digital marketing south africa - AdMarula Performance Marketing

AdMarula launches digital consultancy services

With AdMarula now in its ninth year of operation we are entering an exciting new phase in the business. Initially launched as an Affiliate/Performance Marketing network, we have built a solid reputation the past decade as South Africa’s no.1 channel for performance-based affiliate advertising, however due to our deep knowledge and understanding of digital we’ve more recently also been working with clients in a consultancy capacity, upon their request. These ‘new’ areas of Digital Strategy, Paid Search, Social Media and Mobile Advertising are fast becoming a real growth area for AdMarula. Digital is no longer a stand-alone item on the overall marketing agenda. The world is digital, and businesses are playing catchup with increasingly demanding customers who expect their online experience to be seamless, quick, intuitive yet not invasive or annoying. It is therefor only natural that clients who have experienced great success through their performance-marketing campaigns with AdMarula, want us to work closer with them on other aspects on their digital strategy in order to ensure a cohesive and integrated approach. This is an exciting yet natural development for us as a business, as well as an affirmation that our team is highly skilled and respected in the industry. For the performance network side of the business its business as usual, while we will be adding to our team to handle the expansion of our consultancy arm. On a different note, AdMarula will be relocating its offices from Technopark outside Stellenbosch to Paardevlei in Somerset West. This will allow our team to be more efficient by cutting out commuting time, as well as give us more direct access to major routes like the N2 towards Cape Town and the airport for meetings. We will of course communicate our new address to you in the appropriate time and manner, and aim for the move to be done by the year end. I trust that all our clients and publishers had a successful Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend and that it will in part make up for lost revenue during lockdown earlier this year. It is encouraging to see that some of our programs that were paused have been restarted, and that clients are starting to increase budgets and channels again. I wish you all a well-deserved break and time with family and dear ones, and look forward to taking on 2021’s challenging with you. Onwards and upwards! Daniel Gross – CEO

November profile: Nicole Coutinho, Lifestyle & Fashion Blogger

This month we chat to freelance writer and Beauty, Lifestyle & Fashion blogger, Nicole Coutinho, also known as ‘The Little Guru’. Whether it’s trying a new beauty product she reviewed, going on a spontaneous getaway for the weekend, or trying a great new restaurant, she hopes her readers will feel inspired and educated after visiting her blog. Read more about her adventures, suggestions and what it’s like to run a successful blog in the full article. Describe yourself in 3 words Driven, Compassionate and Creative When I was a kid I wanted to be… A Veterinarian! I have always adored animals and would rescue all of them if I could! What made you decide to start a blog? So many reasons but 2 stand out the most- 1) I was introduced to the blogging world by a co-worker and fell in love with a blogger called Natalie. Her posts were hilarious and her photographs of the amazing places she travelled to were just breath-taking- I was inspired because I absolutely love photography too. 2)My husband is a major outdoor junkie and made me one in turn so I thought, what would be a great way to share my experiences with my family and almost keep an “online journal’ of all our adventures?! The Little Guru was born and slowly I discovered my love for all things beauty and lifestyle too! What were the biggest challenges to get it up and running? Time… When I started my blog, I was working two jobs at the time and really just needed a creative outlet, but to find the time to sit and create content was difficult. I would write my posts on notepads and head to an internet café on my lunch break to dedicate time to my blog. It was hard but totally worth it! How do you keep users interested in your content? Blogging is about writing about what interests you but more importantly, if It will be relatable to your readers. I have come to realize that now more than ever, is how people can relate to you. The Lifestyle/Fashion blog space is quite competitive and crowded. How do you make sure your blog stands out? It’s definitely very competitive at the moment and I think the key would be to be honest with your readers. For instance, If I’m reviewing a product, I want to be absolutely honest if that product works for me or not. There is no point raving about a product that really isn’t working for you, just so that the brand can “like” you. Credibility is important and I think brands do appreciate it. Technology is developing and changing faster than ever before. How do you keep up with the pace? It’s scary to say the least but it’s the future. We are almost forced to stay up to date with the techno world because it’s just necessary, but I guess I learn from fellow bloggers, read what’s on trend and stay consistent. Any advice for aspiring bloggers/writers? Be patient and consistency is key. Keep in mind that successful blogging requires a lot of time. Blogging also requires a lot more than just content creation like SEO, social media, networking etc. so if you’re not fully committed it will be your downfall. Your favourite a) restaurant, b) beauty product and c) travel destination, at the moment Man, I just love food so this one is difficult, but one that stands out would be Lima. Clinique Fresh Pressed Vitamin C Serum Venice- The food, the gelato, the floating city is just bellissimo! How will you be celebrating Christmas this year? Our family goes big! We celebrate from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day staying up all night opening presents, playing games, singing and quite frankly, just being Merry!

Merchants, Publishers: Are you ready?

With exactly four weeks to Christmas Eve, the end of another year is in sight, and most South Africans will be getting ready to take their annual holiday and get their gift shopping sorted. For some retailers, the holiday season can represent as much as 30 percent of annual sales with hobby, toy and game stores reporting the highest percentage. However, with the current dip in our economy, customers will be more selective than ever about where they spend their hard earned cash. Here are a few tips for optimising your site to attract more eyeballs this festive season. Beyond ensuring fast, efficient website performance, there are a few other things you should keep in mind when prepping your e-commerce website for increased holiday traffic. Display, display, display – Physical retail stores often set up special holiday displays during the shopping season. You can take a similar approach to your website. Dress up your digital channel just like you do your brick and mortar. But this doesn’t necessarily mean adding Christmas trees and flashing lights to your homepage. Update your content to be more upbeat, and tie offers of your products to festive dates like Christmas, New Years, Black Friday etc. and highlight why this product or offer will delight the customer. Check your site speed – Large photos and interactive elements could slow your site down significantly, meaning all your effort to make a gorgeous website could get wasted because the page doesn’t load in time for the consumer. Make sure your Web hosting solution has the necessary bandwidth and speed to support higher holiday traffic. Customer support – Holiday shoppers want a positive customer experience, so make your contact details easy to find on all pages of your website in case customers have questions about their orders. You may even want to consider adding temporary help to answer the additional calls, if you think you will need it. Security – With the increase in online activity, hackers are sitting ready to make the most of this opportunity. Educate your time on recognising cyber attacks and ensure you have a solution in place to deal with such an attack, should it occur. Make them laugh – the use of humor is a good way to stand out during a very competitive shopping season. JibJab allows visitors to personalize hilarious videos and send them to friends and family. Special offers & discounts – Make sure that your holiday offers are featured prominently on your home page and post post your special offers to your top social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Email marketing – It’s easy to get caught up in making sure your website is perfectly festive. However, remember that many customers won’t see it — unless you email them with a link and a good reason to return to your homepage. After all, your subscribers opted into your email list for a reason. Give back – remember that although your thoughts will be on the bottom line, this is the season of giving so give back to your customers. For instance, you could make a donation to a charitable organization or sponsor a company-wide day of service. Hope you find these ideas useful, and remember the AdMarula Team is here to assist if you get stuck. Happy selling! The Publisher Team.

How digital marketing has changed business forever

The influence that digital marketing has on people’s behaviour and habits is incredible. We only need to look around. There are place where people don’t have running water, but own smart phones – such is the need for people to be connected to those around them. Now more than ever, businesses need to understand how to utilise this new digital universe and the role that marketing plays in it. We look at some of the biggest ways that digital marketing has changed business forever. Transparency – customers are no longer happy to just take what companies say for face value. They want to know about the companies they interact with. This is particularly relevant when it comes to food products with consumers wanting to know exactly what’s in the things they eat. Companies now have a whole new list of priorities which can range from their packaging to how they treat they employees and the information they give their customers. Adaptability – Digital changes at an incredibly fast pace. This requires employees across departments to be agile, work together and most importantly keep up to date with development so they have the skills to adapt and use these changes to the company’s advantage. Provided ongoing education is a great way to achieve this. Ultimately, if a business wants to succeed with its digital strategy it needs to empower it’s work force to be at the cutting edge of digital technology and skills. Innovation – The rise of the digital era has forced us all in some way or another to move out of our comfort zones, learn new applications and communicate with people in a way we never thought possible. The pressure on businesses to be innovate is huge, and those who fail will be left behind. A new kind of celebrity – Social media and video outlets like YouTube have enabled ’regular’ people to become incredibly influential. Companies no longer need to hire celebrities to endorse their products in order to get millions of people interested in their product or service. Data = personalization – Companies now consists of enormous amounts of data about their customers, their behaviour and what drives them. This allows businesses to personalize their message to consumers on a whole new level. New research shows that 85% of users are more likely to buy a product if the message is personalized and supported by social. Content overload – Marketers have their work cut out for them with 3.3 million people making a Facebook post every 60 seconds, and 29 million messages being distributed via Whatsapp. Brands need to be more creative than ever to get their message through to the right customers. So what is our strategy for grabbing potential customers’ attention? The Editor

Push notifications – what you need to know

If you’ve got a mobile application, then you need to know what push notifications are – and no, they are not the same as text messages. Push notifications can be an effective marketing tool for anyone with a mobile app, because they help you stay in touch with your users. Just make sure you use this strategy carefully. If you overdo it you can cause users to mute your notifications, which you’ll want to avoid. Although there are lots of similarities, push notifications are not the same as text messages. Both of these messages go directly to the user’s phone and look similar on their lock screen, but they’re still very different. For a push notification to show up on a lock screen properly, you need to have a restricted character limit. Text messages can be longer because the user can open it up to read the entire message. But if your push notification gets cut off on the lock screen, it’s going to hurt your conversions.That’s why push notifications with fewer words have higher click-through rates. The value Push notifications can provide assistance and value to app users e.g. provide sport scores and news on their lock screen, utility broadcasts like traffic and weather, flight check-in and connections data and more. Banks and vendors also use push notifications to send important transactional data to users. So what are the do’s and don’ts of push notifications? Do segment AND micro-segment your audience. The more relevant the information to the user, the better. Find the right time and frequency. Dive into the data and discover when your users are most responsive, then include that into your app marketing strategy. Location, location, location. Nearly half of mobile app users opt-in to both push notifications and location-based content, and when used in tandem, they can create extremely engaging and useful experiences. Reminders: If your app has any form of scheduling in it, people will want to be alerted when their schedule calls for it. When they see they have an event coming up, they will click through to find out details about it. Excessive usage of notifications will lead to spamming and the user unsubscribing from your notifications. Not all decives are capable of handling multiple push notifications within a particular app, which means only the current notification will be displayed and others won’t be seen. Happy marketing! The Affiliate Management Team.