky sign-ups.

image 12

(Source: POCIT)

X promoted far-right activism and misinformation which caused a shift in the user pattern.

Members who chose to flee from X escaped the misleading data and found refuge in Bluesky— a channel that was initially launched as a project and funded by Twitter, but later established as an independent entity in 2022. Currently, it has an active membership from diverse users including Taylor Swift fans aka Swifties, wrestlers, and city planners.

Bluesky is now a preferred channel for many who appreciate the liberal media exposure, previously offered by Twitter. This influx predominantly poured in from the U.S. Bluesky’s popularity may continue to soar as it adds features such as direct messaging and video compatibility.

The U.S. election has been a game-changer for Bluesky, whereas X has had a downfall. The core reason behind these numbers remains to be the offensive and misleading information X entertains. While the audience appreciates interesting and eye-catching updates, misinformation and offensive posts— not so much.

Programmatic Advertising Strategies
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Best Programmatic Advertising Strategies: Journeying beyond the obvious.

Best Programmatic Advertising Strategies: Journeying beyond the obvious.

Advertising is creativity given validation. People buy from a brand because a copy and its message resonates with them, and if it’s in their budget. Ogilvy, the advertising man, was touted as a paragon of creativity and scientific rigor for his breakthrough in advertising and helping products reach the masses.

Mad Men. Nike. Apple —advertising is an intense study. And everyone wants a piece of it. Brands can build identities with ads and stay in the buyer’s head for decades or years. Becoming part of their nostalgia.

‘Advertising is powerful’ is an understatement. But now, the landscape of ads has changed. All it takes is one look at Times Square and the internet to realize that the most popular form of advertising is digital.

Although print has value and offers a throwback to simpler days, digital advertising has made it easier to reach relevant audiences and resonate with them.

The most challenging part of creating a copy is making it stand out and understanding the message for the right audience. Design, message, and content are the lynchpin of modern advertising.

But how do you reach your audience at the right time with the right message? The answer: Programmatic advertising. The logic behind programmatic ads is simple— as AI Sweigart says, automate the boring stuff.

Programmatic ads have revolutionized advertising. And we’re not even over-indexing its value. But to unravel the full breadth of ad potential, marketing teams must devise strategies for impact.

And these programmatic advertising strategies go way deeper than the obvious.

Programmatic ads are complex systems devised by publishers and advertisers to simplify the process of advertising. These systems involve a lot of moving parts. Before we touch on the strategies. Let us, for the layman, explain what programmatic ads are.

What is programmatic advertising in simple terms?

In simple terms, programmatic ads are the automation of the ad system. There are four technical concepts that marketing teams should know. These are the: –

  1. DSP or Demand Side Platform
  2. SSPs or the Supply Side Platform
  3. RTB or Real-time bidding
  4. Ad Inventory or Total ad space

The process starts with the demand side platform. Advertisers use these systems to automate their ads and set up campaigns. On the DSP, the advertiser sets their budget, bidding limit, and so on. In real-time, the RTB starts bidding, and when an advertiser wins, the SSP gives the ad inventory to the winning copy.

These ad inventories are spaces on a website or a slot in video or audio content.

All of this is automated. The advertiser has to choose their audience and define them for the DSP and SSP. The algorithms do the rest.

The Importance of Programmatic Advertising

It is an effective way of advertising. And it keeps on growing as the tech permeates into the tiniest details of our lives. The moment we wake up, advertising and its potential can reach us through our smart devices and OOH displays.

It is this potential that advertisers must use to elevate the consumer’s life. And that is where the programmatic advertising strategies start.

Types of Programmatic Advertising Bidding

Programmatic advertising has tiers of its own. There are various types of bidding that advertisers can engage in based on their budget and standing in the market. Yes, some advertisers enjoy the benefits of an exclusive guestlist.

Programmatic Bidding The Types

These types are as follows: –

Open Exchange Biding

Many publishers can bid on the open exchange type of programmatic bidding. It is open to all entries. And there are a lot of publishers available to the advertisers. Open exchange uses RTB to bid for the spaces. These ads do not have a guarantee.

Private Auction

This is where things get exclusive. Not all advertisers are allowed in the private auction. Certain publishers allow a select few to use the ad inventory. Private auction works on the bidding system of PMP or private marketplace— it is the exclusive version of RTB.

Programmatic Guaranteed

This is where we realize the importance of a buyer/seller relationship. Programmatic guaranteed happen between two parties. There is only one advertiser and one publisher. The advertiser has exclusive rights to run ad campaigns on this publisher’s website. Imagine the potential it has. A deal with high-quality publishers means higher chances for ad personalization. After all, an exclusive publisher means access to exclusive audiences and premium inventory. They work on the programmatic direct technology.

There are no bids in programmatic guaranteed. The prices of clicks, impressions, etc. are fixed. And the number of impressions is fixed, too. Negotiated by the buyer and publisher, the publisher promises a certain amount of impressions.

A note on programmatic direct: It is a one-to-one interaction where advertisers’ salespeople meet with the publisher’s team for the deal.

Preferred Deal

Preferred deals are non-guaranteed types of programmatic bidding. The advertiser gets preferential treatment from the publishers, and the buyer can choose not to publish the ad. The publisher and advertisers set a negotiated price for specific ad inventories. Preferred deals are flexible and offer publishers and advertisers a middle ground for exclusive treatment.

Preferred deals also use programmatic direct for inventory purchase and negotiation.

Strategies often fail, and that is not a bad thing.

Programmatic ads are often said to be complex. And for good reason. There is a lot of thought behind them, and marketing teams must understand their workings.

There is a certain vagueness in the programmatic landscape. Most conversations surrounding the technology and its strategies are based on the basic rules.

Of course, A/B testing and understanding the customer are crucial for an ad campaign’s success. There isn’t a marketing leader out there who doesn’t understand the value of experimentation and its relationship with growth. Or understanding the customer in crafting a resonating message.

Crafting a strategy must go beyond all of the basics and the obvious. It would be easy to list down all the things that you must do to succeed. From A/B testing to understanding the DSPs, technical knowledge is a must, but it is a topic discussed at length.

However, one crucial aspect of programmatic advertising strategies, in fact, marketing in general, is how you find a strategy unique to your organization and then execute it.

In advertising, it is by understanding that you must be as fluid as the customer itself.

2025 Emerging Trends in Programmatic Ads

Ask your social media managers. They will tell you that trends change almost daily. Think of all the trends you followed. How many of them died within the day, and how many still persist?

Why does it happen? Psychologists and marketing experts have pondered over this question for a long time. A works, but D does not.

The answer lies in the cultural context of the message. B2B marketing is often said to be boring.

Emerging trends are linked to what is relevant to the culture you are advertising to. And this aspect goes beyond understanding your customer; it is context-based.

Culture, in this day and age, means understanding the societal and technological landscape of the target geography and demographic.

The simplest example is: Will you talk to a 20-year-old like you would with a 60-year-old? No, their technology and understanding of the world changes. Language and lingo changes.

With this information, marketing teams can not only identify emerging trends but also create them. One of the most famous examples is Oatly. Their disruptive marketing is based on eye-catching and energetic messages that go against the grain.

They recently went to the US capitol and gave people ice cream, which was advertised as tastier than regular ice cream. But such disruptive marketing is possible in the ever-social US climate. If it were Japan, they would have been subtle and contradictorily a bit more absurd.

Emerging trends and timeless messages are the crux of marketing strategies. And to understand them, you must understand your customer segments’ culture above everything else.

The Budget Strategy For Programmatic Campaign

Budget Strategy For Programmatic Campaign

Bidding is one of the most crucial aspects of programmatic advertising strategies. In Hubspot’s 2024 state of marketing report, marketers report facing scrutiny in how their budgets are spent and how ROI is generated.

And that scrutiny has only increased. Programmatic ads are budget-heavy. DSPs cost a lot. While running the ad itself will based on the ad budget, impressions, the bid at which it closed, and the keywords used, the tools that you buy will be out of the larger marketing budget. And they are expensive.

How will you justify your budget? This strategic question is often overlooked. In this piece by Google Think—Jim Lecinski, a professor of clinical marketing from Northwestern Univerity, suggests presenting marketing budgets not as a bill but as a financial investment.

It is a simple yet revolutionary idea. For your programmatic advertising strategies to work, you must justify the cost behind them and propose levers of financial growth.

You must: –

  1. First, understand why programmatic ads are necessary for your brand. And the potential ROAS the campaigns will present to you.
  2. Propose an exact budget and the returns you expect from the campaigns.
  3. What market share do you expect your ad campaigns will deliver, and what will be the financial effect on the quarter?
  4. What are the drivers of growth you are targeting? Is it brand awareness? Is it leads? Or is it sales?
  5. What will be the end financial result of the campaign, and how will it affect the bottom line of your organization?

These are some of the questions that will help a CFO make sense of your spending. Advertising, as much a creative endeavor, is also a financial one.

The Creative Strategy

How does one strategize creativity when creativity itself is part of strategy?

The answer: Creativity is nurtured through experimentation.

While marketing teams love to assign data and attributes to their assets and winning templates, there is no such substitute for creativity. What resonates with people are emotions and outcomes. In the B2C industry, this is perceived to be easier than B2B.

But that is not true. When in a workspace, people are still bound to emotions related to their work, and simplifying complex tasks opens up space for more business improvements and a perception of elevated work lives.

As such, creativity must work within the bounds of emotions and provide a positive outcome to your buyers.

The message

Let us try out an example: –

Of the two messages below, what catches your attention the most?

a. Notion is an all-in-one workspace for managing and creating content.

or

b. Bring your ideas to life— ideation, planning, design, and creation. Notion, is a canvas built to evolve with your vision.

Both messages will resonate with the right audience. There is a chance one will elicit more emotion, curiosity, and imagination. But that is for you to understand which one.

Creativity can be enabled in your teams by letting them experiment. A/B testing is part of this experimentation to verify what is working. But it is not the only way to experiment.

Hotjar’s product experimentation method.

Hotjar, the solution for website analytics, goes through a framework for product experimentation. It is the scientific method of: –

  1. Asking the right questions: What does the user want and would benefit from?
  2. The possible solutions to the problem
  3. Who does the solution exist for?
  4. And the data backing up your claims.

This framework empowers marketing teams to come up with their experimentation methods by mixing and matching their unique user base to their behavior.

After all, a message about the product can also be seen as the product itself.

Ad copies are fascinating pieces of art that serve a practical purpose. And should be looked at from a creative aspect. But like architecture—whose art also serves a real function— ads’ creativity has to be deeply rooted in the needs of the buyer.

These needs can be found through understanding the buyer with data.

The Technical Strategy for perfect optimization

We have looked at things from the creatives’ perspective. It is time to get technical.

Technical programmatic ads strategies fall into four parts, and their function is to get a deep understanding of buyers’ needs. The technical strategy enables marketers to validate their creative messages. These four parts are: –

  1. Understanding Insertion order and line items
  2. Gathering data
  3. Analysis
  4. Integration

Insertion order and line items

One of the main aspects of running an ad campaign is the timing.

When do you want the ads to run?

For how long?

Where?

To whom?

And why?

Without these, you will not be able to have a successful campaign. Purpose, geography, time, and the user are necessary dimensions of a programmatic advertising strategies’ success.

You have to be very careful with these. Because automation will do as you say.

But how do you go about this? It is by defining the insertion order (A term used by Google’s DV360). Insertion order and its equivalent is nothing but the set of interrelated line items (a.k.a. ad groups.) and the commands given to those line items.

Say you are a SaaS company for salespeople. And you are launching your AI agent. The insertion order will have all your ad groups for the launch of the AI agent.

These ad groups will be of similar themes. But they can target: –

  1. Different user bases with their language
  2. Different geographies
  3. Different keywords e.g., Sales AI Agent V.s. Conversational AI Agent.
  4. Different messages and designs.
  5. Have certain time periods and differing budgets – maybe one line item runs for an hour, and its budget, 500$ or it runs for the European region and should stop after there are 1k clicks on the ad.

With insertion order and line items, you can set up the rules you want for your campaign. There is complete flexibility as to how you want your ads presented to your users.

Data

Data is a treasure in marketers’ hands. Understanding buyer behavior comes from data. And programmatic advertising is ripe with data.

Every interaction, click, impression, etc. leaves a digital footprint of users’ behavior. And with DSPs, you can choose the data you need in specific scenarios for unique conditions. That makes DSPs a goldmine for first-party data— the holy grail of user data and a key components of programmatic advertising strategies.

However, data without analysis is like a book without a cohesive story.

Analysis

Data analysis has revolutionized human life. From winning wars to boardroom meetings, analysis has driven our decision-making ever since we understood the power of computational data.

There are multiple ways of analysis— through automated software or manual effort, data begins to make sense to the one looking for clues. It is the story behind these vast behavioral maps.

Why does one user behave this way with this campaign but not the other?

Analysis lies in questions such as these. Adobe has a great blog on data analysis and its tools. But for our programmatic advertising strategies, analysis must answer the following questions: –

  1. Is the campaign working as good as you hoped it would?
  2. Do the numbers or trends suggest that your ad spend was justified?
  3. Does the trajectory of your ad campaign need to change? If yes, in which section do you think it should be?

The analysis gives insights into scattered data. But it is the human being who must choose what to do with it. An AI will provide a predictive analysis of your data and visualize it.

The main question is: What can you do about it?

Here’s a resource for all marketing analytical enthusiasts. To generate insights in BigQuery, you would need to do this: generate data insights in BigQuery

But your DSP will also provide such analysis. At least, DV360 promises to do so.

Integration

Integration is a vital concept in marketing. It means delivering a cohesive and singular experience to your user.

Programmatic ads are part of customers’ journey into a seamless experience. One cutting-edge advantage of programmatic advertising is the data-driven approach it takes.

And thus enables a dynamic approach to marketing. Based on your buyer and their journey in the funnel, programmatic ads can change the message. And the mode it takes to reach the buyer.

These dynamic ads have the advantage of reaching your buyers wherever they prefer to be. Even if it is their smart TV.

The Reach strategy

Programmatic ads can reach the buyer anywhere. From TVs and phones to their Alexas, these ads can potentially approach your ICP on their terms.

Reaching your audience is not complicated. If your ICP loves podcasts, that’s where you will be.

But what matters is the message. The cohesive experience must also be dynamic enough to adapt to the channel. The message should stay the same, but the delivery will change.

If your ICP is an avid football fan, can you leverage that to reach them through their CTVs?

And you should not do this for clicks either. Remember the rule? 95% of your ICP is not in the market to buy.

But you should nonetheless market to them. Why do you think that is?

It’s because of category entry points. In any given scenario, if a buyer wants to buy something, they will search their memory banks for an option before any search engine. In short, if they think of you in an ideal buying situation, there is a high chance that you will be their choice.

There is a reason why positive brand awareness and market share are so intimately linked.

Bringing it all together – The end of strategy

This is not a comprehensive take on the programmatic advertising strategies that you must take to improve. There’s the omnichannel experience, cross-device targeting, second-party and third-party data leveraging, and more.

There is a good chance your strategy may fail. And that is a good thing. Programmatic advertising strategies’ success is based on the agile practices of failing, pivoting, and success. We have presented to you moving parts that will be necessary for you to understand its depth.

The way you use these moving parts will be based on your creativity. As you experiment and grow, so will your strategy.

As a leader, you must drive the balance between creativity, experimentation, budget, and execution.

Programmatic advertising strategies are intense and satisfying.

Programmatic ads are deeply rooted in marketing strategies. Ad copies must be creative and deliver value to the user. Whether it’s humor, design, content, or the message, each copy must be treated like a product and elicit emotion in the viewer.

There are many dimensions by which you can judge your ads’ success, but if it does not align with business objectives, there is a chance that you may not get the organizational buy-in necessary for the campaigns.

CMOs must teether the line between advertising’s creative side and its financial one. One of the greatest advantages of programmatic ads is its data banks, which can produce high-quality data that will be beneficial for the entire organization.

The complexities of programmatic advertising strategies are not lost on us. That is why Ciente.io orchestrates your buyer experience for you. We lighten the load on your shoulders by bringing our expert-led strategies for brand success.

Branding and Design: Beyond Logos
Blogs

Branding and Design: Beyond Logos

Branding and Design: Beyond Logos

Design and Branding are always constrained to visuals. These limitations hinder a brand from fully coming into its own. But what if you could go beyond?

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Design is humanity’s greatest invention. Or rather a discovery. The language of design helps us understand, visualize, and create symbols that make sense.

Everything man-made that you see has been designed with the intention that someone might use it or find it exciting. The design makes something memorable. With this usage of abstract symbols and design choices, we are able to use and program commands in machines and create a brand.

Branding and design are linked together like a coin with two sides. They are an inescapable part of each other. The discourse online surrounding brands and design is about the fundamentals of branding design.

But who doesn’t know that? A good brand has a good design. And if you want to be memorable, create an aesthetic that visually appeals to your user.

Is this it? No. To design something entails far more, especially from a brand’s perspective. And while logos and color are a major part of it, it is not something that marketing leaders do not know about.

When it comes to your brand, you know how it should look and feel. If you know your customers, you know what typography, pictures, and logo should reflect their personality.

But what goes beyond these fundamentals? Understanding timeless design principles makes brands successful. It is communicating an idea to another almost instantaneously. And staying in their mind.

The design creates trust, recognition, and belonging.

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Image Description/ Caption: Designed for Perfection

The Vitruvian Man is one of the most recognizable sketches on our planet. Its creator does not need to be named. That is branding and design.

Why is it so that some visual pieces evoke a memory in our heads? When you see an iPhone from the side or front, even without looking at the logo, you understand it is the iPhone.

It is association. Your brain puts thousands of pieces together to recognize the device in an instant. When speaking of branding and design that goes beyond logos and typographies, this is what is meant.

Brands that stay on top of your head communicate who they are through subtle cues. Trust us, aesthetics are part of it, but brand design should not be confused with its sub-part— Graphic Design.

Brand as a system

Within the school of system thinking, any object is broken down into parts, and the interconnected relationship of the parts makes it work as a whole.

Brands are the same. They are dynamic systems that constantly evolve and adapt to feedback. As with any system, the brand is made up of many moving parts. From customer experience and aesthetics to the product/service/personality your brand has formed around, branding design has to consider everything.

Brands are like a movie. The entire experience must be directed to create positive outcomes for the organization and tell a story worth being part of.

This is where branding and design come into view. It is a strategic and scientific approach to creating trust within the buyer and becoming a natural choice for whatever you’re selling. It involves educating, delighting, and retaining your audience.

Build meaningful interactions

In marketing, the interactions your customer has with your brand are known as touchpoints. And marketing teams describe the customer’s path to the bottom funnel as a journey. Yet, among the noise of marketing messages, these concepts have become redundant. Explore effective Email Marketing.

But they do matter if we look at it from a different perspective. Many online resources talk about frictionless touchpoint interactions or journeys. Yet, the reader is not left with an understanding of what the content is trying to say.

These pieces beat around the bush to tell you one thing: Build meaningful interactions.

Directing your customer’s journey is crucial for brand building, as it may. But how do you do this?

You must think like a designer. Because that is what the successful brands do. They design every touchpoint with awareness of what the customer should feel or act like.

Let’s illustrate this with an example exclusive to B2B.

The concept of self-buying

You must know that self-buying has become popular since the pandemic. As more business leaders began preferring the self-buy options, the industry had a wake-up call.

They needed to get on the self-buy train like their B2C counterparts. And they did. But what does the industry find?

B2B buyers felt more regret when they self-bought. Why do you think that is? One of the reasons is that they couldn’t understand what the product had to offer.

One of the drawbacks of self-buying is not having an SDR to talk to and ask crucial questions.

But there was one more caveat: Buyers preferred remote selling. I.e. after the pandemic, in-person sales were not the preferred option for them.

This is a design problem. And shows us customers themselves don’t completely understand what makes their experience good. The design anticipates the problems the buyer may face under possible conditions. And provides an intuitive solution for it.

The intuitive design solution is to understand that your SDRs are not just outreach agents but consultants to the buyer. And through tools like Zoom can interact with the buyer.

Any good brand designer understands through instinct the value of human-to-human interaction. That a loss of it might cause some obstacles. Buyers need meaningful interactions that affirm their values. And this happens through an SDR during the final stages of the purchase.

Companies that jumped on the trend without this thought process may have faced a lack of high-quality sales.

On the other hand, businesses with hybrid models with their sales teams working as consultants and helpers to ease buyer choice must have reported better deals.

And that is not mere conjecture. In the report we linked above, proves buyers were 1.8x more likely to complete high-quality deals when the model was a mix of self-buy and rep-assisted.

Let’s make branding and design into actionable principles.

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Image Description/ Caption: Let Design guide you home

Designing Belonging

SEMRush is adored by a large community. And equally, some who adore Ahrefs.

Both companies are known to feud. They are SEO tools. SEMrush is supposed to be great for keywords and Ahrefs for backlinks. Teams fight over which one is better.

Countless blogs pit the two against each other for commercial purposes. Yet, the SEO community manages to stay passionate about both.

Why do these two brands evoke such appreciation? Because people feel a sense of belonging with them. Both brands have managed to capture their intended audience and hold their attention. Especially SEMrush.

But how do you create belonging through branding? The simple answer is to align with something. There is a debate in the community between keywords and backlinks. And maybe…just maybe. SEMRush and Ahrefs decided to support these polarizing communities by design.

This created a sense of belonging between the community and the brand. If a product is good and does what is needed, its brand can quickly create a passionate community.

And nothing exemplifies this like Notion

The community of Notion

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Credit: reddit.com

Do you see the affection Notion gets from its users? Go and read the comments. They are passionate, to say the least.

Why does this platform have such an avid fan following that people wear Notion merch, and why does the San Francisco Standard say that people use it to run their lives?

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If you are creative, you know Notion. For those who do not— it is a connected workspace for wikis, projects, and docs.

It’s an all-in-one tool for creation and management.

But if you ask any creative, the tool is more than that. It helps you make your ideas into reality. Notion works on the concept of customizable databases, and these databases can get as creative as you. Offering what seems to be endless possibilities. People even monetize their databases because they are effective.

Notion, coupled with marketing, high-quality content, and a tool that satiates the want for premium stationery items, creates a unified experience of satisfaction.

Notion is designed for people to want to ask more. All through intentional design.

Here is the co-founder’s interview. Through his words, we can understand that he and Ivan designed Notion by understanding the needs of the knowledge worker and creating a tool that lets them personalize through building blocks.

Revolutionary.

“Design means everything here. We’re a tool that solves people’s daily problems.” — Ivan Zhao

Look at Ivan’s comments – A tool that solved people’s daily problems. And they designed their brand to exemplify this.

From the community meet-ups to incorporating customer feedback and app integrations. Notion is everything a tool wants to be.

Notion has such a Zen way of organizing and creating programming, writing and designing, and whatever you want to use it for. That it hooks you in. And makes you passionate. Explore Programmatic advertising.

Do you want to create a second brain? Notion’s got you.

Let’s break down the design principles behind belonging: –

  1. Understand what your product/service/personality stands for
  2. Let the customer explore and find out what it can do by sprinkling in clues
  3. Let them talk about it (Or create discussions around it)
  4. Enable their thirst for knowledge.

Creating Trust and Recognition

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Image Description/ Caption: Trust made tangible

In the Soviet Union, things were not branded till the 60s because of socialist rules. This created a huge problem. Quality was bad, and factories could not be held accountable.

After a fiasco involving rivets, ships, and sinking, the USSR realized branding and design were crucial.

Very crucial.

And so started the boom of state-owned design teams that made logos and had names of the manufacturing factories etched into their products.

Have you ever wondered why brands were ideated into existence? It is because of a need. The a need to distinguish between high-quality goods and trustworthy creators.

Great design plays the role of enforcing this idea. Look at McDonald’s. The undisputed king of fast food.

What do you think made McDonald’s so popular? Is it the Iconic logo? Is it McDonald’s the clown?

Of course. But let’s take a granular approach. They dominated because of design. The winner was their kitchens and the Speedee System created by the brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald.

It was revolutionary.

It was the lever of McDonald’s success and why Ray Kroc believed in the brand. Let’s take it a step further.

After World War II, drive-in competition in San Bernardino grew, and the McDonald brothers discovered something surprising about their barbecue restaurant: 80 percent of their sales came from hamburgers. “The more we hammered away at the barbecue business, the more hamburgers we sold,” said Richard McDonald, according to John F. Love’s book McDonald’s: Behind the Arches.

The brothers closed their doors for three months and overhauled their business as a self-service restaurant where customers placed their orders at the windows. They fired their 20 carhops and ditched their silverware and plates for paper wrappings and cups so that they no longer needed a dishwasher. According to Love, they simplified their menu to just nine items—hamburgers, cheeseburgers, three soft drink flavors in one 12-ounce size, milk, coffee, potato chips, and pie. — Source: history.com

The McDonald brothers thought like pioneers. The success of their business was possible because their brain picked up on design choices— whether through instinct or training.

  1. They realized burgers were selling more
  2. And created a system to deliver it to the customer quickly and in their hand.

Can you see something here? The McDonald brothers created a lean start-up. A quick and agile entity. And their echoes are still heard 75 years later in 2024.

Let us talk about design principles: –

  1. Identify your product or service offerings and analyze what is popular with your customers.
  2. Is there an opportunity to enhance customer experience by becoming aware of what they want or need?
  3. Is there bloat in your design? Something you can eliminate without affecting your main product. Even elevating its speed in some aspects.
  4. Ask yourself: If this choice is so powerful, can a brand emerge through this, or can your brand become synonymous with that offer?

A brand that designs itself to provide value to its user and anticipates their needs will get the opportunity to associate itself with a concept.

Like Apple with design. Like Google with search. Like McDonald’s with Fast Food. And HubSpot with Marketing and Sales.

Design principles put you on par with the giants.

Bring it together for the user to feel, see, and touch.

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Image Description/ Caption: Can you feel the heaviness in their backs?

Great design excites all the senses. You must have interacted with tools and software that seemed tangible. The software almost anticipates your responses and helps you grow. As it guides you through its challenges, you feel the joy of discovery.

SEMRush is such a tool. It knows what the user wants and, through design helps them grow their marketing skills. Another is Google.

Imagine the head of Google’s designers- they thought that search should be simple and made the software easy to use. You cannot touch Google but feel the experience through your keyboards.

Or look at the advent of AI. It is an intelligence designed to derive ideas and help us find new thought processes. Perplexity, Claude, and ChatGPT encourage exploration through simple UIs.

You talk. The AI responds.

Think about it. Such simplicity is born from the complexities of immense computational powers.

The question is: How can you do this with your tool and make it part of your brand’s identity?

Branding and Design as a reflection

Brands are a reflection of strategies, design choices, and the product (or services and personality) your team is selling.

Unique brands manage to bring out their traits through visual, industrial, and software design. Are they special? No. The only difference between good and bad design is not understanding user needs. And anticipating failure.

There’s no point in adding features that will not elevate the user or make their usage easier. In marketing, good design asks itself— will my base customer find value in this message? If not, how can it be?

Branding and Design is asking yourself the right questions.

And Ciente can help you.

Ciente.io produces high-quality content to help you strategize and provide an edge over the competition. Our in-house creatives and strategists provide the data and expertise to help you orchestrate buyer experiences.

Whether design, content, or maximizing your reach, we help leaders grow their businesses and achieve bottom-line growth.

Middle-of-the-Funnel-Sales
Blogs

How to Fuel Your Middle-of-the-Funnel Sales

How to Fuel Your Middle-of-the-Funnel Sales

In the marketing landscape, MOFU is an opportunity to build meaningful relationships, increasing lead conversion. How can you make the most of this phase?

With the ongoing digitization, the buyer’s journey continues to shift and evolve. When you are at the MOFU phase, your potential customers have gone past the initial awareness stage. They are now at a point where they are seriously considering purchasing your offerings. In this middle stage between TOFU and BOFU, potential prospects know your brand and have shown interest in your product or service. But they are looking at various options to make the best purchase. It is also the phase where they perform a comparative analysis with the competitors. For this reason, MOFU is known as the consideration phase of the sales funnel.  

At this point, supplying some information that will help them make an informed decision. Your marketing strategy targeting the mid-funnel must balance a solid foundation with flexible strategies.

Utilizing the potential of middle-of-the-funnel

The key ingredient of acing MOFU marketing comprises delivering content that conveys the right solution to your prospects. You need to provide them with detailed information about your offerings, or some added value to engage them. Amplify your mid-funnel content by making it more helpful and informative, without being too sales-y. Your target audience must feel like your offerings are providing some value. And it’s not some aggressive sales pitch. When you launch relevant and value-rich content, prospects are likely to respond positively to them.

While providing useful data, focus on building relationships with potential customers. You can achieve this through personalized emails or social media messages. Using these initiatives, you want your prospects to become excited or motivated to read the messages or posts. Building strong relationships with your prospects cultivates trust in your brand, making them more likely to purchase your offerings.

Mid-funnel buyers involve more thorough research from the prospects’ end before they go ahead and leap into that final decision to buy. Utilize this crucial point to stand out from the other brands, so the prospects choose you over the competitors. The mid-funnel content should revolve around delivering solutions that address the audience’s pain points. You should be able to help the MOFU buyers find the right solution through your content.

MOFU Marketing Tactics

Prospects entering the middle-of-the-funnel may not be familiar with your products or services. So, your main objective here is to enhance customer-brand relationships. By implementing this approach, your team can establish its authority in the market. The mid-funnel phase is also the perfect time for you to start nurturing leads who may not be ready for a sales discussion yet. Implementing a robust content marketing strategy can be a great tool to showcase the value of your brand. To accomplish this, your marketing strategy should be research-based and involve educational content, thought leadership, and case studies.

An effective MOFU content marketing helps you close the gap between the initial curiosity the audience feels when they engage with a brand’s content and the final sale. The leads you have at this stage are in the consideration phase of the customer journey. Your marketing team needs to produce educational content that engages the audience to your brand, increasing the lead conversion.

Key Elements of Successful Mid-Funnel Content

An effective mid-funnel content must be educational and highly persuasive while being target-specific. When you create materials with all these components, there is a better chance that your customers will resonate with your brand, causing them to convert into leads. Let’s look at each of these elements more closely.

Educational and brand-specific

Considering the prospects in your MOFU, they already have a solid understanding of your brand and its offerings. But what they need to dive into is how your company is different from the competitors and why they should go for your product/service. That is why, when creating content, make sure it is more sophisticated and informative, discussing your USPs.

Highly-Targeted Content

At its core, middle-of-the-funnel is your chance to add prospects in your sales cycle who are already interested in your offerings. Utilize this aspect of the sales process as an opportunity to drive more organic traffic to your site through engaging content. However, there is a stark difference between actionable insights and consumers casually seeking a solution. To garner customers likely to convert into paying accounts, you will want to create targeted content, supplying them with specific information that adds value and addresses a problem faced. 

Engaging Content

In the MOFU phase, your content needs to hook prospects for the long haul, inviting them to explore more about your company and its products or services. When developing your content plan for the mid-funnel phase, ensure that you provide enough data that gives them confidence in your brand to solve their problems. Showcase your unique capabilities and publish various forms of content demonstrating your expertise. A gentle push is all you need at this stage to convert into leads.

Types of content for effective MOFU marketing

Middle-of-the-funnel marketing requires certain forms of content to create an impact. These are some examples to educate your audience with the resources they need.

Effective MOFU marketing 1

Case Studies

Through case studies, you can offer insightful explanations of how your offerings will make a difference and what new it is providing that other brands are now. You can highlight success stories or discuss applications of your products or services. This will let potential customers understand how you helped their existing clients achieve business goals. When creating case studies, demonstrate data such that your customers feel connected. They will want to see how the success of other brands can relate to them.

White Papers

The core mission of launching whitepapers is to draw light on a specific pain point and promote an approach you used to overcome the hurdle. As a brand that wants to stand out, you must publish white papers on your website and share them in your email campaigns. You must ensure they contain valuable, concrete facts, and statistical data that give your offerings a steady skeleton. If engrained with the right ingredients, white papers allow your prospects to grasp first-hand the benefits of your solutions.

Email Campaigns

Target-specific email campaigns provide an easy and effective route to reach many prospects. For instance, if you can garner more email open rates, it implies that your email marketing campaigns are making an impression to lead to actions. You can also look into email newsletters to compile value-added information to provide details about your brand. These campaigns can be curated to provide insights to move leads further into the funnel. The standout feature of emailers is they allow you to send multiple messages in one go.

Blog Posts

Whether you are a new brand or have established your brand voice strongly in the market, blogs are a useful catalyst to amp up your sales funnel. You can curate articles as per your audience, trying out different lengths and formats while you do so. Each blog is customizable plus easy to consume. The best part of blogs is updating informational content that your prospects will consume. If your blogs have unique insights, they also give you a cutting edge. Enrich your blogs by adding more SEO keywords and relevant links to increase search rates.

News Articles

Publishing curated news pieces could open another doorway of communication with your target audience. While launching this content form, obtain a content license from a trusted source that helps you share timely and reliable updates. In this way, you can enhance brand credibility among your prospects.

Summing up,

The middle-of-the-funnel is one step ahead in the sales funnel. Your prospects have surpassed the getting-acquainted-with-your-brand phase and are seriously considering choosing your brand. This phase is all about them researching and comparing across competitors to decipher which brand makes the best fit for them. The way for your brand to shine in this stage is to provide content that enlightens them on how your brand’s offerings will solve their pain point. You can retain more leads past the MOFU phase by launching value-rich content that highlights your services and offerings. It is a great stage in the funnel to increase lead conversion by planning and delivering content that matters.