Ciente Editorial Team - Ciente

BlogsDecember 13, 2024November 25, 2025

Optimizing Ad Campaigns for Your Growth: Leveraging Google Display Ads

Ads have to be more than just visually engaging. Integrating AI into Google Display Ads promises dedicated B2B experiences to foster conversions.

In 2024, the general audience has an attention deficit. Due to a never-ending content carousel, they are also weary and overstimulated. Advertisements are also part of this content.

How many ads are perceived in the way businesses intend them to? Most of the few-second ads on YouTube, Spotify, or Instagram meet with irritation, skip options, or users buying the premium version to avoid them.

Well, it works seemingly well, right? Create a problem and offer a solution. But this is a user’s perspective.

Today, according to Statista, a consumer spends an average of 6 hours 36 minutes on the internet daily. Every six out of 10 people use the internet to search. Of course, they are tired of irrelevant content that doesn’t suit their interests.

However, this is only one side of the coin. Relevant content targeting the right audience can do wonders for a business. Thus, for brands, the internet works quite differently. They leverage attention deficiency and the time spent glued to their screens.

First, Instagram introduced Reels, and now we have unskippable ads on reels and not merely on our feed. Visually engaging content has become the go-to.

Advertisements have always been about being visually appealing.

Even when they come in different formats now than ever before, advertisers know how to appeal to our nostalgia. We are fascinated by giant billboards, posters, video ads, and eccentric advertising campaigns that intrigue us.

Mailchimp worked on a mispronunciation “Did you mean MailChimp?” advertising campaign.

In 2014, Mailchimp had a crime podcast called Serial, for which they recorded pre-roll audio ads. The participants (voice actors) were anonymous. One mispronounced the brand’s name to say, “Mail Kimp.”

Mailchimp’s marketing team was motivated. They embraced this mispronunciation to create one of their most successful campaigns. It was a play on fake names, such as NailChamp and KaleLimp, but with a similar pronunciation to Mailchimp’s.

These were turned into pre-roll YouTube and display ads across billboards, subway stations, and Instagram posts. These adverts got them awareness and traffic.

Their marketing angle? Creativity and curiosity.

With little to no information on their display ads regarding the actual brand, curiosity played a crucial role in this innovative and successful campaign. Display ads contributed significantly to creating intrigue, i.e., it worked as a medium.

How Google display ads work.

They hold the same significance as traditional advertisements. However, it is more convenient to reach them when potential customers spend hours on the Internet.

Google Display Network (GDN) bolsters your reach and directs more eyes towards your ads. Its practicality and advantage for your business depend on the marketing objectives. If one of them is a cost-effective ad campaign, GDN can be an effective and seamless highway to foster brand awareness.

GDN reaches over 90% of the audience online and comprises over 3 million websites, videos, and 650,000 apps.

They advertise because they want visibility and awareness – simple and sweet. But advertising is not just shooting with a blindfold on (or is it?). It requires understanding your audience and narrowing it down to your target audience, broadening your customer base, and elevating conversion rates.

One of its advantages for the B2B world is how display campaigns through Google Display Network reach prospects at different stages of the buying cycle: ones that hold no interest to those who are ready to purchase. Because the network reaches numerous websites and platforms, it targets diverse audiences, even those not actively searching for your products.

GDN serves ads to such content websites and blogs that have at least one of your relevant and target keywords.

How is Google Search Network different from Google Display Ads?

Provided above are two different types of Google ads – Search and Display ads. It is visible in their short descriptions that Search ads help drive traffic and sales for those “actively” searching for your products, whereas Display ads reach the general audience, whether or not they are interested in your services.

The Google Search Network (GSN) reaches those actively searching for products or services. For example, in the above screenshot, we search for “email marketing services”, and the first two results that Google gives us have sponsored ads for email marketing by Selzy and Zoho.

Search ads are provided according to the keyword or keywords in the user’s search phrase, which in the above case was “email marketing” and are text-based and driven by intent. The search phrase used here is commercial, i.e., the user has purchasing intent but requires further research to confirm the buy.

Display Ad intent Vs Search Ads Intent

Hence, this is one of the reasons that they have higher CPC. When users search for something specific, especially similar products and services, using high-value keywords, this intensifies the advertiser’s bids due to more competition. This increases cost-per-click (CPC) as keyword targeting focuses on high intent demonstrated by the users.

The bids determine the ad cost. The higher the keyword value and search value, the higher the advertisers bid against each other, driving the CPC or PPC.

Why is this such an important metric? CPCs determine the ROI and measure the performance of your ads. You bid on a specific keyword for Search ads or placement for Display ads that are relevant to you. And then your ad appears whenever a browser uses that keyword, just as Zoho and Selzy ads above.

As an advertiser, you don’t pay for anything unless someone clicks on your ad. The amount depends on the maximum bid, keyword value, and ad quality. Zoho’s ad campaign above is well-curated because it conveys to its potential users that they are a simple platform without any hassles.

They highlight email marketing features for beginners and resources to streamline and optimize those already undertaking email marketing campaigns alongside a discount plan, demonstrating cost-effectiveness.

These Search ads will definitely map and guide the users toward what they seek, due to which they have a higher click-through rate (CTR).

The CPC principle works similarly for Display Ads. The targeting is effected through target audiences and websites. The purpose here is different – instead of attempting to capture high-intent prospects, the goal is brand awareness.

In the above example for the ZeroGPT website, three different display ads are visible – Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a featured video for Adobe, and other ads for Sendbird AI chatbot for WordPress.

These ads don’t pop up when you search for a phrase on Google’s search bar but appear when you visit a website. This is how Display ads work.

Google Ads Customizers

Instead, the Google Display Network allows you to define the audience differently than one can do through search ads.

Audience segmentation is a huge factor in Google Ads, helping your brand reach just the right audience (along with newer ones who might have conversion potential). While creating a Google ad campaign, you can select any audience segment based on demographics, interests, intent, etc.

The audience here is determined based on third-party website activities and Google products. The data used to segment the audiences accordingly is based significantly on page visit histories and past searches.

Google Ads Audience Segmentation Types

According to Google, there are seven audience segmentation types available for Display Ads campaigns:

In-market Segments

Targeting this audience segment is basically middle-of-the-funnel marketing: advertisers want to elevate brand awareness and boost “consideration for in-market audiences”. These prospects are already researching the solutions you offer and actively considering buying something similar across the browsing pages.

When can you choose in-market audience targeting? There are three purposes:

Guiding potential leads down the funnel
When the leads are researching and can be swayed with the right offer
Reach prospects beyond the first-party lists

For example, if you provide email marketing services, you can focus your ad on the in-market segment, researching how to optimize their emails.

Affinity Audience Segment

This includes audiences who have a high affinity or are highly enthusiastic about the products you may be offering. Audiences segmented according to their interests, lifestyles, and hobbies can be based on both contextual and personalized signals or only contextual signals.

While attributing the audience to your ad campaign or ad group, Google will offer tags on its own, but it is crucial to research further and outline the audience best suited for your brand.

Why do affinity audience options work?

It’s simple. When you advertise your solutions to those highly likely to have interests, lifestyles, and habits in alignment with what your brand is selling, conversion potential is also high. This directly impacts the ROI by propelling conversions and making ad campaigns more cost-effective. They specify and narrow the market targets, decreasing the gap between how much you spend on ads and what you receive in return.

Custom-intent keyword segments

This option for audience segmentation offers more precise targeting. While the affinity audience option entails 80 groups you can choose from currently, custom segmentation lets you choose.

It lets you choose the perfect segment by letting you include URLs, keywords, and apps related to your solutions. This option targets a more niche audience.

Rather than selecting one of the options under affinity audience segment, specify using keywords that your targeted audience is likely to search, i.e., create customized segments. The system then chooses the right segment based on your bidding strategy and ad goals, focusing on one of the following – reach, performance and consideration.

After this, Google Ads showcases display ads for those interested in these keywords across apps, videos, and web pages.

Custom-intent Segments

This specific option focuses on ad placement. By allowing you to define the ideal audience, you can choose between placing the ad on a particular vertical or landing page.

Which audiences should see the ads and where? It’s a thorough process.

Adoption of AI in Google Ads.

With the help of AI, targeting, formatting, and bidding have been optimized.

Now, display campaigns in Google Display Network have improved their campaign performance using AI capabilities:

AI in Smart Bidding

They use contextual signals or machine learning algorithms to gauge predictions about how different bid amounts. The signals here are identifiable attributes of a person or the context.

The context could entail a location. Imagine the advertiser’s campaign isn’t rooted in a chosen geography. Google Ads optimizes the bid according to the specific city someone is based in, or specific ad version and whether it’s been shown on the mobile app. The bid will be adjusted depending on the version (ad format and size) that is most likely to convert.

But the overall revenue depends on your smart bidding strategies. AI capabilities embedded within smart bidding streamline the methods with your business goal – whether it is to receive maximum conversions or customer actions, increase return ad spend, or optimize the visibility of your ad (when and where) based on real-time search data by studying the potential of a conversion who is actively searching the products/services you are advertising.

Overall once your strategies and goals are in order, Google Ads will attempt to equate conversion value per cost with the return on ad spend set.

Optimized Targeting with AI

Here, AI helps target other audience segments it feels should fit your brand profile and offers more options beyond the manually chosen ones. This enhances the targeting capabilities of your ad campaign by serving audiences most likely to convert, acquiring new customers minus the existing segments, identifying new targets that help your campaign perform well, and elevating conversions without increasing the CPC or bids.

Optimized targeting offers real-time data of what a converter looks like – such as the links they click on or their Google searches. The focus is on the campaign’s conversion data, such as the keywords they searched for just before they converted.

Responsive Display Ads with AI

Now that we have briefly covered how AI has empowered and optimized Google Ads in bidding and targeting, we have the ad formatting and display to note.

Google allows you to upload your assets (such as taglines, descriptions, logos, headlines, etc.), after which Google AI helps generate different ad combinations. It illustrates how the ad will look on websites, YouTube, Gmail, and apps.

This is where you transform and enhance the ads.

How does the Ad asset upload and Ad generation process work?

When you upload the assets, AI interprets the perfect combination between each asset and the ad slot. This depends on how your ads have fared before.
Google Ads adjusts the size, appearance, and format of the ad per asset type to fit it into the available space. A display ad may be shown as a banner ad on one hand and a dynamic text ad on the other.
Sometimes videos can perform better, and even Google Ads might think so!

By optimizing and streamlining the ad assets to drive results, Google can offer personalized content managed by your feed. They can offer the products the user was looking at in the ad.

The last step is measuring ad performance by mapping any of the following actions taken by the browser: clicks to sign up, making a purchase, or requesting a quote.

Google Analytics for ad tracking plays a huge role here.

Choose Google Analytics view after linking your Google Ads to the same to pinpoint the site engagement metrics. It will also illustrate user actions after clicking on your ad and reaching the landing page. It would comprise bounce rates, average session duration, number of pages per session, and first-time sessions.

To analyze the performance of your ad campaign, you should consistently monitor the performance of the ads. A thorough analysis can help boost your efforts and optimize and improve the Google Ad.

Monitoring impressions and clicks is half of the story.

The created ad impacts your potential conversions, especially if you want them to perform a specific action on the website, phone, or app.

First, you can monitor the conversions quite easily. A “Conversion” column on the left menu section highlights the number of conversions received, i.e. the number of different valuable actions your targeted audience performed corresponding to the ad.

Second, check the quality score, after all, quality matters over quantity. Google Analytics uses a metric that estimates how your placement, keywords, landing page, and ads are to the audience watching it. According to Google, more relevant ads that are fine-tuned for your audience segment earn more clicks and appear in higher positions, increasing brand visibility.

Third, link your brand’s Google Ads account to Google Analytics. The reports will offer you the post-click ad metrics for users who performed the click and then visited your website or installed your app. They also entail comprehensive user data that outlines conversion patterns and user behavior after acquisition.

Attracting the right customers is not challenging. Bear in mind the simple things first before even coming to analyze the performance of your ad campaign: whether the ad copy is relevant and compelling, are your targeting and bidding budget and methods optimized, and whether you have included/excluded particular locations, etc.

What is next for Google Display Ads?

With modern tech optimizing and enhancing Google Ads performance, how can Google Display Ads take a step forward to be even more of an asset for the B2B world?

Engaged-view conversions. Integrating video advertising capabilities with the benefits of display ads.

The full impact of your ads is beyond the number of clicks. And this works quite well on video ads. Engaged view-conversions are when the user watches at least 10 seconds of a skippable ad or the entire ad if it’s less than 10 seconds or five seconds of a Shorts ad on YouTube.

Google says that the prospect takes action only after the entire live-viewing experience is completed. This says a lot about your advertising and how it stays with the potential customer. It asserts that your ad was placed in their memory, keeping them engaged.

As viewing habits change along with the devices, engaged-view conversions illustrate high user engagement and how the AdTech industry is catching up with evolving user habits.

This also signifies the value of your ads, and whether your budget is even half the effort.

BlogsDecember 11, 2024December 11, 2025

Meta, Orion and the attention economy.

Metaverse promises to bring a change. And that change has the potential to shift our relationship with the digital world. But- is it for the better?

Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse project has been trying to position itself as the future of the world. And he can back it up with strides in social technology.

Instagram and Facebook have enabled the sharing of creative ideas across the globe. From memes to artistic expressions, Meta has empowered the common person to spread their ideas to be seen and appreciated.

It is no joke to say Meta has revolutionized our planet. And many are concerned about the ramifications of this revolution. They think about the privacy and ethical drawbacks of these apps.

Look at this stat from Statista—Facebook is the number one platform, followed by YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

Meta has the majority of the market share in social media. Can we say our concerns are reflected in reality? It is not so. The planet is using Meta as its go-to social technology. Now, Mark Zuckerberg wants to take it a step further.

Mr Zuckerberg has brought us another marvel closer to his dream of computational evolution: The Meta Glasses— Orion!

It is promised to be the next evolution of our smart devices. The whole world, right at our eyes and fingertips.

The metaverse is an abstraction brought into the real world through technology.

Facebook’s Takeovers

Let’s take a look at a particular snapshot of tech history.

In a time when Meta was still called Facebook. The company became afraid of the social media platform known as Instagram.

Instagram, the hip and cool new tech was gaining rapid momentum. From their beautiful filters to their sleek design, it was fun to be on. Facebook realized this, and Mark was afraid that the platform would overtake his without needing to become a big business.

The model was that good.

So what did Facebook do? They bought Instagram and integrated them into the conglomerate in 2012. All for a small sum of 1$ billion.

Instagram became the most popular platform for young people (Before TikTok, that is). In the same vein, Facebook acquired WhatsApp in 2014 but for a larger sum of 20$ billion.

And then bought Oculus— now known as Reality Labs— for 2$ billion.

The question in anyone’s mind would be: Why did Meta acquire these technologies? They had the resources to make it from scratch.

We can infer it from these three emails.

The first is from David Ebersman, talking Mergers and Acquisitions. He outlines three possible scenarios for Facebook and why the mergers would be beneficial for them.

And Mark Zuckerberg responded by being interested in two.

What he talks about is the integration of the social dynamics these companies offer and buying time so that they can outperform any competition that crops up.

In the third, he says he is excited about what companies could do together if they built on what they(the acquisitions in question) have invented into more people’s experience.

From what we know of Mark Zuckerberg he has been a visionary and savvy businessman. From Meta’s takeovers, we can assume he has the strategic acumen to understand what people want.

And to identify the technology that can deliver it to them. Meta has been acquiring all technologies to usher the user into a new experience.

In all senses of the idea: An immersive experience.

This immersive experience is being sculpted by Virtual and Augmented reality.

The Metaverse

Facebook’s rebranding into Meta was not just about changing the name. But the entire mission. They serve to bring the metaverse into reality.

The metaverse is a virtual world of creative possibilities in computation and holograms.

It is an abstraction of the fantastical, bought into reality by advanced technology and designs. Meta and extension, its founder believe the metaverse is the future of computation. Mixing audio, visual, and other sensory organs to make the user believe that what they are feeling is, in fact, part of reality.

In Zuckerberg’s terms — “The next platform will be even more immersive— an embodied experience where you are in the experience, not just looking at it. We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.”

Holograms. Virtual Avatars. Augmented Spaces. Everything that can be dreamt of, the metaverse can conjure. Humanity is now Alice, and our technology is the rabbit hole.

Meta draws a beautiful picture of unbound creativity. And apparently, that is the goal. The metaverse is not about Meta but about creators and developers.

In the closing lines of his founder’s letters, Mark says — “I’m dedicating our energy to this [Meta] — more than any other company in the world. If this is the future you want to see, I hope you will join us. The future is going to be beyond anything we can imagine.”

What does this mean for the future? What are the possibilities that leaders should look out for?

Marketing, tech, finance, and the arts. Everything stands to change with Meta.

Meta’s Orion

Sometime in the last decade or so, our work became knowledge work. Computing has taken over every aspect of our jobs. Look at the SaaS market. It would not exist without cloud computing.

And as the trends go, our computational devices are getting smaller and smaller. And more portable.

First, the laptops, then the tablets, and smartphones, and now Meta has unveiled what they hope is the future of computation— the VR glasses they call Orion.

Credits: Orion

The Orion has all the things one would expect from tech.

AI
Games
Video Conferencing (But you can see the person, the person can’t see you yet)
Marketing Opportunities

Meta’s Orion has been 10 years in development. The device has three components: –

The Glasses
The EMG wristband
And wireless compute puck

Credits: Orion

The three create the holographic AR experience. The wireless puck runs the app logic. And helps the glasses stay compact.

The EMG wristband provides and captures feedback from your fingers for scrolling, swiping, playing, and interacting with the glasses. This is a fantastic piece of technology that uses sensors to translate electrical motor nerve signals into instructions for the glasses.

The glasses overlay objects and content onto their screens for an immersive experience. You must have seen people play pong or demonstration of Meta AI’s integration.

The glasses capture what you see, and the AI can elevate your experience by bringing your instructions to life.

In the demos, they asked the AI to create a recipe with all the ingredients users looked at.

The demo was full of basic things. Just a glimpse into what it can do.

But the real magic lies in its possibilities.

A tech with a promise of infinity

Smartphones and laptops opened up a new world. Staying connected every day and every moment became possible. But it is still a passive way of interaction.

Most people are consumers of content. Not interactors of it. What Meta offers, and this is most exciting for creatives (including marketing teams), is interaction.

Imagine, marketers. Imagine when your potential buyer can interact with your content with their sensory organs.

The potential of this tech sounds limitless. You could create an experience that takes them from one point to another. And make them feel in control of the experience, personalizing it to the individual at such a level that is unheard of.

The Orion, again potentially, promises to get the creative ideas you have off the ground with no limits in sight.

The only limitation would be budget, imagination, and talent.

The Limitations

And these are big limitations. To design experiences, marketers need game engines and developers to program these interactions with the glasses.

It would be Meta’s prerogative to create or integrate a programming language for the glasses. It is possible they might use drag-and-drop features to enable the creation of these experiences. Or give developers the option to choose.

These developmental choices would decide how businesses and creators interact with the glasses. And they would have to assign budgets to the development of the experiences.

Again, Meta would be able to control the expenses. Like Facebook Ads, they might create a platform made for the AR/VR experience. (This is conjecture on our part; we have no official news of this.)

The questions marketing teams and creators should consider for Orion and AR/VR should be:

How much would it cost to build the experience?
Does it have to be interactive, or can it give the illusion of interaction through presentation?
What are the tools you would need to execute the experience?
Is the creation process possible by your teams, and does your budget support it?
And, probably, the core question: Are these glasses true to their promise or just another fad?

Creators and marketing teams should be wary of fads before investing in them. But how do you know if a tech is just a fad? By the number of tech adoptees.

Like all answers in marketing, the market will tell you if this is the next iPhone.

Let’s talk about the attention economy.

Credits: attention economy

Mark Manson, the infamous author of The subtle art of not giving a f*ck, writes in his blog— the attention economy.

It is an interesting read highlighting the importance of the resource known as attention. The pitfalls of not having attention and the way media weaponizes cheap content to get attention.

And Meta’s social media platforms are part of this ecosystem that demands attention. Some creators choose to create quality content, and some choose not to. Instead, they create sensationalized pieces. But this is not a new technique.

Now imagine the glasses on you all the time. Will we lose more of our attention to the void?

Yes, if we are not careful. Our technology might cause problems down the line. But here, marketing teams can shine bright.

Marketing’s Role in the Attention Economy.

For the general audience and the buyer, especially B2B marketing it is all about problem solving.

The adage of reaching the audience at the right time means solving a problem through content, service, or product when it pops up.

But the metaverse is supposed to mimic our experience of the real world.

Would advertising in the AR/VR world be like OOH? Shown to us at random times. Or would it be the same as a smartphone? Shown to us during a video or a piece. The latter makes more sense.

But there are more opportunities with the glasses. To elevate marketing’s standing.

As a professional and scientific field, marketing— instead of adding junk content, will be able to create content that makes the buyer think or improve their experience of the moment.

For example, if a buyer is solving a knowledge-based problem. Say they are programming with the help of glasses. And they cannot solve the problem. MarTech for AR/VR can detect this, given enough permissions. And you can present your solution.

The question is: How will you do this without invasion (remember, Orion also promises a sensory experience) and better than an AI machine?

More than dopamine hits, what a decision-maker needs is the knowledge to make better decisions. A good brand becomes synonymous with that knowledge.

As we move towards a more always-on type of society. It is necessary to make the buyer feel relaxed, in control, and knowledgeable.

The Orion and its successor may provide this stage.

Social technology will change buyer behavior.

As technology begins permeating our world, marketing will have to change to be more about providing value.

Going beyond the obvious will be the norm. Surface-level content and basic well-known knowledge will be cannibalized by AI. But what is the role of Meta in all of this?

For now, they are leading the charge toward the next stage of computation. Like Steve Jobs before him, Mark Zuckerberg’s social tech is leading the charge towards the next evolution.

The metaverse is a peek in what is the peak of human ingenuity and creativity.

But is it our entry into a revolution or just another empty promise?

BlogsDecember 11, 2024June 27, 2025

Cross-border payments: A positive future.

Cross-border payments have streamlined transactions. And for SaaS models, this positive turn to fintech couldn’t have come at a better time.

Fintech advancements has empowered businesses to make payments across countries.

What used to take a myriad of microtransactions can be done within hours and minutes. As the invoice is generated and the payment accepted, the deal is almost immediately completed with no to little lag time. Cross-border payments have opened a world of financial possibilities for organizations and paved the way for international trade

It has made payments cost-efficient. As the SaaS market grows by a CAGR of 18.4%, B2B cross-border payment will become vital. The potential for this market is vast.

But how vast exactly?

A global workforce and global organizational collaboration facilitate a need for cross-border payments.

After the pandemic, the world saw a monumental shift in the way we worked. Marketing, sales, product teams, and operations changed. We had to collaborate remotely.

But, it also helped organizations understand the importance of a global workforce and collaborating with organizations in different countries.

But how would an organization pay or receive money? Using cross-border payment solutions.

What is Cross-border payments?

Cross-border payments are the transfer of funds and assets across international borders. The transfer is facilitated by banking institutions or fintech organizations. These cross-border transactions involve currency conversions.

Methods of Cross-border payments

Bank Transfers
International Wire Transfers
Electronic Funds Transfer
Online Payments Platform
Cryptocurrencies

More methods like credit cards and checks are used, but for this piece, we’ll touch on the idea instead of going deeper. We have a great blog that elaborates more on the concept!

These global payments helped the world streamline their transactions. Yet, it posed a challenge.

The banks took time to verify international transactions, and there is a complex process that takes time. And let us not forget the conversion fees. The entire process took valuable time and money out of the pockets of organizations.

But now, there are innovative solution. Payment service providers like Paypal, Razorpay, Stripe, Wise, and more enabled organizations to pay invoices quickly and at cost, helping them make their payments efficiently and in due time.

The emergence of new solutions and global collaboration brings a positive change.

According to allied market research, the global cross-border payments market was valued at 181.9$bn in 2022 and is projected to reach 356.5$bn by 2032 with a CAGR of 7.3%

As you can see, the cross-border payments market is growing positively. Owing to its fairly new technological innovations there is room for rapid growth in this nascent technological landscape.

Although- fintech development has made it possible for low costs and helped organizations sustain their subscriptions overseas. These solutions don’t support all countries as complex compliances, the upheaval of changing currency values, and the inherent risks of cybersecurity attacks create uncertainty.

The promise of emerging solutions and the challenges that come with it plague the market.

Businesses are looking for solutions that will streamline the entire global payment system and bring unified economic growth.

Market Potential

Let us bring our attention to this report:

It is an exceptional piece. There are two “assets” that could be interesting to this discussion.

This quote by Pawel Szejko, CFO of XTB

“It’s easier to build something for a few countries than to build the infrastructure and the setup for the whole world”.

And that RTPs are expected to generate $173bn in additional economic output by 2026.

Essentially- the cross-border payment service infrastructure is siloed right now and presents a significant opportunity- Any solution that tackles it— will have a piece of the $173bn.

The Future

The cross-border payments market offers complex challenges and rewards. The two essential pieces in the broad fintech puzzle are: –

1. RTP (Real-time payments)

2. The blockchain

It is essential for any organization entering the market to understand the state of the two, especially blockchain. It presents a unique opportunity, although one shrouded in uncertainty. While blockchain will bring trust and clarity to the international transactions, the complexity and energy needed to run blockchains on a massive global scale are not yet present.

Even setting it up can cost an enterprise millions of dollars.

The future of this global payment method is this: It is headed in the right direction, and it needs innovation. There is still the looming threat of cybersecurity. And disconnected solutions, although the best available choices today, leave something to desire.

Organizations entering this market will find that there are many problems to solve. The question is: how will they solve them in a way that builds and improves upon the rest?

The solution which answers this question will eventually have a large piece of the market share.

Cross-border payments market size brings a promise.

The promise is global collaboration and a secure financial backbone for the entire world.

The entire globe is now operating as a singular international business. Contractors called freelancers play a vital role in changing the shape of a business. From strategies to marketing experts, the globe is filled with talented individuals. And business to business, business to customer or direct to customer or any kind is now looking to hire these talents.

Companies know that these individuals with diverse backgrounds will increase market share.

As independent contractors rise and provide their knowledge for organizational growth, the ease of these international payments will become increasingly crucial.

Whether it’s B2B payments, B2C or customer to business, these cross-border payment systems must improve the customer experience by providing real-time transfers in a secure way.

For SaaS, this will enable the growth of individual markets by helping them penetrate new borders and geographies that would have otherwise remained untouched because of currency exchange costs.

Fintech, Artificial Intelligence and the use of digital currency like blockchain promise a new future. A safe and secure way of moving money. However, new solutions that tackle these problems may take time to emerge.

They will not be able to tackle traditional banking institutions but will empower them for a better consumer experience.

BlogsDecember 3, 2024June 6, 2025

Moving Beyond Traditional B2B Cross-Border Payment Methods

B2B buyers demand secure integrated payment solutions. Will cross-border businesses adopt new methods or find a balance with the conventional ones?

The need for secure and fast B2B cross-border payments has changed the course of digital economic development. With economic activities across borders leaping ahead with globalization, we require efficient and secure financial services management.

Even when businesses take a breather, trading continues. With a huge boost in the number of companies sprouting worldwide, the frequency of imports and exports has also escalated. This calls for continuous and connected payment solutions to avoid any hiccups.

One of the major challenges of cross-border payments is slow settlement – the material goods shipped from Hong Kong arrived faster in Singapore than the payment for the goods!

Today, with the widespread domestic adoption of FinTech, we can confidently define our domestic payments as secure, seamless, and fast.

Customers, merchants, and enterprises expect similar efficiency from international payments. Digital transformation has propelled shifts in financial services, and international growth has been steady but slow.

This has been highlighted as a major gap within frequent conversations surrounding digital development, especially traditional cross-border payment methods.

Additionally, to understand how tech has enabled changes in the financial systems, it is crucial to have a brief glimpse at the process involved in traditional international payments.

Simplifying Traditional B2B Cross-Border Payments

Cross-border payments are monetary transactions between a buyer and seller located across two different countries. They generally involve low-value payments across the B2B landscape.

The advantage here is the low currency conversion and transaction fees, given that the money is transacted internally.

The primary step of seamless cross-border transactions is highlighting three significant points – amount, currency, and method. Both parties should come to terms with these three factors to avoid miscommunication.

Next, regulations compliance is necessary, especially Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. Verifying the receiver’s identity in line with other relevant compliances can help you comply with the legal regulations.

Third, a reliable payment provider will help avoid any financial fraud. To select the appropriate one for a secure transaction, we factor in the currency exchange rates, the platform’s workability in the country, and overall intermediary fees.

Fourth, focus on accuracy. It is necessary to outline the correct payment details before making final transactions including the recipient’s name, your name, SWIFT or IBAN.

After gathering all the payment details and checking whether the details are correct, the next step is initiating the payment. Once you have submitted the request, the provider will process it through proper banking channels and convert it into the required currency.

Several payment providers allow you to track and monitor the payment, ensuring transparency regarding the status of your request. And when the status is visibly successful, you can notify the recipient party by sending them the confirmed receipt.

We have a simple understanding of how B2B cross-border payments work in our hands. And with the escalating economy and evolving market, cross-border payments need to keep up. This has led to challenges that must be addressed to make them accessible and convenient for end users.

Do We Need to Move Away from the Traditional Methods?

Across the functioning of traditional B2B cross-border payment platforms, one of the major concerns would be its effectiveness and flow. The absence of one leads to a waste of resources and substandard user experience.

Imagine the international payments network as a random patchwork, instead of a unified system. It is cluttered and disorganized.

The greater the number of banks involved, the longer the transaction and the higher the collective processing fee. This is because different banks have different formats, regulatory protocols, and compliance requirements they follow.

Due to such complicated threads between different banking services, a structure is required. The market for cross-border payments is set to increase to $250 trillion in 2027.

Any hitch could result in an unsatisfactory customer experience, especially when it does not meet the requirements on the ground.

To navigate these concerns during business transactions, an uninterrupted, reliable, and convenient payment means is necessary.

In B2B, clients are the drivers of growth and revenue. Client satisfaction, trust, and long-term loyalty are paramount.

The Disadvantage of Bilateral Networks

However, with glitches and obstacles in the payment systems, their experience can become underwhelming just as easily. This is the disadvantage of bilateral networks.

Bilateral networks work as a patchwork that lacks secure and organizational connectivity. The greater the number of banks involved, the more challenging transparency and timely transaction settlement become.

As illustrated above, the use of bilateral networks in cross-border payments is complex.

Multiple payment gateways between different banks across varied locations can introduce delays and inconsistencies. It is not cost-effective as the processing fees by each bank accumulate.

These issues are the reason why integrating emerging technologies such as blockchain with Visa is needed to transform cross-border payments. And instill a multilateral networking system.

Visa adopted blockchain technology into its services to improve the payment system.

The head of Crypto at Visa asserts that Visa aims to bridge the gap between cross-border business payments and modern tech.

“There is no requirement to do away with traditional cross-border payment methods but to understand how the innovations interact with the conventional ones”, says Cuy Sheffield.

Let us take an example from the current landscape of B2B cross-border payments – real-time payments.

Instant real-time payments are the changing face of cross-border payments. With escalating B2B marketplaces, research illustrates that instant payments can transform cross-border payments.

Payments are completed within seconds with direct proof of credit – a future step in banking.

With global commerce shaping the modern economy, the challenges of traditional banking systems have become detrimental. Delays, high hidden fees, and issues with currency conversion – the three apocalyptic horses of traditional wire transfer across borders.

How do we propel the international trade and address these challenges? By adopting real-time cross-border payments.

Real-time payment systems operate around the clock, ensuring international transactions are completed within seconds rather than hours or days.

This payment method has been adopted in the UK and the United States since 2008 and 2017, respectively.

Real-time B2B payments allow efficient financial transactions between two individuals, an individual, and a business, and two organizations, allowing them to witness the transaction stage in real-time.

Benefits of Real-Time Payments

This has enabled flexibility and transparency in the process, whereas previously, traditional cross-border bank transfers faced challenges in monitoring the origination of the payment to their completion.

The functioning of real-time payments boosts convenience.

There are negligible to no transaction fees included in this payment process, making it affordable and cheaper for regular activities. With lower transaction costs, businesses can diverge the savings into making their products and services cheaper and appealing to the general audience.

This can relatively elevate their profitability across the market, offering them the opportunity to build international partnerships and upgrade their solutions.

Additionally, via instant payments, we get instant notifications regarding the payment status, erasing our worries in regard to any financial fraud that might be involved.

The use of real-time payment methods is increasing as users give precedence to minimal effort.

When payments are initiated directly from the payee’s bank to the creditor, most of the complexities in the middle are erased. The transaction time automatically becomes faster as this can be done reliably using mobile numbers or email addresses.

Real-time payments for B2B cross-border payments could gradually lead to standardization in global payment systems, fitting the unique requirements worldwide.

So, unarguably, to harness the maximum potential of new fintech innovations, it is paramount to study how traditional payment systems are improved to align with emerging tech. They must function together as a unified system.

Visa’s Approach: Bridging Legacy and Innovation

Visa B2B Connect

Another example is the Visa B2B Connect, developed by Visa in 2019, which leverages multilateral networking for streamlined financial transactions across international borders.

Multilateral networking is straightforward. It enables transparency and facilitates trust between the payer and the receiver. There are no significant hitches due to the limited number of corresponding banks involved, i.e., by shortening payment chains.

It has helped transform the face of cross-border payments.

The goal was to negate the friction and execute security, transparency, and consistency of transactions. And multilateral networks allow us this convenience.

Visa B2B Connect utilizes a unique identity tokenization feature that changes crucial customer payment details, such as the account number, into a unique identifier to improve security.

This has changed how information moves between businesses across borders – fast, secure, and seamless. In its support, the general manager at IBM Blockchain assures us that Visa B2B Connect, with the help of blockchain architecture, has been a great step towards transforming cross-border payments.

Visa and Swift Partnership

Visa’s objective was to become the bridge between cross-border and local payment networks. To connect the two seamlessly, Visa partnered with Swift in 2023 to elevate the transparency and speed of B2B cross-border transactions.

With Swift GPI’s tracking capabilities, not only has the visibility of the transactions increased and become faster. In the traditional bilateral network, participating banks were different patchworks thus Swift GPI, in collaboration with Visa B2B Connect, has transformed it into a comprehensible structure.

This partnership promises clear and accurate data, especially for corporate clients, setting a benchmark for cross-border payments.

Visa studied client demands to give them what they want – reduced friction on payment rails.

While this is a step ahead, it is not the end of the race.

With the world witnessing transformations every breath, there is an urgent need for digital payment solutions. This especially includes the ones that address expanding supply chains, international asset management and investment flows, a rise in trade and e-commerce, and increased migrant remittances.

And we have witnessed drastic changes as cross-border payments aim to keep up with the other financial domains. Financial institutions have adopted blockchain and cryptocurrencies into their operations to enhance their customer experiences.

For example, launching the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP) will help institutions issue stablecoins and facilitate the smooth integration of blockchain into their traditional operations.

Propelling the use of stablecoins across the industry, especially by other industry giants such as PayPal and Stripe.

Stablecoins, unlike traditional cryptocurrencies, offer price stability.

Hence, they are gradually becoming significant for large-value cross-border B2B payments. It has instilled connectivity across socioeconomic barriers, kickstarting a shift towards a cashless economy.

The primary requirement in the B2B cross-border payments landscape is seamless and secure day-to-day transactions.

The developing use of digital currencies can make promises by helping businesses tap into markets even with limited digital infrastructure and without the complexity of blockchain technology.

Every fintech innovation can be considered an experiment. Without implementing improvements, we would not understand where different banking solutions lack or emerge victorious.

With digital services evolving at an increasingly fast pace, the need for instant digital payments has risen – for enterprises as well as small businesses.

So, outlining the market preferences is paramount.

While there are yet to be concrete solutions that may permanently introduce stability for international transactions, we have specific tools that map the future direction of cross-border payments.

B2B cross-border payments have already undergone significant innovations that may change the face of digital payments in the near future. And that is the underlying hope.

BlogsNovember 25, 2024December 17, 2025

The Expression of a Brand’s Identity: Graphic Design and Branding

With minimalistic branding becoming the trend of the hour, can understanding the narrative behind the design process help brands find their voice?

The traditional definition of graphic design focuses more on its practical functionalities, i.e., illustrating what needs to be communicated, only considering it as a practice of doing.

Today, the domain of graphic design inhibits much more than that.

It does not merely involve typography, illustration, printing, and photography, though these allude to its origin. However, there are nuances involved that highlight why it has become crucial for businesses worldwide for branding purposes.

It involves both – thinking (idea generation) and doing (action of illustrating). In graphic design, these two elements are combined to form a channel of communication and emotional expression for brands.

A channel that helps brands instill unique messages, and appeal to their targeted audience.

In simple words, there remains a huge misconception that collates graphic design and branding with visual content.

However, marketers who leverage graphic design and branding services understand how significant graphic designers are. They know that the process and the product hold similar weight in branding. Its significance is quite visible across the marketing landscape, where graphic design is the guiding framework of the overall branding process.

It is an instrument of persuasion, instruction, and information while being an expression of a strong brand identity.

Graphic design is the instrument that instills a narrative into your brand.

Your brand cannot remain a hollow echo of products and services but instead something similar to a live strong identity. More than encompassing a corporate value, it should hold a narrative.

Just as different colors in nature add a specific pop to the world, graphic design contributes that flair to your branding projects. So, where does the connection between graphic design and branding begin?

Commercial imagery.

“They are eye-hungry. They pop”, said Andy Warhol on industrial painting, i.e., art consumed by the masses.

This form of imagery didn’t exhibit abstractness but the “literalness” in everything we use and perceive, like a Coca-Cola sticker we paste on our phone cases. Arguably, this is where the idea behind designing unique logos for brands stems from.

But that was the point. With commercialization and the rise of innovations that required a business to stand out, graphic design and branding took on a new meaning.

This new direction of graphic design and branding process was curating a channel of communication in the commercial arena that helped identify products meant to be bought and sold. And the form of illustration designed for identification was used in a unique way.

Repetition and uniformity became the two significant keys of commerce, graphic design and branding, as evident.

Source: Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans

So, this instituted a visual vocabulary of mass culture. This meant that specific visual identities represented certain commodities used broadly across the market.

This ideology of recognizable imagery is still borrowed from and ascribed to the realm where graphic design and branding intersect. For example, how the half-eaten apple of Apple is recognized by users and non-users everywhere – from MacBooks to t-shirts.

This can be connected to the brand logo, entailing replication and sensibly outlining the meaning behind the intangible idea.

Visualization of abstract concepts entails a profound creativity that corresponds to articulating an idea or communicating feelings by ascribing symbols to what is known.

Your brand’s message is an intangible concept, but you map it into reality through visual elements such as a logo, typography, color, mission statement, etc.

Logos are such channels or instruments of communication that should be provided more consideration.

It is short for logotype, combining the Greek words – logos (word or speech) and túpos (mark or imprint). The concept of a visual identity or making a logo by graphic designers is to give shape to an intangible concept and even to differentiate classes of objects from one another.

The principal reasons why this is necessary – differentiation and ownership.

Imagine there are four different businesses of jeans in the same building in front of each other.

In the modern market where competition is prevalent and persistent, there’s no escape. We know that one jeans seller has higher quality jeans than the other, while the other has lower prices.

We prefer and are loyal to one brand of jeans, so how do we differentiate it from the others?

Yes, word-of-mouth marketing can go a long way and exist before technological tools. What if we combine this with a form of visual identity?

This was also the idea behind Levi being previously known as the “Two Horse Brand” until 1928. The reason for taking on the two horses for their logo demarcated their product’s durability. This was the narrative behind the logo – it entailed a meaning that could make its brand stand out in the market and increase its share.

In simple terms – “thinking about images means being led into certain thoughts by images.”

So, they tapped into the primary step that can boost their brand recognition – the logo. And this was quite successful. For years, consumers attributed Levi Strauss & Co. as the “pants with two horses”.

How else could consumers understand the durability of their product?

Levi Strauss & Co. themselves offer an explanation. Their need to put two horses was to communicate in a language that all their consumers would grasp. There was a cultural barrier, and very few people were actually educated, but through visuals – the emotions one could grasp would remain the same.

If not, everyone could easily describe which brand of jeans they wanted they could always say “the one with two horses”. And this makes a lot of difference in elevating brand awareness. This means a brand is unique, distinct, and successful enough to be recognized through its logo rather than its name.

See, how much significance does a brand logo entail in entering a new market?

Not only did they hope to communicate what their brand is known for – durable denim – but they also understand their audience. So, those “pants with horses” did not merely become their logo but also their persona: a strong identity for their brand.

But this has undergone a transformation since.

With Levi’s growing popularity across the entire world, this logo was deemed unnecessary. To keep up with the changing market dynamics, minimalism has taken root.

While brand identity is significantly crucial to narrating the product that your business offers, graphic designing and logos keep pace with the changing rules of aestheticism. And the trendiness of how people perceive color schemes, typography, layouts, and the overall brand design.

A design does not comprise colors and lines, but it contains hidden meanings and an effective use of space.

As soon as Levi started to take off, minimalism impacted its old logo. Once the brand is built, recognition comprises a singularity, as we have noticed in several huge brands.

The ‘F’ for Facebook’s app, the bird for Twitter, the half-eaten apple for Apple, and the list goes on.

Brands have incorporated minimalism in their designs and layout.

This is also relevant for the B2B landscape.

Simulation has become an escape. Any aesthetic that catches our attention occupies less space and a convenience that affords comfort to our naked eyes.

Taken as a mode to demonstrate elegance and clarity, minimalism holds a bright future.

The use of pastel colors, alignment, negative space, and bold typography is the essence of minimalism today. With immense competition across the market between businesses that sell similar products, graphic design and branding processes can change everything.

Like the Pop Art movement, we might say that minimalism opposed abstract expressionism. This form of art did not ask its viewers to instill meaning into the work or extract metaphors. But instead, assess the space and body around the art piece.

It is paramount to understand why minimalism was established to further outline why it is much preferred in the designs and advertisements that we have today.

Frank Stella, a minimalist artist, said, “What you see is what you see.” And what they popularly meant is less is more, even from a design perspective.

But in graphic design and branding, a diagram might possess something more. It doesn’t merely start with a logo or end there. Either way, it constitutes a value. The brand’s value is communicated through this.

And the very exercise of expressing oneself or recording a message began with visual art.

Surely, tech advancements have transformed our way of expression or communicating but the underlying elements remain loyal to the traditional forms of storytelling – the crux of visual art. It’s the significance of art encompassing a narrative. In graphic design and branding, logos, color palettes, typography, and use of space – the elements that construe modern design – entail a narrative.

And in branding, the entire vision and statement that the brand is built on holds meaning.

A brand doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

With the figures etched onto the walls, doors, collaterals, business merch, etc., how does this not contain any similarities to cave paintings?

Yes, the art of storytelling is not limited to stick figures, monochromatic colors, or just filling in random colors. But, at the core of marketing, creativity aligning with the business objectives is in the driver’s seat. The businesses and the audiences, in a dynamic and constantly spiraling market, demand much more.

So, the combination of graphic design and branding changes how we utilize and engage with visuals, according to how they take root in a highly commercial and mechanical world.

However, design is not merely art. It enrolls a meticulous use of colors, space, lines, font, and alignment for successful branding.

For example, the use of red and yellow in the McDonald’s logo is not random. It holds psychological significance, according to Karen Haller, a UK psychologist expert in color and design psychology, i.e., to trigger hunger:

“Looking at the positive psychological qualities of red and yellow concerning the fast-food industry, red triggers stimulation, appetite, and hunger, it attracts attention. Yellow triggers the feelings of happiness and friendliness,” Haller said. “When you combine red and yellow, it’s about speed, quickness. In, eat, and out again.”

A simple Google search tells us that red and yellow are common colors for fast food restaurants, and due to the reason stated above by Haller. Visual perception, human behavior, and emotions result in specific reactions and triggers.

Red offers that excitement because often it is associated with a ripe strawberry, sweetened candy, or tender meat. On the contrary, its association with intense emotions such as anger and rage works in favor of these brands. It calls for an urgent response, proactively influencing mood and behavior. This is why it’s used to illustrate danger.

Color holds a crucial space in graphic design and branding.

The whole element of branding is to induce consumer loyalty, boost purchasing intent, and expand market share. And in this case, its identity matters tenfold. In the examples above, from Warhol’s soup cans to Levi’s logo, color aids have been the steering wheel to propel your brand.

Colors in graphic design and branding leverage their significant influence as different forms of signals in nature and culture.

Why?

Because they help in scene segmentation, object recognition, and stimulus discrimination. The sense of specific colors leads to attraction or repulsion, depending on how they rattle our emotional stimuli.

But just as the use of red and yellow in fast food chains exhibits a sense of hunger and satisfaction, the use of colors and the reaction it harnesses depends on the context, which is not uniform.

This is why blue is often used for corporate and more conservative brands such as Facebook, LinkedIn, PayPal, Intel, Phillips, and Visa, among 43% of other Fortune 500 companies. Blue is trustworthy and calming, and all graphic designers are aware of this.

And if you ask any brand with a blue logo, why blue? The answer always constitutes two terms – innovation and reliability.

What is the narrative hidden beyond the graphic design and branding of Facebook?

On 31^st August, Facebook underwent a technical glitch. This put a halt to users’ engagement with the platform because our inbuilt habit of doom scrolling brought attention to this change.

The blue ‘F’ logo turned black. Surprising? Yes. Unusual? No. Applications undergo technical issues all the time and are resolved within a few minutes or hours.

But why was this newsworthy? The brand that Facebook has built has blue at its core graphic design and branding tactics. We have a simple understanding that Facebook’s blue entails a marketing association. Due to its market share, it isn’t required to stand out and have an eye-catching and impressionable logo.

We all know what Facebook’s logo looks like.

When the glitch changed the color of this F into black, consumers assumed that maybe this was a rebranding effort by the organization. This is how intertwined the color blue is with Facebook across the market.

But you know what the most fascinating aspect of this is? The actual narrative behind the color and the logo – Mark Zuckerberg’s red and green color blindness, alluding to which he said:

“Blue is the richest color for me; I can see all of blue.”

This is a story behind the use of the color blue. It’s out there but hidden behind the marketing understanding of why brands use the color.

Visual accessibility was a huge reason if not one of the only significant ones. The brand’s association with blue color is emotive behind the curtains of the marketing landscape, along with its bold sans serif typography.

In graphic design and branding, every executed design is intentional.

Graphic designers do need to align with client requirements, but the first thing on their minds should potentially be the experience.

Is minimalistic art the future of B2B graphic design and branding?

Where do the pros of minimalism end and the dangers of losing the details begin?

Even though there is a need for a new direction in art and design, where do we lose sight of our vision – art as expression? Isn’t expressing oneself hidden in the details, or is less the new more?

In the tech landscape, a lot has changed. Twitter became X, and we have built-in AI assistants like ChatGPT. But some things have remained the same. And one of them is the homepage design for the Google search engine.

Google’s search engine homepage grabbed my attention not because of its exceptional use of colors but its simplicity. We can say it embodies absolute neutrality, stripped away of distraction and popping colors. Not much regarding the graphic design and branding of Google’s search engine homepage has transformed.

We have come a long way. While brands have caught up, most users still gravitate towards minimalism, and AI-generated images are widely criticized. And Google retaining its UX design, even in today’s atmosphere, is commendable, to say the least.

The graphic designers know what they are doing with the appropriate spacing and proper alignment of the CTAs spread across the page. It’s minimalistic, making it increasingly user-centric.

It’s minimal with carefully chosen attention-grabbing vibrant colors, such as blue used for their CTAs that provide a clean and formal look, against the white background.

It grabs the reader or scroller’s attention quite instantly.

Every logo, color palette, typeface, or use of whitespace amidst other intricacies of graphic design and branding is an existing proof. Especially in the immensely complex and expansive space of digital marketing.

Visibility, readability, and direct communication.

Expression is an integral component of these platforms, especially Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The platform itself allows space for creativity and innovation in the form of content curation. With a plethora of creative content within the apps, quite evidently, the external graphic design and branding of these platforms are quite minimalistic.

But with minimalistic brand design becoming a trend, are we, as creatives, losing our touch or making the brands lose their personality? Or is minimalism making us rethink whether we need a balance between functionality and creativity to finally stand out in the market?

But one thing is for sure. While minimalism may be the trend right now, it does not project the direction that graphic and branding design might take, especially in the B2B landscape.

Uniqueness and creativity have to remain.

To strip away a brand of any one of these is to take away the trust ideal customers have instilled in it. Art and design have always been the common ground of experimentation, and their future is as fluid as ever.

BlogsNovember 21, 2024November 25, 2025

Your Guide to Mastering Brand Tracking

Building a strong brand image helps you accelerate your sales pipeline. But how do you set the right KPIs to measure growth?

For a brand that wants to scale, it makes sense to invest time and resources toward your market presence. Having your brand appeal to a wide audience may seem tough to begin with. However, studies highlight that 81% of buyers will purchase from a brand they trust. Brands can leverage tracking to gauge how well the brand performs among the target audience.

It keeps your brand’s health in check, helping you understand how your customers perceive your business and their patterns of purchasing your offerings. A solid brand tracking shows you what has worked well and what requires improvement. Popular brands have established a strong brand identity by fostering awareness and more loyal customers. 77% of marketing leaders believe branding promotes sustained growth. To become a strong brand, you must understand how this powerful tool can be leveraged in your favor.

Why consider tracking your brand?

Effective brand tracking allows you to identify factors that positively impact your sales cycle. Using the data derived, you can predict the potential threats and opportunities. Optimizing your overall marketing strategy is another key highlight of brand tracking.

It is equally useful whether you are starting up or have successfully established your brand voice. Brand tracking helps you gather customer-centric data, including their feedback. Such details give you a better idea of what your target audience thinks of your brand and its products/services, how they benefitted, and what challenges (if any) need attention.

You can also benefit from this approach by testing strategies, watching out for competitors and what they are up to, and performing a comparative analysis. These enable you to determine your strengths and uncover new opportunities. When you continuously track your brand, it allows you to assess its performance over some time. The good thing about real-time tracking is the scope to flag issues before they become a problem.

With the booming tech landscape, customer engagement with your brand can happen across various channels. When you integrate the right brand tracking tools, you can assimilate data with KPIs relevant to brand awareness and preference among a target audience. The key significance of brand tracking is to identify trends and acquire data-driven insights that uncover potential threats and opportunities in the market.

Use cases of brand tracking

Let’s look at the top three use cases of brand tracking

Understanding your brand’s performance

You can utilize metrics to track shifts in customer perceptions and evaluate the ongoing trends that can impact your brand’s performance. This approach lets you tweak your marketing strategies to stay ahead of the competition.

Finding out your potential threats and opportunities

Brand tracking brings you closer to analyzing changes in customer preferences and awareness. You will tap into the competitive brands that can impact your performance and growth. Once you have these details in place, you can proactively address the roadblocks, make the most of the new opportunities, and protect your brand reputation.

Optimizing your marketing efforts

Since brand tracking provides data-driven insights, it optimizes marketing strategy and allocates budgets accordingly. It makes the marketing activities behind brand growth clear. You can allocate your resources to the initiatives likely to create a large impact and move the audience.

The Metrics for Measuring Brand Tracking

Measuring your brand health with a tracking tool is a way to understand the commercial value of your brand while recording changes and optimizing your strategy. While doing so, you can decide on a timeline for tracking performance efficiency. If you are running a few ad campaigns, it’s a good idea to have more frequent analyses.

You need to measure your brand regularly. This will make it clear the metrics that work best for you over time, enabling you to identify the scope for improvement. However, if you’re launching new advertising campaigns more regularly than this, it’s a good idea to increase the frequency of metric analysis. This allows you to see how they’re contributing to your brand.

Brand awareness

It’s a perfect KPI to measure how many customers know your brand and its offerings. The brand awareness metric is also a reflection of your brand’s marketing efforts toward connecting with your audience. When you can foster awareness, it wins audience trust and ultimately, boosts the sales cycle.

Brand recall

This metric stems from the lasting impression of your brand among your target customers. When that happens, they can remember your brand when prompted or when they think about a specific pain point. With the help of brand recall, you can understand the depth of your brand positioning and the efficacy with which the brand message is retained in the audience. It promotes greater awareness and holds the potential to influence purchase decisions.

Brand consideration

The B2B landscape is highly competitive. Your customers will probably check several options before purchase decision. Keeping tabs on brand consideration will help you assess how potential customers perceive your brand. It also offers the benefit of crafting marketing strategies to increase the chance of being considered for purchase.

Brand preference

There are so many brands in the market and more than one could be offering similar solutions or products as your brand. Your target customers may be weighing these competitors as potential options. Brand preference offers clarity on the chance of them choosing your brand. It gives you an idea about the competitor’s position and your brand. Brand preference also sheds light on the factors that can influence customers’ purchase decisions.

Brand loyalty

To think of it, brand loyalty is the ultimate goal for every brand. If there is brand loyalty, customers are likely to keep choosing your solution or product. The brand loyalty metric gives you an idea of the probability of customers to continue purchasing from your brand. If it is strong, the chances of customers returning for purchase is quite high. This metric is perfect for eliminating doubts about whether a client is there for the long haul or only temporarily. Moreover, you can receive an estimate of the proportion of customers likely to purchase again from you.

Brand associations

As customers continue to choose your brand, they may form opinions and create a perception about what you stand for. The brand associate metric helps you see whether the brand image in the market aligns with how you want to portray it. However, the targets should be achievable, allowing you to measure what makes you unique. Ensure that your strong points are highlighted and if not, there is time to make that change. It’s all about conveying the uniqueness of your brand and letting the customers know your values. A way to execute this could be to measure associations through open-text feedback, which gives you an accurate picture of how your audience feels about the brand and what connects them. You can dive deep into the negative and positive associations and then work on having more positives.

Brand usage

Your brand is out there and you have a fairly decent number of customers. But how do you calculate their dependency on your brand? This metric will give you a clear picture of how often customers buy your products or services. You can add questionnaires or surveys on your website or purchase page to track user frequency.

Best practices for brand tracking

Although brand tracking may seem like a complicated marketing activity, it is worth your time and effort. This step-by-step guide will help you develop a complete brand tracking report.

1. Define your goals

Setting clear objectives is the starting point for a smooth brand-tracking experience. Focus on improving your brand identity or calculating the ROI from a particular campaign. The idea is to utilize these goals as a roadmap for choosing the right metrics. Your KPI must align with the business objectives and help attain the desired results.

2. Select Your Brand Tracker

Once you have identified your objectives, the next step is to pick the methodology you’ll go by. You may supplement the brand tracking studies with questionnaires, interviews, and digital analytics to collect relevant data. Different KPIs will require different brand tracking tools, thereby providing relevant data. While making the selection, verify whether it supplies the information to calculate these metrics.

3. Collect and Analyze Data

Assessing your brand performance data is a key benefit of implementing tracking. Use the tools that align with your brand to process and download data. As you conduct the analysis, stay tuned to the trends and patterns you observe in the information. You may be surprised to stumble upon some valuable insights.

4. Monitor Continuously and Adapt

Tracking brand performance with metrics is futile if you miss adapting. You can easily accomplish this by setting up automated tools for collecting real-time data. It’s advisable to review these metrics and understand the emerging trends or shifts in customer behavior. The findings revealed in the data can serve as a guide for developing new strategies. But you must be willing to adjust your approach as and when needed.

5. Report Findings and Take Action

And we come to the final step of brand tracking— report what you learned and implement insights-driven actions. To make the most of this step, focus on creating clear, concise reports highlighting metrics and trends. Create a visually appealing report by adding elements, such as charts and graphs for a quick overview of complex data. These insights will drive your next strategic action plan. Don’t forget to measure the impact of these actions on your brand’s overall performance.

Summing up

Branding is all about making an impact on your target audience. This requires tracking how your brand is performing every now and then. Utilize the right metric for getting clarity on how popular your brand is and how often customers purchase. Such details are important to help you understand brand positioning. The insights gained from brand tracking will guide you to making data-driven decisions that optimize your marketing efforts and allocate your budgets more effectively. By understanding which marketing activities drive the most significant improvements in brand performance, you can focus your resources on the most impactful initiatives, ensuring the best possible return on investment.