It’s a common misconception to underestimate the role technical performance and specific channel expertise play in maximizing digital marketing results.
Technology powers digital marketing, and marketing leaders get it (sort of). They dedicate huge portions of their annual budgets and cross-functional resources to researching and vetting new mar-tech platforms.
However, many tend to miss one key point: it’s not just about the technology, it’s about the people operating it. Marketing leaders may invest thousands of dollars into powerful marketing technology, but their teams may lack the know-how and accountability to maximize its value.
“The technology you use impresses no one. The experience you create with it is everything.
A platform alone can’t execute successful campaigns, generate demand, or persuade prospects to take action. To maximize marketing success organically, it takes knowledgeable marketing experts who understand the nuances of the underlying technology that enables performance.
A key part of the decision-making is understanding the ever-changing digital marketing ecosystem including the latest change in marketing attribution, as well as each platform’s functionality, so money isn’t wasted on feature redundancies or features that don’t do what’s expected.
“Leaders may not realize how fickle and technical effective digital marketing actually is. It’s about who’s using your mar-tech platforms, how you express your brand story through digital channels, how you optimize performance, and how all the pieces of each campaign are connected.
The better you follow the rules of the LinkedIn algorithm, email deliverability ecosystem, website code standards, and key campaign essentials relevant to each channel, the more likely you will reach your audience.
Marketing leaders would realize greater returns if they spent more time considering:
- Who will be the deep-domain expert for each channel
- How to ensure best practices will be followed
- How to measure success
The Secret Sauce of the LinkedIn Algorithm
LinkedIn is the most powerful social platform for B2B — and its algorithm is everything. It determines what content gets shown, to whom, and when—while prioritizing authentic content that delivers rapid engagement and interaction.
That means, if marketers don’t understand and play by its rules, reach and results will suffer. For example, since late 2022, reposting content has fallen out of favor. The algorithm started burying reposted content. Instead, rewarding content creators who comment and interact with other people’s posts with added visibility.
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get the full storyOur theory goes, that the algorithm is curbing companies from asking their employees to repost self-serving, branded content. And the latest thinking seems to be that LinkedIn is trying to nurture micro-communities that can happen in the comments section within the original post.
Building LinkedIn expertise is a concerted effort because the company doesn’t share how its algorithm works. What’s more, the algorithm is always changing in favor of LinkedIn’s business goals.
That’s why an entire faction of LinkedIn influencers has emerged, posting algorithm explainers, growth-driving cheatsheets, and writing hacks, which are often updated multiple times a year to keep up.
To maximize success and be prepared to adapt to the next updates LinkedIn will inevitably make, marketing leaders need to ensure effective management of their LinkedIn channel, which includes: following experts, experimenting with new content ideas and engagement tactics, and building a reference library of learnings.
Now, here’s a challenge: Take this management approach for LinkedIn and apply it to the rest of your social channels: X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, Threads, etc.
Self-Audit
Here are some measures of success marketing leaders can look for to gauge if best practices are being followed within their marketing organization.
- Posts with increasing impressions and reactions — primarily from people beyond the company’s employees
- Posts that are self-contained and don’t link out
- Healthy amount of custom button clicks out to the company website
- Healthy upward trajectory of follower growth
The Unsung Role of Email Deliverability
Email remains the most direct, practical, and affordable way to reach lists of customers, prospects, and advocates. While compelling messages and attractive imagery are the most visible parts of email marketing, the mechanics under the hood are equally as important and intricate.
Email marketers must have a deep knowledge of the deliverability ecosystem including things like ESPs (email service providers), ISPs (internet service providers), email clients, devices, user settings, and email marketing essentials. Additionally, marketing teams must also stay up-to-date on evolving mail privacy protections and make the necessary program and template changes.
Here are a couple of cases in point.
- “Given that businesses have strict anti-spam filters in place, email deliverability can be challenging!” says deliverability specialist John Peters. John goes on to say that marketers should have explicit permission from their subscribers for communications they send, or run the risk of the recipient marketing it as spam. And, continuous spamming will damage the domain reputation required to get to any recipient’s inbox.
- ISPs know when you are sending to an abandoned inbox, which happens regularly when employees change jobs. They also know when someone hasn’t opened your email campaign. These non-existent or uninterested subscribers can adversely affect the delivery and engagement of your future emails with your active recipients. In fact, in December 2023, Google will start deleting accounts that have been inactive for more than two years. To combat this, remove anyone who hasn’t opened an email from you in the last six months.
To take the red pill for entry into the geeky world of email marketing, join the #emailgeeks slack group (20,982 members strong and counting) to chat about code, design, and deliverability insights that predict the success of each email marketing campaign. Or attend Litmus Live — an event dedicated to deconstructing email campaigns so companies get the most out of every send.
Self-Audit
To ensure best practices are being followed, start by evaluating these measures of success.
- Email sign-up user experiences are flowing — use an alias to easily replicate a new subscriber’s perspective.
- Unsubscribe option is easy to find and as easy as one click. Here’s what it could look like.
- Bounces are less than 2% making deliverability rates 98% or more— A bounce rate higher than 2% stains your reputation with mailbox providers and puts all your future emails at risk of going to spam.
- Spam must be less than .3% — Google has promised to establish a clear spam threshold of 0.3% to maintain access to Google inboxes. So has Yahoo.
Email marketing requirements like these aren’t new and B2B marketers especially have been getting away with spamming for years. However, Google and other industry partners will enforce these standards as of February 2024, ultimately blocking delivery to the inbox. Full stop.
The Underestimated Impact of Website Performance
The company website is where prospects go when they’re ready to dive into the details of a company’s story, people, and products. But it’s also a prime opportunity for a company to maximize its demand generation, drive revenue, and realize business goals.
Content and visual design tend to receive the lion’s share of attention when it comes to a company’s website. But it’s the website’s technical performance — factors like site speed, accessibility, code standards, and user experience — that impact the site’s ability to show up in organic search listings, in turn driving more organic traffic and higher engagement time per session.
Let’s face it: we’ve all been trained as consumers to expect fast, easy-to-use websites that respond across any device. And it’s the technical performance behind the scenes that is the conduit for reaching audiences with valuable, educational content and creating growth for the company.
That’s why marketing leaders need experts within their organization who:
- Understand Page Speed Insights and Google Search Console reports to derive actionable tactics.
- Execute performance improvements — such as minimizing unnecessary code and bloat, and resolving code conflicts, plug-ins, and framework updates.
- Implement and facilitate a transparent development process that establishes operational efficiency and empowers everyone on the team to work collaboratively.
“As a web developer, I commonly see clients prioritize flash over substance, ignoring core principles like performance and usability.
Geoff goes on to say that often time business leaders make key decisions about frameworks, platforms, and plugins before consulting a domain expert. That can be driven by shiny object syndrome. But a well-equipped marketing team can help optimize your project and drastically improve the experience for everyone involved, including web developers.
Self-Audit
Log into these analytics tools and watch how these metrics are trending.
- Page speed insights should be in the green zone—the highest level of performance—or trending toward green, (i.e. from red to yellow)
- Site search rankings, impressions, and clicks should be trending upward in the Google Search Console (or at least not declining)
- Engaged sessions and engagement time per session are new metrics to look for in GA4. Establish a baseline for these metrics and make sure they are trending upward.
The Inside Scoop on Outsourcing
Marketing teams need to take stock of where their in-house expertise lies. In cases where there isn’t the required digital marketing channel expertise in-house to leverage, outsourcing can be an absolute game-changer.
Digital Meaning works with marketing leaders who know the impact that optimal technical performance and specific-channel expertise have on their ability to maximize digital marketing results — and have the power to advocate for the investment needed.
