PERFORMANCE MARKETING

01 March, 2024

Performance marketing is a type of digital marketing based on results. Advertising costs based solely on performance are very friendly to brands’ budgets. In addition, successful studies bring high conversions to brands. Brands optimize their performance-based ads by reviewing them at the end of the campaign. Thus, the efficiency of advertisements will be further increased in future campaigns. The criteria for success in performance marketing are correct segmentation, auction bid, quality score of advertisements, and the resulting conversion rate.

Advertisers: This is the group formed by brands. Brands announce their products or services through their affiliates or publishers. Advertisers set campaign goals and look for a publisher with whom they can achieve them.

Affiliates or Publishers: Marketing partners who publish ads, campaigns, or direct products of advertisers. Product review sites, blogs, and mobile applications can be given as examples of this group. Such platforms have a certain traffic. Advertisers who want to benefit from this traffic introduce their brands to potential customers on these platforms. Platforms must align with the brand’s core identity and strategy.

Affiliate network and third-party tracking platforms: These are platforms where brands can reach affiliates that will publish certain marketing materials through a single address. Through these platforms, brands aim to increase their sales by giving sales commissions to affiliates. Partnerize, Commission Junction, AWIN, and Impact are some of such platforms.

OPMs (Outsourced Program Management): These are the support units that brands will deal with affiliates or affiliate platforms on their behalf. Having support from outside the company has enabled them to specialize in subsidiaries.

Understanding the place and importance of these groups within performance marketing increases the number of successes to be achieved. Only in this way can brands reach new audiences and increase their traffic. By knowing the structure of these groups, brands can plan where they can invest more. Advertisers agree to a CPA model with affiliates, which means payment will only be made when the desired action is taken. This means a high return on investment with a low payment.

Search engine marketing is paid advertising that brands use to have their products and services appear on search engine pages (SERPs). Brands type certain words into search engines to research or purchase a product or service. They generally tend to click on pages that appear first in search engines. Brands that cannot do the right work in terms of SEO manage to rank at the top of search engines organically. Brands that fail to achieve this pay for certain keywords and rank higher in searches for these words. In other words, businesses that want to invest in SEM enter the auction of the keywords they have determined and pay certain fees.

Keyword: Finding the right keyword to bid on is the most critical issue. It is necessary to do good research on this subject. It is necessary to brainstorm on which word to search for the product. Prioritizing specific words that carry purchasing intent would be a budget-friendly approach. If the budget is large, bids can be placed on more generally relevant words rather than words to be searched directly with the intention of purchasing.

Keyword Volume and Competition: Keyword volume refers to the frequency with which a particular keyword is searched in a particular period, which is an important factor in measuring the popularity of a keyword. High-volume keywords often offer the potential to reach a wide audience, but can also result in intense competition. The competitive analysis evaluates how much other advertisers are bidding for certain keywords and the intensity of competition for these keywords. Advertising in areas with intense competition can increase cost per click and negatively impact budget effectiveness. Therefore, it is important to take a balanced approach to keyword selection. Low-volume but less competitive keywords can offer the potential for more authentic engagement with your target audience.

Keyword Cost: Keyword cost refers to the cost an advertiser is willing to pay per click for a particular keyword. This cost may vary depending on keyword popularity, level of competition, and industry-specific factors. High-volume and competitive keywords generally have higher costs. This indicates that a particular keyword is in demand by its target audience and competition against this demand is increasing.

Account and Campaign Structure: Account structure determines how an advertiser organizes their campaigns in Google Ads or other SEM platforms, and this structure ensures that campaigns are effectively managed and optimized. Each campaign typically represents a specific product, service, or marketing goal. The account structure allows grouping campaigns and making settings specific to these campaigns. The campaign level is where the overall strategy is determined. Below are the campaign groups; each campaign group contains ads associated with specific keywords.

Ad Text: Each ad copy should be created by targeting a specific keyword or group of keywords. These texts should be directly associated with the targeted keywords and respond to users’ search queries in the most appropriate way. Titles, descriptions, and URLs should be conveyed to potential customers in a way that highlights your brand’s value, unique features, and benefits.

Website Optimization: Keywords should be used correctly in website content, title tags, meta descriptions, and other important HTML tags. Thus, search engines better understand what topics the website is about and can rank better in relevant searches. Additionally, technical factors such as website speed and mobile compatibility are also important. A fast-loading website allows users to navigate better and is appreciated by search engines. Content quality also plays a critical role in website optimization. Relevant, valuable, and original content both pleases users and is rewarded by search engines.

Landing Page: Landing Page plays a critical role in ensuring that users find the right information and interaction options on the page they land on after clicking ads. Landing pages should be designed to ensure that advertisers focus on a specific campaign goal and allow users to quickly reach the content they are looking for.

A/B Testing: A/B testing involves an experiment where two different ad or page variations are used simultaneously. This testing offers a data-driven approach to understanding which elements are most effective and improving strategies. A/B tests involving different elements such as ad copy, headline selections, calls to action, color schemes, or conversion forms give advertisers the chance to determine the most effective strategies to achieve specific goals.

One of the oldest examples of online advertising is display advertising. Banner ads are among the ads that internet users are used to seeing. Brands use display advertising to raise awareness, drive traffic, and reach their potential customers. The critical thing here is to correctly determine the platforms where the target audience is located and the type of display advertising suitable for this platform. Display advertising can be with images, text, GIFs, or videos, or it can be designed in an HTML format that includes all of these.

With the rapid increase in internet usage brought about by the digital age, it has become inevitable for businesses to direct their advertising strategies to the online environment. Display advertising offers businesses the advantage of reaching a wide range of internet users with visual and impressive advertisements. Reaching a target audience through large platforms such as the Google Display Network may present potential risks, but with a careful strategy, the opportunities this format offers to increase brand awareness and attract potential customers with visual interaction are valuable. Eye-catching formats of display ads offer benefits like strengthening brand consistency, nurturing leads, and transforming PPC strategies, fueling businesses’ online success.

Static Ads: These are simple, inactive ads consisting of text and images. These types of ads are usually saved in JPEG or PNG format and have the advantage of fast loading. Ideal for those who want to communicate with a simple design and text.

Animated Ads: Use movement to attract attention and convey the message more dynamically. Created as GIF or HTML5 files, these ads contain multiple frames and are used to tell more complex messages or stories.

Video Ads: Attracts the attention of the target audience by combining visual and audio elements. They can be shared on websites and social media platforms. Video ads are used to make a strong impression and tell the brand’s story.

Interactive Ads: Contain clickable elements, forms, or other interactive features through which users can interact with the ad. They are often created using HTML5 and encourage users to interact with the ad.

The Google Display Network brings together more than 2 million websites around the world, handling the bulk of most visual advertising. This network includes many websites, from small to large, popular to niche, which means the potential advertising space is large. Google also includes Gmail and YouTube. Google also provides a variety of tools to tailor an advertiser’s ads to a specific audience. When creating a campaign based on this type of advertising, it is possible to determine targeting, that is, to whom the ad will be shown. Facebook Audience Network is one of the giants of digital marketing and offers ad placement on its services. Meta has a very wide reach as it includes many popular networks. Another option is the Twitter Audience Platform, which can put your service in front of 700 million people.

Site Placement Advertising (Banner): There are certain websites, blogs, or applications that the brand’s potential customers visit. The existence of these platforms often depends on the display ads they include on the site. Brands prepare and send banners to these platforms in the dimensions given to them. These banners are published within the period determined by the agreement.

Social Media Display Ads: Social Media Display Ads are a type of advertising that brands use to promote products, services, or messages on social media platforms. These ads are ad formats that appear visually in users’ social media feeds or other content areas. Social media platforms use these visual ads to reach users more effectively and direct them to a wide audience to increase brand awareness. This type of advertising is widely used on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Brands can use social media visual ads strategically to reach their target audience directly and strengthen their online presence.

These companies are just a few of the leading players in the programmatic advertising space. Each has different features and services and provides advertisers, agencies, and publishers with a variety of tools to implement programmatic advertising strategies.

Native Display Ads: This is a type of advertising in which ads are integrated appropriately into the natural content and design of the platform on which they are located, offering an organic appearance without disrupting the user experience. These ads are designed to fit in with other content and are often presented in a format that doesn’t explicitly identify them as an ad, but has a more organic feel. These types of ads often appear on social media platforms, news sites, and various other content platforms. These ads provide advertisers with an effective tool to attract and engage users more naturally.

Social media advertising is a type of digital advertising and means spending a budget to deliver content to a specific target audience on the preferred social media platform. This concept, called “paid reach,” refers to the number of people who see the ad and contrasts organic reach with people who view content distributed for free. Social media ads offer an effective way to reach the desired target audience directly, and ads can be paid for before making special efforts to create viral content.

Social media advertising allows you to reach new customers as well as develop strategies for returning customers. It also helps optimize advertising strategies by offering the chance to run hands-on A/B tests. The downside is that it is costly, but social media platforms offer flexible pricing options to suit various budgets. Therefore, a certain budget should be created to start with social media advertising.

Facebook ads can appear in various parts of the app, including users’ feeds, stories, Messenger, Marketplace, and more. These ads look similar to regular posts, but they always include a “sponsored” tag. Facebook ads include more features than regular posts, such as CTA buttons, links, and product catalogs.

Instagram ads can appear in users’ Feeds and Stories, as well as in the Explore and Instagram Shop navigation experience. All Instagram ads carry the “sponsored” icon and may include a C2A button. There are a variety of ad styles available, including Boosted Posts, which look like regular Instagram posts, Carousel ads that allow users to swipe to different images, Instagram Stories ads that appear in a full-screen format, Reels that highlight video content, and Instagram Shop ads that showcase products on the Shop tab home page.

The platform’s advertising services include various options such as Promoted Ads, Product Ads, Amplify, Takeover, and X Live. Promoted Ads are a type of advertising that allows brands to show special content to X users to people who are not their followers.

While Amplify allows brands to place their video content before certain publishers, Takeover ads come in two different types, Trend Takeover and Timeline Takeover. Trend Takeover offers the ability to display sponsored ads on Twitter’s home page and in the Trending tab on the Explore screen. Timeline Takeover, on the other hand, includes ads that appear at the top of users’ timelines on their first visit of the day.

Among the different types of ads used on this advertising platform is “Sponsored Content”. These ads are available in a variety of formats, including single image, carousel, document, video, or event ads, and appear in a similar position in the LinkedIn feed as organic content, but are marked as “Supported.”

There are various video ad formats on YouTube. The “Skippable Video Ads” option has options that viewers can skip or skip (15 seconds maximum) and can run before, during, or after videos on YouTube. “Bumper Ads” are quick ads that last six seconds and cannot be skipped, and are an ideal option if you want to share short and striking content. “In-Feed Video Ads” are ads containing a thumbnail and text that can appear next to videos on YouTube, as part of search results, or on the YouTube homepage on mobile.

Native advertising historically dates back to the era when advertising was only in print and emerged in the 1940s. This concept is intended to “match” the look and feel of the publication in which the ad is placed. Over time, native advertising has evolved to include any paid content designed to adapt to the form and function of the channel in which it appears. Nowadays, it is used extensively within the scope of digital marketing.

Native advertising takes advantage of the publisher’s efforts to attract a broader audience, rather than using advertisers’ channels. However, for native ads to be effective, the site must adapt to its content universe, which affects the performance of high-quality content. Similar to content marketing, native advertising can be successful based on the quality of the content and emphasizes the need for content to adapt to the natural flow.

The performance of native ads has been shown by many studies to have higher click-through rates and attract more attention from consumers compared to traditional display ads. Native ads may be less intrusive and better fit the target audience, resulting in lower annoyance and a higher likelihood of engagement. It appears that the use of native ads is an effective method for brands to engage with their target audience and build trust.

Promoted listings are a type of native advertising commonly used by online retailers and are the process of giving special prominence to certain product listings. This may include methods such as showing them at the top of search results, highlighting them in a special area, or presenting them with a dedicated page of their own. The main goal is to increase the visibility and click-through rates of these products, ultimately increasing sales and conversions. However, challenges with this strategy include potentially significant higher costs, paying for prominent positions, especially on major e-commerce platforms, and having to invest in up-front marketing efforts to increase recognition for lesser-known brands.

For successful native advertising, it is important to focus primarily on originality. Original content builds trust and encourages interaction, which in turn gets the target audience to click on your website and make a purchase. It should be noted that native ads need platform-specific adaptations and relevant content to connect with the target audience.

Programmatic advertising involves the process of automatically buying and selling online ads. The purchase and sale of advertising space occur in real-time through the Demand Side Platform (DPS), an automated system. Compared to traditional advertising, programmatic advertising offers a more automated approach. Instead of dealing with manual processes in traditional advertising, in programmatic advertising advertisers upload their ads to an automated platform, select their target audience, and let the platform do the rest.

DMP (Data Management Platform) is an independent platform that collects, manages, analyzes, and activates data. The platform provides advertisers with comprehensive user profiles so the data can be used within a programmatic algorithm to match visitors with those most likely to convert to the best advertising.

Email marketing is a form of digital marketing that involves sending promotional messages or newsletters to lists of subscribers. The main goal is to build customer relationships, promote products or services, increase brand awareness, and ultimately increase sales. Email marketing is a channel that not only reaches your target audience directly with personalized and relevant content, but is also cost-effective, easy to track, and provides valuable data to analyze campaign success.

The popularity of email marketing stems from the fact that it is a flexible and cost-effective communication tool. It also offers the ability to target specific audiences with personalized messages and build potential customer relationships. Email marketing can be used in a variety of forms, such as announcing new content in a single email, customer communication with regular newsletters, or product updates. Email may not be as glamorous as other marketing channels, but it’s a reliable way to build an effective audience.

Compliance with email regulations is important by regulating consumers’ wishes regarding the protection and use of their information. CAN-SPAM compliance ensures that commercial e-mails are sent by the wishes of subscribers, and in this context, e-mails must include company information and unsubscribe links.

Customer segmentation is the grouping of customers based on common characteristics, which enables personalizing marketing, service, and sales efforts to specific groups. This process can lead to increased customer loyalty and a potential increase in conversions. By identifying customer segments, businesses can tailor their products and services to the specific needs of each segment.

Customer segmentation provides businesses with a competitive advantage by identifying groups with similar characteristics and needs. In this way, it is possible to offer a personalized customer experience. For example, sending customized messages to specific customer segments can increase businesses’ competitive advantage and contribute to closing deals.

• It includes the economic value of certain customer groups to the business.
• Useful for businesses selling high and low-priced products or services.
• Criteria: Customer Satisfaction Score, Number of Purchases, Average Purchase Value

Although implementing market segmentation requires effort and resources, successful market segmentation campaigns can increase a company’s long-term profitability and health. Market segmentation allows management to focus on specific demographics or customers. Rather than trying to target the entire market, market segmentation enables a narrow, concise approach and is often less costly than a broad approach. Market segmentation forces management to consider how it wants to be perceived by a particular group of people. Once the market segment is determined, management must consider what message they want to create. A company’s branding and messaging tend to be more purposeful as this message is directed at the target audience. This may also indirectly contribute to customers having better experiences with the company.

When creating a target audience in meta ads, narrow or broad approaches are generally adopted. Neither type of targeting is superior to the other, and it’s often nearly impossible not to include elements of both approaches in a given ad set.

Lookalike audience is a method of delivering your ad to potential customers who have similar characteristics to your existing customers. This method works by using an existing Custom Audience to find new people who share characteristics such as demographics, interests, and behaviors. The advertisement is directed to a target audience that has similar characteristics and is similar to the source target audience. Generally, a source audience of 1,000-5,000 people is recommended, but the quality of the audience is also important; for example, using a target audience of top customers can help achieve better results.

When determining the success of the marketing strategy, it is important to consider not only the exact revenue but also non-financial elements that include social media followers, unexpected traffic on the website, and customer trust. Although these elements do not provide immediate financial returns, they can increase purchases or indirectly strengthen customer relationships in the future.

When creating a digital marketing budget, it is important to understand the customer conversion process by outlining the sales funnel. Additionally, determining operational costs is an essential step in planning the rest of the budget. Reviewing past results is important to evaluate previous quarters or years’ performance and determine future strategies. It is critical to determine this year’s goals by listing the goals and allocating the budget according to these goals. This guides budget allocation and helps identify areas that need focus.

CRM represents customer relationship management, and a company’s CRM system covers all interactions with potential and existing customers. This includes the process from the website visit until the sales proposal is fully reviewed. CRM makes it easier to deliver a positive purchasing experience by providing detailed information about potential customers. By combining key company details with pop-up blog posts, emails, and other interactions, messages can be personalized, delivering more value from the start.

Operational CRM focuses on managing daily business processes and often includes operational activities such as sales, marketing, and customer service. Tracks customer interactions and transactions, manage customer service requests, and provides lead information to sales teams.

Collaborative CRM aims to increase communication and collaboration between different departments. This type of CRM facilitates information sharing among team members, improves project management, and helps manage customer interactions more efficiently.

Analytical CRM aims to make strategic decisions by analyzing customer data. This type of CRM tracks customer behavior, preferences, and trends. Analytical CRM allows businesses to better understand customer relationships and develop customer-focused strategies.

Marketing CRM focuses on managing marketing activities. This type of CRM tracks marketing campaigns, enables customer segmentation and provides lead data to marketing teams. Marketing CRM aims to create customer-customized campaigns and optimize marketing strategies.

Each type of CRM offers different advantages depending on the needs and goals of businesses. Businesses often combine these types of CRMs to create a comprehensive customer relationship management strategy.

Contact: In CRM, contacts contain customers’ names and personal information.

Potential Customer (Lead): These are prospective customers who have the potential to do business in the future but are not yet fully mature.

Opportunity: These are prospective customers who are truly interested and willing to purchase the product or service.

Quote: It includes the price given to potential customers who are almost ready to make a deal and the products or services they will receive.

Deal: Tracks situations in which the product or service is sold successfully or the opportunity is wasted. They are divided into won and lost deals.

Profile: Represents the users within the company using the CRM software. It is usually associated with roles that have certain permissions.

Campaign: Represents marketing efforts. Each campaign includes its audience, results, and ratings.

Tag: Used to add additional information to items such as a person, agreement, or company. Provides additional data for filtering and sorting.

A complex and difficult-to-customize tool gets in the way of nurturing customer interactions and increasing productivity, getting in the way of improving customer relationships and negatively impacting productivity. When choosing CRM software, it’s also critical to consider how it aligns with sales, marketing, and customer service departments. When marketing automation is paired with other performance marketing tools, customer data can show you what type of interaction with customers would be more effective, leading to an increase in sales.

SOCIAL MARKETING

Social Media Marketing, a dynamic component of digital marketing strategies, provides an effective platform for brands to interact with their target audiences, increase brand awareness, and promote their products or services. Social media allows brands to communicate with their audiences in real-time through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms. This strategy strengthens the brand’s digital presence and increases customer loyalty through posts, content, campaigns, and interactions. Social media offers brands an innovative engine and the ability to instantly connect with potential customers in a rapidly changing digital world. Social Media Marketing includes a wide range of strategies, from content creation to influencer collaborations, from advertising campaigns to organic sharing.

Today, products and services are promoted free of charge using many social media channels. Communities formed by target audiences are managed. Shares are made via social media channels to drive traffic to the website. The features and uses of social media are changing day by day. For this reason, marketing rules are constantly changing on social media. Brands that are aware of the change and share accordingly receive a lot of interaction from their customers.

Brands aim to be closer to their potential customers by taking part in social media channels. They interact with their customers, talk to them, identify their needs, and revise their products and services accordingly. Additionally, social media accounts have become the primary medium through which companies announce their innovations. Nowadays, customers browse brands’ social media channels before purchasing a product or service. The importance of two-way communication between brands and their customers is increasing day by day. Brands take steps to create brand loyalty through communication through social media.

Social media management activities include content planning and creation, content publishing, analysis, social media monitoring and listening, community management, and social media advertising. Before all these activities, it is necessary to create a strategy for social media marketing. Who are the target audiences, what are the goals and KPIs, what is the content strategy, what are the criteria for community management, and what is the status of the competition? It would be wrong to start social media marketing without answers to all these questions. Communication activities carried out with a correct social media strategy will lead to increased brand loyalty, expanded audiences, increased interaction, and increased brand awareness.

Some management tools should be used to make it easier to manage social media channels, the number of which increases day by day. Planned social media management using the right tools allows fewer mistakes to be made, time management, strategic continuity, and balanced processing of topics throughout the year. This way, it is possible to run campaigns at the right time. Determining priorities and goals is an important factor in choosing a social media management tool. How many social media accounts will be managed? How much time per day will be devoted to social media? How often will social media posts be shared? Is an employee or team available for moderation? These and similar questions will determine which tool will be chosen for social media management.

Social media marketing is ideal for increasing brand awareness and improving relationships with customers. Increasing website traffic, achieving more conversions, or gaining more followers is possible with a good social media content plan. Social media marketing, which is a cost-effective type of marketing, enables small businesses to compete with large companies. It allows brands to convey their values, character, and purpose to customers. Brands have to be educational and engaging when talking about themselves. In order for social media users to be informed about the brand, they must encounter eye-catching content. Standing out from the communication bombardment on social media with catchy communication is only possible with interesting content.

Planning is very critical in social media marketing. Posts to be made on social media should be planned in advance in accordance with the strategy. Only in this way can social media marketing be used beneficially for the brand. Content types change every day depending on trends, and interesting ideas are shared from brands’ accounts to attract users’ attention. The structure of social media channels is different from each other. Today, the social media channels that internet users browse for entertainment or information differ from each other. Knowing this, marketers try to meet the needs of customers by preparing content in accordance with the structures of social media channels. Brands need to clarify their goal before determining the content type. These goals could be brand awareness, website traffic, sales, or getting engaged.

Educational content is content that aims to inform customers about a specific subject. Brands positioned as leaders, experts, or pioneers build trust in the perception of their target audiences through educational shares. Contents can provide information about the product. It can explain service details. It can explain how to provide post-purchase support. Opinions of customers who have experienced the product can be obtained. It can be clarified how the problem was solved. Frequently asked questions from customers can be answered in educational videos. The results of a survey can be shared with an infographic table.

Entertainment content is the most common type of content that allows users to have an enjoyable time. Brands try to attract attention by entertaining their target audiences with enjoyable videos. Trends are critical to determining entertaining content. Current events, special days, or popular topics can be followed to create entertaining content. Fun videos have a high chance of going viral. The important thing is to produce content that will not contradict the brand’s character. It would be wrong for a company making a serious brand positioning to share intensely entertaining content.

Content is the most critical issue in social media marketing. No matter how the website and social media channels are planned in accordance with the brand strategy, it is the content that will create interaction. Each channel has its own content format. The important thing is to find out in which format the specified content type is more interesting. The number of content types is not limited. Any topic or theme can be created with many types of content. Depending on trends and popular culture, content types differ day by day, and the intensity of interest changes.

Content to be shared organically on social media channels can be prepared and shared in many different formats. The important thing is to share the content in the most appropriate format. There are many different sharing formats on social media channels. While some channels are suitable for video sharing, written content attracts more attention on some channels. After choosing the most suitable social media channels for the brand, it is necessary to ensure that the most appropriate content is shared in the most appropriate formats. There are 5 social media content formats.

Text: The most intense content format used in social media is text. However, the most difficult content format to consume is text. Blog posts, LinkedIn informative paragraphs, Medium articles, and Facebook and Twitter text shares can be given as examples of this format. The texts provide detailed information about the offer. It is very effective in search marketing. Links are text. It is easier to prepare and takes less time than other formats.

Visual: All kinds of pictures, photographs, charts, infographics, and cartoons used on social media are visual format shares. Using the right photography is the most frequently used method to make the idea interesting to the target audience. Nowadays, social media channels that focus on visual sharing are increasing and attracting more attention. Instagram is the most popular social media channel that supports photo sharing. Blog posts contain at least 1 descriptive image. Facebook has been functional for mass photo sharing since day one. Pinterest is very suitable for creating visual archives. Images are more eye-catching than texts. Although not as easy to create as text, it is faster to consume than any other format. For images to be included in search engines, it is necessary to add textual descriptions.

Video: Social media channels are constantly improving their software to further improve video content consumption. Today, every brand doing social media marketing wants to increase video sharing rates. Live video sharing is increasing its popularity day by day. YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. It is very easy to consume. It is not as easy to produce as text and visual formats. YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn Slideshare, Periscope, or blogs are suitable for video sharing. Videos are the most effective format for capturing the attention of viewers.

Audio: Audio files have become frequently used as a type of format in social media marketing. Interviews are the most intensive sharing where audio files are used. Audio recordings of blog posts provided an alternative experience to reading the articles. Music is an indispensable part of marketing communication. It is possible to convey the idea or topic to the target audience with high emotion by using the right music. Podcasts are a type of content whose popularity increases day by day. Regularly created podcasts are a type of content shared on many social media channels. Podcasts listened to on iTunes and e-books purchased on Amazon show the current popularity of audio use.

The primary goal of social media marketing is engagement. Social media, which has transformed from a virtual platform where friends meet each other online to an experience where brands share their important messages and come together and communicate with their customers, has become an indispensable element of marketing communication today. Today, small businesses use social media very effectively and make a significant portion of their sales through social media channels. They work positively on brand awareness by ensuring customer loyalty through social media. The aim is to ensure that messages spread organically to large audiences with many more participants.

The extent to which target audiences participate in branded content from their social media accounts determines the engagement rate. Interactivity is related to many behaviors of users on social media. Likes, favorites, comments or replies, shares, clicks, and mentions… Interaction is the best way to measure the communication efforts of brands on social media channels. The number of followers on a social media channel never indicates that that channel is a good one. The important thing is that the relevant target audience subscribes to the channel. From this perspective, it can be said that quality, not quantity, is more important for social media.

Before making moves to increase interaction, it is necessary to analyze the current situation well. How many shares are being shared? How many likes do you get per share on average? What types of content are liked or shared on an average monthly basis? This situation assessment will show which content type and format receives how much interaction and is working. Since each brand’s strategy and expectations from social media marketing will be different, the targets set for interaction will also be different. Knowing which social media channels the target audience is on, when they are more active on social media, and the type and format of content they like will provide important data for brands to create a correct strategy.

Engagement is the positive reactions users give to the content. Customers must be given specific opportunities to make a response. Nowadays, brands try many types of content to get engagement. These include surveys, questions, quizzes, and competitions. This type of content is very effective in increasing customer engagement. To understand which content really works, it is necessary to share and watch the content. This is the best way to find out what content can generate what kind of interaction. Brands don’t always ask their own questions. Sometimes they plan to attract the attention of target audiences by commenting on current topics. The types of content that users interact with the most are current posts. Users find the reactions of brands to current issues interesting. When users start to see brands as people, they increase the interaction rate. Likewise, brands that respond quickly to comments gain a positive image in the eyes of customers. Instead of answering questions manually, the entire workload can be controlled through a single application using social media tools.

Social media monitoring is a method used to analyze which hashtags, comments, likes or keywords related to the brand, product, and sector are used by potential customers. By monitoring these analyses, the assets of the brands that month are revealed. With sector-based monitoring, it is understood what percentage of conversations about the sector are with the brand (social share of voice). It is understood whether the tone of these conversations is positive or negative (social sentiment analysis). It is discovered which hashtags and keywords work to increase reach (relevant hashtags and keywords). What potential customers are talking about is revealed (trends). Discovering what customers are interested in, what they say, and what they find interesting on social media protects brands from making mistakes. These very complex processes can be solved more easily with professional monitoring tools produced for this purpose. Hootsuite, Nexalogy, Mentionlytics

Moderation is a form of management in which brands manage the messages, comments, and content created by followers on their social media accounts. Social media accounts are social areas where followers can comment. The moderation team prevents unwanted sharing by preventing trolls and bot accounts. In this way, the problems of the followers who want to communicate with the brand are resolved without any interruption. Additionally, swearing and aggressive attitudes that may appear in comments are prevented.

CONTENT MARKETING

Content Marketing, an indispensable element of digital marketing strategies, is one of the cornerstones of building and strengthening the online presence of brands. Content is a powerful tool to tell brand stories, deliver valuable information, and connect with target audiences. Content Marketing not only promotes products or services but also provides audiences with information, entertainment, or inspiration through valuable content. This strategy, used in a wide range of sites from websites to social media platforms, deepens the processes of brands interacting with their audiences and has the potential to leave a permanent mark in the digital world. Content Marketing is a powerful shield that allows brands to stand out in today’s competitive digital atmosphere.

Content marketing is another way to attract leads and sell by generating more traffic. Writing content is not just about sharing blogs on specific topics for the website. Content formats in digital marketing are quite diverse. New formats are developing every year with the development of technology and the diversity of tools. The behavior of people consuming content and the subjects they are interested in vary from time to time. The important thing is to create content with the most appropriate content formats for the sector and target audience. At this point, while producing content, instead of creating content for a specific format, it plans to try several formats simultaneously. Budgets are carefully organized to reach the widest audiences.

Customers’ expectation of content is always changing. Awareness of expectations paves the way for what types of content brands should create. Sometimes people want to spend time with great, sometimes informative, and sometimes educational or inspiring content. The customer journey is a map that goes until the target audiences realize and think about a product and then buy it. Before buying a product, people try to decide by going online and following the content related to that product. With the content funnel, it is necessary to determine separate content types for each point in the customer journey.

The awareness stage is the stage in which the customer’s ideas about a product are newly formed. The need is tried to be met with a product. It would be correct to present the customers’ audience as educational. Telling the story of the brand informs the target audience. Entertaining content is highly effective for customers to notice brands.

The evaluation phase is the period when customers need more information about products, services, and brands. The brand should provide information on how and in what way it will meet the need. At this stage, the fact that brands offer guide content will capture the trust of the customer.

The decision stage is the closest to making a choice. Comparative content comes in handy at this point. Case studies shed light on how customers who have encountered the same issue have resolved the issue. Product reviews are one of the most frequently referenced content in the type of video content today.

It is very effective with content marketing that search engines move web pages to the top. The words researched for SEO studies form the roadmap of content marketing. As in the SEO word research model, interesting topics should be found by researching specific themes for content marketing. Topic sets can be created using Semrush’s Topic Research and Keyword Research tools. It will be effective keyword research to determine a central word and prepare sets of sub-topics of that word.

Competitive research is as critical as keyword research. The positioning, tone of voice, content formats and types of similar brands, and the keywords they determine will show where the competition is. There are many tools available to analyze keywords used by competitors. Moz, SimilarWeb, and SpyFu are one of them. Manual monitoring, rather than paid tools, is one way to understand what content formats, genres, and keywords competitors are focusing on. For this, competitors’ websites, blogs, and social media should be examined regularly.

Content marketing is a type of marketing that will achieve success based on consistency. How successful the content is produced is as important as how long this success is maintained. The general strategy of the brand should always be on the agenda. Content should be in line with the identity and personality of the brand. Content that does not comply with the personality of the brand will create a false impression in the perception of customers. Serious brands should protect the content they share on their social media with the same seriousness. Brands that have created a certain language are required to maintain this language on all platforms. A style guide created with this perspective makes it possible for brands to capture a consistent style in their content.

Content production is a process that requires a lot of time and effort. The number of writers and managers who will participate in content production varies according to the needs of the brand. Regardless of the number of the content team and the workload, it is imperative to make business management and planning. Content strategy planning, keyword research, and determination of the types of content and production should take place at certain periods. Sharing and analyzing the content after it is prepared are the other steps of the content marketing process. Evaluating the success of the shared content and planning the work to be done in the coming days requires content marketing to progress in a continuous cycle.

Editorial Calendar is the process of planning and managing content according to certain categories. It allows the content to be scheduled before the sharing times arrive. It is mandatory to redesign the content with certain revisions and make it ready for sharing. The editorial calendar is a strategic plan. The content decided in the editorial calendar is included in the content calendar and is ready for sharing. It includes important days, topics, posting frequency, and where the content will be used in the editorial calendar.

Content Calendar is a tool that shows you how to schedule and share content. With this model, in which the whole team is integrated, it makes it possible to prepare the contents in an orderly manner. It is a testament to progress. It sheds light on how success is achieved and where the missing parts originate. The content calendar makes it possible for daily management to be done in a planned way. With a detailed study, the contents are followed in a planned manner. The contents determined within the scope of the editorial calendar are ready to be shared.

Content management is a type of marketing that is very open to chaos and crisis management. Putting the content production cycle in a healthy flow will ensure that the content is published at the planned times. Various sources can be used for content production. Untreated issues can be brought to light by examining the available resources. With editorial and content calendars, content created within the budget can be planned daily.

SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which stands out as an indispensable element of digital marketing plans, plays a critical role in strengthening the online presence of brands and reaching their target audiences. Websites that are optimized by search engine algorithms offer significant advantages in attracting organic traffic, increasing rankings, and increasing overall visibility. SEO involves many factors such as strategic use of keywords, technical optimization, content quality, and link profile editing to ensure websites rank higher in search engines. Therefore, properly integrating SEO strategies for the success of a digital marketing plan allows brands to gain a competitive advantage online.

An algorithm is a set of rules for solving a problem with a limited number of steps. In technical language, it is the preparation of the necessary environment for the computer to perform a task. Google also has an algorithm that it applies and regularly updates to rank websites in search results. Google gets data from websites all the time. It then presents this data to users searching on the search engine. While doing this, it is based on the relevance and quality score of the web pages.

The Google algorithm is quite complex. It is dynamic with constant updates. The entire algorithm is not disclosed to brands or users. But some criteria are the most effective.

These and similar criteria are critical points that Google looks at when evaluating pages. Google gives numerical values ​​for each feature of the website. The sites that best match the desired features are placed in the top rankings in search engines. These transactions are carried out by Google very quickly. The ranking changes dynamically. While a web page ranks first in search engines, it can fall back in rankings with the effective changes made by the websites behind it. Spelling mistakes and misspellings change the order. Today, Google is advanced enough to offer suggestions to searchers.

For a page to rank in search engines, the page must be crawlable and indexable. With technical SEO work, search engines find, crawl, understand, and index the page. This is the process of optimizing the website for search engines. Every work done on the website is to ensure that the web page ranks high in the search engines.

The algorithms of search engines work on crawl logic. Crawl is a method that search engines use to bring more relevant pages to users. Algorithms try to improve scanning methods using different technologies. Robots.txt is one of these methods. With this method, search engines decide where to go on the site.

Scan speed is another criterion. Google has algorithms that will determine the appropriate crawl rate for a site. Every time Google visits websites, it wants to crawl the maximum number of pages. Some sites may be blocked from being crawled for different reasons. (Access restrictions) Testing, private IP login, or HTTP authentication can be one of these reasons. By looking at the “Crawl Statistics” report on Google Search Console, it is possible to check which pages Google has crawled or not. For more detailed information, it is necessary to use tools specially developed for SEO. (Semrush, Ahrefs) After the pages are crawled by algorithms, they are processed and sent to the search engine index. In this way, the rank of the website in the search engine list is determined.

Robots meta tags are HTML codes that specify how to crawl certain pages. It is added to the <head> section of the pages.

<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex” />

Canonicalization is Google’s standardization to store the same pages with multiple versions. The selected URL is the URL that will be seen in search engines. Google Search Console should be used to see which page is indexing it. (URL Inspection Tool) The important thing is to make sure that Google indexes the pages we want. It is important to check for lost links. URLs added to the website may change over time. This means that that link is no longer working. It should be checked regularly that the URLs embedded in the website are working correctly. Pages with the “404 not found” error should be corrected.

Internal links are links from one page within the site to another. This method allows pages to rank higher on search engines. Schema markup allows Google to better understand the content. This is a method that will ensure success in terms of SEO. Page experience signals are related to how well the website complies with UX rules. Providing a convenient user experience to customers is positive for algorithms.

HTTPs is a feature that provides privacy, integrity, and authentication. It prevents websites from encountering negative security issues. The “lock” icon in the address bar is about that. Another critical thing for search engines is mobile compatibility. The mobile compatibility of the site can be checked via Google Search Console.

Hreflang is a way for websites with multiple language options to report this to search engines. If there are many pages in different languages ​​from the same page, which page should be scanned using Hrefland should be specified. It is necessary to repair any further or external broken links within the website. Broken links are links that are no longer functional or have been replaced.

Websites contain internal and external links. Link building is very important for search engines. Websites are made up of content. Brands that include common themes on their websites do some content and link deals for content marketing. This is beneficial for both customers and search engines.

With PageRank algorithms, Google now analyzes pages comprehensively. The number of links on the pages was as important as the traffic. With the Google Penguin update, link quality has become quite critical.

Inbound links to the website on authorized pages have reached the most critical level for PageRank today. It has become the most reliable indicator for the algorithm. Getting a link from a well-known site scores much better than getting it from any blog page. In addition, the “relevance” of the linked site to the subject is also important.

It is important where the links are located on the page. Is the link contained within a piece of content? Is the link placed in the footers? Is the link hiding in the sidebars? It is also important that the link is placed editorially. For what reasons did the link to the web page come? Does it come from the relevant content of a website or the comments section? Search engine algorithms always give higher scores to external links from highly relevant sites. Link anchor text is the textual version of links. The reader sees the link as text rather than the link URL. The address the link goes to and the anchor text of the link should be related to each other.

The part of search engine optimization done on the website is on-page SEO. Studies in this area will increase ranking and user experience scores. Title tags, internal links, HTML code, URL optimization, on-page content, images, and UX are the topics of on-page SEO.

Every work we do for SEO within the web page will help search engines better understand the website. Thus, the website will rank higher in search engines. When ranking pages, Google takes into account the keywords in the text. Keywords are the most critical thing that affects the quality score today. The use of the keyword in the first paragraph of the text is positive for both the reader and the algorithm. The working logic of algorithms is to try to recognize the content through keywords.

H1 and H2 tags must be used for titles and subtitles. Google favors posts with a hierarchy. Tags indicate that the post has a hierarchy. It is necessary to make use of these tags to reveal the main lines of the content. In addition, the tags provide information about the articles that follow the title. This keeps the interest in reading high. User experience is also important when creating content. A text consisting of long paragraphs is difficult to read. This is also negative in terms of user experience. An easy-to-read text can also be easily understood by algorithms. Correct planning of H1 and H2 tags is basic SEO knowledge.

Adding internal and external links to the website are on-page SEO issues. Linking to other pages among high-quality articles will increase the score of both pages. It will also be effective in helping the algorithms recognize the page better. It is necessary to pay attention to the fact that there are several links in the articles. Internal links help users stay more active on the site and lower the bounce rate.

The URL structure of the pages is very important. Keywords must be included in the URL. Both algorithms and users want to learn about the page when they look at the URL. The URL must be made up of unambiguous statements. Title tags and meta descriptions need to be optimized. In search engines, there are meta descriptions under the URL parts. These areas are where users have more information about the page. Title tags consisting of keywords are positive for algorithms. Header tags do not affect ranking. It is useful in terms of user experience.

All activities other than SEO work done on the website are called off-page SEO. Brand building, citation creation, content marketing, and social media work are off-page SEO topics. The authority of the website is increased by off-page SEO studies. Websites with high authority rank higher in search engines. An authoritative site is found reliable and relevant by algorithms.

Link building is one of the most important off-page SEO efforts. Getting backlinks from a high authority page is positive for algorithms. It means “vote of confidence”. What matters here is quality rather than quantity. It is healthier to get backlinks from a reliable and high-traffic site instead of getting backlinks from many sites with little authority. It is necessary to be ready when the customer searches with the brand name on the search engines. For this, keyword studies should be done for the brand name. This way, some surprises can be avoided.

Content marketing encompasses both on-page and off-page SEO. While an article shared on the website is on-page SEO, sharing the article on a different site is off-page SEO work. Blog posts, charts, surveys, or whitepapers can be posted on other sites as off-page SEO work. Digital PR has been used as a communication activity with SEO studies in recent years. A website with high authority is also a brand trusted by customers. Getting links from the website of such a brand is very positive for both digital PR and SEO.

Keyword research identifies phrases, searches, or questions that are important to customers. Then, SEO studies are carried out on the identified keywords. Keyword research is one of the most critical studies for increasing site traffic, bringing potential customers to the site, and making sales. Keywords should be closely related to the business.

Keyword research is useful in many ways. Customers’ expectations emerge. Unplanned issues related to the brand are discovered. It is useful for reaching customers who are relevant to the brand. Brand awareness increases and conversions increase positively. The right planning of the keyword strategy helps to attract high-potential customers to the website. Avoiding the wrong keywords is just as important as choosing the right keywords.

Keywords can be used to attract potential customers. The important thing is to make plans on keywords related to the brand and product. Wrong keywords increase the likelihood of leaving the site. While determining keywords, it is necessary to consider competitive analysis. If the selected keywords are similar to the brands that have a difficult chance to compete, it will not be easy to get to the top of the ranking. Similar keywords can be considered for longer-term plans.

When searching for keywords, you should not only search for a few words. Keywords should be searched as phrases. The words should be complex sets of keywords that will satisfy similar search purposes. For this, certain topics and themes should be created. Thus, word groups can be used abundantly in the content. More optimized content is quite positive in terms of SEO. Similar words and sentences that customers will type into the search engine will also be targeted in this way.

WEBSITE MARKETING

Today, companies’ digital assets form the basis of a successful marketing strategy. Effective implementation of this strategy depends on several critical factors. First, the IT infrastructure needs to be robust and reliable. Information Technologies Infrastructure (IT Infrastructure) plays a vital role in website marketing, affecting the speed, security, and performance of the site. However, only a strong IT infrastructure is not enough, because factors such as website performance, user experience, content management (CMS), and device compatibility are equally important.

The digital infrastructure of brands is operating systems. Infrastructure is not just a website issue. All applications and technologies that the company uses in a digital sense fall under the scope of infrastructure. Every business has infrastructure systems. Websites come first. E-mail systems, CRM, CMS, marketing automation, and all other software used are considered infrastructure systems. In today’s digitalization, brands whose infrastructure is not sufficiently developed will suffer. Some software and technologies are tools that keep things running smoothly. In addition, the infrastructures used need to be continuously developed and optimized. Underdeveloped infrastructures that cannot catch up with today’s technology put the way of doing business in danger. Cloud-based digital infrastructures are optimized systems. It makes instant interventions possible with its real-time data flow features.

The Internet is made up of millions of IP addresses. IPs make up Domain Name Servers. Today, every vehicle we connect to the internet has an IP. IP addresses consisting of various numbers have specific domain names for easy remembering. DNS servers are used to search for the website we want to access. TCP and IP are network protocols that make up the way the internet works. Servers store the contents of the sites to be accessed. TCP/IP protocols allow files on the Internet to be accessed and viewed without the need for them to exist on the computer. HTTP/HTTPs is the TCP/IP application layer protocol. It defines how messages are formatted and forwarded and what actions should be performed via the internet browser.

Website performance is a metric that measures how quickly a website’s pages load and display in a user’s browser on all types of devices, affecting overall interactivity and usability. Simply put, the faster a website loads and displays, the better it “performs.” Server and platform infrastructure play an important role in site performance, but other factors, such as unintentionally overloading content and images, can also affect performance.

Continuous infrastructure improvements, such as continuous code optimization and automatic image conversion to WebP format, help sites load faster regardless of device or location. Website performance should be considered as the scaffolding of online success. With good performance, a visitor can not only interact with the site but also convert into a customer. For example, if a website visitor experiences site freezing or content not loading, they will likely not return to the site.

Why website performance is important can be listed as follows:

User Experience: The link between website design and performance forms the basis of user experience. Having a beautiful design is not enough; Visitors may leave the site immediately due to performance factors such as page load time. Therefore, optimizing the user experience by considering web performance as well as aesthetic elements is critical to ensure business success.

Bounce Rate and Visitor Retention: For website owners, first impressions provide an opportunity to make a good impression on visitors in a short time. Therefore, websites need to perform quickly. Page load time affects visitors’ decision to stay or bounce. According to Google, if a page loads in one second instead of three seconds, visitors are 32% less likely to bounce.

Conversion Rates: A fast and smooth site with an impressive user experience increases the likelihood that users will stay and engage. However, even just a one-second delay in page load time can reduce conversions by 4.42%.

Brand Perception: Poor performance can negatively impact brand trust and overall perception. Visitors who do not have a good experience may question the value of the brand, which can have a long-term impact.

Mobile-First Culture: With the widespread use of mobile, the mobile performance of websites has also gained great importance. Fast-loading and high-performance mobile designs attract users’ attention. A 0.1-second improvement in mobile site speed can increase conversion rates on retail sites by 8.4%.

Websites are the basis of digital marketing. Today, every brand that wants to make comprehensive marketing communication over the internet needs a website. Websites are made up of content. The content is planned in a way that attracts the attention of the customers. Keeping the content regularly and up-to-date will increase the traffic to the website. Today, the complexity of websites and the increase in the number of shared content have necessitated some tools for website management. Content management systems are meant to eliminate this challenge. Now, content, images, videos, or blogs can be added to websites without requiring technical knowledge and advanced software knowledge.

Content management systems are the management of websites without requiring code knowledge. In the past, this required knowledge of HTML and code. Today, with a correctly chosen CMS, the entire marketing team can make changes to the website. Websites consist of themes, images, text, or animations. CMS allows pre-release monitoring of changes made on the site. CMS interfaces are user-friendly. Websites are structures that require constant updating, and this is possible in a short time with these interfaces. The most demanding part of a website is its general appearance. To do this from scratch requires high software, design, and code knowledge. The basic appearance of a website can be created in seconds using themes and templates that are readily available today.

The contributions of using CMS to digital marketing success can be listed as follows:

Creating a Website Without Coding Knowledge: CMS systems have revolutionized web design by helping users without coding knowledge and limited technical resources create an online presence for their business. Users can create content without writing code, customize their site’s design, and install extensions to add functionality to their site.

Workflows and Productivity: Multiple users can access and work on the backend of the CMS simultaneously. Simultaneously, marketers can produce content, IT professionals can enforce security protocols, and developers can add custom code to the theme.

Collaboration and Security: CMS enables the most effective and secure collaboration by providing user roles and permissions. For example, content authors may have permission to write, publish, and manage content, but they cannot delete plugins.

SEO Optimization: CMS platforms help optimize the site for search engines using internal or third-party tools. You can customize page titles and meta descriptions, choose SEO-friendly URL structures, create XML sitemaps, add visual alt text, and create 301 Redirects.

Security: CMS platforms have built-in features and plugins to secure the website. Some paid platforms offer features such as a 24/7 security team, SSL, private CDN, and SSO memberships.

The time spent on the Internet is increasing day by day. Shopping, getting information, reading news, or getting information… Whatever the purpose, having the fastest, easiest, and smoothest internet experience is what everyone wants. Ease of purchase is expected from an online shopping site. Finding the desired information quickly is expected in a form site. Smooth processing time is what is most expected from a bank application. At this point, user experience is the point where brands are responsible for providing their target audiences with the experience they expect.

User experience is not just a website design. User experience is to build an ideal customer journey in the digital world. A user-friendly website design, a successful purchase journey, highly readable content, and high-level mobile compatibility… If a brand can bring all these opportunities together for its customers, it will be ahead of its competitors in the field of user experience.

Beneficial: Planning the experience for the benefit of the customer. The experience must have a purpose. The usefulness of the design increases the traffic.

Usable: The experience must be consumable effectively and efficiently. A seamless experience increases conversion rates.

Findable: The product or content needs to be found quickly. For the products to be found easily, the content must be produced in a user-friendly manner.

Credible: The user must trust the information they read about the product or service. The promises for the product must be fulfilled.

Accessible: It’s about the content being accessible from every device and platform. The experience needs to be experienced by everyone.

Desirable: Aesthetic and emotional elements should be considered when designing the experience. The more desirable an experience is, the more interesting it becomes. Engaging experience yields desired results in conversions.

Valuable: The experience must offer value to both the brand and the users. This factor is like the sum of all other factors.

With the development of technology, many digital devices are used in daily life. Computers, mobile phones, tablets… Each device has different uses and benefits. Brands deliver their communications to target audiences with the help of devices. Each device has its importance for marketing communication. Computers, one of the most common tools today, are devices where different platforms such as websites, e-mails, and social media channels are used effectively. In addition, post-campaign analyses are also done by computers.

The most popular device today is undoubtedly mobile devices. Today, a large percentage of the ads that appear in front of the target audience on the internet are on mobile. The internet experience and ease of use have been quite different with mobile devices. In addition, location-based marketing has developed with GPS technology. Another device is the tablet. It is located between computers and mobiles in terms of size and usage area. Everything that can be done with mobile can be done with tablets with larger screens. Businesses need to plan their marketing communications for each device. Every device has advantages and disadvantages.

Smart TVs are the new trend devices with internet capability. Today, platforms that can be watched on smart TVs have been developed. Netflix, Hulu, Disney +, and Amazon Prime are among these platforms. You can also access the internet via smart TVs. Brands place their marketing communications where they see fit, depending on the manufacturers of Smart TVs. Most of the ads on smart TVs are broadcast on media platforms.

GUIDE: COMPONENTS OF COMPLETE DIGITAL MARKETING PLANS

20 February, 2022

We are in the digital world where bits and bytes dance in harmony with the magic of marketing! Get ready for a journey where every click finds its purpose, every keyword lines up like pieces of a puzzle, and algorithms open the doors to a virtual wonderland. We have sailed into the vast sea of digital marketing and the waves are full of innovative ideas! Now beef up your metrics and checklists because we are navigating the vast field of complete digital marketing components!

Every comprehensive digital marketing plan should focus on an effective website strategy, SEO, and content marketing. Website marketing aims to strengthen the brand’s online presence. An eye-catching web design, user-friendly interface, and effective content attract potential customers to the website. SEO is important to make this content more visible in search engines. This is a critical component to reach the target audience and stand out in the competitive environment. At the same time, content marketing strategy guides the process of telling the brand’s story and engaging with the target audience through valuable content.

An important element in digital marketing plans is social media marketing. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms allow brands to interact directly with their target audiences. Social media allows brands to stay up to date, promote their products or services, evaluate customer feedback, and increase brand loyalty. An effective social media strategy highlights the brand’s personality, builds a strong community, and strengthens the brand’s digital presence by supporting customer loyalty.

Today, companies’ digital assets form the basis of a successful marketing strategy. Effective implementation of this strategy depends on several critical factors. First, the IT infrastructure needs to be robust and reliable. Information Technologies Infrastructure (IT Infrastructure) plays a vital role in website marketing, affecting the speed, security, and performance of the site. However, only a strong IT infrastructure is not enough, because factors such as website performance, user experience, content management (CMS), and device compatibility are equally important.

Website performance has a decisive impact on a site’s speed as well as user interaction and user experience. A fast-loading, user-friendly website is critical to attracting and retaining visitors. At this point, CMS (Content Management System) comes into play. CMS facilitates the process of creating, editing, and publishing content, while also managing and updating the design of the site. All these elements form the key elements of a successful strategy in website marketing. In this context, user experience and device compatibility should not be forgotten; Because a website can reach a wide audience as long as it can provide a consistent and impressive experience across different devices.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which stands out as an indispensable element of digital marketing plans, plays a critical role in strengthening the online presence of brands and reaching their target audiences. Websites that are optimized by search engine algorithms offer significant advantages in attracting organic traffic, increasing rankings, and increasing overall visibility. SEO involves many factors such as strategic use of keywords, technical optimization, content quality, and link profile editing to ensure websites rank higher in search engines. Therefore, properly integrating SEO strategies for the success of a digital marketing plan allows brands to gain a competitive advantage online.

SEO is built on strong foundations, and the main ones are keywords and technical optimization. Keywords are determined by the search queries of the brand’s target audience and form the basis of the content strategy. Technical optimization includes adjustments made to ensure that the website is better understood and indexed by search engines. Choosing the right keywords and performing technical optimization effectively allows brands to rank higher organically in search results. In this way, SEO helps brands strengthen their online presence, engage with their target audiences, and increase their digital success.

Content Marketing, an indispensable element of digital marketing strategies, is one of the cornerstones of building and strengthening the online presence of brands. Content is a powerful tool to tell brand stories, deliver valuable information, and connect with target audiences. Content Marketing not only promotes products or services but also provides audiences with information, entertainment, or inspiration through valuable content. This strategy, used in a wide range of sites from websites to social media platforms, deepens the processes of brands interacting with their audiences and has the potential to leave a permanent mark in the digital world. Content Marketing is a powerful shield that allows brands to stand out in today’s competitive digital atmosphere.

Content Marketing is the process of creatively expressing a brand’s voice and personality. Formats determine the format in which content will be presented; It can be text, images, video, audio, or a combination. Content type includes content types determined by the brand’s purpose of reaching and interacting with its target audience. This includes various content formats such as blog posts, infographics, videos, and podcasts. Topic keyword determines the main themes and keywords of the content so that it attracts the attention of the target audience and is better understood by search engines. These elements, which are the backbone of a content marketing strategy, allow brands to effectively tell their stories, engage their audiences, and establish a strong presence in the digital world.

Social Media Marketing, a dynamic component of digital marketing strategies, provides an effective platform for brands to interact with their target audiences, increase brand awareness, and promote their products or services. Social media allows brands to communicate with their audiences in real-time through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms. This strategy strengthens the brand’s digital presence and increases customer loyalty through posts, content, campaigns, and interactions. Social media offers brands an innovative engine and the ability to instantly connect with potential customers in a rapidly changing digital world. Social Media Marketing includes a wide range of strategies, from content creation to influencer collaborations, from advertising campaigns to organic sharing.

Performance marketing is a type of digital marketing based on results. Advertising costs based solely on performance are very friendly to brands’ budgets. In addition, successful studies bring high conversions to brands. Brands optimize their performance-based ads by reviewing them at the end of the campaign. Thus, the efficiency of advertisements will be further increased in future campaigns. The criteria for success in performance marketing are correct segmentation, auction bid, quality score of advertisements, and the resulting conversion rate.

Performance marketing is a type of marketing that aims to take action. It is based on data and needs to be analyzed after advertising studies. The important thing is that the campaign is measurable. Clicks, visits, subscriptions, or sales can be one of the desired conversions of the campaign. CPM and CPC are traditional conversions. These models are mostly used to measure clicks and views. The contribution of the campaign to sales cannot be understood by looking at these models. For this, it is necessary to tie campaign success to conversion-based targets such as potential customers or sales. Only in this way can the success of the campaign be fully measured. The return on investment (ROI) of campaigns can be evaluated through direct sales or form downloads that will turn into sales. Only in this way can advertising budgets be used more efficiently. This is an important opportunity to get ahead of the competition.