Breaking News: Whichit is shortlisted for SLINGSHOT@SWITCH Startup Challenge 2018

Written by: The Whichit Team

We are very proud to announce that Whichit has been shortlisted for the ‘Media & Advertising’ category at SLINGSHOT@SWITCH Startup Challenge 2018, in Singapore.

This competition gives promising startups a platform to showcase their technology and business ideas, gain early exposure to investors, corporates, industry leaders, mentors, media, and tech-savvy early adopters. It takes place during Singapore Week of Innovation & Technology (SWITCH) and is powered by Startup SG, an initiative by government agency Enterprise Singapore, who are also the national standards and accreditation body.

The application process started in July 2018, where all 1,300 applicants went through a rigorous selection process that reduces the participants to 60. This resulted in Whichit being selected to proceed to the next stage.

The event starts on 14th September 2018 with a 3-day workshop before the next round of the competition starts on the 17th for 2 days.  This climaxes with the grand final that takes place on 19th September 2018. Prizes include investment grants of up to SGD 200,000, free office space, and fast track entry on to growth and access programs.

Since crossing the Product Market Fit threshold at the end of 2017, Whichit has seen an exponential trajectory of growth focusing on the UK and EU markets that has laid foundations for continual growth.  Delivering innovative marketing and advertising solutions to tier-1 brands and advertising agencies, enables them to better engage with their audiences, convert traffic into revenue and gain actionable insights. This competition is a great opportunity to extend Whichit commercial operation into the APAC region, which is a high growth market for the digital eco-system.

In the past few years, Whichit has won several awards. In 2015, the company won The Sirius Programme by the UKTI, Pitch@Palace 4.0 People's Choice Award, and Facebook Startup of the Year EMEA 2015. In 2016, Innovate UK Smart funds TSB Project. The year after, Whichit was included in The Leap 100 2017 List and won two awards by Finances Online, Rising Star and Great User Experience.

In July 2018 the company released a new and improved version of its flagship platform ‘Whichit for Advertisers’, a SaaS platform that caters to the SME and SMB markets. It enables them to seamlessly create interactive commercial content, create and manage commercial campaigns on multiple channels including Google’s Display Network, where Whichit is part of an elite that are 3PAS certified by Google, social networks and programmatically.

Together with Whichit’s innovative and proprietary technology, a machine learning profiles users in real time based on their preferences, offering a more personalised approach to marketing and advertising, positioning itself at the forefront of its field and gaining a key business advantage in the market.

Contact Whichit for more information:
Name: Jonathan Gan
Tel: (UK) +44 7939 84 7711 , (IL) +972 3911 9909 [#1]
Email: gan@whichit.co
Website: https://whichit.co/

Women in Tech

Noémie Girault
Business Development Intern

Emma Lombardini
Business Development Intern

There are so many stories about what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world. Well guess what, it’s even harder in the tech world! While the tech industry tends to take pride in changing the world of work, and often, with a bit of hubris the world as a whole, the technology sector is actually far away from achieving gender equality. Studies have shown that the female employees make up between 26 percent (Microsoft) and 43 percent (Netflix) of the workforce at major tech companies, with the percentage dropping much lower when it comes to actual tech jobs.

“…female employees make up between 26 percent (Microsoft) and 43 percent (Netflix) of the workforce at major tech companies, with the percentage dropping much lower when it comes to actual tech jobs.”

It’s no understatement to say that quite early in their careers, women are indirectly pushed to choose a job that does not require technology orientated skills, or at least of a high level, because it is commonly a path chosen by men. In other words, it is a cultural influence and it needs to change.

Moreover, the lack of gender diversity led to a shortage of female role-models in Tech and Science sectors. This naturally, is not making it easier for women working in tech to feel at home. However, powerful women like Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg, YouTube's CEO, Susan Wojcicki, Ginni Rometty, IBM's CEO, and few others, are an example that it is still possible to turn things around in the tech world.

An interesting story about this topic is the story of Galit Gan, the Creative Director and a Co-Founder at Whichit. As said in the Story of Whichit, Galit took part in this adventure when she saw the potential of Interactive Content in advertising, but also for her own personal accomplishment. Indeed, entering this sector, as a woman in tech, could potentially enhance her skills, and she felt like it was a good opportunity to gain visibility, entrepreneurial-wise.

The first steps in entrepreneurship

Galit Gan, Creative Director at Whichit

When living in Tel-Aviv, Galit was an architect with a deep lust for design and creation. After graduating from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, with MRE (Master of Real Estate), she started her own Real Estate company and then became more attracted to the entrepreneurial and management side of business.

At that time, she already knew she had to empower herself to get recognition and be a part of something bigger than her, to contribute and inspire. This personal aspiration is exactly what women wanting to build a career in tech should develop and follow.

She advises that women should take advantage of their uniqueness to rise up the ladder of the very male dominated sector: “prioritising gender diversity in your team not only provides enhanced problem-solving and increased innovation, it also empowers tech-based rolls with ‘feminine’ qualities, as women tend to be better in multitasking, giving attention to details and great team players.”

When Galit was introduced to Whichit by the founder, Jonathan, she quickly saw the opportunity to enhance her creative and management skills, especially in the tech sector. As the start-up won the Sirius Programme by the UK Government, she decided to move as part of the founding team to London, and leave her home in Israel to pursue her career, obviously taking a risk, but also a lot of courage and ambition.

As the Creative Director, Galit had the exciting opportunity to design the SaaS (Software as a service) platform from scratch, taking the initial idea from its concept stage to a complete design with advance user experience and interface, all in three different platforms and interfaces. This challenge requires techy skills and wasn’t something common for a former architect. Therefore, this challenge a pushed her to give the best of her and overcome the apprehension of stepping up.

Using her creative skills, together with her unique personal touch, Galit designed and created the Whichit App for Android, iOS and Web App, that won the ‘App Of The Year EMEA by Facebook’ in 2015 just a few months after its release. The desktop platform, ‘Whichit for Advertisers’ won a ‘Great User Experience’ award in 2017, that helped positioning the company and reassure to Galit, that she’s leading the product to the right direction.

Jumping off the cliff

It is a fact that women are outnumbered in the tech industry, but this doesn’t mean they should feel discouraged or disheartened. On the contrary; it gives the opportunity to break society’s stereotypes of the tech industry and, most importantly, stand out from the crowd. Indeed, many of the tech companies driven by women achieve great success and prove that women deserve a place in tech as much as men do. They should play to their advantage of being ‘different’ and bring themselves as equal within the industry.

Moreover, scientific research shows women in general tend to think differently to men. Gathering as many men and women to work together would consequently prove to be more efficient and productive, thanks to diversity. Galit’s advice is to team up with encouraging and supporting men who believe in gender diversity and equality. Effectively, combining both sets of skills will lead to a great team spirit, and so a great company.

“Women sadly often lack self-confidence. Galit thinks women shouldn’t feel like they are not as good as men, and therefore must not apply for ‘easy jobs’ while knowing deep down they could occupy a higher and more interesting position”.

Women sadly often lack self-confidence. Galit thinks women shouldn’t feel like they are not as good as men, and therefore must not apply for ‘easy jobs’ while knowing deep down they could occupy a higher and more interesting position. As a matter of fact, it is also significantly efficient for a company to have female managers or highly placed women with internal influence in the company, because externally, it helps consumers feel related. It is more representative of their target market. Indeed, you will have a harder time trying to sell products for women with a team formed only of men!

Finally, women often feel like they need to fit in because they’ve learned that the well-known successful women are glamourous and fashionable, and it doesn’t really match the tech world stereotype. Well, believe it or not, the ad-tech company Whichit was first about fashion, but the main message here, is that society needs to increase the awareness about the role model problem. Galit thinks that teaching kids the fundamentals of coding very early in their life and before gender stereotypes, can help to prepare both girls and boys for the jobs of the future.

By allowing women to stand out for themselves, to not be afraid of speaking out and making a difference in the tech world, more of them will be drawn in. The next generation of tech women will be inspired, and things will hopefully evolve.

What do you think? Should more women be encouraged to enter the tech world?

Drive Brand Awareness and sales in the Lifestyle & Beauty Sector [Case Study]

Written by: Chloe Rowan


Birchbox is the UK’s number 1 beauty box. Subscribers receive a monthly box containing five samples of beauty products to test without having to buy the full-sized product. The boxes are tailored to suit the subscriber’s needs, for instance, a subscriber with straight hair would not receive a product for curly hair, but subscribers can also choose one of the five products they receive or select their preferred box design, adding a further element of personalisation.

The Campaign

 
Birchbox decided to launch a Whichit campaign. They identified their target audience as females aged 18-35, living in the UK and Ireland. They wanted a fun and innovative way to engage this audience, with the aim to increase brand awareness and drive sales.

The strategy was to create a 6-question Whichit quiz to collect actionable insights about their consumers’ makeup preferences and beauty routines. The quiz was to appear as a native ad, on a branded landing page, on the Birchbox website. The user would be presented with a different outcome based on their preferences, and each Engage Card offered a discount code and a clear Call-to-Action button.

Click on the image to discover your beauty horoscope.

The quiz featured attractive images and a series of fun questions about beauty routines, astrology, and the season’s favourites, allowing Birchbox to grab the audience’s attention and raise brand awareness from the start. The answers also provided Birchbox with valuable information regarding their target audience’s preferences including their influencers, favourite body feature, and preferred colour palettes.

The final question was “Are you a Birchbox Subscriber?”, which enabled the quiz to determine which personalised offer and Call-to-Action it should display on the Engage Card once the quiz was complete.

Success

The campaign ran on a Birchbox branded landing page within their website for 10 days and generated over 24,000 unique views. The campaign was a huge success, achieving an 89% engagement rate, made up of 60% potential new subscribers, and 40% existing clients.

Birchbox achieved 97% Completion rate and 89% Engagement rate in just 10 days thanks to Whichit. Click to read full case study.

Of the 89% who engaged with the ad, a huge 97% completed it, and 31% carried out the Call-to-Action. The ad was also shared on social media 113 times, amplifying the brand awareness.

Everyone who completed the quiz was taken to an Engage Card with a brief description of their beauty horoscope, the latest beauty trends for them to look out for, and influencers they should watch. Existing clients were then offered a free blending sponge with any purchase from the Birchbox online shop, while non-subscribers were given a voucher code to receive a 50% discount off an October box.

The answers collected throughout the campaign gave Birchbox vital product and rutine information. This data can be used to help personalise subscriptions and improve customer satisfaction during and after the campaign.

The audience enjoyed the interactive quiz, and it was such a success that Birchbox have continued to create Whichit campaigns as part of their marketing strategy!

Whichit for Advertiser’s next generation: designing to delight

Galit Gan
Co-founder & Creative Director

Here at Whichit, we believe that our user’s success, is our success. Since the launch of ‘Whichit for Advertisers’ platform in mid 2017, we've been working hard to make sure our customers continue to enjoy using the system. We wanted our user’s feedback to be at the heart of every new version we release, therefore the user-centric design approach means we understand our customer’s need and prioritise it.

User-centred design creates the opportunity for a business to design together with individuals who use the product or service they are offering enabling them to truly understand who their users are and what they need. By that, this design provides a common language for all types of users, no matter their profiles and characteristics.

Understanding our users

 
In our case, the product is a platform that gives marketers the ability to create interactive ad units that leave lasting impressions and generate high traffic volumes, in order to engage better with their audiences. To do so we needed to establish a common language for the diverse individuals that use our platform. These days, creating an ad unit requires expertise (design teams, web developers etc). Whichit for Advertisers’ concept is to make advertising easier and intuitive for everyone, not only for experts, and the platform’s user experience should support and reflect that.

“In the commercial world, it is common to make the mistake of prioritising business goals over those of the user. Our earlier product versions included as many proudly-developed features as we could, just so the users could ‘see everything we have to offer’. Taking out the guess-work and personal opinion was important for the new version. We’ve learned to analyze every touchpoint that our customers have with the product and matched their user-personas with their exact needs and goals. User-centred design should be implemented throughout the customer experience to make your product more efficient and satisfying, which eventually leads to increased sales and customer loyalty”

— Galit Gan, Creative Director & Co-Founder

Whichit for Advertisers’ concept is to make advertising easier and intuitive for everyone, not only for experts, and the platform’s user experience should support and reflect that.

User-Centred Design by Whichit

Today, we are very proud to announce the launch of our new and improved ‘Whichit for Advertisers’ platform, which is based on understanding our users’ needs, tasks and journey. We have also included new features for them to create beautiful interactive commercial ads their audience can't resist.

Here are some examples of how we’ve implemented the user-centred design in our new version:

1. A Creation Guide:

We believe that anybody can create interactive ads and run campaigns without depending on a designer, so we've included a step by step guide, with a checklist of tasks, that need to be completed before moving to the next stage.

With 'Whichit for Advertisers' our users can create interactive commercial content in minutes.

2.  New Features:

Polls and Surveys can be created in minutes with Whichit. We've made that process even easier by eliminated a number of steps in the creative process, by implementing new layout and tool bar when designing a post.

For example, users are now able to drag and drop an image from the library to the creative unit and apply a ‘drop shadow’ on the text overlaid on the image for each answer.

3. A commercial offer to support each user persona:

We identified four personas which all have different needs and goals when engaging with their audience.  Those who:

1. Want to attract audiences to a website/landing page

2. Want to reward audiences with a coupon/offer

3. Want to collect emails and other 1st party data to keep in touch with audiences

4. Want to create memorable experiences for audiences and for them to share their post to social but are not interested in offering something in return.

By implementing a unified language all users can relate to, rather than overly technical marketing and advertising terms, they can easily select the best option to achieve their campaign goals.

'Whichit for Advertisers' offers our users four Engage Cards with different Call to Actions based on their goals.

4. Touchpoints with target audiences:

Whichit’s ad unit can be distributed across multiple online channels. Instead of listing all the options, we ask our users what their marketing campaign’s objectives are: Do they want to engage with audiences on social media channels? or would the like to attract audiences from a new target market? This ensures they only see the relevant types of campaign that match their objectives.

Our users can choose different campaign objectives that best suit their marketing goals.

5.  A new and simplified user-flow:

Learning to use a new system is always challenging and time consuming. In the new version of ‘Whichit for Advertisers’ we’ve simplified the on-boarding process by only presenting features that are relevant to the user’s progress, keeping them informed about their progress at every stage. For example, a user will only be able to navigate through to advanced functions after completing the basics, as getting their too early may cause confusion.

Elliott Saray, Senior Developer at Whichit says that alongside a series of technical improvements, the new version of the SaaS platform also boasts a myriad of user experience enhancements.’. He adds that having completely redesigned the ad creation process based on user feedback and analysis, our users will now find an easy-to-use, unified design language carefully crafted by the Whichit Team.

“The simply and intuitively designed system takes matters of user experience into utmost consideration, allowing our users to create and distribute interactive commercial content at an even quicker pace than before by following a simpler journey.”

— Elliott Saray, Senior Developer

Thank you for reading! We hope you enjoy the new and improved ‘Whichit for Advertisers’!

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About the company:

This web-based tool makes it easy for brands and publishers to create image-based polls and surveys that help them gain user-related insights, their preferences, desires, what makes them tick, and more. With the interactive content platform - 'Whichit for Advertisers', marketers and advertisers can easily create Interactive Commercial Content in minutes and launch it across multi-channels: on the brand's web pages and blogs; social channels like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat; native mobile and in-app; ad-networks; and publishers web pages. Once they attract their audience, Whichit’s users can reel them in with unique “Engage Cards” that deliver crisp and significant call-to-action messages based on their audiences’ answers and their goals.

Performance Advertising That Creates Memorable Experiences

Written by: Chloe Rowan

Digital advertising is a very competitive market, and both brands and advertisers face many challenges when developing their marketing strategies. Creative thinking and grand ideas are not enough to succeed in the digital advertising industry, but Whichit may just be the solution advertisers need to overcome the barriers they face each day.

1. Desensitisation

Display ads have been around for years, but they still follow the same formats and haven’t advanced alongside technology to keep users interested. As a result, internet users have become desensitised and the ads fade into background noise that they’re able to simply ignore.

Whichit’s ads are image-rich, fun and engaging. They gamify the display ad experience, adding interaction where the user least expects it. They appear as addictive and entertaining content in the form of quizzes, surveys and polls. Users find the style of these ads so appealing that they see a click-through rate 40 times higher than that of traditional banner ads.

See an example of Whichit ads on a publisher website

2. Ad blockers

In 2017, 615 million devices were using ad blockers, and this is a figure that’s constantly on the rise. In 2015, the high ad block download rates caused a staggering £22 billion worth of damage to advertisers, and publisher revenues also suffered.

Whichit’s interactive ad units can be shared or posted anywhere on the web, and they are not targeted by ad blockers. This means that brands and advertisers can reach a huge audience they would otherwise miss when using traditional display ads.
 

3. Data Overload

Brands and publishers are sometimes left drowning in meta-data and it can be an exhausting task to flesh out the relevant data from the irrelevant. As a result, they are unable to target their users effectively.

Whichit’s interactive ad units gain actionable insights and provide a unique way of targeting users by their preferences. The system can be easily integrated into any 3rd party CRM or Data Management Platform, streaming all data points to improve clients’ performance and targeting capabilities, and is completely GDPR compliant.

Whichit for Advertisers includes an integrated dashboard for each live campaign that allows you to monitor and analyse your campaign’s results

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More About Whichit
 

Whichit combines the brightest minds and most sophisticated technologies to create ad and marketing solutions that recapture the users' attention in an unobtrusive manner, making them WANT to engage with YOU. Founded by three professional Israeli entrepreneurs, Whichit relocated to London after winning the UKTI's Sirius Programme in 2014. In 2015, Whichit then went on to win 'Start-up of the Year EMEA' by Facebook, the Innovate UK R&D funding award, and the People's Choice Award at Pitch@Palace by the Duke of York.

Galit (Creative Director); Yarden (CTO); Jonathan (CEO)

Whichit has seen great success in its ad campaigns, and the figures really speak for themselves:

Birchbox is the UK's number 1 beauty subscription service. They launched a Whichit campaign on their website in 2016 to increase brand awareness and drive sales. Their Whichit quiz saw over 24,000 unique views, 113 social shares, and an 89% engagement rate, with 97% completing the quiz and a 31% Call-to-Action rate. Birchbox's audience loved the interaction and it was so successful that Birchbox have created 8 Whichit campaigns to date.

Birchbox achieved 97% Completion rate and 89% Engagement rate in just 10 days thanks to Whichit. Click to read full case study.

Earlier this year, 2018, Leumi Bank teamed up with McCann to increase awareness of their new app for teenagers. With an 11-day Whichit campaign, they obtained over 14,000 unique impressions with an impressive 98% engagement rate.

Discover how 'Leumi' delivered within 11 days over 98% Engagement Rate, 91,500 Total Interactions, and 95% Completion Rate, using Whichit for their campaign. Click to read full case study.

Infirst Healthcare used an 8-question Whichit quiz to promote a new pharmaceutical product, Flarin, to relieve rheumatic or muscular pain and mild arthritic conditions. The quiz was advertised on Facebook and shared on the ‘Joint Flare-up Network’, a community forum page on Facebook. The campaign ran for 28 days and saw 15,335 unique views with a 73% engagement rate, 28.5% Call-to-Action rate, and they collected over 2,300 email addresses. Considering the mature age of their target audience, these figures are very impressive.
 

Flarin's Whichit Quiz delivered a phenomenal engagement rate on Facebook, X40 higher than the average benchmark of Health and Beauty Industry engagement. Click to read full case study.

Whichit has seen success across all different verticals, including automotive, travel, entertainment, insurance, gambling, retail and fashion.

Don’t just leave the success to them. Take your marketing strategy up a notch by implementing a Whichit creative for your next campaign.

Advertising and Data Gathering: Why not both at the same time?!?

Victor Martin
Business Development Intern

Thibault Bourrelly
Business Development Intern

Understanding your customers’ needs to give them what they want is the ultimate, but expensive goal. To perform on a tight budget, marketers tend to separate market research campaigns (to better understand their customers) from defining an advertising plan (to promote their new and existing products). So, you want to better understand how to target your customers through advertising and attract them without spending a huge amount of money—how can you do both at the same time?

Here’s something for you: Whichit!

Whichit is an Interactive Commercial Content tool: an efficient way to gather useful data and to promote your business at the same time. Whichit allows you to create interactive ads that can be shown on social media, onsite and programmatically. We do the heavy lifting for you, so you don’t spend hours trying to comprehend the valuable data you gather. Thanks to our fantastic Analytics Dashboard, the information collected is very easy to understand and the results of your campaigns can be monitored in real time.

How can you better understand the results of your campaign?

The Whichit Analytics Dashboard is divided into several sections that make it easy to understand how your campaign is performing, and what your audience has answered.

The campaign dashboard is divided into two sections: campaign performance and creative performance. The campaign performance shows data captured in your overall campaign—the aggregated results of all creatives within the campaign envelope. After viewing the overall campaign statistics, you can then focus on the performance of individual creatives in order to monitor and compare them individually.

The first section shows General information about the campaign: the start date, the campaign type and Call-to-Action type per creative. Also, it shows the number of people who saw the ad, clicked on the ad, and so forth.

The general information about this campaign shows how a survey accomplished excellent results. 74% of the audience that noticed the ad, voted, and was shared on social media 308 times.

Traffic Referrals presents the number of unique views per ad and website where your campaign has appeared (you can expand the widget to view more detailed information), and an Activity Graph illustrates the activity of your Whichit campaign over time – including engagement rate, completion rate, and unique impressions for comparison.

The audience that noticed the collection of ads, come from 8 different websites where 5 of them got the highest amount of views. The one with more views is 'traveldestinations.com'

The Whichit Analytics Dashboard visualises your campaign’s creative funnels in a very clear way, allowing you to understand the results with just a snapshot. You can also export the data to a spreadsheet.

The Completion Rate Funnel gives a clear overview of your creative’s results, starting from views, through content engagement to the call-to-action conversions.

The Post Engagement Funnel helps you recognise drop-offs in your posts and understand if the creative is working. If anything needs to be changed, you can edit the creatives in real time without needing to pause your campaign.

The Completion Rate and Post Engagement funnels are made available for every creative within your campaign, allowing you to compare your creatives and see which is performing best.

These funnels are showing great results. Each question was so engaging that 98% of the audience completed the survey.

See in detail the number of views on your Engage Cards and Call to Action stats, allowing you to see what commercial message is most likely to convert your potential customers into returning customers.

Here, 97% of the audience that interacted with the ad, submitted their email. 57% shared their details after getting to Engage Card #1, 39% to Engage Card #2, and 1% to Engage Card #3.

The Whichit Analytics Dashboard gives you valuable capabilities to understand your audience with a few advanced features, allowing you to conduct a small market research project with every campaign you’ve created.

If you are asking more than one question, the Whichit Analytics Dashboard shows the Common User Paths (per creative), the most popular choices among your audience, and finally their conversion rate on your chosen Call to Action.

In this example, while more users chose path #1, the conversion was higher in path #2.

Discovering connections between different products is a gold-mine for marketers. With Whichit’s ‘Votes Breakdown’ feature, you can see exactly what your audience preferred most, and how they voted from the perspective of other choices they’ve made within the collection.

For example, you can discover that most of the people who chose the brown bag also prefer the pink lip-gloss and the mascara.

This valuable information can be used in different marketing propositions such as newsletters, package promotions, remarketing campaigns and product staging. This data is made available per creative within your campaign.

Finally, the Audience section presents where your ad has been shown around the world and how well received it has been in all these places.

Our Analytics Dashboard offers you all the tools to gather actionable insights about your customers, so you can reach out to them in the best way.

Check out what our clients are saying about us and start your Whichit wonder ride.
 

Creative Team reveals 6 easy ways to make an ad stand out from the crowd

Galit Gan
Creative Director
& Co-Founder

Juliana Soto von Arnim
Junior Digital
Creative

You may have noticed that the impact of online ads is dropping because of how intrusive they have become. While ad blocker downloads increase as people prefer not to see advertising while browsing, brands have started to look for less intrusive and more engaging ways to attract their audience with digital advertising.

Finding the perfect strategy to achieve great results in your marketing campaigns can be a long and difficult process, but it is feasible and very much lies in the creatives.

The Creative Team of Whichit is here to give some tips that can help you make the most of your advertising. Facing the constant challenge of coming up with ideas for creative and engaging ads for Whichit’s diverse client portfolio, they have accomplished extraordinary results with them in past campaigns. See some case studies here.   

Today, Whichit’s Creative Team shares with you 6 easy ways for making an ad stand out from the crowd:

1.   Appealing copywriting

People come across dozens of ads every day, therefore, you need to make sure that your advertisement captures your audience’s attention in seconds. You can get there by creating a headline your audience is interested in and is written in a way that will make them curious enough to continue reading. People pay attention to a header that is teaching them ‘how to do’ something, stating an interesting fact, asking them a question, or giving them a direct offer. When creating a powerful headline, also include the most important benefit of your product or service. Once you have it, test it and rewrite it when you see that it is not getting the expected results anymore.

For example, if your audience likes travelling, you could write an attention-grabbing headline such as ‘How to travel for free,’ or you could invite them to answer a question like ‘What’s your dream holiday destination?’. 

2.   Tell them something they don’t know

Be creative and choose to provide content that will lead your audience to engage with your ad. Start by mentioning a trending topic or a seasonal event coming up. Including numbers or statistics to support your idea is encouraged, since this will not only show credibility but also prove how helpful your product or service has been for your clients. 

Also, consider engaging your audience with a personality quiz in which the outcome is based on their preferences, for example, ‘Discover what type of traveller you are’. This type of content is always popular because the audience enjoys discovering and sharing the result they get in the end. A meaningful interaction like this will result in a loyal customer for years.

3.  Use striking images

90% of the information our brain processes is visual. People love visuals, and advertisers know it. Captivate your audience by including exciting graphics in your digital ads. Always consider the colours you’re going to use. Try not to choose a background that is too flashy, bright, or one in which your product is lost. Also, if you’re using text in the images, make sure it is readable and is not getting lost in the details of the image. Never neglect your branding and be consistent with what you include in your ads so that your audience can easily identify you.

Source: Graphix Artist

Source: Ikea by DDB Tribal

It is not about making the elements in your ad compete with each other, but highlighting the most important message. Read more tips on how to make your ad awesome.

4.   Make your ad interactive

Bringing the audience to interact with your ad will draw more meaning out of it and can result in a win-win situation for the brand-consumer relationship.

Interactive ads create a richer experience for your audience, and making them more involved will generate greater interest in the brand. But, ‘Interactive ad’ - What does that mean? Interactive ads are defined as involving mutual action between consumers and producers without having the consumer click through. Asking the user to play a little game or take part in a quiz will be a great way to increase the click-through rate of your ad, as interactive content generates 2x more conversions than passive content (source: Kapost).

Click the example to see a great idea for an interactive ad>>> 

5.   Personalisation makes the difference

McKinsey’s study found that companies using “data-driven personalisation as the core factor for marketing and sales decisions can improve marketing ROI by 15% to 20%”. Data is the key here. The clever use of data and real-time information will allow marketers to create online ads that are relevant and personalised, engaging the right people with the right information.

How can you actually do that? Walk the extra mile and split your target audience into smaller groups (by interests, ages, etc). Tailoring your message to individuals using different creative and copy will increase the chances that your ad can actually make an impact.

Retargeting is not only for advanced marketers! Ad targeting based on individual online behaviour can be easily achieved by placing a Facebook/Google pixel into your campaign. A retargeting campaign is not limited only to online advertising. A good tip is to place a Facebook pixel in emails and then retarget the receivers who open with a personalized paid ad (check how you can do that using MailChimp).

Whichit’s Creative team embraces personalisation whilst using a bespoke Call-to-Action. “While creating an interactive ad unit, we are tailoring different commercial offers, based on the users’ outcomes or interactions. This way we significantly increase the chances of the user to interact with a commercial offer that is relevant for him”, says Galit Gan, Co-founder & Creative Director of Whichit.

6.   Pick the right ad size

Effective digital ads are designed to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. The size of the elements you include in your ad, like logo, headline and copywriting, will determine which size is best for you. Also, a tip that will help you collect more clicks is using the most effective size ads recommended by Google.

If you’re including text over an image, use a size that will help your audience read it easily like ‘Medium Page’ (MPU) or ‘half page’ (Double MPU). If your headline and copywriting are both short, use the ‘Leaderboard’ size so they don’t have trouble reading your message, but take into consideration that in this case, your image will be minimal. Check below some ads from Ebay:

Source: eBay

That’s it for now.

Are you ready to start creating your ad?
Try Whichit and get the process started!

Whichit is an online platform that allows you to easily create your own interactive ads and run it on multiple channels. The ads are fun, innovative and undisruptive, enabling you to gain actionable insights about your audience while they interact with them, all in real time. Additionally, Whichit contains an interactive analytics dashboard that summarises the data collected from your campaign in a way that’s very easy to comprehend so you don’t have to spend hours on it.

References:
Seiter, C (2016, June 1) 8 Winning Headline Strategies and the Psychology Behind Them

How to prosper with marketing campaigns after GDPR

Juliana Soto von Arnim
Junior Digital Creative

“So, what do I do now?”...That’s the question that you as a marketer might be asking yourself after the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force across Europe and the UK in May. The law that aims to give citizens more control over their data and to create a uniformity of rules to enforce across the continent, is set to cause a huge storm in the future: post-GDPR campaigns aren’t going to collect as much data as before, or it might be better to stop running lead generation campaigns because no one is going to submit their email after needing to agree with all those required policies.

But there’s no need to panic, this regulation isn’t as severe as it sounds.

Marketers need to only worry about data permission, data access and data focus on their campaigns:
 

1.   Data Permission

With GDPR you need to make sure that your audience wants to stay in contact with you. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that by filling out a form that says, “By signing up, you agree to our Terms and have read our privacy policy”, they want to stay connected. Ask them to specifically opt-in using easy-to-understand text, to your newsletters and emails by ticking the boxes. Check the examples below:

Not Compliant

GDPR Compliant

2.   Data Access

Part of the control of this new law is allowing individuals to access or remove their personal data collected by companies. As a marketer, you need to make sure that your users can easily access and request copies of their personal information, as well as an opt-out for its use.
 

3.   Data Focus

This is where you, as a marketer, need to ask yourself, “What data do I really need?”. GDPR requires you to legally justify what data you are storing on your users and why, as well as how you are using it. So, if you want to avoid unnecessary justifications, focus only on the data that you really need.
 

Without a doubt, GDPR will impact B2C marketing strategies. The good news is that this legislation is a great opportunity to build stronger relationships with the people engaging with your brand.

Gain insights about your audience

When creating lead generation strategies, instead of implementing a simple yes or no tick box, you can provide a range of options to find out what your audience is interested in. Through consent, you can collect insights that not only help you share information with them about topics that really interest them, but also segment your audience into focused communication groups.

Here's an example from Waitrose, part of the John Lewis Partnership, when registering for an account. While the user consents to receive updates from Waitrose, John Lewis or John Lewis Financial Services, the company identifies what their audience is interested in receiving.

More effective email marketing

The unsubscribe link within an email allows your audience to manage their email preferences. Giving them the freedom to turn communications on or off, helps you keep what’s relevant to them up to date, and allows you to target them with more specific or relevant campaigns.

In this case, Amazon notifies their audience about purchases, shipments, and delivery delays by email, text message, or the app.

Build brand loyalty and trust

GDPR no longer allows you to contact your audience for marketing purposes unless you have their permission to do so. Be open, honest and transparent. Give them a reason to share their personal information with you. Building brand loyalty and trust comes through projecting transparency about who you are and what you’re doing with their data.

How can Whichit help build a loyal customer base?
 

Whichit gives you the perfect tool to create a successful marketing campaign that appeals to your customers while protecting their data. At the same time, you as a marketer, get to build a strong loyal customer base.

Whichit interactive ad units help you generate new customers and strengthen existing relationships by analysing actual user behaviour and intent, as well as perception and attitude towards your brand, to inform your current and future marketing strategies:

Collect valuable information, not personal information

Whichit collects user preferences and behaviour without asking for Personal Identifiable Information (PII).

Transparency and Clarity

Whichit captures only the PII the user has agreed to share after opting into required consent forms, such as email addresses.
 

Give the power to the user

All users can request copies of the data stored within the Whichit for Advertisers platform and have the right to be forgotten i.e. remove all data entries upon request, which will increase trust and create more valuable connections with the brand.

Request More Information

I want to learn more about Whichit Data Privacy

References

MacDonald, S (2018, June 4).  GDPR for Marketing: The Definitive Guide for 2018

Gravicus (2018, March 2). A Marketers Guide for GDPR

Shopify or WooCommerce user?... We have the tool for you

Noémie Girault
Business Development Intern

If you use Shopify or WooCommerce - you may find yourself struggling with getting visibility or generating traffic to your site. You may even struggle with targeting the perfect client with the right products. Well, no worries!

Whichit has exactly what you need to get this very much wanted traffic and convert it into revenue. What is this miracle solution? Whichit Interactive Commercial Content.

Here's how you do it:


1. Ask a question

Ask your audience a simple question through image-based polls or quizzes to segment them and cut down the sales funnel. These rich-media ad units can be shown on social media, embedded on your site, in your Whichit display campaign through Google AdWords, and more.
 

2. Generate high level of engagement rate with Whichit Interactive Commercial Content

Once your audience has voted, the item they chose is already loaded to the basket and they can be taken straight to the check-out page.

Check out this demo.

3. It’s really simple to set up!

All you have to do is paste your basket page URL and boom! the magic is done. So, if you want to get more out of your display campaigns use Whichit to help shorten the sales funnel! 

See how to create your basket URL with Whichit:
 
If you’re a Shopify user, here is all the information you need to build your basket URL.

If you like to Woo your clients with WooCommerce, this link will tell you how to create your basket URL.

If you’re interested, would like to hear more, or need some help getting started just let us know!

I want more info

I want to learn more about Shopify and WooCommerce

Thanks for reading,

The Whichit Team

Why Multi-channel Marketing is essential for an e-commerce Business

Alexandra Radugina
Senior Marketing Manager

Multi-channel Marketing is a tendency for e-commerce businesses. According to Gartner research, marketing campaigns that integrate four or more digital channels will outperform single or dual-channel programs by 300%. However, 90% of marketers still struggle to seamlessly connect more than three channels at a time, making consistent messaging and coordination a major challenge.

Nowadays, direct marketing (email marketing, webinars, catalogues) and indirect marketing (inbound marketing) channels should work together as a single ecosystem. Every day people browse the web, check emails, use social networks, and look for relevant information and services/products. Therefore, the foremost thing digital marketers should consider is to make sure that customers are able to see information about their business effortlessly; this determines the success of the business. Multi-Channel Marketing is indeed a one-stop solution for all the marketers out there.

Before you head out, you should make a list of all the different methods available for multi-channel distribution. This will help you pursue a couple of distribution channels on the top of the list and can even help you consider the best mixture of channels for your future campaigns. As you move ahead, you may even find that some methods are synergistic to each other and can be linked together.

1. Multiple sales channels

Using multi-channels allows e-commerce marketers to list their inventory on different channels like eBay, Shopify, Amazon, Facebook, etc. The tracking information and other needs are communicated from sales channels to the ultimate buyer.

Other features like using QR codes for products your customer might search for can also help you out considerably when selling your products. You must be able to use the right promotional tools to enhance the quality of the marketing campaigns for your business. This is the main aspect of multi-channel e-commerce.

2. Planning Ahead

When you want to plan a holiday special and offer great discounts, you should promote them across different direct and indirect channels. Then the execution should be in a disciplined manner. Plan and make sure that your business makes a great impact on people’s minds.

3. Paid Advertisement

You can ramp up sales by customising your product catalogues and advertising your products to potential buyers via AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.  Your product’s nature plays a very important role in the market determining what kind of platform will be suitable for it and whether the platform gives you the opportunity to target your audience based on their behaviour online, interests, or demographics. You can increase sales by listing your products on high-demand blogs and in magazines. Today you can advertise your products on famous sites like Cosmopolitan, GQ, Instagram and many others. Consider building white lists of publishers that are related to your e-commerce business. This will help to reach more customers due to popularity and a positive inclination in the sales growth.

4. Email list

You can easily carry out a market campaign through email marketing. Spreading the word is much easier when you have the required email addresses with you. This is the most powerful tool in marketing campaigns and provides a direct way to reach the customer. This tip can improve your Multi-channel e-commerce progress and can be very useful for your bricks and mortar business. Today, some of the email marketing platforms, like MailChimp, allow you to also run a retargeting campaign on your website, to increase results for your email campaign.

5. Social Media

Being present on social media and being interactive with your clients helps you maintain a strong relationship with them. You can post promotional content, discount offers, and more on social media to attract your consumers to your stores and the website. Social media is the most powerful tool used in all multi-channel e-commerce strategies. It helps to develop a positive brand image for your consumers.

6. Influencer marketing

With the rise of microblogging, social media – influencer marketing becomes a new tool to reach your target audience. There are many marketing platforms that can help you shout out your special offer or product release to millions of customers via industry influencers. You can reach influencers directly or via influencers marketing platforms such as Famebit, Grapevine and others.

7. Content Marketing

Blogs, eBooks, reports, video and interactive commercial content assist customers who are trying to understand more about your e-commerce business. Also, content marketing can help generate new leads and understand prospects’ intent, while also helping you generate coverage within your niche and improve your SEO.

Click the example to see how great Interactive Commercial Content really is! >>>

Test your knowledge: What is an example of Interactive Content?

8. Native Advertising

Native advertising is a type of paid media that doesn’t destroy users experience. It appears to be part of a website’s content, much like a magazine advertorial. According to figures from NewBayMedia, native ads are viewed 53% more than banner ads, the purchase intent is 53% higher, and they generate 82% more brand lift.

In a perfectly built marketing promotion, a multichannel campaign would reach the target audience across all the possible touch points. You can run your campaigns in parallel, or one followed by another to move your customers down the sales funnel. Therefore, it can be fairly concluded that Multi-channel marketing is certainly a big deal for an e-commerce business as it helps them benefit from utilising the virtual space available to them.