Google’s firm grip on the search engine market is both a dream and a nightmare for marketers like me. With nearly 92% of the worldwide search market share, it’s no surprise that when we talk about the top search engines, Google dominates the conversation.

But that dominance also makes it incredibly tough to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).

I’ve spent years optimizing for Google, only to see algorithm updates shake up rankings overnight. The good news? There are still plenty of opportunities for savvy marketers who know where to look. Millions of people rely on other search engines. With AI-powered search engines shaking up the landscape, we have more ways than ever to reach new audiences.

In this article, I’ll cover the top search engines that are gunning for Google’s market share, which AI-powered options I recommend, and more.

Top Search Engines

• Google
• Microsoft Bing
• Yahoo!
• Yandex
• DuckDuckGo
• Baidu
• Ask.com
• Naver
• Ecosia
• AOL
• Internet Archive
• Yep
• Brave Search
• Andi
• Perplexity AI
• Phind.com
• You.com
• Komo

Note: I averaged each search engine’s market share over 12 months with data from Statcounter GlobalStats, unless otherwise noted.

1. Google

Let’s start with the heavy hitter. Google dominates in the U.S., handling 60% of all search queries — but that still presents a huge opportunity for marketers to reach the other 40%.

It’s the logical place to start for marketing, running paid marketing campaigns, and developing organic traffic strategies. I still remember the first time I ventured into their course library and Google Analytics.

No matter what OpenAI does, the Google ecosystem will always be the centerpiece of all my workflows.

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But keep in mind that Google’s algorithm works to fulfill users’ needs directly on Google so they don‘t need to click any links. Features like this, plus Google’s popularity, might make it hard for you to capture as much website traffic as you want.

You can, however, come close if you check all the boxes and stay in tune with the updates. The best way to do so is to check out HubSpot’s Complete SEO Starter Pack. You’ll get a rundown of everything you need to navigate the turbulent world of search engines. I love coming back to it every few months to brush up, it’s a massive time saver.

Speaking of turbulence, Google recently rolled out AI Overviews. These info boxes right under the search bar use Gemini, the company’s proprietary AI, to summarize your search results. Let’s just say they’re not always the most accurate. (Cue the “putting glue on pizza” controversy.)

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Why I like it: Let’s be real for a second. I know, you know, and everyone knows the size of Google’s market share and the treasure trove of data they have. Everyone’s using it so focusing on Google SEO is an unavoidable must. Will you live without focusing on Bing? Absolutely. Without Google, though? Not a chance.

Despite Google’s dominance, there’s plenty of other search engines — and potentially a large audience for marketers and SEOs looking to expand their audience.

I rounded up 17 other search engines, including several powered by AI.

Other Search Engines

2. Microsoft Bing

Microsoft Bing trails at a distant second with an overall average of 3.23% of the market share worldwide and just 0.55% on mobile. This engine also powers Yahoo!, the third-biggest search engine in the U.S.

Bing’s search pages look similar to Google’s. There are the same categories and a similar white background, with blue links and green URLs.

Bing additionally offers Microsoft Rewards, a program that gives you points when you search or shop on the engine. You can redeem those points for gift cards, nonprofit donations, and more.

I like this particular tidbit, as I’m always looking for something new to play on my Xbox. But other than that, it’s pretty average. What I appreciate though is how well-integrated Copilot is.

Bing also recently added an AI component, called Copilot, which summarizes search results for you. However — and this is a pretty important “however” for marketers and SEOs who rely on organic traffic — the direct links are harder for users to find. Plus, the first link it provided was to a different landing page than the one linked above.

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Copilot tries to be encouraging about the likelihood of the recent Eurovision winner touring my city. Its human-like tone stands out from other AI-powered searches.

Best for: If you’re infatuated with AI search features and only need summaries, this is a great option. Copilot is so far ahead of Gemini, that it’s not even funny. Mind you, Google also had its privacy-related controversies, while Microsoft has a much clearer track record in that regard.

3. Yahoo

Its news-heavy page isn’t the sleekest search engine interface, but Yahoo is still one of the more popular alternatives to Google. In fact, Yahoo holds over 1.16% of the worldwide market share.

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Yahoo is powered by Microsoft Bing, so search results are similar. Its search results page has a minimalist, text-heavy interface. However, it's still an important search engine in its own right, with over 300 million monthly users.

Best for: If you’re targeting the Japanese market, Yahoo is just as important as Google, if not more. Of those over 40 in Japan, 66% use Yahoo as their main browser. It’s yet another example of how Japanese consumers display loyalty to brands who deliver consistently.

4. Yandex

In some local markets, smaller search engines go head-to-head with Google — and win.

Russian search engine Yandex has roughly 1.62% of the worldwide market share, but in its home country, that skyrockets to nearly 71%. (Google holds the number two spot.) If you do business globally and are looking to reach Russian customers, there are a few things to keep in mind.

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Yandex has many quality indicators, or badges, that it can display alongside search results. One of the most prominent is the site quality index (SQI), which indicates how useful your site is to users.

When I used it first, I found it hard to navigate. They also have a suite of other services, none of which are particularly relevant in the Anglosphere.

Like Google, Yandex considers whether a user’s query has local intent, and it will display regional-dependent results. To account for this, you’ll need to go into Yandex’s webmaster tools and set a site region.

It’s not advertised anywhere on its search engine, but Yandex’s corporate website notes that AI technologies are delivered to all its products, including search.

Pro tip: I didn’t believe it myself, but Yandex has by far the best image search function. It’s significantly more accurate and can even handle paraphrasing and lengthy descriptions.

5. DuckDuckGo

If you’re uneasy about targeted ads or don’t want your search data stored, you might want to try DuckDuckGo, which touts itself as “the search engine that doesn’t track you.”

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It also doesn’t collect or store any information, so you can search for shoes without being bombarded by subsequent Macy’s ads. It’s worth noting there are still ads on DuckDuckGo — just not personalized ones.

DuckDuckGo has a clean interface that makes it easy to navigate. With more than 100 million daily searches in 2024, it's slowly gaining steam in the search market, especially as users become more concerned about privacy.

6. Baidu

Baidu is China’s largest search engine, capturing 52.15% of China’s search market.

The search engine is in Mandarin (so if your Duolingo game isn’t strong you may have issues as an English-speaker). Otherwise, Baidu looks similar to Google, with a white background, blue links, and green URLs. Like Google, Baidu aims to incorporate more rich features in the SERPs.

If you’re looking to appeal to the Asian market, Baidu is a good option to consider.

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However, the search engine censors certain images and blocks pro-democracy websites. If you’re comparing search results, you’ll find a more comprehensive results list on Google.

Pro tip: If you speak Mandarin, are conducting cultural research, or are looking from another news perspective, Baidu won’t disappoint. But if you’re from the West, the censorship and lack of “outspokenness” will be a bit glaring at first. It’s not my favorite, but it did serve its purpose on my trips to Beijing and Shenzhen.

7. Ask.com

Ask.com, formerly known as Ask Jeeves, is a search engine that was designed — pre-AI-powered search — to answer questions.

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Ask.com’s interface is similar to Yahoo’s, with news under the search body. However, unlike Yahoo, which is powered by Bing, Ask.com is a standalone search engine. Let’s just say using Bing or Google would’ve been a far better idea.

Another thing that irked me was the fact that articles from their news section sometimes dominate the SERPs.

Pro tip: I’ll be straightforward with you — if you’re looking for the best possible results on a topic, Ask.com is not the most useful. But what I found by accident is that you can get a lot of results that would otherwise be on the 15th page of Google’s SERPs.

8. Naver

Naver is South Korea’s second most popular search engine, claiming 53.04% of the country’s search engine market. Naver’s interface is entirely in Korean, with no English version. More than a simple search engine, Naver users can access news content, search suggestions, and more.

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Although it’s in Korean, I used Google Translate to view the landing page in English. It’s very minimalist and has an Apple-like feel. Notably, Naver is a localized search engine, meaning that it does not crawl and catalog the entire internet.

If you’re targeting the South Korean market with your content, make sure your SEO matches the criteria of South Korea’s second-most popular search engine.

Pro tip: According to my Korean acquaintances and my own, albeit Google Translate-d, efforts, Naver is much less inclined to have clickbait rank too high. For the sake of journalistic ethics and quality of search results, this is a great thing.

9. Ecosia

Ecosia is “the search engine that plants trees.” For every search a user makes with Ecosia (either the webpage or its free browser extension), Ecosia will allocate part of its profits to plant trees in vulnerable areas.

To date, Ecosia has planted nearly 210 million trees and dedicated another 85 million euros (about $92 million) to climate action.

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Note to marketers: Ecosia’s sponsored spots push your content nearly below the fold. I love using it every once in a while, just because I’m trying to improve my gardening. It feels really good to contribute to a good cause.

Ecosia is most popular in its home country of Germany, where it has 0.87% of the market. Like Yahoo, Ecosia runs on Microsoft Bing.

Pro tip: Are you a PPC expert who lives in or targets Germany? If so, that’s the only possible reason you might want to use Ecosia.

10. AOL

AOL, formerly known as America Online, is both an online media company and a search engine. The interface features a search bar and national news articles, along with local news and weather.

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AOL’s search results page suffers from the same issues as Ecosia and its algorithm feels a bit outdated. Nevertheless, it’s surprisingly useful for basic information. I liked the “Related searches” feature in particular.

Most of AOL’s traffic is generated from the United States, but it’s on the decline at only 0.09% of the market.

Best for: Honestly? The nostalgia factor. Even though you won’t get to hear the legendary “You’ve got mail,” there are still fragments of that old-school AOL feel.

11. Internet Archive

Internet Archive is a different kind of search engine. As its name implies, Internet Archive is a free archive of books, movies, software, music, websites, etc. It’s actually one of my favorite sites, and sometimes the only way to reach certain sites, articles, and all kinds of data.

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Instead of attempting to rank in this search engine, users can sign up for a free account and upload their content to the archives.

Most of Internet Archive’s audience is located in the United States. However, the search engine is gaining popularity in other countries, such as Great Britain and India.

Best for: Research, research, and research. With the help of snapshots at different points in the past, you can see how sites looked in the past and what content was removed. It’s even great for obscure, regional websites, somehow. I’m often surprised how few people know about it.

12. Yep

The popular SEO tool Ahrefs launched Yep, an AI-powered search engine, in 2022. I liked the chat feature. Even the summary on the right sidebar is right on the money most of the time. I also love that it quotes sources, so you know where information comes from.

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Yep’s business model distinguishes it from the rest. It shares 90% of its ad revenue with content creators in an effort to encourage more people to share their knowledge and high-quality content.

Best for: Other than Google, this is probably the best search engine for PPC. While not too many people use it, its interface is very similar to Google.

Plus, the revenue-sharing model is enticing, to say the least. According to the engine’s website, Yep has a “90/10 revenue share business model where we pay 90% of advertising revenue directly to these makers.”

13. Brave Search

Of the half a dozen or so AI-powered search engines I tested for this article, Brave was one of my favorites. In our own research, it was the AI search engine of choice, preferred by 8% of respondents.

Brave’s default settings don’t include AI search, but once you toggle on “search with AI,” it delivers AI summaries above traditional search results.

It has a clean interface and some of the most enhanced privacy features of any search engine on this list. It blocks ads and cross-site cookie tracking, and it doesn’t collect any info about its users.

HubSpot’s research suggests that will be key to capturing regular AI search users — privacy and security were among the top concerns. A quarter of respondents said they’re only likely to use AI search engines if their concerns are addressed.

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Brave’s search results were impressively thorough. When I asked for help writing a listicle about search engines, it began with the history of search engines — but it still gave me relevant information about current search engines.

14. Andi

Andi has a vertically split interface, with the typical AI search engine chat box on the left, and sources on the right. That’s useful for marketers and users, both of whom want high placement of the most relevant results.

Seeing familiar, credible sources may alleviate consumer anxiety around AI. What I immediately thought when using Andi was how good it is as a general intro to AI. Even ChatGPT is more abstract, when you think about it.

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Likewise, I was pretty impressed by the accuracy of both the research results and additional queries you get as suggestions.

15. Perplexity AI

Perplexity has gotten a lot of buzz in the past year. It has a similar design to other AI search engines, with source links above a longer answer in easily skimmable bullet points. It also features citations that reveal the source when you hover over them — essential to ensure that you’re not falling prey to misinformation.

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HubSpot’s research showed that Perplexity tied with You.com as the second-most popular AI search engine, preferred by 5% of all respondents.

16. Phind.com

Phind.com bills itself as “an answer engine” designed specifically for developers. It still does a fine job handling the more mundane queries, but if you need help getting “from idea to working product,” this search engine was built for you.

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17. You.com

You.com has four assistants to choose from to support a variety of more complicated queries: Smart, Genius, Creative, and Research. I love this approach and had a lot of fun playing around with it. In particular, I wanted to see if it could recommend some prestige dramas for me.

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It prepared an easily skimmable report that began, “If you are a fan of prestige dramas, you are likely looking for TV shows that offer high-quality storytelling, complex characters, and often, a cinematic feel.”

The results included the usual suspects (The Wire, Sopranos), but also a few more recent recs (The Crown, Succession).

It also has 15 AI models to choose from. If you’re an AI enthusiast, this is the one to use. You can select from different versions of GPT, Gemini, Claude, and others.

Pro tip: Try to be more specific than I was. Some of the more vague prompts I used weren’t quite successful. It takes a bit of getting used to, since we’re used to using simple queries when using Google and traditional search engines.

18. Komo

I asked Komo to tell me about HubSpot’s website grader, and it quickly summarized it, calling it “a powerful and comprehensive tool” (stop it, we’re blushing). Jokes aside, Komo is amongst my favorite search engines for research.

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Like other AI search engines, it has bibliography-style citations that make it easy to sort fact from fiction. I’ve also tried DeepResearch by OpenAI and I have to say Komo is a tad bit better when it comes to general queries and page analysis. Don’t think of it as an end all-be all. It’s more of a shortcut, when needed.

Pro tip: Use it for general research and direction where to go next. If you don’t want to waste ChatGPT or Claude prompts, let Komo handle most of the heavy lifting. The UI is amongst my favorites on this list, too.

Emerging Search Engine Trends

Social Media Search

TikTok and YouTube aren’t search engines per se, but think about how often you use their search functions.

Recent HubSpot research showed that 42% — not quite half — of respondents turn to social media to search for information. That’s more than any other search engine except Google.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has already incorporated its proprietary AI search into all three platforms.

Google Updates

Google is always working to prioritize good content, with improvements like the 2024 Core Update, which penalizes lower-quality, unoriginal, often AI-generated content. HubSpot’s Manager of EN Blog Strategy Amanda Sellers says it has huge implications for the industry.

“First, Google is sending a strong signal that content written by humans is preferable to content by computers. Ironic, given virtually all of the SERPs are algorithmized,” Sellers says

Sellers also points out that this update should encourage SEOs to take a more comprehensive approach to site performance.

“This update prioritizes user-first content over keyword-first content,” Sellers explains. “With this in mind, SEOs should be looking at their site as a whole and making sure they’re creating helpful, reliable content for their users — not for search engines.”

Think Beyond Google

Exploring alternative search engines has completely changed how I think about SEO and content strategy. There’s a whole world beyond Google, and savvy marketers can find real opportunities by diversifying their approach.

I’ve personally found AI-powered search engines fascinating, and I’ll be keeping an eye on how platforms like Perplexity, Brave, and You.com evolve. Meanwhile, search engines like Yandex, Baidu, and Naver remind me how crucial it is to tailor strategies for different markets.

Whether it’s through AI-driven search, privacy-focused platforms, or niche engines, understanding how people search in 2025 (and beyond) will be the real differentiator for marketers like us.

This article was originally published in September 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, like many others, I considered starting a side hustle — an online ecommerce business selling printed stickers. While the venture never materialized, if I were building one today, I’d make sure to create an ecommerce business plan to ensure that my vision had enough stock to be profitable.

Why? Having a business plan for my online store would help me define my target market, establish monthly and quarterly sales goals, and increase the likelihood of long-term ecommerce success.

In this post, I’ll go over what an online store business plan is, its key components, and how you can create one for your ecommerce startup. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

• What is an ecommerce business plan?
• Components of an Ecommerce Business Plan
• Ecommerce Business Plan Template
• How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan
• Ecommerce Business Plan Tips
• Ecommerce Business Plan Examples

Here’s a helpful guide to starting an ecommerce business. Whether a company operates as a startup or has years of operations and growth under its belt, an ecommerce business plan is essential for evaluating a business and determining areas of improvement.

An ecommerce business plan is vital for increasing numbers of shoppers conducting business online. It's estimated that the number of ecommerce users in the US alone will grow to 333.5 million by 2029. An ecommerce business plan keeps you organized and is useful when seeking investors who need to understand your company.

I’ll dive into some examples of ecommerce business plans and what goes into writing one using our free template.

Components of an Ecommerce Business Plan

While the different sections of an ecommerce business plan are tailored to the needs of a particular organization, below are some standard components. Download this template and checklist for a handy PDF version.

Cover Page

Keep the cover page simple and professional. A cover page should typically include the following:

• Company name.
• Logo.
• Contact information of the founder.
• Company address.
• One-line description of the company.

Executive Summary

An executive summary, like the name suggests, is a summary of what the ecommerce business plan will cover. Later in the article, I discuss what an executive summary should include in more detail.

Company Summary and Opportunity

This section generally contains a company synopsis, a short description of the products and services, a brief history of the business, the mission statement, and the team and management structure. It should also cover the challenges the business solves and how it aims to do so.

Download Your Free Template Here

Target Market and Audience

In this section, describe the state of the current industry, major trends, and key competitor details. Additionally, talk about what your target customer(s) and buyer persona(s) look like (along with demographics, psychographics, and pain points) and also why they’d be interested in your product or service.

Pro tip: Here’s a free tool to help build a buyer persona for your business.

Download Your Free Template Here

Product and Services

This section should detail the products and service lines along with the pricing strategy to be used.

Download Your Free Template Here

Marketing and Sales Plan

Marketing and sales are vital to a business’ success, so it’s essential to list the methods to be employed. The image below includes the key aspects to include in this section. I also elaborate more on what a marketing plan and sales plan should cover later in this piece.

Download Your Free Template Here

Financial Plan

This section covers monetary details. Topics to cover include costs, revenue streams, projected revenue, and funding requirements and sources.

Pro tip: Visualize the data using tables, graphs, pie charts, and other tools to make the numbers easier to understand.

Download Your Free Template Here

Goal Planning

This section notes down goals and milestones to be achieved, particularly in the first year. “What will success look like?” — that’s the question to be answered here. It’s even better if certain goals can be data, number, or metric-based.

Download Your Free Template Here

Ecommerce Business Plan Template

Download Your Free Template Here

HubSpot's template provides clear steps to structuring one for your ecommerce business. Throughout this section, I’ll use the example of a photography company specializing in online photo editing.

1. Give an executive summary.

An executive summary is a one-to-two-page overview of your business. The purpose of an executive summary is to let stakeholders know what the business plan will contain. HubSpot‘s free template offers some tips on how to write one, as I’ve done in the image below:

Download This Template

It's important to provide an executive summary. This allows investors or executives who don’t have the time to read your full plan to quickly see the most important highlights.

2. List and describe your business.

This is the section that needs the most detail because it highlights what you're selling. To begin, I’d provide an overview of your product or service. For instance, a photography company would probably list their photo packages arranged by price and services, as I did below:

Download This Template

HubSpot‘s template also provides direction on how to describe your company’s purpose and break down values. It also advises businesses to include the team structure, if applicable. Next, I’d go into detail about the product and service lines.

3. Detail your products and services.

Once I have described my business and its purpose, I’m ready to dive deeper into the plan. What products and services do I or will I offer?

This is an opportunity to list each item and its purpose, allowing me to answer the question, “Why?” In other words, why am I choosing to offer these specific products and services?

After detailing my products and services, I’d outline the pricing model. What is the cost associated with each service? What will the profit margin look like? Determining price, especially as a startup, can be challenging. However, sales pricing calculators can help determine the best pricing strategy.

Download This Template

4. Conduct a market analysis.

For the market analysis, I’d provide the operational climate of the industry I’m in. To illustrate, at this step, the photography company would need to analyze its position in a world of rival companies like Adobe or online services like Canva. Below, I’ve done a quick competitor analysis, available in the template:

Download This Template

Using directions in the template as a guide, I was able to come up with more selling points of the company and how it stands out from competitors.

Filling out the market analysis section of the business plan assists with providing the framework for future campaigns. I’m able to define the target market and ideal customer. Refer to my example below for how to structure this analysis in your ecommerce plan.

Download This Template

In my opinion, a good market analysis includes your target audience, projections of your company‘s goals, and a breakdown of the competition’s goals and weaknesses. This is a counterpoint of how your business improves upon those weaknesses.

5. Strategize your marketing plan.

Having the right marketing plan for your ecommerce business is crucial for any business. It serves as a roadmap for how your company will build brand awareness, reach your target audience, and boost sales and revenue.

As seen in this template, your marketing plan will focus on positioning strategy, acquisition channels, and tools and technology.

I’ll take a look at each one:

• Positioning strategy. This fixates on how you will position yourself to your audience. How will you address their challenges and goals? How will you use the tools at your disposal to accomplish this?
• Acquisition channels. The marketing plan will also require you to focus on where your customers come from. Are they finding your business through search engine marketing? Do they discover your business from your blog or social media accounts? Identifying your acquisition channels allows you to identify which ones to prioritize.

• Tools and technology. Lastly, your marketing plan should lay out the tools and technology your marketing team will need and use. Will you use a content management system (CMS) like Content Hub? List all the software and programs your company will use to execute its marketing plan.

Download This Template

6. Create a sales plan.

When creating a sales plan, I’d describe the methodology, organization structure, sales channels, and technology.

For example, when discussing methodology, will I focus on an inbound strategy where I attract customers to my business through my content or an outbound strategy where I initiate contact with my prospects? And what’s the reason behind this decision?

This part of the ecommerce business plan will also require me to outline the people in charge of selling my products and services, as well as what channels they’ll use to sell the products.

Similar to creating the marketing plan, the sales plan will also require a brief on what tools I plan to use.

While my marketing plan might need a CMS, the sales plan might need a customer relationship management (CRM) software like HubSpot to manage relationships with current and potential customers. Both HubSpot’s CRM and CMS tools (Content Hub) are integrated into a single platform.

Download This Template

7. Outline legal notes and financial considerations.

In the following two sections of your business plan, I’d describe the legal and financial structures.

For example, the photography company should provide details on the legal considerations like online safety rules, ecommerce regulations, and the company's costs.

Next comes the financial section. The below image details the different aspects to cover:

Download This Template

Legality and finances are crucial information for investors and stakeholders. In this section, it's important to be honest and thorough to give partners a realistic idea of how to contribute.

Ecommerce Business Plan Tips

Before you lay out the business plan and set the tone for your ecommerce business, there are some factors that are essential to consider. These factors lay the foundation of your business and will help you construct the document with ease.

I’ve noted down some of the most crucial business plan tips and tricks:

Find the purpose of your plan.

There is not merely one purpose behind writing the business plan. Different business plans serve different purposes for ecommerce owners.

There are three main purposes of a business plan:

• Gain secured financial support. Ecommerce businesses are in dire need of investors, and hence, their business plan with all the objectives, competitor analysis, frameworks, and supporting documents use this to gain financial support.
• To set the direction for your teams. Businesses include metrics like target market, pricing comparison, working process, objectives, and other nitty-gritty in their plans to help their teams align and achieve the desired results.
• Attract relevant customers. With the current markets and trends in a well-laid business plan, it becomes easier to determine the segment of your target audience.

Know your competitors.

Competitors can inspire you to take risks and help you analyze what’s going to impact your business negatively.

Competitor analysis is done by looking at the companies that offer similar or substitute products in your industry. However, there are two types of competitors: direct and indirect competitors.

Direct competitors are the ones that serve similar products with the same customer base, whereas indirect competitors have different target audiences with similar products or vice-versa.

A customer who wants to purchase a two-wheel vehicle can also opt for the electronic vehicle.

Hence, an electronic vehicle company can use a similar two-wheeler company as their competitor.

To identify competitors, consider metrics like selling price, ratings and reviews, revenues, and organic search traffic.

Pro tip: If you’re confused about creating a competitive analysis, check out these ten competitive analysis templates.

Perform a SWOT analysis.

Once I’ve identified the competitors, I’d start with the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to dive deeper into my competitor’s loopholes. SWOT analysis works as well as performing a real audit of the company.

SWOT analysis for competitors can hit various birds with one shot. It answers the following questions:

• What keeps them at the top of the industry?
• What makes the competitor’s business model unique?
• What are the most negative aspects of their business?
• Are there any new technologies to scale the ecommerce business?
• What shifts in the market or the future of the industry can affect the competitor’s target market?

Pro tip: Here’s a list of SWOT analysis templates you can check out to get started.

Keep it clear and short.

Keep your business plan clear, concise, and with less jargon. A longer business plan with congested portions of text will leave your stakeholders and investors disinterested.

An ideal business plan comprises 20-25 pages of text with visuals and around 10 pages of appendices and other details. Anything more than 50 pages will turn your business plan as dull as dishwater.

However, there are always exceptions to it. Consider a restaurant chain. This business plan should include clear images, mock-up menus, proposed outlets, maps, and graphical representations of the customer base.

This longer plan will catch more eyeballs than the one with short pieces of text and less detailing.

Set out clear objectives and research points.

The first thing that gets noticed is the objective that the business wants to serve. Whether you are setting out your first presentation or submitting a thesis for your research work, objectives help in setting goals and provide focus to your project.

For example, a sales company can set its business objective as “convert 60% of the customers through calls.”

Instead of shooting for the moon right away, set out the stepping stones for the stakeholders to easily understand your business objectives.

Ecommerce Business Plan Examples

I’ve sourced five examples of ecommerce business plans and listed them down below.

1. TrendyFit.com Ecommerce Plan

TrendyFit.com is a fictional online brand that offers stylish fitness apparel and accessories catering to the fashion-forward, active young consumer. Available on the PlanBuildr.com website, a key highlight of this plan is the detailed financial projections (a sample is seen below):

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This business plan is logically structured and also includes a milestones section to be completed before the website launch. Organized by date, I feel that this helps keep the company on track with a to-accomplish list.

2. Nature's Candy Ecommerce Plan

Nature's Candy is a fictional online retailer that provides nutritional supplements. In my opinion, its business plan is helpful in seeing how businesses go from planning to execution.

Below is a preview of its plan in the financial forecasting section.

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This example shows who will be on the payroll yearly, giving investors an idea of how their investment will work in the long term. Planning ahead also shows stakeholders’ dedication to starting up your business.

3. Nexa Commerce Ecommerce Plan

This fictitious localized ecommerce store plans to cater to residents in the city of Lafayette in Louisiana. Created by PlanPros, this business plan has well-written customer analysis, competitive analysis, marketing plan, and operations plan sections.

Because the company is looking for funding, its plan highlights financial projections and a breakdown of funding use cases, which is crucial information for investors.

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When it comes to building an ecommerce business plan, I believe that typically, the more detail you include, the better.

4. NoHassleReturn Ecommerce Plan

Fictional company NoHassleReturn's sample ecommerce plan is an expansive, detailed version of how ecommerce would translate to a completely online store.

The company itself is structured to offer a simple way to return items bought from an online store, and the steps to take are featured below.

In my experience, having a sequence of processes like this is useful if your company is a niche idea. Investors and stakeholders need to know how your business will be new and unique for the market.

Even though writing out a business plan seems like a painstaking process, we have a step-by-step guide to help. This will keep you organized and keep you on track when structuring your business.

5. Shannon & Shavonne Inc. Ecommerce Plan

Shannon & Shavonne Inc. is a fictional United States-based online retailer that offers its customers an abundance of products in fashion, home appliances, electronics, and more.

I feel that the depth seen in this plan is particularly helpful, especially with the detail seen in outlining the business structure and each job’s roles and responsibilities.

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The plan first lists all the necessary roles, from the chief executive officer (CEO) to a call center agent. It then describes the responsibilities of each role.

As displayed in the image above, an information technologist (IT) would be tasked with managing the organization’s website, updating the online store, and ensuring the security of the company’s payment platform.

The clear distinction of roles helps manage employee expectations and accountability.

Planning is the first step.

Successful businesses require strategy, and that’s what an e-commerce business plan provides. It allows me to strategize what the business does, how it operates, and why it's essential.

Not only does it help me pinpoint who the key players of the company are, but helps me identify who my target audience should be.

I hope that the steps listed in this article and the examples above bring you one step closer to building an ecommerce business plan for success.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

I love that I can learn any skill, at any time thanks to the internet. As someone who’s worked in content for nearly a decade, I know firsthand how important it is to stay ahead of social media trends — platforms evolve, algorithms shift, and what worked last year might not work today.

That’s why I’m always on the lookout for the best social media marketing courses. Not just for myself, but for anyone looking to level up their skills, land a new job, or grow a business online. Whether you’re just starting out or already managing social media for a brand, there’s always something new to learn.

With so many options out there, which social media courses are actually worth your time? I’ve done the research and rounded up the best free and paid social media courses to help you sharpen your skills and master your strategy.

Table of Contents

• The State of Social Media in 2025
• Social Media Training Courses For Beginners
• Social Media Management Training For Mid-Career Professionals
• Social Media Marketing Training For Entrepreneurs

The State of Social Media in 2025

Before I get into some of the courses, I want to give you an overview of the major trends and changes happening in the social media industry. One thing is clear: Things are changing rapidly, and you need to stay on your toes to keep up. (Anyone who’s worked as a social media manager knows what I mean.)

I dove into HubSpot’s 2025 State of Marketing to share more about the key drivers for social media marketers (SMMs) and what areas and skill sets are going to be most valuable.

• The top priority for recruiting marketing roles in 2025 are all in social: Social Media Coordinator, Content Creator, and Social Media Strategist.

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• The era of passive, one-size-fits-all marketing is over. Successful brands in 2025 will be the ones that actively listen, adapt, and engage with their audiences in real time.
• For B2B brands, the top marketing channels resulting in ROI in 2024 were 1) website, blog, and SEO, 2) paid social media content, and 3) social media shopping tools.
• For B2C brands, the channels with the best ROI were 1) email marketing, 2) paid social media content, and 3) content marketing.
• For both B2B and B2C brands, the top performing content format on social in 2024 was short-form video.

So there’s never been a better time to start — or level up — your social media career.

And if you want to save time and get more efficient when it comes to your social media strategy, try our suite of social tools. You can publish content, monitor engagement, and analyze your performance all in one place.

Try HubSpot’s social media management software for free.

Social Media Training Courses For Beginners

I remember the first time I hit “publish” on a social media post for a client. I was a public relations student with an internship where I was basically the only member of the marketing team. Quite a welcome to the industry.

That was ten years ago, but I still remember the victorious feeling of pulling off my first social media marketing campaigns at that internship.

A lot has changed, but I’m still learning — and all social media professionals are still on this learning journey with you. That’s why I’m so excited for you to start learning today.

Many of these courses are completely free and offer an industry-recognized certification. Let’s jump into how to build an effective social media strategy with these beginner courses.

1. Social Media Certification by HubSpot

Creator: HubSpot

Platform: HubSpot Academy

Price: Free

Skill Level: Intermediate

One-Sentence Summary: Learn how to create an inbound social media marketing strategy.

HubSpot’s social media certification course is a robust program designed to help you attract customers and partners, and build brand loyalty. Because social media is the key to inbound marketing, this course ties in the two concepts seamlessly.

I love that this course is flexible enough so that you can work on it on your time. It covers essential topics such as measuring ROI, extending reach, social media content creation, and social listening.

You might also select to take specific lessons within the HubSpot Academy course — for instance, this one on Social Media Advertising.

HubSpot also has an incredibly easy-to-use social media management tool that will help you set all of these ideas in motion.

You’ll learn:

• How to develop a social media marketing strategy to generate brand awareness for your business.
• How to use social media listening to find out what works best for your followers.
• How to extend your reach on social and leverage influencers to attract new audiences.
• How to get the most out of your social media investments.

Recommended for:

Because this course immediately jumps into social media strategy, I recommend it for new social media marketing managers who’ve recently been promoted from a junior-level role. Some prior experience in social media is recommended.

2. Social Media Specialization by Northwestern University

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Creator: Northwestern University

Platform: Coursera

Price: Free

Skill Level: Beginner

One-Sentence Summary: Learn everything you need to get started in social media marketing.

Coursera is a great educational resource for beginners and those who are new to the world of social media marketing.

This course by Northwestern University teaches you the social strategies you need to expand your reach and grow your followers. It touches upon social listening and lead nurturing, which most other courses don’t touch upon.

This is important because lead nurturing is often associated with email marketing, but it can also be done (and should be done) over social media.

You’ll learn:

• What social media is.
• Why you need to create a social listening strategy.
• How to implement nurturing strategies in your social media marketing.

Recommended for:

Because of its focus on lead nurturing and its foundational modules, I recommend this course for non-marketing professionals and early-stage founders who are interested in starting a social media strategy to grow their customer base.

3. Social Media Marketing Course by Acadium

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Creator: Acadium

Platform: Acadium

Price: Free

Skill Level: Beginner

One-Sentence Summary: Get a full understanding of social media marketing while developing real-world experience in an apprenticeship.

Acadium is an apprenticeship and mentorship program — there are a number of lessons within the social media marketing course that you can take before, after, or during your apprenticeship.

The courses offered cover an array of social media marketing topics, including how to set up profiles on your chosen platforms and how to save time as you scale your social media efforts.

You’ll learn:

• How to get started with the most popular social media platforms, including Facebook, X, and Instagram.
• How to publish posts.
• How to stand out from your competitors.

Recommended for:

I recommend this course for true beginners who not only need a foundation of social media marketing in general, but also mentorship from Acadium’s group of mentors. Because it offers highly basic knowledge, I don’t recommend it for current marketers or social media managers.

4. Social Media Marketing Foundations by Brian Honigman

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Creator: Brian Honigman

Platform: LinkedIn Learning

Price: Free

Skill Level: Beginner

One-Sentence Summary: Learn the foundations of social media marketing, with a focus on audience targeting and business-to-customer interaction.

This foundational course by Brian Honigman, a marketing consultant, offers similar content to the other beginner-level courses on this list, with a special focus on interacting with customers through your business’s preferred social networks.

It also includes instruction on using social media for sales and experimenting with your techniques.

You’ll learn:

• What social media marketing is.
• How to use social media for customer interactions.
• How to attribute metrics to business results.

Recommended for:

I recommend this course for marketing professionals, salespeople, and service professionals who want to take a customer-centric approach to your company’s social media strategy.

5. Social Media Marketing by The Open University

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Creator: The Open University

Platform: The Open University

Price: ​​£200.00 (approximately $250)

Skill Level: Beginner

One-Sentence Summary: Learn to create engaging content for social media that will help your brand achieve its marketing goals.

This is a paid course that allows you to learn at your own pace while still interacting with co-learners.

The first module covers big-picture topics like user journey mapping and misleading data, which is a unique focus for a beginner course.

One of the points of this online course is “What differentiates great social media?”

The passion and expertise really shine through to me in this course.

You’ll learn:

• How to map the user journey.
• Drawbacks and risks to different social media platforms.
• What separates great social media content from just good content.

Recommended for:

Given how much material this course covers, social media managers or new social media team members could really benefit from this training.

6. Social Media Marketing by Great Learning

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Creator: Great Learning

Platform: Great Learning

Price: Free

Skill Level: Beginner

One-Sentence Summary: Explore the potential that community and brand advocates have in your social strategy.

Starting with the basics, this course quickly ramps up to discuss the more complicated side of social media, such as storytelling, cross-channel campaigns, and leveraging chatbots.

I love that this course also touches on community management and working with brand advocates to elevate your social media presence.

You'll learn:

• Planning and content publishing.
• Basics of advertising and campaign monitoring.
• Fundamentals of fostering community.

Recommended for:

With 1.5 hours of training, I think this is a great beginner course for anyone who needs to dip their feet in the social media world but isn’t immediately developing and executing their own strategy.

7. Social Media Marketing in Practice Specialization by the Digital Marketing Institute Creator: Digital Marketing Institute

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Creator: Digital Marketing Institute

Platform: Coursera

Price: Free

Skill Level: Beginner

One-Sentence Summary: Understand what content stands out on social and how to get your viewers to engage.

The first half of this social media training focuses on the fundamentals and developing a content strategy. Then, the course dives into individual platforms. It covers Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

With an emphasis on breaking through the noise, storytelling, and building relationships with viewers, this course helps viewers craft social media posts that further their overall marketing plan.

You’ll learn:

• How user behavior is changing, and how marketers can adapt to meet consumers where they are.
• Specific opportunities and challenges of individual platforms.
• How to use the buyer’s journey to create content that influences viewers.

Recommended for:

Budding digital marketers who want platform deep-dives before committing to a specific social channel.

Social Media Management Training For Mid-Career Professionals

I’ve done social media for local government offices, nation-wide organizations like the American Red Cross, and countless clients.

One thing I’m sure of? Platforms will never stop changing, and I’ll never be done learning and improving my skills. Social media training is meant for professionals at all levels, not just newbies.

Especially since the job of an entire social media team is often given to one person in under-staffed organizations. Digital marketers need to regularly upskill just to keep up.

With these resources, you can do so from home and often for free. Let’s dive into these resources.

8. PPC University by WordStream

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Creator: WordStream

Platform: WordStream

Price: Free

Skill Level: Intermediate

One-Sentence Summary: Learn about social ads on the major platforms including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Tik Tok, and LinkedIn.

WordStream offers the necessary educational resources to develop a strong understanding of social media advertisements, including platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

I like how there’s also information about why and how to advertise on social media, as well as education about best practices while advertising across these platforms.

Lastly, you’ll learn about social media ad metrics and social shopping — this way, you can effectively measure your success as well as reach your audience when and where they’re ready to make a purchase.

You’ll learn:

• How to get started with pay-per-click marketing across a wide variety of platforms, including social media.
• How to create a social ad strategy for your preferred platform(s).
• Why you should invest in social media ads.
• How to measure your success with ad metrics.

Recommended for:

I recommend this course for social media marketing managers who are interested in launching a paid ads strategy on social media.

I think it’s also a great fit for you if you prefer to learn at your own pace by reading written guides (as opposed to watching videos).

9. Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce Professional Certificate by Google

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Creator: Google Career Certificates

Platform: Coursera

Price: Free

Skill Level: Intermediate

One-Sentence Summary: Learn how to go from having no digital marketing presence to building a loyal customer base online.

This course may be labeled “beginner” on Coursera, but I’ve listed it in the intermediate category thanks to its depth and breadth.

With more than 150 hours of training materials, Google’s training process takes students from zero experience to generating leads, analyzing data, making sales, and fostering customer loyalty online.

For context: If you spend ten hours a week working through this training, it will take you more than six months to complete. Successful students will get a comprehensive understanding of developing a successful social media strategy.

You’ll learn:

• How to create engaging content that turns “likes” into leads.
• What social analytics to use to build a loyal customer base.
• How to build long-lasting relationships with viewers.

Recommended for:

This social media training goes way beyond social media alone. I think it’s ideal for anyone who’s responsible for being a one-person marketing team.

10. Advanced Content and Social Tactics to Optimize SEO by the University of California, Davis

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Creator: University of California, Davis

Platform: Coursera

Price: Free

Skill Level: Intermediate

One-Sentence Summary: Learn about the more complex side of social media marketing, like influencer marketing and advanced content strategies.

Influencers live on social media, but engaging with them isn’t a beginner’s initiative. If you’re ready to take the plunge, this course teaches you how to build successful relationships with influencers.

Additionally, it teaches more advanced content strategies that help further your SEO efforts and improve website traffic. Along with video training, I like that this course also comes with discussion prompts and assignments to help students understand the material. For me, I only fully learn a new concept by doing it, not just hearing about it.

You’ll learn:

• What potential social media has for driving website traffic.
• How influencers can bolster a company’s online visibility in conjunction with other social initiatives.
• Understand your target audience on a deeper level.

Recommended for:

Marketers who are ready to work with influencers and grow website traffic.

11. Viral Marketing and How to Craft Contagious Content by the University of Pennsylvania

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Creator: University of Pennsylvania

Platform: Coursera

Price: Free

Skill Level: Intermediate

One-Sentence Summary: Understand viral content and how you can leverage predictable patterns in your own social strategy.

“Why did THAT post go so viral?!” It’s a thought every digital marketer has had, including myself. Now we can finally get some answers in this course by the University of Pennsylvania.

The course description shares that word-of-mouth information is 10x as effective as typical advertising, and course Module 3 explains how marketers can gain influence to improve brand visibility.

You’’ll learn:

• The psychology behind social networks and how they unfold on social media.
• What all viral ideas have in common.
• The power of word of mouth, and how to harness this in your social media strategy.

Recommended for:

Brands who have their target audience, offer, and funnel figured out, and are ready for the (LOTS of) eyeballs.

Social Media Marketing Training For Entrepreneurs

In the age of personal branding, we’re all marketers.

Entrepreneurs take this on in a formal capacity when they’re in charge of their own business strategy.

Whether you’re targeting one specific social media platform or you want to mobilize all of your social media accounts to help spread your message, these courses will help.

12. Online Advertising & Social Media by the University of Maryland

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Creator: University of Maryland

Platform: edX

Price: Free

Skill Level: Intermediate

One-Sentence Summary: Learn about online advertising, sentiment analysis, and social network analysis.

On edX, you can pick classes that suit your interests and save classes to refer to later. There are a variety of business topics you can take classes on.

This course from the University of Maryland focuses on online advertising, and specifically on social media advertising. Plus, it includes instruction on data analysis so that you can make informed decisions when refining your social strategy over time.

You’ll learn:

• Which platforms you can advertise on.
• How to measure the success of your campaigns.
• How to analyze your chosen social media networks.
• How to delve into Big Data for your social efforts.

Recommended for:

I recommend this course for social media marketers who’d like to launch an advertising strategy. In addition, I recommend it for new social media analysts who need a strong foundation in social data analysis.

13. Fundamentals of Digital Marketing, Social Media, and E-Commerce by The Wharton School

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Creator: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Platform: edX

Price: $585

Skill Level: Intermediate

One-Sentence Summary: Marketing course designed for business professionals.

Wharton’s course is considered an intermediate dive into the intersection of digital marketing, social media marketing, and ecommerce. It’s a self-paced, six-week class that requires three hours of your time each week.

This course is structured specifically for marketing professionals, small business owners, and consumers who want to know social media techniques. You’ll learn how to produce marketing campaigns that are effective for your business.

Note: This course is offered in live cohorts. You’ll need to wait for enrollment to open.

You’ll learn:

• How to use demographics and behaviors to create a digital strategy.
• How to interact with customers and potential buyers across multiple channels.
• How to leverage tools and tactics to power-up your digital marketing.
• How to delve into new media platforms, including social media.

Recommended for:

While this is a foundational course, I recommend it for experienced business professionals who’d like to expand their skill set to include marketing skills and tactics.

14. The Strategy of Content Marketing by University of California, Davis

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Creator: University of California, Davis

Platform: Coursera

Price: Free

Skill Level: Intermediate

One-Sentence Summary: Learn about the power of integrating your content marketing and social media marketing strategies.

Social media marketing is a type of content marketing, and this course can help you weave both into a more comprehensive strategy.

In this online class offered by the University of California, Davis, you’ll learn how to create a content marketing strategy and develop an understanding of the ecosystem surrounding that strategy.

Ample time will also be spent working on strategic writing and framing.

You will review the different types of content marketing, along with how they’re integral to social media marketing. There are five weeks worth of material paired with videos, exercises, readings, and quizzes.

You’ll learn:

• What the content marketing ecosystem is.
• How to use the “7A Framework” to power-up your content.
• How to tailor your content to each phase of the buyer’s journey.

Recommended for:

I recommend this course for social media marketers who’d like to approach social media marketing with a content-centric perspective.

15. Social Media Marketing Masterclass by Mark Timberlake and Philomena Timberlake

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Creator: Mark Timberlake and Philomena Timberlake

Platform: Udemy

Price: $129.99 one-time fee or $16.58/mo

Skill Level: Beginner

One-Sentence Summary: Learn how to build a social media marketing strategy and schedule for your unique business.

Rather than a complete level one course in social media, I love that this offering is a masterclass on the subject, uniquely centered around ethical digital marketing techniques.

You’ll learn how to set up a powerful marketing strategy and a schedule that aligns with accomplishing business goals.

You’ll also dive into how social media marketing integrates with your business, email marketing, and building an online community. This course can be completed in 20 hours, and gives you a certificate of completion at its end.

You’ll learn:

• How to create actionable content on your website and social media.
• How to leverage social media communities to increase brand awareness.
• Which social media platforms you can use to market your business.
• How to use your phone for social media photography.

Recommended for:

This masterclass doesn’t cover just social media marketing, but SEO and blogging. For that reason, I recommend it for new marketers who’d like to expand their skill set as they dive into their new role.

16. Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate by Meta

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Creator: Meta (Facebook)

Platform: Coursera

Price: Free

Skill Level: Beginner

One-Sentence Summary: Learn about social media marketing and advertising techniques from Meta.

Meta’s social media marketing certificate includes the essentials you need to jumpstart your social media marketing knowledge, with added coursework on advertising.

It also offers a Meta-centric approach, so if you know you’d like to advertise on Facebook and Instagram, this is the right course for you.

You’ll learn:

• How to create a social media management strategy.
• How to begin social media advertising on Meta’s platforms.
• How to measure the results from your efforts.

Recommended for:

I recommend this course for professionals who want to get foundational knowledge in social media marketing and who know they’ll be investing into Meta’s social media platforms.

Find Your Ideal Social Media Marketing Course

Which social media training course appeals to you the most? It’s amazing to me how many free courses are at our fingertips (with no graded assignments or fear of not knowing the answer).

The biggest thing I’ve learned in my career is that investing in my education and learning new skills will always always pay off. So if you’re wanting to learn more about up-to-date strategies that help you stand out from other social media marketers and help you propel your career, I recommend doing the same.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Customers don't just mindlessly purchase products or services. It's through customer journey analytics that marketers can understand their journey from discovering a brand, to making a purchase, to potentially becoming brand advocates.

To truly make sense of your customer's experience, I believe leveraging customer journey analytics is not only beneficial, but key to learning more about them.

Every business, startup or enterprise — in any industry — needs to understand how customers interact with their brand. Insights gathered from customer journey analytics can help, while leading to increased customer lifetime value, customer loyalty, and revenue growth. 

Table of Contents

• What is customer journey analytics?
• Customer Journey Stages
• Customer Journey Analytics Benefits
• Customer Journey Analytics Software
• Customer Journey Analytics vs. Customer Journey Mapping

• Examples of Customer Journey Analytics in Action

What is customer journey analytics?

Customer journey analytics is a collection of data that helps you to understand how your prospects or customers behave, engage, and convert along the customer journey. 

Customer journey analytics often begins with a customer journey map, a visual representation of every step the customer goes through with your business. Then, it applies data on how your customer behaves throughout different phases of that map,  to help you assess the effect your customers’ journey has on your business, or what’s holding customers back from completing that journey and purchasing a product

Customer Journey Analytics Steps

1. Outline a customer journey map.

Create your customer journey map using HubSpot’s template.

The first step to customer journey analytics is creating a customer journey map. A typical customer journey map includes the following: the buying process, user actions, emotions, pain points, and solutions. The customer journey map is the foundation for further analysis.

2. Identify the right analytics tools.

To accurately conduct customer journey analysis, you'll need the right tools. 

A good customer journey analytics tool will monitor, track, and analyze data like website data, conversion data, and detail data across multiple channels.

Customer data platforms (CDPs) also support customer journey analytics. The platforms assign unique IDs to your website and app to build single customer views, which can include information such as location, browser, device type, operating system, historical transactions, and visitor logs.

3. Collect your data.

A robust analytics platform should enable you to collect data on customer behavior. Data can be broken down into two main buckets: user data and interaction data. 

• User data: Provides context on a user and their traits. Data can include email, age, industry, and occupation.
• Interaction data: Gives information about how a user interacts with your product or service.

4. Analyze data.

Data in itself is not meaningful without analysis. The purpose of customer journey analytics is to make sense of the data and extract insights that can inform your business strategy. 

For example, an e-commerce company might identify, through analysis, that requiring customers to create an account to complete a purchase leads to the customer not completing the purchase — a solution could be implementing a guest checkout option.

5. Update customer journey map.

Using the insights you’ve gained, you can now update the customer journey map accordingly. For example, you might add additional pain points uncovered through data analysis, like requiring customers to create accounts to complete a purchase.

6. Use customer journey analytics to test new strategies.

The next step is to figure out how to enhance the customer journey experience. Testing new strategies like adding a guest checkout option, making the account creation process faster with fewer steps, and sending abandoned cart emails are all examples.

Benefits of Customer Journey Analytics

By leveraging customer journey analytics, you'll be able to improve your customer’s experience with actionable insights, while unlocking benefits like:

Better Understanding Customers

By gathering and synthesizing data, you will better understand what aspects of the buyer’s journey lead them to purchase a product or service, or not. For example, an e-commerce company might learn that customers that come from a specific social media platform are more likely to buy, or discover that certain audience demographics or affinities are more likely to become leads.

Pinpointing Where You’re Losing Customers

Not all customers follow through, and unless they fill out a survey, it can be difficult to figure out why they churn. By leveraging customer journey analytics, you can pinpoint where you’re losing potential customers. 

For example, a business can lose potential customers during channel or device transitions. A prospect might start filling out a form on a mobile device but choose to complete it on a laptop. If the information entered is lost, the potential customer might not take the time to complete the signup process.

Optimizing and Solving for Prospects

With a better understanding of customers’ pain points and the reasons behind them, you can figure out how to improve and strategize around an accurate customer journey.

Improve ROI

Are your investments in customer experience worth it? By using customer journey analytics, you can measure ROI for customer experience initiatives. From there, you can streamline, remove, or cut initiatives that don’t benefit your bottom line or double down on the aspects of the buyer’s journey that do.

For instance, if you run an incredibly expensive advertising campaign that doesn’t yield the same level of new customers or purchase page visits as unpaid or more in-house content, you can aim to save money on ads and focus on the more affordable strategies that actually earn you money.

Customer Journey Analytics Software

1. HubSpot Marketing Hub: Advanced Marketing Reporting

Get started with customer journey analytics.

HubSpot Marketing Hub is equipped with robust customer journey analytics capabilities and tools, which can map data around conversions, leads, deals, and website engagements around different stages of the customer journey. 

The Advanced Marketing Reporting tool also enables you to attribute every customer interaction to revenue, analyze conversion rates and time between nurturing path steps, and provide further data to help you build informed strategies that can improve ROI and purchase rates.

2. Content Square

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Content Square captures UX, performance and product, and content data throughout the customer journey. The platform also enables you to visualize metrics so that they are easily digestible. You will be able to get insights like bounce rate and number of lost conversions, and dig deeper to pinpoint why.

3. Google Analytics

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Google Analytics is widely used website analytics software that tracks user behavior on different platforms, including mobile applications. Features like daily traffic reporting give insight into what visitors are engaging with. Plus, its Analytics Amplifier can combine Google Analytics and HubSpot data.

Customer Journey Mapping vs. Customer Journey Analytics

Customer journey analytics and customer journey mapping are often confused with each other. Although they’re complementary, customer journey mapping visually presents customer journey stages from start to finish, while customer journey analytics offers data about a  customers’ interactions in each stage.

Customer journey maps often include the following:

• The buying process: By pulling data from places like CMS and prospecting tools, you will be able to figure out what goes into a customer’s purchasing process. 
• User actions: This part of the customer journey map details the actions the customer takes throughout their journey.
• Emotions: Emotions help color your understanding of how your customer is feeling and reacting as they go through their journey with your business.
• Pain points: Adding pain points to your customer journey map gives you a comprehensive picture of the challenges your customer may experience.
• Solutions: Figuring out solutions can help your customers experience fewer pain points. The data and insights you’ve gathered can help inform your solutions.

Customer journey analytics delves deeper. The customer journey map is the “what” and customer journey analytics is the “why” because it organizes customer or prospect data around each stage.  

Here’s an example of how customer journey analytics works in HubSpot Marketing Hub:

Try out HubSpot’s advanced marketing reporting tool.

Customer Journey Map vs. Analytics Example: Let’s say your business offers CMS tools and your ideal customer, a graphic design firm, finds you through a targeted Instagram ad.

In the customer journey map you’ve built, your target customer considers using your CMS tools to build a new website that showcases their strengths. They schedule a demo before trying the free version and are initially excited, but become frustrated with the limited design elements offered by the free version. Their biggest pain point quickly becomes a lack of versatility. They then look into purchasing the paid version or going to a cheaper competitor.

With customer journey analytics, you’ll apply real-time data to that map: From journey mapping, you’ve identified the steps your customer often takes and their common pain points. A strong customer journey analytics tool can then collect, aggregate, synthesize, and visualize data to help you make sense of your customer’s actions and see if your mapping and journey-based strategies work. 

For example, data might show how your customer is interacting with your product. 

A good customer journey analytics platform combines data like user data, survey results, and website analytics, you can gain a comprehensive view of why your customer is experiencing those pain points and consequently address their concerns.

Before you go, I want to give you a hypothetical business example to help you further understand how customer journey analytics can help your team make business operation decisions to better serve your audience.

Examples of Customer Journey Analytics in Action

Customer journey analytics empowers businesses to gain insights from targeted touchpoints and comprehensive customer experiences across all channels. Here's how forward-thinking companies, like a bank looking to innovate, are leveraging these powerful tools to transform their customer relationships and operational efficiency.

Transforming the Online Banking Experience

A leading financial institution discovered that its digital onboarding process was causing significant customer drop-off and negatively impacting its Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).

The journey mapped:

1. A customer decides to open a new account online
2. They navigate to the bank's website and begin the application
3. The customer completes the identity verification steps
4. The account is activated, and the customer receives welcome materials

The hidden friction points: However, the analytics revealed a problematic alternative path:

1. The customer begins the online application
2. They encounter difficulty with the document upload feature
3. The customer abandons the process after multiple failed attempts
4. They either call customer service or abandon the bank entirely
5. The ones who persist complete the process after significant frustration

The data-driven analysis: By integrating CSAT scores with behavioral analytics, the bank identified a 40% drop in satisfaction when customers encountered the document upload step. Text analysis of customer feedback revealed frustration with technical requirements and confusing instructions. Each abandoned application that converted to a call center interaction increased acquisition costs by 300%.

Strategic intervention: Based on these insights, the bank can implement a multi-faceted solution:

• A redesign of the upload interface with clearer instructions and visual guides
• Added real-time chat support specifically triggered when customers lingered on the upload page
• Developing an AI-powered document quality checker to prevent submission of unacceptable images
• Creating an option to complete the process later without starting over

Measurable transformation: With customer journey analytics continuously monitoring the new experience, the bank measured a 65% reduction in abandonment rates, 28% improvement in CSAT scores, and 22% decrease in customer acquisition costs. The analytics platform also identified which specific design elements contributed most to the improved metrics.

This example shows how customer journey analytics breaks down hidden data silos, linking online behavior to business results and customer emotions. By understanding the complete customer experience and pinpointing exact moments of friction, organizations can make targeted improvements that create measurable business value.

Cultivate an Impactful Customer Journey

Understanding and creating strategies to enhance the customer journey is important to remain competitive, and having a good grasp of customer journey analytics is just one component. Other key steps include creating buyer personas, mapping out the customer journey, and continuously updating strategies based on data.

To improve the customer journey, learn more about HubSpot’s marketing solution Marketing Hub.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in May 2023 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.

If I was reading a post about request for proposals (RFP), I’d want to get to the point … and fast.

And that’s coming from me, a former marketing consultant of about five years with three different agencies. I used to create RFPs and submit bids, so I speak from experience when I say this isn’t always the most exciting process.

That’s OK because I have a few tips up my sleeve to make your RFP development process a little less daunting (and a little more fun, hopefully).

Table of Contents

• What's an RFP?
• RFP vs RFI
• How to Write an RFP
• RFP Template
• RFP Sample
• Request for Proposal Examples
• Tips for Writing an RFP

What's an RFP?

A request for proposal (RFP) is a written announcement designed to collect bids from vendors for a specific project. A good RFP clearly outlines the project details for both parties including what needs to be delivered, when, and for how much.

Since I struggle living in a world with a million acronyms, let’s clear up the difference between an RFP and RFI before we continue.

RFP vs RFI

A request for information (RFI) is used by companies to get a sense of what solutions are available on the market. A request for proposal (RFP) invites vendors to submit bids so companies can make final decisions for a specific business project.

Here’s the TL;DR — If your business has a project and you need external support, and you already know what type of vendor you’re looking for, you can use an RFP to shop around.

When I worked for a small health communication firm, one of our government clients wanted us to create an educational video series for them.

I developed an RFP on their behalf to solicit proposals from video production companies since we didn’t have the capabilities to complete this work in house.

Hold on to this example — I’ll use it to walk you through the RFP writing process.

How to Write an RFP

As a reminder, here’s the example we’re using for this walkthrough: AJC Health is developing an RFP on behalf of a government client, DoGoodGov, for educational video production services.

(The company names are made up, but the experience is real … I promise.)

1. Provide background information.

Your RFP should always start with an introduction and overview of your business. This helps set the stage for potential vendors and allows them to better understand who they’ll be working with.

Pro tip: I like to keep this section brief. Just introduce your business, highlight your mission, and discuss the products and services you provide.

Example:

AJC Health is a health communication firm based in Washington, DC. Our mission is to empower teens and young adults to lead healthier lives.

For over 10 years, we’ve helped clients achieve their goals by providing marketing and communications services including campaign development, copywriting, and multimedia project support.

2. Define your project purpose and goals.

After you introduce yourself, provide an overview of the project. This is your first opportunity to describe what you’re hoping to accomplish and the areas of expertise you’re looking for.

I like to think of this section as a way to help vendors better understand your priorities so they can tailor their proposals accordingly.

Pro tip: I’d recommend keeping this section clear and concise. Focus on the purpose of the RFP, the type(s) of vendors you’re looking for, and your goals. You’ll have an opportunity later to provide specific details about the scope of work later.

Example:

The purpose of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to invite businesses who specialize in video production, live action, animation, and multimedia for educational purposes to submit proposals to our company.

We’re currently seeking qualified vendors to support the development of a public health video series on behalf of DoGoodGov. Our goal is to build brand awareness, drive web traffic, and increase our YouTube marketing ROI.

3. Outline the budget and scope of work.

In the last step, we described the project at a high level. This section is where you can get into the weeds a little bit. State your budget and describe the specific services you need.

For me, it’s helpful to compare this section to the “Job Responsibilities” section in a job description. Give a complete snapshot of what the role entails.

Pro tip: You can take various approaches when describing the services you’re seeking in an RFP, but I recommend incorporating bullet points or breaking up your information so that it’s easy for vendors to scan.

Example:

The budget for this project is $12,750.

The selected firm will be responsible for the ideation, production, and delivery of a three-part video series to educate teens and young adults about the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle.

Tasks include but may not be limited to the following criteria:

• Ideating video concepts

• Writing and editing video scripts

• Multimedia (audio/video) content development

• Capturing, importing, and organizing raw media

• Editing video footage and audio files

• Creating static and motion graphics

• Adding music, voice-over, and sound effects

• Delivering multi-format video files (e.g., YouTube, social media, web)

• Meeting the requirements of Section 508 Compliance for video

• General account management

• Other assistance as required

4. Call out any barriers or roadblocks.

Here, you’ll want to mention any challenges specific to your project. This may include elements like limited resources or specialized requirements that the average vendor may not have or easily obtain.

This may seem counterintuitive, but I’ve found that this helps you eliminate unsatisfactory bidders and figure out which vendors have the skills to tackle those challenges.

Pro tip: It’s crucial to be transparent here. Otherwise, vendors may not fully understand the potential difficulties that may arise. This lack of knowledge could lead to delayed timelines, increased costs, or worse — an unsuccessful project.

Example:

As a federal entity, DoGoodGov requires all materials, including multimedia content, to meet the requirements of Section 508 Compliance. Vendors must have specialized knowledge in 508-Compliance for video production.

5. Highlight your selection criteria.

Now it’s time to specify which skills, services, and market expertise are required for consideration. This is the time to get specific, just like we did in the scope of work section.

Some examples of selection criteria that you can specify in an RFP are experience, qualifications, cost, availability, and technical compatibility.

Pro tip: When I’m building out this section, I focus on the objective criteria that my business will use to, well, pick a winning bid. I’ve found that clear selection criteria helps increase your chances of receiving proposals that actually meet your needs.

Example:

The ideal vendor:

• Has experience in producing high-quality videos across various formats such as live-action, animation, screencast, whiteboard, and educational video

• Has a clear process from ideation, production, revision, and final delivery

• Has experience creating videos for educational purposes (public health knowledge and experience is a plus)

• Has demonstrated knowledge in the requirements of Section 508 Compliance

• Can provide a highly responsive, collaborative, and transparent communication process

6. Specify your submission process.

The selection criteria and the submission process outline go hand-in-hand to ensure you end up with a strong collection of proposals.

Tell vendors where to submit their bids and to whom, and give them a timeline that includes the submission deadline, date for final selection, and project completion date. Then, tell them exactly what you want them to submit.

Pro tip: I’d treat the submission process as a test for who’s capable of meeting your requirements. If a vendor can’t complete all elements of your proposal, you probably can’t trust them to finish your project, either.

Example:

Submission Information

Submissions may be sent via mail or electronically by the submission deadline.

• Project Name or Description: Video Production Services

• Company Name: AJC Health

• Address: 123 Howie Ave.

• City, State, Zip Code: Silver Spring, MD 20906

• Procurement Contact Person: Alana Chinn

• Telephone Number of PCP: 123-456-7890

• Email Address of PCP: achinn@consulting.com

• Fax Number: N/A

Submission Timeline

Proposals must be submitted by February 10th. The award will be granted no later than March 1st. Final video delivery must occur by June 30th.

Submission Criteria

A submission must, at a minimum, include the following elements:

• Description of the firm that includes a general overview, names and credentials of creative team, number of full-time employees.
• A one-page narrative outlining the firm’s strengths and distinguishing skills or capabilities as they might relate to AJC Health.
• A representative selection of multi-channel video content, audio samples, and project management plans created for current and past clients.

RFP Template

Below, I’ve included one of my favorite RFP templates. (It’s ours at HubSpot, so I may be a little biased.)

Download a free, editable RFP template.

You can use this template to build your initial structure, but I’d recommend tailoring your RFP to best articulate your company’s needs.

RFP Sample

1. Introduction

Background

AJC Health is a health communication firm based in Washington, DC. Our mission is to empower teens and young adults to lead healthier lives.

For over 10 years, we’ve helped clients achieve their goals by providing marketing and communications services including campaign development, copywriting, and multimedia project support.

Project Overview

The purpose of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to invite businesses who specialize in video production, live action, animation, and multimedia for educational purposes to submit proposals to our company.

We’re currently seeking qualified vendors to support the development of a public health video series on behalf of DoGoodGov. Our goal is to build brand awareness, drive web traffic, and increase our YouTube marketing ROI.

2. Budget and Services Requested

Budget

The budget for this project is $12,750.

Scope of Work

The selected firm will be responsible for the ideation, production, and delivery of a three-part video series to educate teens and young adults about the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle.

Tasks include but may not be limited to the following criteria:

• Ideating video concepts
• Writing and editing video scripts
• Multimedia (audio/video) content development
• Capturing, importing, and organizing raw media
• Editing video footage and audio files
• Creating static and motion graphics
• Adding music, voice-over, and sound effects
• Delivering multi-format video files (e.g., YouTube, social media, web)
• Meeting the requirements of Section 508 Compliance for video
• General account management
• Other assistance as required

3. Barriers to Completion

As a federal entity, DoGoodGov requires all materials, including multimedia content, to meet the requirements of Section 508 Compliance. Vendors must have specialized knowledge in 508-Compliance for video production.

4. Selection Criteria

The ideal vendor:

• Has experience in producing high-quality videos across various formats such as live-action, animation, screencast, whiteboard, and educational video
• Has a clear process from ideation, production, revision, and final delivery
• Has experience creating videos for educational purposes (public health knowledge and experience is a plus)
• Has demonstrated knowledge in the requirements of Section 508 Compliance
• Can provide a highly responsive, collaborative, and transparent communication process

5. Submission Process

Contact Information

Submissions may be sent via mail or electronically by the submission deadline.

• Project Name or Description: Video Production Services
• Company Name: AJC Health
• Address: 123 Howie Ave.
• City, State, Zip Code: Silver Spring, MD 20906
• Procurement Contact Person: Alana Chinn
• Telephone Number of PCP: 123-456-7890
• Email Address of PCP: achinn@consulting.com
• Fax Number: N/A

Timeline

Proposals must be submitted by February 10th. The award will be granted no later than March 1st. Final video delivery must occur by June 30th.

Submission Criteria

A submission must, at a minimum, include the following elements:

• Description of the firm that includes a general overview, names and credentials of creative team, number of full-time employees.
• A one-page narrative outlining the firm’s strengths and distinguishing skills or capabilities as they might relate to AJC Health.
• A representative selection of multi-channel video content, audio samples, and project management plans created for current and past clients.

Request for Proposal Examples

Now, just explaining to you the formatting of an RFP probably won't paint you the entire picture, so to better help you understand the range and structuring — we found some real examples for you to familiarize yourself with.

1. Brand Reposition Campaign RFP

Tips for Writing an RFP

Here are three tips from my arsenal to help you optimize your RFPs to achieve a high response rate from vendors.

1. Keep the lines of communication open.

Providing access to a point of contact shows that your company is invested in the vendor response process and helps you proactively establish a rapport.

And if you have flexibility in your timeline, I’d also recommend that you encourage prospective vendors to ask questions and seek clarification before submitting a proposal.

The more they understand your needs, the better their proposals will be.

2. Make sure your RFP is detailed but scannable.

If I was a vendor, I’d be a lot less likely to respond to your RFP if the project details are insufficient or unclear. However, you’ll want to strike the balance between providing enough but not too much detail.

I like to make sure each of my sections are well-defined, and the document is easily scannable. To do this, I take full advantage of formatting options, like bullet points and headings.

This allows me to provide the necessary information in a digestible way.

3. Proofread your RFP before you go live.

Last but never least? Proofread your RFP — then proofread it again. Why? Because even small mistakes could derail project timelines.

Can you imagine if you missed a zero in your budget details, or included the wrong date for your proposal deadline? Both could force a restart of the entire RFP process and waste precious time.

Just the thought of that alone is enough to make sure I never skip this step.

Go Forth and RFP

See, that was kind of exciting … right? Well, at the very least, I hope this helped simplify the RFP process for you.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in June 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Fueled by the rise of MySpace and a secret Bollywood fandom, I started teaching myself graphic design as a preteen. But thanks to AI image generators, you no longer have to be a lifelong creative like me to turn your ideas into a visual reality.

AI image generators can help anyone create visuals that are weird, wonderful, and…weirdly wonderful. (Remember the Willy Wonka debacle in Glasgow?)

But how exactly do you use AI to generate images, and what’s the best option for marketers? I tested the top options — Here’s the scoop.

Table of Contents

• How do AI image generators work?
• How I Tested the Best AI for Images

How do AI image generators work?

AI image generation can get wild. You can create images in any style and of practically anything. For instance, I made “a photorealistic orange rabbit wearing a traditional Indian sari and playing an acoustic guitar” using Google’s Gemini.

Then I asked for an electric guitar:

Why exactly? Well, as many people justify their oddball AI creations: because I could. But that doesn’t mean using AI to generate images should be taken lightly.

Plagiarism is one of many concerns with even the best AI image generators. And it makes sense, considering the very nature of how they work. AI image generators create by reimagining things that already exist. They don’t copy. They borrow and recycle.

How it works:

1. The AI is “trained” on millions of existing images, descriptions, and captions available across the internet. This is how it “learns” what things look like and what they are called.
2. When you enter a prompt into a tool, the AI reaches into its memory of those images and captions.
3. The AI produces an image or selection of images it believes fit your prompt.

Think of it like a contemporary singer sampling a song from a bygone era. They’ve made it their own, but pieces of the original are still there and recognizable.

How I Tested the Best AI for Images

For the purpose of this article, I focused on a common marketing use case: creating an original image for a blog article.

I tested nine of the most popular AI image generators and evaluated them on their speed, ease of use, and image quality.

To fairly compare the options, I also eliminated variables by:

• Using the same prompt
• Requesting the same edit to the original prompt

I also ran each tool three times after each prompt, giving them a fair opportunity to deliver. Consider these my “trials.” This is science, after all.

The prompt: “Generate an image of a young marketing executive presenting information on a television screen in front of a small group of teammates.”

The edit: Generate a photo-realistic image of a young marketing executive presenting information on a television screen in front of a small group of teammates.

What makes an AI image generator good?

To answer this question, here are the factors I evaluated each tool on:

• Ease of Use: How easy it is to prompt the tool and get results
• Speed: How fast it took to generate the images,
• Image Quality: How high resolution the image is; its clarity, accuracy, etc.
• Diversity and Variety: How original the selection of images is as well as how diverse and inclusive they are with human depictions.
• Customization Options: How specific you can get with your prompt and editing features.

If a tool is fast, easy to use, customizable, and delivers high-quality, creative images, it’s top tier. With all this in mind, let’s get to our test results.

1. HubSpot AI Image Generator

HubSpot’s AI image generator is currently in beta, but it is one of many AI-powered features rolling out across our tools. It can be used within your HubSpot portal to create images for emails, blogs, landing pages, or repurposing with Content Remix.

Pricing: Starting at $450/mo with Content Hub, depending on your plan.

Test Results

HubSpot’s AI image generator can be found across a number of tools, but for the purposes of this experiment, I navigated to the blog. From here, I hit “Insert image” then clicked on the “Generate with AI” button.

I was met with three simple fields to fill out (seen below):

• “Describe your image,” where I would enter my test prompt
• “Choose a style,” where I could pick from 17 different options or allow the tool to decide.
• “Dimensions” where I could choose between square, landscape or portrait.

I entered my details, hit “generate,” and was met with two images in about 10-20 seconds. I was impressed by the speed! Then, I could like or dislike each image, crop and resize them within HubSpot, or edit them using Adobe Express.

At a glance, the thumbnails look pretty promising, but, honestly, when I enlarged them using the “crop and resize” button, I could see there were some very noticeable issues with hands and facial features.

This is common with many AI image generators, so it wasn’t a big surprise.

The images also were both of individuals who presented as White males with rooms filled with White team members.

For my second trial, I used my prompt specifying “photo-realistic” but let the tool decide the style.

The results were actually less photo-realistic, in my opinion, and the feature issues continued, but I was happy to see more diversity in the second iteration.

With its speed and ease of access, HubSpot’s built-in AI image generator is a solid solution for users, but as it's in beta, there is room to grow. I’d love to see the issues with fine details like facial features refined and more diversity in human depictions.

All that said, the images are still great for use in smaller sizes.

What I like:

• Fast, easy execution
• A lot of style options
• Easily accessible within the HubSpot tools; no need to jump platforms

What can be improved:

• Only two results

Best for: HubSpot users who need simple, small images to break up their content

2. Midjourney

Midjourney is considered one of the most powerful generative AI tools out there, so my expectations for its image generator were high. It focuses on creating artistic and stylized images and is popular for its high quality.

Pricing: $10-120 per month, depending on the plan

Test Results

I’m used to the chatbot setup of ChatGPT, so Midjourney wasn’t what I expected.

To create, you have to join the Midjourney Discord channel (similar to Slack). From there, you use keyboard commands within chats to have the Midjourney bot perform your desired tasks.

In this instance, I had to join a “newbie” chat (there were several to choose from) and enter the command “/imagine” followed by my prompt. Then, the Midjourney bot processed my request (and sometimes those of others simultaneously.)

It delivered four images with each trial.

From there, I could click numbered buttons underneath the images to get “upscales” (U) or variations (V) of a particular image. It isn’t entirely clear to a “newbie” what an upscale or variation means.

Personally, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this process. Anyone in the chat can see your prompt, the results, and even download them for their own use. Your results could also quickly be buried by others, and you’d have to scroll up to find them.

Speaking of results, they were quick but varied in quality.

The AI delivered a variety of styles and included some diversity in its human subjects (no glaring mistakes), but it produced the same settings and poses in each option.

Also, there was no clear way to edit the images created. I tried responding to the bot to no avail. My second prompt resulted in less photo-realistic images — even though I specified that’s what I wanted:

Overall, I was disappointed by Midjourney. It was frustrating to navigate and didn’t produce the quality I expected from the hype. Someone with more experience in Discord or prompting it might yield better results, but it didn’t win me over.

What I like:

• Fast (images in under 60 seconds)
• Multiple images at once

What can be improved:

• User-friendliness
• Privacy
• Editing capabilities
• Image style variety
• Photo-realistic quality

Best for: Artistic endeavors, marketers with advanced technical knowledge, web developers, or those comfortable within Discord who can learn to navigate the nuances of prompts.

3. DALL-E 3

Owned by OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT), DALL-E is a pioneer in image generation.

DALL-E 3, the latest iteration of the tech, is touted as highly advanced and is known for generating detailed depictions of text descriptions. This means users can create original images and modify existing ones based on text prompts.

Pricing: It is available to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise users, as well as developers through the API, starting at $20 per month.

Test Results

Unlike most tools on our list, DALL-E3 generated only one image at a time.

In a world where a search engine can find millions of pictures in seconds, this is highly limiting and, honestly, underwhelming. But the image quality was impressive.

It showed detailed, realistic portrayals of people and had no visible difficulty replicating fingers or eyes, as we often see with AI. It also allows users to edit specific image details:

For example, I requested the main subject of the image above shift to a woman of color and the information on the television screen change to an Instagram profile.

The photo after editing wasn’t as seamless. You could see where the AI spliced in the new content and certainly did not use an Instagram profile, but I digress.

As you may be able to guess from my requested edit, where DALL-E3 fell short was its lack of diversity and variety.

After running two more trials with my initial prompt, the settings of the image stayed the same — a generic, corporate office, while main subject in all of the images looked very similar as well, and most noticeably, all White or European.

While the results for the initial prompt were quite photo-realistic, I ran my second prompt.

The results were consistent, and the diversity issue also remained. Out of curiosity, I ran one more test in a new chat window and found that all images were now of men, but again, they all appeared to be White or European.

I was able to request changes to make the people in the image more racially diverse, but it took several tries.

Stereotyping and bias are common concerns with AI image generators, and that may be an issue with DALL-E3.

What I like:

• High-quality images (crisp, detailed)
• Realistic human depictions
• Ability to edit image details

What could be better:

• Only one photo per prompt
• Lack of diversity without additional prompting
• Lack of variety in the setting
• Lack of control over specifications (dimensions, style, etc.)

Best for: Brands that would benefit from ChatGPT's greater AI abilities. In my opinion, the cost is not worth it just for image generation, especially considering some of the amazing free options in this list.

Pro tip: If you find yourself getting the same results with each regeneration or requesting edits proves fruitless, try opening a new chat window.

4. Microsoft Designer

Designer is an AI image generator from Microsoft. It’s positioned as a tool to help you “create social media posts, invitations, digital postcards, graphics, and more, all in a flash.” Many say it’s a Canva competitor, and I can see why.

Designer uses DALL-E2 to generate images from text prompts, but you can also start with one of the built-in templates or tools.

Its user-friendly templates include stickers, collages, greeting cards, and social media posts. Users can also perform everyday editing tasks like removing a background from an image.

Pricing: Everyone gets 15 free generations per day, but this jumps to 100 with a Microsoft Copilot Pro membership for $20 per month.

Test Results

Coming from DALL-E3, I was immediately pleased to see Designer deliver four images with each run of my test prompt. I was also happy to see the diversity in gender, race, and even setting.

Like DALL-E3, the Designer results were realistic from the start (with no face or feature issues), but most still had an illustrative stroke.

Nevertheless, after running my second prompt, the results remained similar:

Once I found an image I liked, Microsoft Designer let me download, copy, edit, or use it in another design on the platform:

What I like:

• Multiple images at once
• High-quality images (crisp, detailed)
• Accurate depictions of people
• Lots of diversity (both in people featured and in style/setting of image)

What could be better:

• All images are square by default
• “Photo-realistic” images still have an illustrative look

Best for: Great option for anyone as a free tool, but especially valuable to teams looking for design flexibility or those heavily invested in social media. Microsoft Designer makes it easy to create graphics using its images.

5. Adobe Firefly

Firefly is design giant Adobe’s answer to generative AI. It can generate art or photo-style images in four common aspect ratios (square, portrait, landscape, and widescreen), and it allows users to select or upload resources for reference.

Pricing: Free for 25 credits per month, but premium plans offer more credits starting at $4.99 per month.

Test Results

Honestly, Firefly immediately blew me away.

Not only was it the fastest tool, but it also delivered four images in various styles, with a diverse group of subjects and some of the most photo-realistic results I’ve seen.

The depictions of humans were mostly realistic, but as I ran my additional trials, I did spot flaws like missing faces or choppy cut-outs in the backgrounds.

Since Designer has a built-in option for photos, I deviated a bit from my experiment. I ran the initial prompt under the art filter to evaluate the differences.

Again, they were striking. The results were a mix of vectors and illustrations that employed bold colors, precise details, and visual depth for beautiful results.

The platform also let me edit the images, generate more based on one I liked, and use any of the images in an Adobe Express design.

What I like:

• Free
• Fast
• Multiple images at once
• High-quality, photo-realistic images (crisp, detailed)
• Accurate depictions of people (mostly)
• Lots of diversity (both in people featured and in style/setting of image)
• Easy-to-use images in a design
• Edit specific details of images

What could be better:

• Have to inspect closely for flaws
• More image styles

Best for: Great option for anyone, especially as a free tool. Both the artistic and photo results are top-notch and easy to repurpose into design inside and outside of Adobe.

6. Canva Magic Design

Canva’s AI image generator, Magic Design, brings the power of AI to the masses. You can use it to generate images, graphics, or videos in square, vertical, or horizontal aspect ratios, and you can choose from over 20 visual styles.

Pricing: All users get 10 free Magic Designs over their lifetime, but if you want more, varying usage limits are available in Pro, non-profit, and Education accounts, starting at $120/year.

Test Results

With the initial prompt, Canva delivered four graphic/illustrated images in each trial. Many figures were simple vectors without any defining features, reminiscent of 1990s clip art.

You can see the results of each trial circled in the same color.

Upon entering my “photo-realistic” prompt, the results changed accordingly, but left much to be desired.

The AI appeared to struggle with recreating finer details like hands, fingers, eyes, and on-screen content.

Nevertheless, if you find an image you like, you can easily use it in a new design within the Canva platform.

What I like:

• Fast
• Easy to use
• Lots of visual styles
• Offers video

What could be better:

• Photo-realistic results
• Depictions of people
• Attention to detail

Best for: Those already investing in Canva Pro. This can be useful for art, vectors, or social media designs.

7. Meta AI

Meta AI is a free intelligent assistant from the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The company claims the chatbot is “capable of complex reasoning, following instructions, visualizing ideas, and solving nuanced problems,” including generating images.

Pricing: Free for all Facebook users

Test Results

Meta AI is set up as a chatbot and upon entering my test prompt, I was floored.

With each trial, Meta delivered four images — all vibrant, detailed, and in various settings. They also featured diverse groups of people.

Looking closely at the faces, you can see some imperfections. But, for the most part, the images could easily be used in smaller sizes without any concern.

Meta AI also allows you to click into an image to request edits (though this will change the entire image, not just a part, like with DALL-E3).

Or you can animate the images with the click of a button.

What I like:

• Free
• Fast
• Multiple image at once
• High-quality, photo-realistic images (crisp, detailed)
• Accurate depictions of people (mostly)
• Can animate results with the click of a button
• Lots of diversity (both in people featured and in style/setting of image)

What could be better:

• Specific edits
• Images are watermarked

Best for: Small digital graphics for social media, eBooks, or otherwise.

8. Gemini

Gemini, formerly Bard, was launched by Google in December 2023. Similar to competitor ChatGPT, Gemini responds to text prompts as a chatbot.

However, taking a page out of the Google search engine playbook, it can natively understand images, audio, video, and code. In other words, you can upload a video and ask Gemini to summarize it.

Pricing: It's free, but “For Business” accounts are available with Google Workspace. Gemini Advanced is also available with a Google One AI Premium plan for $19.99 per month.

Test Results

In February 2024, the ability to create images of people with Gemini was removed noting “some of the images generated are inaccurate or even offensive.” In fact, the first time I researched this topic, I couldn’t even generate an animated depiction of a person.

But in 2025, the ability returned, and honestly, I was shook by the results.

Gemini processed for about 20 seconds and then delivered a single image in response to my prompt, but honestly, it was the most photo-realistic image I’ve encountered from an AI tool.

The image was crisp and not only were there no issues with facial features or body parts, these elements were extremely detailed. Hair had fly-aways, skin had texture, and hands had veins. It looked like it came straight off a smartphone (in a good way.)

From the result, all you could do was download or share the image, rate it (thumbs up or down), or ask Gemini to regenerate it. There’s no dedicated option to edit, but I imagine you can request the chatbot to make changes as you would in other tools.

In my second trial, the results remained impressive.

I liked seeing the tool introduce a new face and setting, but do wish there had been more diversity in the human depictions. After a few regenerations, I was able to get subjects of different cultural backgrounds, but even after five tries, I couldn’t get a result with a woman.

What I like:

• Easy to use
• Free
• Fairly fast
• Images are extremely high-quality

What could be better:

• More customization options
• Only one result at a time
• Vastly improved diversity, but still room for growth.

Best for: Blog, website, or even print images.

9. Jasper Art

Jasper is a platform trusted by over 100,000 leading brands and agencies including Wayfair, Ulta, and MorningStar.

Its AI image generator is called Jasper Art (only available under Pro plans) and promises users the perfect picture to match their messaging.

It offers high-resolution, 2,000-pixel images, royalty-free commercial use, and unlimited generations, all without a watermark.

Pricing: Starting at $49 per month per seat or ($39 per month per seat with annual payment), but a 7-day free trial is available

Test Results

I learned you can start creating from scratch with “free form” or with a “template” which includes categories like food photography, ink art, news graphic, and storybook photography.

In “free form,” Jasper Art allows you to refine your creation with a mood (i.e., calm, gloomy, or whimsical), medium (i.e., collage or ink), style (i.e., pop art or art deco), keyword (i.e., black & white or close-up), or language.

For this experiment, however, I stuck to “free form” and left all of the refinements empty.

Jasper delivered four images and took just a few seconds, but, to be honest, the results were lackluster.

The “young executives” all appeared older and were men with lighter skin tones. Few women were in the photos, and if there were, they were in the background. This was consistent throughout my trials, so, like DALL-E3, I had concerns about AI bias.

Furthermore, Jasper struggled with recreating features like hands and fingers. One image even appears to have an elf leg coming out of a man’s hip onto a table.

Like other tools, Jasper’s results were photo-realistic, but to confirm, I reran the prompt using the keyword filter “photorealistic.” The results were unchanged.

I also experimented with the styles (specifically pop art and acrylic paint) to see how the tool handled those.

Pop art was true to its name, but Jasper appeared to have difficulty with acrylic paint, delivering images that looked half vector and half photo-realistic.

If you like an image, Jasper Art lets you download it in three different sizes, copy it to your clipboard, or share it to X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Reddit.

What I like:

• Easy-to-use
• Multiple images at once
• Offers templates
• Offers high-resolution downloads

What could be better:

• Difficulty recreating human features
• Lack of diversity
• Concerns of bias

Best for: Abstract or creative images. It's worth playing around with if you already pay for Jasper Pro but wouldn’t pay just for Jasper Art.

Pro tip: In “free form, ”Jasper AI offers to “enhance your prompt” with the click of a button. It expanded my prompt and passed the 400-character limit while allowing me to edit before generating my images. While I didn’t use this feature in the experiment, Jasper's assumptions seemed to match the pictures it produced.

Reviewing the more detailed prompts may give you more insight into the image it will create by default.

10. Typeface

Typeface is an enterprise-grade multimodal AI content creation platform for creating on-brand, targeted content for various channels.

It is known for its AI product photography capabilities, but its Visual Inspiration Studio also allows users to pick their inspiration from a library of pre-set images and generate images from text prompts using “Magic Prompt.”

Pricing: Starting at $49/month per use, according to Deepgram. 14 day trial available.

Test Results

To test the tool, I started a “new project” and hit “create from blank.”

From there, I entered my prompt with “Magic Prompt” toggled on and let the tool do its thing.

I left the default settings on, but I could have adjusted the size, generation type (or photo style), as well as details like the audience, things I don’t want to see (via the negative prompt), as well as advanced options like camera angle, lighting, etc.

After about one minute, the tool processed the request and produced a more detailed prompt, followed by four images.

The were detailed and definitely photo-realistic, despite not specifying that. Like a few of the other tools I tested, they looked like they came straight out of a smartphone, right down to the lighting and angles.

Upon deeper examination, there didn’t appear to be any issues with hands or fingers, but the tool did seem to have some trouble with the greater details of faces when I zoomed in.

There also didn’t appear to be much diversity in the style/setting of each image or the human subjects within them.

After running my second trial, the results were similar, but I was happy to see a bit more diversity and a new setting from the first collection.

What I like:

• Truly photorealistic results
• Options to give camera specifics

What could be better:

• Difficulty recreating facial features
• Advanced features only available in the enterprise plan
• Learning curve

Best for: Product photography, professional-quality marketing visuals. Businesses can get some great branded photos and images for ad campaigns, e-commerce store listings, brochures, social media, and more.

11. Getimg.ai

While researching this article, I found Getimg.ai in a Reddit discussion. Redditors raved about it, so I had to see why. With a paid plan, it can generate photorealistic, artistic, or anime-style images, up to 10 at a time.

Pricing: Free for 100 credits per month, or paid plans beginning at $12/month which unlock more credits and features

Test Results

Getimg.ai generates four images by default on a free plan, and it can deliver up to 10 with a premium plan. It’s also transparent about its speed, displaying how long it takes to generate each image. The images I created took under 30 seconds.

My immediate reaction: Zero diversity. Except for one or two subjects, everyone in the photos is a white man and many of them look like they could be cousins, brothers, or even twins.

In other words, Getimg.ai seems to use the same face repeatedly in one image.

If this works for you, the tool lets you like, download, generate similar images, or use them in a design. With a paid plan, you can also convert the image into a video.

As the tool defaults to photorealistic, I once again deviated from my test edit to run the prompt in other built-in styles.

“Anime” delivers some beautiful creative images that are very much in line with what you’d expect from the Japanese style. In contrast, “Artistic” is reminiscent of characters in a video game. I personally expected them to look more like paintings or illustrations.

What I like:

• Generous free plan
• Easy to use
• Fast (and transparent about generation speed)
• Multiple images at once
• Can upload reference image and tell it what not to generate with “negative prompt”
• Multiple aspect ratio options

What could be better:

• Diversity (in demographics as well as the setting of the photo)

Best for: Creative or artistic images. Brands or marketers targeting younger audiences interested in Anime.

12. Fotor

Fotor is a popular photo editor and design platform. Fotor has also launched an AI image generator with a user-friendly interface that is a much easier way for users to generate images. This can greatly help users save time and have fun at the same time.

Pricing: New users will receive four free credits as rewards. Fotor Pro users will receive 100 credits and pay $3.33 for a month.

Test Results

Fotor, like many other tools in my experiment, worked with simple text prompts. All I had to do was enter my prompt, and define my photography style (56 options), dimensions, and the number of images (up to 4), I wanted to generate.

The tool also allowed me to input what I wouldn’t like to see in the form of “negative prompts.”

Upon entering my prompt, Fotor delivered two images — and I was genuinely impressed.

The style called Photography 4 produced crisp, high-quality images.

Did they look like they came out of a camera? No. They definitely appeared digitally generated, but they were detailed, showed no signs of issues with facial or body features, and gave very visually different options to choose from.

For the second trial, I asked the tool to produce 3, 4:3 options.

It followed through with the high-quality results, but the faces did appear a bit more graphic. In both trials, there also did not appear to be much diversity in the human depictions.

What I like:

• User-friendly interface
• Customizable
• Cloud save data access
• Various image styles

What could be better:

• Image details
• Image elements variety
• Diversity of human depictions

Best For: Creative and illustrative images generation.

Put the Best to the Test

What you consider the best AI for creating images is subjective. In my opinion, many of the free tools have more to offer marketers than the paid ones.

I was particularly impressed by Adobe Firefly. It delivers some of the most realistic photos and professional-looking artistic images on the list, and it allows you to edit specific details.

For a marketer who is likely using an AI image generator to create an original image for content or a digital graphic, it more than gets the job done at no cost. On top of its creative prowess, it’s hard to top.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2024 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

With 2.5 billion active users, YouTube is an undeniably important channel for your marketing efforts. Knowing how to optimize your YouTube descriptions (both channel and video) can help you increase your chances of discoverability and reach more people.

As a YouTuber and HubSpot‘s resident creator economy expert, I know a lot about YouTube and how to go viral on the platform. So, believe me when I say it’s not just keywords you must consider.

Creating engaging YouTube descriptions is one of the most important tactics for optimizing your YouTube channel. We'll discuss creating compelling descriptions for your YouTube channel and videos here.

Table of Contents

• What is a YouTube description?
• YouTube Video Descriptions
• What makes a great YouTube description?
• YouTube Description Templates
• YouTube Description Examples

The goal of a YouTube description is to help viewers understand what the content is about. It can also help optimize videos for search. There are two types of YouTube descriptions: the overall description of the channel and the descriptions of an individual video.

YouTube Channel Descriptions

YouTube channel descriptions are a little like the About Page of a website. It appears under the “About” tab of your channel's YouTube page.

Your YouTube channel description conveys to potential viewers what your content will cover, including the issues you tackle and the communities you serve. You can add this when setting up your YouTube channel.

Take a look at my YouTube channel's description, for example.

Notice how I introduce myself, state the kind of content viewers can expect, and reference my target audience. I also have links to other platforms connected to my channel, such as Instagram, X, TikTok, and my website.

As YouTube creators, our primary goal is to attract and turn viewers into subscribers, often using the channel description. With that in mind, use keywords your intended audience would use to search for your content.

See how “anime” is used multiple times in my channel's description.

YouTube Video Descriptions

Every YouTube video includes a description that can be found under the viewport of the video. It's crucial that each of your YouTube videos include a unique description to increase the likelihood of your video being found when someone is searching for a particular topic.

As a YouTube content creator, I always craft my video descriptions, knowing they can attract and convert an audience. So, I always optimize my video descriptions for SEO — and you should, too.

Keep reading if you‘re unsure how to start crafting compelling YouTube descriptions. I’ll explore tactics you can employ and provide templates to ensure you have everything you need to excel on YouTube.

What makes a great YouTube description?

Whether for your channel or a video, a great YouTube description accomplishes three things:

• Explains your value
• Piques interest
• Presents a call-to-action

Explains the value of your content: Why should someone watch your video or subscribe to your channel? What unique value are you providing in the content you’re sharing? Your YouTube description should be clear about that.

Piques interest: This is where you’ve got to flex some of those marketing and copywriting skills of yours. As you’re explaining your value, make sure not to give it all away.

Leave some mystery to give the visitor a reason to watch or subscribe. Prompt a question that can only be answered by watching your video. Share an idea that they can only learn more about by subscribing to future videos. Bottomline: Leave them wanting more.

Presents a call-to-action: Whether that be a view, like, subscribe, or comment, your YouTube description should tell the visitor what to do next to get the promised value. And don’t be afraid to include multiple. YouTube descriptions can include links, so use this space to ask people to follow you on social, download an offer on your website, shop a product, etc.

In the rest of this article, I’ll explain how to optimize your YouTube channel and video descriptions with these things in mind.

YouTube Description Tips

1. Describe your unique value.

My colleague, Caroline Forsey, spoke with Eric Peters, former Senior Growth Product Manager on HubSpot's Academy team, to explore the best tactics for writing YouTube descriptions.

He said, “[YouTube descriptions] are one of the primary ways YouTube knows what your video is about. Include links, additional resources, links to other videos and playlists, etc. Make sure the description box is easy to read.”

Peters explained that your YouTube video description and closed captioning should incorporate keywords into your description.

It also helps with accessibility for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Hence, adding closed captioning to your videos is essential for accessibility. For instance, take a look at one of HubSpot Marketing's YouTube video descriptions:

A YouTube description differs from a web page meta description. Some content creators explain their entire videos in their descriptions.

This may help with search engine optimization in addition to accessibility, but remember, if views are your goal, keep this short. The best way to get views is to make sure it has value the visitor can’t get anywhere else.

YouTube limits the number of characters in your description area to 5,000 characters.

Peters says:

“You get 5,000 characters total, so make use of it. YouTube creators use asterisks or all-caps to differentiate titles from body copy because it's all plain text. Consider writing up a text version of the key points from the video or even copying the transcription and paste it into the description.”

Most of my most recent YouTube videos consist of interviews from my podcast.

So, I‘ll often save time by writing out the description I’d use for my podcast episode that would appear on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, then copying and pasting the same description into YouTube.

I‘d then tweak it to include more keywords or important links to other platforms. I’ll also customize my YouTube video description with the bold, italic, or strikethrough options at the bottom of the description box. For information, click here.

Pro tip: YouTube allows creators to use emojis in titles, descriptions, and comments. This can make your YouTube descriptions more playful and skimmable and add visual context.

2. Infuse your personality.

A YouTube description should be fun and demonstrate your brand's unique personality and voice. This is something I never neglect. It’s what keeps people watching and subscribing to their favorite YouTubers, after all.

I love Brian Dean's YouTube channel, for example. His YouTube descriptions often mirror the way he speaks. I enjoy his descriptions because they are candid and casual, and he makes it feel like he's writing to a friend.

Consider checking out HubSpot Academy's comprehensive YouTube Marketing course to learn more about using YouTube for marketing purposes.

3. Share your journey.

A lot of YouTubers are documenting journeys on their channels.

For instance, if your YouTube channel focuses on streaming video game content, you may invite subscribers to watch you as you attempt to win a particular game. Or if you’re a home chef, maybe you’re chronicling your progress through a cookbook or learning a new type of cuisine.

Explaining this goal in your YouTube channel description (or even reminding people of it in each of your YouTube video descriptions), adds depth to your content. It gives people something consistent to root for and get invested in.

4. Define your niche.

Whether you‘re writing a description for your channel or a video, define your niche. Start by introducing yourself or your brand, then highlight what you offer and what makes you different from other creators.

Be sure to incorporate relevant keywords used to search for content in your niche so your target audience has a better chance of finding you. (More on that soon.)

5. Create anticipation for new content.

What’s coming up next for you? What are you talking about in your future content? Detail this in your YouTube video descriptions and tease them in your channel descriptions.

Giving visitors an idea of what is to come creates a sense of urgency and anticipation. It gives them something specific to look forward to and want to subscribe or come back for.

Want some extra oomph? Try hosting giveaways, conducting polls, and inviting special guests to participate in the videos to keep your content fresh and build excitement.

Pro tip: Clip Creator, HubSpot’s AI-powered video maker, can help you create fun content to fill your YouTube calendar. Check out the free tool.

6. Include a call-to-action

What do you want people to do after watching your video or landing on your YouTube channel? Subscribe? Download a guide? Whatever it is, tell them that in your description and include a link if applicable.

Experience has shown me it's best practice to format the description so that the most critical information, like a call-to-action, is first.

Peters advises, “The first 200 characters are above the ‘more’ fold on the description box, so if you want your CTA/link to be seen by most people, keep it within the first 200 characters.”

After the first 200 characters, the text will be cut off, and viewers must click “Show more” to see the rest. I know I don‘t always click “Show more” when watching a video, so your audience likely won’t either. Therefore, you must count your first 200 characters.

But don’t stop there …

7. Lead viewers to other resources.

When crafting your descriptions, make sure to link to related content that viewers might find interesting or helpful. For example, if you have a blog, you can link to a blog post that goes more in-depth on the topic you're discussing.

Want to connect with people on other platforms? Drop the handles or links in your description. Mention or use one of your products or services in your content? Link to its landing page. Have an affiliate link or promo code? That should be in your description, too.

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I include links even in my YouTube Shorts descriptions, though they are not currently clickable.

All of these resources help provide additional context to the viewer and bring more traffic to your website and goals.

8. Make it search-friendly.

As a child company of Google, YouTube is often touted as the world’s second-largest search engine. Search any term and you’ll see YouTube videos at the top of your results page.

As a content creator, it would be a huge mistake not to use this to your advantage to help your videos get found. Use keywords in your descriptions to increase the visibility of your YouTube channel and videos. Include relevant hashtags.

Like with written content, you‘ll need to conduct keyword research to determine which keywords you should target. Also, you’ll want to avoid repeating the keywords too much. Insert your keywords and hashtags where they would naturally. This will keep it easy to read and help you avoid keyword stuffing.

Read: YouTube SEO: How to Optimize Videos for YouTube Search

9. Prompt engagement.

Keeping your audience engaged is crucial for getting them to return for more content and also building a sense of community. YouTube descriptions can play a huge part in this.

Use your descriptions to spark conversation. Ask questions. Share an opinion and ask people to weigh in on the comments. Ask people to tag friends who may like the content shared. Sometimes, the easiest way to get engagement is simply to ask.

10. Test out different formats.

If your videos aren't accomplishing your goals, try experimenting with different description formats and templates.

Maybe your descriptions are too long, and they get cut off on certain devices, or perhaps there are better keywords you can optimize for. Testing out different styles of descriptions will help find what works for your brand or even the video at hand. Different videos may need different styles!

Pro tip: Use YouTube description templates. [Free Prompts]

HubSpot compiled several YouTube video description templates to help your business provide context to your viewers, rank better in search, organize your team, and link to relevant web pages on your site.

We’ll also share 13 of our favorites later in this article.

11. Use timestamps to make videos scannable.

Now, this one’s specific to your YouTube video descriptions, but make use of timestamps.

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Timestamps in your video description enable viewers to jump the specific content they need, making it more user-friendly and easy to digest. YouTube video timestamps also appear within search results, helping your video get found by those who need it.

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YouTube Description Templates

Now that we've covered the basics look at a few templates you can use to craft a compelling YouTube description.

YouTube Channel Description Templates

1. Playful YouTube Channel Description Template

You might create a playful, easy-going channel ‘About Me’ description, like this one:

Hi, I'm [Name]. This is my channel about increasing your sales, effectively targeting your audience, and growing an email list that you can use to grow your business.

If you're a marketer who wants to learn marketing strategies to get [result, i.e., more traffic to your site], subscribe to my channel.

My channel publishes videos that focus on storytelling content that connects X, shows you how to infuse your authenticity in your brand, and gives you a marketing strategy that feels organic.

If that sounds like it could be helpful for you, please join me!

2. Third-Person YouTube Channel Description Template

Alternatively, you can craft a YouTube description that describes what your company does from a third-person point of view, like this one:

[Company] is the worldwide leader in X, Y, and Z. Since [year], [Company] has been on a mission to [insert company vision or purpose here].

To learn more about [Company], its values, and its [company offering], subscribe to our channel to stay informed.

3. Niche YouTube Channel Description Template

Tell your subscribers what you're all about and describe your niche when writing your YouTube channel description.

[Name] and [Name] have nuanced discussions about dating, their lifestyle, and relationships. They discuss current topics that affect modern dating and how to maneuver relationship patterns. You can purchase [Name] and [Name]'s [product] to learn more about improving your knowledge of relationships.

4. Inviting YouTube Channel Description Template

Building a relationship with your followers is one of the most important things you can do as a content creator. This template invites them to join you as you grow your brand.

This channel gives everything you need to know about gaming, including the latest equipment reviews, new game reviews, and once-a-week live streams. Watch as I, [name], try to beat my high score in the latest release of [insert game name here].

5. Personal YouTube Channel Description Template

Don't be afraid to be vulnerable with your audience. Adding personal touches to your YouTube channel description, like the template below, can help you become more authentic.

This is a personal journey of how I became a painter. Learn about what paints I purchase, the tools I use, and the techniques I learned during school. Art is my passion, and I express my love for [insert passion] through it.

6. Straight-forward YouTube Channel Description Template

Tell your audience exactly what they can expect from your channel by using this template:

This channel gives pop culture commentary through a [political ideology] political lens. We make commentary on books and current events. We also upload a new video every Wednesday and Friday.

YouTube Video Description Templates

A YouTube video description is descriptive text that includes but is not limited to keywords, themes, and special concepts/guests that the content creator wants their viewers to know.

The YouTube video description increases visibility through SEO, views, and subscriptions. In each video description, the content creator will encourage their viewers to “Like,” “Share,” and “Subscribe” to their content.

An effective video description will be persuasive and informative, prompting the audience to tune in regularly.

7. Simple YouTube Video Description Template

Rather than writing a lengthy summary of your video, keep your descriptions detailed enough to let the viewer know what to expect, yet concise enough so they don't lose interest.

Listen to how our CEO explains the difference between X and Y, and learn best practices for implementing your own strategy.

Learn more about X and Y in our course: [course link].

8. Social Media YouTube Video Description Template

You can use a YouTube channel description like this one to help new viewers connect with you on your other channels and social media platforms:

Hi there! New to [name of channel]? If so, here's what you need to know: I like [interests related to channel] a LOT, so I use this channel to explore X, Y, and Z to help you [desired result for viewer].

Where else you can find me:

INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/[accountname]

TWITTER: http://twitter.com/[accountname]

LIFESTYLE CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/[accountname]

Join our growing community for new videos every Tuesday and Friday!

BUSINESS INQUIRIES

Please contact [PR representative] at [email or phone number].

9. Search-Friendly YouTube Video Description Template

YouTube increases visibility within keyword searches and relevant content. As a result, videos should have buzzwords in video and channel descriptions.

If you want to craft a description that explains what your video is about and incorporates a keyword description, try this:

Hey there! This lesson is part of a free online course. Take the full course here: www.company.com/course1.

Some people are unsure what X is — at its most basic, X is [brief definition of keyword]. In this video, you‘ll learn how to X, Y, and Z, to ensure you’re able to grow your brand online.

In addition, we'll explain how you can avoid doing A. Sometimes, A is all it takes to lose a customer.

10. Teaser YouTube Video Description Template.

Use your video descriptions as an opportunity to let your viewers know when to expect new content from you, like this template:

Join the “musical nerds” on a mission to improve our musical understanding. We upload every Wednesday and Thursday. We will have Q&A sessions to answer all of your beginner questions on Wednesdays starting next week.

11. Transparent YouTube Video Description Template

Transparency is key to gaining the trust of your audience. This template is an excellent example of how to let your viewers know when you are using affiliate links in your descriptions.

What‘s up, guys? In this video, we’ll talk about an everyday makeup look you can do in 10 minutes. I‘m not an early riser, but just like anyone, I still want to look good for the day. I’ll list the products I used in this video.

Please subscribe if you are feeling my vibe. I post content weekly, and you can always find me on Insta! I'll drop my social media handles below.

**All opinions are my own. This video isn‘t sponsored. I’m sent products for my consideration, and I earn a small percentage from sales through affiliated links. Clicking on affiliated links doesn't cost you anything.**

12. Engaging YouTube Video Description Template

Engaging with your audience is essential for building community with them. Here, this description encourages viewers to leave suggestions in the comments section to be featured in future videos.

Hi, everyone! We‘re the Science Kidz! Today, we are experimenting to find out which popcorn brand leaves behind the least number of kernels. Will it be Orville Redenbacher’s or Act II?

Every week, we do a new experiment as part of our initiative to highlight STEM careers in Savannah, Georgia. If you have an experiment you want to see The Science Kidz try, leave a comment below. You never know — we could pick yours!

Follow me on Instagram for more experiment ideas, and tag us in some of the experiments you do with your friends!

13. Sponsored YouTube Video Description Templates

Disclosing paid sponsorships or product placements doesn‘t have to be super jargon-heavy. A template like this can help you be candid with your audience without straying from your brand’s voice and sounding like a robot.

Hey, y‘all! Today, we’ll be rebuilding a 454 Chevy Big Block motor. We‘ll be adding 200 horses to bring the motor up to 680 horsepower. I hope y’all are ready to dive into business with Motor Boyz.

This episode is sponsored by Husky tools, and we'll be using their latest impact and driver tools to rebuild the 454. We would like to thank Anderson Auto for donating the 1972 C10 to be our frame once the motor is rebuilt and completed.

YouTube Description Examples

YouTube Channel Description Examples

Every YouTube channel description should allude to a specific niche or central theme. You want to tell your audience what they will learn from your channel.

This will give them a reason to tune in to your channel, subscribe to it, and continue learning from you and your videos. Additionally, when you add your niche to your YouTube description, your audience can more easily find you in a sea of potentially similar creators.

1. Wes McDowell

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Wes McDowell 's YouTube channel targets viewers in the digital marketing niche. The channel description mentions its mission: teaching small business owners digital marketing strategies they can use to grow their businesses.

The description also lists topics the channel will feature in its videos, invites viewers to subscribe, and describes its benefits.

Why I Love It

This YouTube channel description is clear and direct. It details what viewers will get when they visit the channel and the marketing strategies and techniques they will learn.

Clarity goes a long way in making a channel easily searchable and rankable on YouTube.

2. Yoga With Adriene

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Yoga With Adriene‘s YouTube channel description highlights one of the channel’s main values: inclusion.

The channel description mentions that everyone is invited to participate and learn more about yoga through her videos, regardless of their skill level. The description also recommends videos that beginners can watch to become familiar with the content.

Why I Love It

This channel description is an excellent example of how a company‘s mission can be useful for video content. The description gives subscribers a glimpse into Yoga with Adriene’s values, creating a connection with the viewer.

This angle is helpful for ranking on YouTube because it's aligned with morals and values that subscribers can easily identify with.

I started watching Yoga with Adriene‘s videos partially because the channel description convinced me they’d be great for beginners (and they are!).

3. Wild Wonderful Off-Grid

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Wild Wonderful Off-Grid 's YouTube channel description positions the channel within a niche by using the keywords “off-grid” and “debt free,” to appeal to viewers who are interested in living off-the-grid.

The description also invites viewers to visit their online store and social media profiles.

Why I Love It

This YouTube channel description establishes a niche, describes the channel's content, provides background information about the creators, and encourages subscribers and viewers to participate further in their brand.

I also love how the description also directs their audience to other aspects of their business, such as their store and social media platforms, which fosters value for their subscribers.

4. The Pals

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The Pals‘ YouTube channel description introduces the channel’s creators, lists the video games the channel will highlight, and provides each creator's personal YouTube channel and Roblox username.

Why I Love It

This YouTube channel description focuses on the entertainment the channel provides.

The description targets subscribers seeking gaming knowledge and mentions the creators' journeys to set the channel apart from others in the same niche and genre.

5. Florian Gadsby

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Florian Gadsby‘s YouTube channel description introduces the channel’s creator and lists the topics viewers can expect to see when they subscribe.

It also links to the creator‘s social media and newsletter and provides information about the creator’s online store, including its restocking schedule.

Why I Love It

This YouTube channel description takes a personal approach to the subject matter. The description gives visitors clarity about the channel's content and artistic focus.

It also encourages viewers to interact with the creator on their social media platforms to learn more about them and view more of their content.

6. SciShow

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SciShow‘s YouTube channel description introduces the channel’s creators and hints at the topics viewers can expect to see weekly.

The description also outlines the channel's posting schedule and mentions other YouTube channels associated with the brand.

Why I Love It

This YouTube channel description tells its viewers when they will see uploads. This is an excellent strategy to ensure users visit the channel right when they're expecting to see new content.

If views go up on a page, the YouTube algorithm will likely boost your channel to a broader audience. Just make sure you stay on schedule.

I personally avoid putting the schedule for future uploads in my descriptions because mishaps happen, and I don‘t want to let my viewers down. But that’s just a personal hang-up I have.

7. Unbox Therapy

Source

Unbox Therapy‘s YouTube channel description states the channel’s tagline, gives an overview of the channel's content, and provides a contact email for business inquiries.

Why I Love It

This simple channel description piques viewers‘ interest with a captivating tagline and a straightforward explanation of the channel’s content.

It also includes an email that allows viewers to contact the creators to inquire about the business and ask professional questions about the channel.

8. Babish Culinary Universe

Binging With Babish’s YouTube channel description is short and sweet, introducing exactly what you’ll get (a mix of food and film). He also sets expectations by mentioning there will be new content every week.

Why I Love It

I love that Babish subtly, but effectively shows his personality in this channel description. The age joke shows his humor, something that definitely comes through in his videos. I also like his use of inclusive/collective language. He says join “us,” suggesting a sense of community.

9. Sundas Khalid

Sundas Khalid's YouTube channel description starts with a friendly “Hey!” before explaining who she is and what she does: “I am Sundas, and I help you succeed in the data science and tech fields.”

The description then dives into her background as a self-taught data scientist.

It also highlights her achievements as someone with 10 years of experience across two prominent companies where she was a high performer at each.

Why I Love It

I love Sundas Khalid because she relates to her audience by using a friendly tone and explaining that she is self-taught and from a non-tech background.

Her approach shows she creates content for viewers who may have little to no experience in the tech field but want to break into the industry or sharpen their knowledge.

I especially like how she includes a disclaimer at the end, letting readers know her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of the company she works for. It's a great example of transparency while separating your work and creativity.

10. Matte Wolfe

What Matte Wolfe's description lacks in words it makes up for in key links. Wolfe's YouTube channel includes links to his blog, Twitter (now X) account, his AI tool database, and ways to work with him.

Why I Love It

Wolfe's channel description is a great model for how less is more, especially if your channel covers a broad spectrum of topics within your niche.

Just make sure you use the extra space saved in your channel to highlight important links, such as to your blog, social media channels, or business.

YouTube Video Description Examples

A helpful video description can spike your audience's interest, resulting in longer watch times, better view counts, and even new subscribers.

Plus, it can help with YouTube SEO, allowing YouTube's algorithm to understand your content and suggest it to new users, further boosting your YouTube metrics.

1. “5 Best Coding Languages for Beginners 2021” by nicole . young

Source

The description of nicole . young's YouTube video, "5 Best Coding Languages for Beginners 2021,” hooks the viewer by posing a question that will be answered in the video.

The video description also includes a benefit the viewer will gain from watching the video.

Why I Love It

In this video description, the creator summarizes the video‘s title and specifies the target audience. The text will help audiences (and YouTube) understand the video’s content.

This creator understands that the channel description is prime real estate for contact information, social media handles, and calls to action, persuading viewers to stick around.

2. “How to Write Counterpoint - Music Composition” by Music Matters

Source

The description of Music Matters's YouTube video, "How to Write Counterpoint - Music Composition,” uses keywords such as “writing counterpoint,” “music composition lesson,” and “understanding counterpoint” to appeal to audiences that are interested in learning the music composition technique.

The description also includes timestamps that viewers can use to skip to the portion of the video that addresses the specific topic they want to learn about.

Why I Love It

This YouTube video description uses keywords to appeal to a niche audience. The specificity makes it easily searchable on YouTube. Using keywords to make each video search-friendly will drive traffic to your video's specific content.

3. “How to Create a 90-Day Plan for your Business (+ Free Workbook)” by Anna Clark

Source

The description of Anna Clark's YouTube video, “How to Create a 90-Day Plan for your Business (+ Free Workbook),” includes links to the creator's website, courses, newsletter, and social media accounts, and a workbook that viewers can download and complete as they watch the video.

Why I Love It

It's good to involve your viewers in other aspects of your business. The interaction and engagement you earn will help you rank against other active channels. Directing your viewers to other resources for your business will also help your YouTube channel drive traffic to your website, increasing your authority in your business niche.

4. “How To Create an Email Sales Funnel” by Wishpond

Source

The description of Wishpond's YouTube video, "How To Create An Email Sales Funnel," hooks the viewer by stating that the video is the fourth installment in a series and linking to the previous video. The video description also incentivizes viewers to learn more about the company.

Why I Love It

This description segments the video as a section of a more extensive series. If subscribers learn that you provide similar content on your channel, they will be more inclined to watch your other videos.

The description also lets viewers know there's a free demo of the service. If you sell different products or services in your business, link them in the description.

5. “How to Outline Your Novel - Part 2” by Writing with Jenna Moreci

Source

The description of Writing with Jenna Moreci's YouTube video, “How to Outline Your Novel - Part 2,” hooks the viewer by stating that the video is the second installment in a series and linking to the previous video.

The video description also lets viewers learn more about the creator's products.

Why I Love It

This video description is excellent because it lets viewers know what's coming next. Inserting a “new segment” in your YouTube series lets viewers anticipate your next video.

6. “Microgreens Growing: Materials and Beginner's Guide” by Epic Gardening

Source

The video description tells viewers about the creator's experience with microgreens, lists the supplies the creator mentions in the video, and lists ways that viewers can support the creator beyond watching their video.

Why I Love It

The creator provides a list of products used in the video. The viewers can research the products or purchase them immediately through the links.

7. “Budgeting for Beginners - How to Make a Budget from Scratch 2021” by Debt Free Millennials

Source

Debt Free Millennials' YouTube video, "Budgeting for Beginners - How to Make a Budget From Scratch 2021,” teaches viewers to create a budget.

The description gives viewers an overview of the topics covered in the video and invites them to sign up for products and services through affiliated links.

It also includes links to the creator's Instagram, Facebook group, and website so viewers can connect with the creator through different social platforms.

Why I Love It

I love that the creator has created a sense of community and togetherness. If you include your social media links in your YouTube video description, subscribers will follow you on multiple platforms to remain engaged with your content.

The content creator invites them to return for new videos and share their experiences on social media.

8. “FINALLY be consistent on social media” by Jade Beason

Jade Beason‘s video gives viewers tips and strategies for staying consistent on social media as a creator or business owner. Her video’s description is simple and captures who and what the video is intended for:

“Watch this video if you're struggling to post consistently on social media!

If you want to learn new content creation tips, content creation hacks, how to be consistent on social media or how to create consistent content on social media, this video is for you.”

Why I Love It

Since Beason‘s video description is so short, it leaves plenty of room for her to list other important information, and that’s what she does.

As viewers read through the description, they‘ll find information about further learning, additional resources, Beason’s equipment, and free guides.

Even better, it's all neatly organized into sections.

9. “The Roadmap to Making Your First $1M In SaaS (How I Did It)” by Alex Heiden

Alex Heiden‘s video documents part of his journey of trying to profit off B2B SaaS. The video’s description details how he organizes his goals and the tools he uses.

Why I Love It

Heiden‘s description is detailed in summarizing the video’s point. He has included chapters, which are great for SEO and helps YouTube rank the video higher in search results.

10. “Easiest Online Business to Make $100,000+ In 2024” by Jensen Tung

Jensen Tung‘s video discusses the easiest online business to start to make $100,000. The video’s title is self-explanatory, so it's not as necessary for Tung to have the video summary at the top of the description.

So, he moved it toward the bottom and used the rest of the space to provide information on his gear, newsletter, crucial links, and other endeavors.

Why I Love It

Tung prioritizes the most important information in his video description, and, in this case, it‘s not the video’s summary — it's the links and information to his other projects that views may not have been able to find as easily otherwise.

Download these YouTube description templates and help your video go viral.

These must-have YouTube video and channel description templates can help you reduce the time it takes to upload and optimize your YouTube videos, getting them out to your audience quickly and with less effort.

Be sure to customize the text to enhance the reading experience because you want to be as helpful as possible for your audience.

Whether you’re a new or seasoned social media manager, managing a brand’s social presence can be overwhelming. After all, you’re behind every post and every interaction with potential customers so the pressure is on.

One way to ease that and make sure you’re at the top of your game is with a social media checklist. In this article, we’ll cover the daily and monthly tasks every social media manager needs to succeed.

Table of Contents

• Social Media Tasks
• Daily Social Media Checklist
• Weekly Social Media Checklist
• Monthly Social Media Checklist

Social Media Manager Checklist & Tasks

Before we get into the checklist, we’re going to break down the work of a social media manager into four pillars.

• Sharing – You must post on social media regularly to grow and maintain an audience.
• Engaging – Connecting with your audience, via polls, responding to comments and DMs, and reposting user-generated content, is key to building that brand loyalty.
• Monitoring – It’s important to know how your brand is perceived online, so you’ll need to monitor mentions of your brand as well as topics within your industry.
• Reviewing and Optimizing – If you’re not reviewing your performance, how can you improve? This is a necessary part of every social media strategy.

If you don’t share often, you’ll struggle to build an audience. Without an audience, you won’t have much to engage with. This also means that you’ll have little to no data about what works well and nothing to optimize or review.

This is all to say that to have a robust social media presence, you must be strong in all four areas. Now, let’s dive into the daily tasks you’ll need to complete in this role.

Social Media Daily Checklist

On a daily basis, you will be focused on the first three pillars: sharing, engaging, and monitoring.

While there is some reviewing and optimizing that can happen daily, you can better identify patterns when you do so on a monthly basis once you have compiled a good data set.

1. Share content.

Your number one priority on social media should be sharing content.

That’s what will allow you to reach your target audience, attract them to your brand, and keep them engaged.

When we surveyed 1000+ U.S.-based marketers in 2025, we found that most social media marketers post multiple times a week on social media platforms.

While that is the average, some marketers post more or less depending on the platform. For instance, 29% of marketers surveyed said they post on Facebook every day while 35% said they do the same on X (Twitter).

However, when asked about Pinterest, most marketers surveyed only post two to three times a week.

Of course, how often you post will depend on various factors including the return on investment.

Something else to consider is that sharing content doesn’t only mean from your brand. It can include user-generated content or content from another non-competitor that would add value to your audience.

2. Respond to comments and DMs.

One of the easiest ways to engage your audience is by responding to their comments.

If you’re having trouble generating comments, try starting a conversation and asking your audience to join it.

In this post, skincare brand Cerave encourages its audience to try new product releases.

In that same vein, you can ask your audience to tag a friend who would enjoy your post.

Another way to engage your audience is by responding to direct messages. Often, consumers will reach out to brands on social media to learn more about the brand, ask specific questions related to shared content, or get help.

It’s important that you review these questions every day to leave a positive impression on your audience. If you take too long to answer, they may lose interest or escalate the issue by complaining to the public.

You can take it one step further by working internally with your customer support team to develop an escalation process once a customer reaches out via social media.

3. Monitor brand mentions and industry-related content.

When you’re growing your business, it’s vital that you know how your brand is being perceived online and what is being said about it.

According to our 2025 social media marketing report, 20% of marketers surveyed track brand mentions and hashtags on social media.

Thankfully, social media makes that information accessible. You can easily set up alerts to be notified whenever your brand is tagged or mentioned on social media.

You can also routinely do searches on platforms like TikTok where alerts aren’t readily available.

This will allow you to gauge brand sentiment and quickly address concerns from your target audience.

Pro tip: HubSpot’s social media management software includes a brand monitoring tool that will help you stay on top of all mentions and even track your competitors.

4. Identify trends and buzzy content.

Trends come and go just about every week on social media.

The trick is jumping in as they’re growing in popularity and knowing when they’ve died out.

The best way to find trends is by simply being on social media – social listening. You may start to notice a particular sound being used often or a song being added to every Reel you come across.

Some social platforms will tell you exactly what’s trending, like on TikTok’s "Discover" tab and X’s "Trending" tab.

There are also accounts that are dedicated to finding trends as they happen and explaining their origin. This will help you determine which ones are worth joining and which ones you should stay out of.

As a brand, everything you put out there is a representation of your values. That’s why it’s important that you be extra careful when assessing trends.

See what videos other brands and users are creating with that trend. Are they funny and creative? Are they offensive? Do they align with your brand?

If not, it’s always OK to skip because there'll be another one coming around the corner.

5. Answer queries on forums.

When we think of social media, we often think of content-sharing apps like TikTok, X, and Twitch.

However, some social apps – think Reddit and Quora – focus instead on conversations and community.

You may be surprised to find how many conversations people may be having about your brand on these websites. In addition to being a great source of information surrounding brand sentiment, you can also learn a lot about your audience’s challenges and pain points.

You can then leverage that information into value-packed posts to attract your audience.

6. Connect with brand evangelists.

Building brand loyalty is no easy feat. So once you’ve accomplished it, you have to invest time to maintain it.

This means connecting with your brand evangelists on a regular basis.

Yes! 😍

— Brandon Blackwood (@BBlackwoodNYC) April 27, 2022

This can look like commenting on their content and/or sharing it on your platform, giving them access to exclusive content, shouting them out, and inviting them to participate during live streams.

While social media can be filled with parasocial relationships, don’t let that be the case for you and your audience.

Daily Social Media Checklist

Consistent daily activity is the foundation of a successful social media strategy. If your team has the bandwidth, these tasks should be performed every business day to maintain engagement and build momentum.

1. Monitor and respond to engagement.

Timely responses are crucial for building community. Data shows that 79% of consumers expect brands to respond within 24 hours, with 40% expecting a response within the first hour.

• Check all notifications across platforms
• Respond to comments, messages, and mentions
• Thank people who shared your content
• Address customer service inquiries promptly

2. Check industry hashtags and trends.

Staying relevant means keeping up with conversations happening in your industry. Identify 3-5 relevant industry hashtags for your business and monitor them on various social media sites like Reddit, Instagram, LinkedIn, or any other assortment that may identify content gaps or unique insights.

• Look for trending topics that align with your brand
• Identify opportunities to join conversations authentically

3. Post scheduled content and real-time updates.

While planning ahead is crucial, daily posting requires attention to timing and context.

• Verify that scheduled posts are still relevant and appropriate (brand safety)
• Make last-minute adjustments if needed
• Share or retweet relevant content from industry leaders

Weekly Social Media Checklist

Weekly tasks allow you to analyze short-term trends and make tactical adjustments to your strategy that you couldn't quite draw from day-to-day management.

1. Engagement Analysis

Look beyond basic metrics to understand how your audience is interacting with your content.

• Review engagement rates across platforms
• Identify top-performing content themes
• Note which content formats (video, images, text) perform best

Pro tip: You'd be surprised at how even the time of day your team is posting can affect your engagement, try to identify patterns of high impressions by noting the traffic spikes.

2. Content Planning and Creation

Dedicate time each week to developing your content pipeline. This also includes forecasting your next week's post schedule, or amending the content calendar as you see fit.

• Create and schedule posts for the coming week
• Develop visual assets (images, graphics, videos)
• Prepare captions, hashtags, and links

3. Community Building

Proactive engagement helps expand your network and increase visibility. Use this time to find and follow new accounts relevant to your industry to better understand where your audience's attention lies.

• Engage with content from partners and industry influencers
• Identify potential collaboration opportunities
• Join relevant group discussions or Twitter chats

4. Competitor Analysis

Understanding what works for others in your space provides valuable insights. Take the opportunity to monitor competitors' posting frequency and content types while noting which of their posts generate the most engagement. 

Social Media Monthly Checklist

1. Check your analytics.

Data is every brand’s most sacred asset. It holds incredibly valuable insights about your target audience.

On social media, your data will tell you the type of content your audience enjoys, what grabs their attention, and what generates conversions.

It will also help you identify trends. In fact, when we asked social media marketers "How do you predict which social media trends are worth investing in?" The top answer was by analyzing their social media analytics.

So, which metrics are marketers reviewing? Here are the top five, according to our survey:

• Likes and comments (41%)
• Sales (41%)
• Traffic to their website (41%)
• Impressions and views (40%)
• Brand mentions and hashtags (35%)

If you have at least one month’s worth of data, you can start finding out which posts perform the best and dig into the why.

Through your analytics, you can also assess which social platforms are worth investing in. According to our survey, the top three metrics marketers look at to make this decision are:

• Impressions/views
• Sales
• Follower or subscriber count

Pro tip: Whether you’re already succeeding or struggling on social media, reviewing your data will always set you up for a better month ahead.

2. Set goals.

Once you’ve reviewed your analytics and know what went well and what can be improved, you can set your goals for next month.

For instance, say you notice that last month’s videos outperformed any other content type and generated 2,000 visits to your website. For next month, you can up the number of videos you post and set a visit goal of 3,000.

Whether it’s increasing your reach, generating more engagement, or driving more traffic to your website, setting goals will serve as your north star and allow you to schedule content that aligns with these goals.

3. Schedule next month’s content.

When you’re managing multiple social media accounts, you have to plan your content ahead of time. Otherwise, you risk under planning and not having enough content.

You’ve already set your goals for the month. So now, it’s just a matter of creating content that best aligns with them.

For instance, say you want to increase your reach and last month’s data shows that your most shared content relates to three main topics. You can then center next month’s content on these three topics.

When scheduling content, you should also consult other teams to determine if there are any events, announcements, or campaigns that you will need to share.

The earlier you have your creative assets – images, videos, copy – the easier it will be to create your content calendar.

Improve Your Social Media Content Calendar Today

Ready to put these checklists into action? Social media success comes from consistency and smart planning. Skip the overwhelm and download our free social media content calendar template — designed to help you implement what you've learned in this guide.

Editor's note: This article was originally published in June 2022 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

Let me share something I've had to explain countless times as an inclusive marketing consultant: inclusive marketing isn‘t about reinventing the wheel — it’s about making what you’re already doing work harder for you.

Think about it. When potential customers are considering your product, they're all asking the same fundamental question: “Will this work for someone like me?” This question carries even more weight for people from underrepresented communities who often face higher barriers to success.

Case studies are your perfect opportunity to answer this question with a resounding “Yes!”.

Why People Really Care About Seeing “Someone Like Them”

When people from marginalized communities don‘t see success stories featuring people like themselves, it’s not just disappointing — it‘s a red flag. And it’s not because these communities lack qualifications or talent. The real reasons are much more systemic and nuanced, involving everything from unconscious bias to lack of tailored support.

The most powerful marketing doesn't just show your product works — it shows your product works for everyone you want to serve.

Let’s walk through how to publish case studies designed to answer that fundamental question, “Will this product work for people like me?” for all the customers you want to serve, including those with identities that are underserved.

Four Steps to Create Case Studies That Convert Everyone

Creating case studies that speak to the different types of customers you want to serve requires a layered and thoughtful strategy.

1. Define your audience (without trying to be everything to everyone).

Marketing inclusively doesn’t mean your brand needs to serve every single identity that has the problem your brand solves. Rather, effective inclusive marketing requires you to choose which identities you want to welcome.

This concept is foundational to inclusive marketing and one that many of my clients are relieved to hear. Focusing your efforts on specific identities increases both your impact and effectiveness.

This episode of the Inclusion and Marketing podcast goes more in-depth on this critical point.

When thinking about your case study strategy, consider which specific identities you want to target. Another option is to try this exercise:- If someone said, “I looked at your case studies and didn't see anyone like me, so I went elsewhere”— which communities would you most hate to lose?

This step is needed for your overall marketing strategy, not just for your case studies. It allows you to focus your efforts.

For instance, online marketplace Bol made a decision that it wanted to serve neurodivergent consumers. The brand leaned into that choice by focusing on highlighting that identity in this heartwarming holiday ad.

2. Recruit authentically.

Once you know which identities you want to reach, you can begin to figure out how to incorporate them into your case studies.

It is important to acknowledge this nuance: the goal is to highlight consumers who’ve had true success with your brand. You want to present an accurate picture of the types of customers you actually have — otherwise, you'll appear tokenistic.

This video goes more in-depth about what tokenism is and why you should avoid engaging in it.

Remember, your objective with case studies is to communicate “people like me find success here” – and it is difficult for you to answer that question with a sample size of one, especially when so many other factors could be at play.

This may feel like chicken or the egg. The more diversity you have in your case studies, the more diversity you’ll have in your customer base. But how do you attract a significant number of customers to have enough to collect case studies for them? That comes from being intentional about inviting specific types of consumers to be your customers.

This episode of the Inclusion & Marketing podcast walks you through how to win people from underrepresented and underserved communities as customers. When your marketing actively focuses on attracting people with specific identities you’ve chosen to serve, you’ll have a good amount of people with those identities as your customers.

Once you have various identities within your customer base who have success stories, the next step is to focus on recruiting them for your case studies. Reach out and give them a reason to want to share about the success they’ve had with your brand.

Plantmade is a holistic hair care brand that has a broad diversity of identities in its customer base.

One of the ways the brand encourages all different types of people in their customer base to submit their testimonials highlighting their hair growth and restoration (including beards), is by offering juicy incentives:

Whether or not you decide to incentivize your existing customers for their case studies, it is still important to ensure you’re actively seeking out people to share their stories, so you can get a broader diversity of consumers to showcase how your brand has made a difference for them.

3. Format for different preferences.

Your brand may have your own style and preferred way of producing case studies, including in written, video, and audio formats. It's also helpful to build a format strategy based on which manner will be most impactful for the people you want to serve. That includes taking into consideration accessibility and other preferences they may have.

A little while ago, I listened to a video podcast case study, and for me, that format was ideal, as I often find myself getting bored with written ones and rarely finish.

Other customers may love a written case study, and loathe the thought of watching a longer video.

Play around with multimedia versions of your case study. If you can, start with video, and then that content can be re-formatted into audio and text, allowing your ideal customers to select which works best for them.

You’re not creating case studies just to create them. So it's helpful to consider the different identities you want to serve and experiment with different formats that will work for them and their specific needs and preferences.

4. Display with purpose — make it easy to find “people like me”.

Remember the fundamental question we're answering: “Do people like me find success here?” Your display strategy should make it effortless for potential customers to find those answers.

HubSpot does a good job of this. The brand has a ton of case studies from a number of customers who identify in various ways. The filter tool enables consumers to quickly and easily find a case study that is relevant to them.

Figuring out the right way to display your case studies can also be dependent on the different types of identities you want to serve.

If, for instance, you want to ensure people of a specific race, ethnicity, or gender feel seen, including photos of people with those characteristics can help people quickly identify which case studies they want to dive into.

As a Black woman, when I’m looking into products for me or even for my business, I’m often looking to see if other Black women have found success. So I’m always delighted when I see case studies from people who look like me. Landing page builder Leadpages did this with their featured case studies by leading with women, including Black women:

One other way to show identities in your case studies, especially when those identities aren’t ones that are visibly identifiable, is through the headline.

Identity-risk platform Alloy has a case study from an employee sharing her experience working there as someone who is part of the LGBTQ+ community. A consumer looking at her photo wouldn’t be able to tell her identity, so including those relevant details is helpful for someone looking for a story from a person like them.

Make Your Case Studies Work Harder for You

You’re already creating case studies to help you convert customers. Being intentional about publishing case studies that feature a broader group of identities will ensure that more consumers, particularly those from underrepresented and underserved communities, will feel like they belong and can find success with your brand.

This component of your marketing mix will prove more effective as a result, as well.

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

Email marketing isn't dead—it’s evolving. With an average ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, it remains a marketing powerhouse.

But here's the twist: making your emails more inclusive isn't just good ethics — it's good business.

As an inclusive marketing strategist who's analyzed countless marketing campaigns, I’ve noticed that brands that embrace inclusion in their email marketing ultimately attract, convert, and maintain even more subscribers. When people feel seen, they're more likely to click “buy now” instead of “unsubscribe.”

Let's explore five clever strategies that brands like Beyoncé’s Cécred and Royal Caribbean use to make their subscribers feel like VIPs.

5 Inclusive Email Marketing Strategies

1. Sprinkles Cupcakes celebrates cultural heritage.

Sprinkles Cupcakes does a fantastic job making people whose heritage is traditionally underrepresented feel seen. The brand does this by communicating about various special edition cupcakes that highlight different cultures and celebrations.

Whether it's emailing about cupcakes for Lunar New Year, Hanukkah, or other special flavors the brand has incorporated that are specific to certain communities like Cuba, Puerto Rico, or Vietnam, the variety in their offerings is a smart way to get more people to buy.

The brand speaks to cultural heritage in both their email subject lines and in the body of the email.

When I received their email about coquito cupcakes, I immediately called my husband to suggest we buy some for his Puerto Rican coworkers and neighbors. That's the magic — cultural recognition spreads beyond the target audience.

Try this yourself: Think about all the different cultures and identities represented as part of your customer base. Then brainstorm ways to infuse them organically into your email marketing cadence. It’s important to plan out your communications in advance (no one wants to read a hastily thrown together email in honor of International Women’s Day).

And if you’re featuring content or a product that celebrates a culture that isn’t your own, do embrace co-creating with people who are part of the communities you’re email content is about.

2. Royal Caribbean taps into the power of language.

When I booked a cruise for both my family and my Argentinian in-laws, Royal Caribbean impressed me by sending emails in Spanish to match my sister-in-law's passport language. Smart move for a company serving global travelers!

I thought it was cool to see the email topics are very much aligned in both English and Spanish when it comes to big brand announcements, as well:

This is a smart strategy because the people who go on cruises don’t only speak English. Since a lot of cruise customers are repeat cruisers (I've been on five), email marketing is one way the brand stays connected, introduces offers, and encourages people to book their next voyage.

As such, it is a smart approach to ensure you’re communicating with customers in their preferred language. You’ll reach a lot more people that way.

Try this yourself: Identify the most common languages spoken by your existing and desired customers. Then plan out an email marketing strategy that enables you to send them the relevant messages they need to take the next step forward with you.

Note that the emails Royal Caribbean sends are not exact translations. The headlines are similar, but they cover topic themes from different angles.

3. Beyoncé's Cécred shows diversity in action.

Beyoncé's hair care brand Cécred touts that it is a brand for all hair types. In its email marketing campaigns, it uses visual imagery, often in the form of photos that animate in a sequence, to show different hair types and the identities associated with them.

Here are three images included in the animated reel inside one email:

Representation matters. And when people are able to see photos of “people like them,” it helps to clearly and quickly answer the important question in consumers’ minds: “will this product work for someone like me?”

Try this yourself: Take note of all the different identities of the people you want to serve. Whenever you display images of people in your emails, intentionally include different identities that represent your ideal customers so people can see themselves and know that your brand is for them.

4. Tarzan Kay leans into accessibility.

Email marketing expert Tarzan Kay brilliantly includes an “Audio Version” link at the top of her emails — narrated by her, not some robotic AI voice. This makes her content accessible to people with visual impairments and those who prefer to listen rather than read.

The technical term for this is “text-to-speech,” and it is commonly used for people with visual impairments. There’s a ton of written content online, and oftentimes people with visual impairments will use screen readers to translate the text into speech.

And for the past versions of her emails that are archived on her website, there’s an audio player included directly on the page, as well.

Try this yourself: Research the tech associated with adding text-to-speech capabilities for your marketing emails, and then drop it in. Bonus points if you add a real person voicing the content, rather than AI.

5. Mindstream covers AI topics through diverse lenses.

A lot of people are interested in learning about AI these days. The Mindstream Newsletter, which was recently acquired by HubSpot, educates more than 200,000 people globally with its daily emails on a range of AI topics.

I talked with Maria Gharib, one of the principal writers of the Mindstream Newsletter. She told me that the brand has been able to attract and retain such a diverse readership because they write for them. For Mindstream, that means covering AI topics related to different:

• Geographic regions
• Disciplines — graphic designers, content writers, and students are interested in AI from different angles
• Degrees of knowledge — AI policy decisions on one end of the spectrum and how to get started with AI on another
• Pop culture and mainstream topics - Swifties will open an email featuring Taylor Swift-related AI content

Try this yourself: Map the different identities within your subscriber base and create content that speaks to their specific interests and needs.

Listen to my full conversation with Maria on this episode of the Inclusion & Marketing podcast, where we go much more in-depth with how to make your email marketing newsletters more inclusive:

Inclusion Will Make Your Email Marketing Even More Effective

Inclusive email marketing isn't just kind — it’s profitable. People from underrepresented communities tend to be more loyal to brands that actually see them, simply because so many other companies don't bother.

Choose an inclusive strategy to experiment with that makes the most sense for your brand as a starting point.

Then monitor it over time to see how it improves your subscriber base and other success measures you track for your email marketing.

A Reddit advertising strategy used to be reserved for businesses targeting men. But the tides are turning, and I think it’s time for more brands to consider advertising on Reddit.

While Reddit has always had more male users and still has an audience of 63.6% male users, Reddit’s visibility on Google has increased since its new partnership was announced in February 2024.

According to Backlinko, the increase in users on Reddit since Q4-2023 is undeniable. I predict the audiences will slowly balance as more women discover Reddit and find it’s not the male-only social media platform that people think.

If you’re still not convinced that Reddit has great potential for advertising, let me remind you that it has been one of the top ten most popular sites on the internet for some time. Reddit is undoubtedly an intriguing channel for advertising purposes.

In this article, learn what our team figured out about advertising on Reddit and whether it's worth the attempt for your own company. Plus, I’ve provided a step-by-step tutorial on how you can advertise on Reddit if you determine it’s a valuable option for your own company.

Table of Contents

• What is Reddit, and how has it changed?
• How does advertising on Reddit work?
• The Strategy Behind Reddit Advertising
• Reddit Advertising Cost
• Advertising on Reddit: Worth it?
• How to Advertise on Reddit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Reddit Ads

What is Reddit, and how has it changed?

Reddit is a social media platform with a mission “to bring community, belonging, and empowerment to everyone in the world.”

Notably, for advertisers, Reddit has communities within the platform that are called subreddits. Within subreddits, people talk about topics or special interests in detail. For example, r/pottery is home to 205,000 pottery lovers.

It’s thought that there are over 3 million subreddits on the platform, so there’s a place for everyone. The top communities are listed here.

As hinted in the intro, Reddit has grown quickly in the last year thanks to a partnership with Google. The graph from Backlinko shows considerable growth from Q4-2023 onwards. It’s not a coincidence that the Google and Reddit partnership was in Q1-2024.

Source

Reddit appears at the top of Google more than ever, making it one of Google’s most visible social media platforms. With this, more people have discovered it, hence the recent growth.

I predict that changes in Reddit’s visibility will continue to result in more users joining the platform and the user demographics changing.

How does advertising on Reddit work?

Reddit advertising works similarly to ads on other social media platforms, but what Reddit has that others don’t is highly targeted users.

The main difference is that you can promote posts within specific communities (the subreddits). You can also target broader audiences on Reddit.

Below is a detailed step-by-step guide to setting up your Reddit advertising account.

The Strategy Behind Reddit Advertising

1. Identify subreddit topics that are well-aligned with your target audience.

To investigate the benefits of advertising on Reddit, I first spoke with Josh Chang, a Senior Marketing Manager at HubSpot. He told me HubSpot’s initial strategy on Reddit involved highly targeted campaigns on specific subreddits, including r/entrepreneur and r/sales.

“The goal of the campaign,” Chang explained, “was to drive awareness and conversion for our products. In terms of results, we saw cost-per-acquisition similar to what we’ve achieved on Facebook in North America, although we did notice a lower activation rate from Reddit — suggesting lower-quality conversions.”

If you’re interested in testing out a campaign for yourself, you’ll want to start by identifying subreddits that can likely help foster genuine connections between your brand and your ideal audience.

Consider topics your target audience is most interested in and list them out. Then, narrow your list by investigating how many subscribers each subreddit topic has, whether it’s relatively active, and whether self-promotion or sharing content is allowed on the subreddit topic.

Chang told me, “One of the main things we learned was targeting subreddits specifically was much more effective than broader interest targeting. However, this strategy requires a lot of research, and getting to know which subreddits are most relevant to your audience.

“We noticed tailoring our ad creative for individual subreddits helped improve our conversion rates.”

Pro tip: When you’ve found subreddits you like, use Reddit’s filter to find hot topics within the community. You might be able to associate such topics with your ads to encourage engagement.

2. Begin engaging with your subreddit communities.

Once you’ve cultivated a list of subreddits that are likely of interest to your target audience, it’s time to start engaging with those subreddit communities.

However, it’s critical you don’t begin by promoting your own content.

To build a level of trust and authentic connection, begin by upvoting other submissions you find interesting and that align well with your brand. Next, share valuable content — but not your own. Instead, post interesting content produced by other media outlets or blogs that you believe will be useful to your subreddit community.

I think it’s vital you genuinely use the Reddit platform as an opportunity to get to know your target audience before you offer them your own content. Not only will this show your community you’re not simply joining the site to self-promote, but it will also help you tailor your content more accurately down-the-road.

Pro tip: Transparency is really important on Reddit. In my opinion, don’t try to disguise who you are. I’ve seen some businesses go into Reddit as if they were giving genuine advice but are actually advertising the company they work for.

There’s nothing wrong about vouching for your company on Reddit, but I think it should be done transparently. Redditors don’t typically love advertising!

3. Begin promoting your own content, paid or otherwise, on the subreddit platforms.

At this point, you might consider simply posting valuable content from your company that you feel will benefit your community — for free.

However, you might alternatively try spending money on a paid sponsored post, which essentially guarantees your post will be pinned to the top of the subreddit.

Here’s what a sponsored post looks like, for context:

Alternatively, you can place ads in comments, as pictured below.

In many ways, this post looks similar to all other Reddit content. However, there’s a blue “Promoted” tag in the top left, signifying it’s a paid ad.

In HubSpot’s case, we decided to test out the power of paid advertising on the site. However, it’s still critical you follow the steps listed above to cultivate authentic relationships with your subreddit communities.

Think of it this way. If I begin engaging with a brand on one of the subreddit groups I’ve joined and notice they typically post helpful content (including content from other publications), then I’m much more likely to take notice when they pay for a sponsored post. If they appear out of nowhere, I have no sense of brand awareness and probably won’t trust the advertisement.

Reddit Advertising Cost

As of right now, the minimum daily spend for an ad on Reddit is $5.

Reddit uses an auction-based model, meaning your ads compete against others. Your bid and targeting choices will affect how well your ads perform. Additionally, Reddit charges on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.

Reddit FAQ states, “Since Reddit Ads relies on real-time, live auctions to deliver ads to users, your ad group may overspend its budget by up to 20%. Changes to ad group budgets may take up to 60 minutes to take effect.”

I think this breakdown from Reddit is really helpful when it comes time to make your strategy:

Source

Advertising on Reddit: Worth it?

Reddit provides a lot of content on Reddit advertising, so you can determine if Reddit advertising is worth it for you.

I asked Chang whether he felt advertising on Reddit is a worthwhile investment, and he offered a candid response, admitting HubSpot has temporarily halted its efforts on Reddit.

“We saw promising results,” Chang told me. “But because we were targeting specific subreddits, it wasn’t crazy volume that could really move the needle. However, we have on our docket to re-test Reddit to see if we can improve performance and scalability in the future.”

I think it’s important to note, there have been success stories. For example, Taktical, a Reddit marketing agency, shares case studies resulting in 220% increase in customers for a skincare brand advertising in /r/SkinCareAddiction.

How to Advertise on Reddit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Reddit Ads

1. Make a company profile.

You’ll want to ensure you’re running advertising campaigns on your company profile, not your personal Reddit account.

Along with evoking a sense of professionalism, a company Reddit profile is necessary since users can click on your account and see other content you’ve viewed and upvoted — so you want to ensure that the content aligns well with your brand.

Additionally, when responding to comments on your ad, you’ll want to be able to respond from a company profile, not a personal one.

To set up a profile, go to https://ssl.reddit.com/login and fill out the Sign-Up form, shown below:

2. Set up an advertising account.

To start advertising on Reddit, you’ll need to set up an advertising account. To do this, go to ads.reddit.com and fill out the necessary fields.

Note: Once I created my advertising account, I was hit with a pop-up and the promise of $500 if I spent $500. Not bad for a first-timer on Reddit who may need some time to get used to the platform.

Next, you’ll meet the dashboard, as shown below:

Before you can begin advertising on Reddit, you’ll want to add your billing information. If your billing information isn’t added, Reddit will present a red banner at the top. Click the banner, and a pop-up for billing details will appear.

Important note: If multiple people on your team will be involved in advertising on Reddit, ensure you add users by managing permissions. You can find all of your account details in your business manager.

You can find “business manager” by rolling over the settings cog:

From here, you can view your business manager (pictured below) and navigate to members. Add their emails and permission level (including “Analyst,” “Creator,” and “Administrator”):

Once you’ve clicked the blue “Invite” button, your colleagues should receive an email with the next steps.

3. Find your audience on subreddits.

I think I should mention that you don’t want to spend money advertising on the homepage of Reddit. Reddit users visit the homepage to browse popular posts and trending news, so it’s too big of an audience for you to target your ideal persona.

Instead, I recommend exploring subreddits to find your ideal Reddit audience. For instance, let’s say you sell ecommerce software. To find an interested audience, then, you’ll want to explore retail-related subreddits, such as r/retail (25K members), r/AskRetail (9.4K members), or even r/retailmemes (2.1K members).

Make a list of subreddits that might fit your audience, and then spend some time perusing the content that already exists on that subreddit. Does it seem to match the content your customer would be interested in?

Additionally, does it look like the subreddit community could be filled with high-intent prospects (like a retail advice subreddit), or is it too superficial for your needs (like retail memes)?

To help you find your audience, I suggest trying a tool like RedditList to sort through various Reddit communities and find the ones of highest value for you.

4. Ensure the subreddit(s) you find have enough page views.

I think this is important enough to warrant its own section: You can’t necessarily advertise on any subreddit you want. Once you make your list of potential subreddits, you’ll need to ensure it has enough page views to be eligible for advertising.

To figure out whether a subreddit has enough page views, consider that one Reddit advertising campaign has a minimum spend of $5, and it costs $0.75 per thousand page views. Additionally, you can purchase up to three months out.

With those requirements, you’ll need roughly 6,700 page views over three months to achieve the $5 minimum spend.

To figure out how many page views you’re likely to receive on a subreddit, take a look at how many users are currently on the subreddit. For instance, you can see at 2 p.m. on a Monday that there are roughly 2,000 users on the r/marketing subreddit:

Dividing 6,700 by 90, you’ll note you need roughly 74 viewers per day on a subreddit to reach the minimum requirement — r/marketing, then, is way over the daily required page views, but there are other smaller subreddits with only 5-10 users per day, which could make it more difficult for you to reach the minimum spend. Plus, you want to choose subreddits that enable you to have the highest reach possible.

5. Set up your campaign.

Once you’ve chosen your subreddits, it’s now time to set up your campaign. In my account, I started by clicking on “Dashboard” in the top left of my screen, and then selected “Create Campaign.”

Next, you need to choose my campaign type.

6. Choose your campaign type.

Reddit gives you three options: simple create, advanced create, or import a campaign from another platform (Facebook ads, for example) — very useful, in my opinion!

For this section, you’ll need your ads creative: a video or photo, headlines, target URLs, etc. If you’ve run any ads before, like Google Ads, this interface should look very familiar. It’s similar.

After I completed the basics, I opened the toggles and narrowed down my targeting.

You’ll need to narrow down your audience — including interests, communities, and device type — your budget, and your bid (the maximum price you're willing to pay per 1,000 impressions). Additionally, you’ll need to figure out a schedule for your ad, including what time(s) of day you want it to appear and when you want your campaign to end.

As you can see from the above, I can select specific subreddits relevant to my audience that I want my ads to appear in. At the top, I can see estimates of impressions and clicks, giving me an idea of how much budget I need to run the ad successfully.

Here, you’ll create a new post or upload an existing advertisement that you might’ve designed for another platform. Feel free to take a look at Reddit’s internal advertising resources — including Reddit’s Advertising Help page — to learn best practices when designing an ad for Reddit.

Once you’re happy with the creative assets and billing details are complete, click “Publish.”

You’ll get an email once your ad is live.

7. Analyze your campaign performance to improve over time.

Once your campaign is up and running, I highly recommend tracking its performance. You can monitor within the Reddit advertising dashboard itself, as well as through third-party tools like Google Analytics. Additionally, ensure you’re taking the time to respond to any comments left on your ad.

As with any advertising campaign you run, you’ll want to use analytics on this campaign to iterate and improve for the next one.

Ultimately, I think it’s worth considering using Reddit as a platform for sharing content for the sake of helpfulness and audience engagement rather than as a cost-effective advertising strategy.

Inspired to try Reddit advertising?

I loved how intuitive the Reddit advertising dashboard is. I found the whole process very easy, and I’m not an ads specialist. The targeted communities make Reddit feel like a great place for advertising. As mentioned above, I strongly feel that Reddit will grow and audiences will diversify, providing spaces for blossoming communities.

If you’re new to advertising, don’t fret. Just start! You’ll figure it out, and HubSpot has guides to help you every step of the way.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It should come as no surprise to us marketers that short-form video was the top performing content format in 2024. As video content overtakes text-heavy content formats — whether in the form of live streams, YouTube videos, or Instagram Stories — marketers must include a plan to use in-stream video ads in their strategies.

I’m sure you know already how effective the combination of video and marketing tactics can be. In-stream ads provide the opportunity to get your brand in front of your audience when they’re already consuming content.

Using the right combination of tactics — like a strong hook, compelling message, and visually exciting creative — will increase the chances of viewers engaging with your ad. But it also helps to have the right data. Below, I want to break down the basics of using in-stream videos as well as some successful tactics marketers have experimented with.

Table of Contents

• What are in-stream ads?
• Benefits of In-Stream Video Ads
• Types of In-Stream Ads
• Best Practices for Using In-Stream Video Ads

What are in-stream ads?

An in-stream video ad is a promotion created by a brand that runs before or during a video on a streaming platform, such as YouTube. Aside from appearing in popular videos, these ads can also appear in Stories or live streams on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

To give you a visual of what an in-stream ad looks like, here's a screenshot of a Chewy Pharmacy ad that appeared during a YouTube video I recently watched:

Benefits of In-Stream Video Ads

When done right, there are a handful of perks to in-stream advertising. To find out exactly what the benefits are, I asked video marketing experts for their insights.

Ad Sequencing

According to Maria Harrison, the President and Co-Founder of Bullseye Strategy, the digital agency of record for The Corcoran Group, one benefit of in-stream video ads is that they allow ad sequencing. This is a powerful tool that allows marketers to control the order in which viewers see a series of video ads.

“This creates a cohesive narrative or story arc to engage audiences, enhancing brand recall, message retention, and user engagement,” says Harrison. “Ad sequencing can drive a deeper sense of engagement and affinity for a brand due to our ability to bring a brand to life through a relatable story for the target audience. These ads can truly allow prospective customers to envision themselves as part of the story being portrayed in the ads.”

Targeting Capabilities

Your video can be targeted to audiences similar to your brand‘s or can be placed in videos that match your ad’s keyword. With these types of targeting options, you can present your ad to viewers that match your audience's demographics or interests.

Because these viewers might have similar interests and purchasing motives as your customers, a well-targeted in-stream ad could ultimately result in a higher chance of purchases.

Attention-Grabbing

Another benefit of in-stream ads is they command attention in a way other ad formats can’t.

“In-stream ads grab attention because they’re impossible to ignore,” says Justin Belmont, CEO of digital marketing agency Prose. “They’re perfect for storytelling, brand building, and driving quick actions like clicks or signups.”

Short-Form

Another perk of in-stream ads is that these videos don't need to be incredibly long or detailed. Depending on the platform you use, you can often launch ads as short as five seconds.

While this gives marketers a limited amount of time to grab a viewer‘s attention, it also means they’ll need to produce less content than they would for a long-form marketing video.

Want to quickly create a video ad from existing content? Use Clip Creator to turn text into professional video content with just a few clicks.

Increased ROI

Aside from length and targeting capabilities, the last and most obvious perk of in-stream ads is their ROI potential.

Harrison shared with me the incredible results of an in-stream video ad holiday campaign her team created for The Corcoran Group using YouTube Video Ads and YouTube Select Reserve.

“The campaign focused on warm, inviting, and aspirational messaging, showcasing the joy of finding the perfect home during the holidays,” says Harrison. “This approach resonated strongly with the audience, driving a 198% increase in direct-to-site visitor sessions and a 48% increase in primary conversions (direct) year-over-year during the three-week campaign.”

Sounds great, right?

Although the perks above might have you ready to invest in in-stream ads, there are still a few things you'll need to research and keep in mind.

Types of In-Stream Ads

Even though in-stream ads are shorter and can be spoon-fed to your audience with ad targeting tools, your content will still need to convince those viewers to click on the ad‘s link and buy your brand’s product. That’s why it’s important to consider the type of in-stream ad that would work best for your campaign.

Here are the most common in-stream ad types:

• Skippable ads. These ads can be skipped after a few seconds.
• Non-skippable ads. These ads cannot be skipped, and the viewer is forced to watch the entirety of the ad before their chosen video continues to play.
• Bumper ads. Video ads that are six seconds or less. These cannot be skipped and are played before, during, or after a video.
• Pre-roll ads. Ads that play before video content.
• Mid-roll ads. These ads appear midway through a video, usually at natural intervals.
• Post-roll ads. Ads that play after the main video content.
• Interactive video ads. These ads have interactive elements such as polls or clickable buttons.
• Overlay ads. Ads that appear as a banner or graphic overlay at the bottom of the video content.
• Shoppable video ads. Ads with integrated e-commerce features, allowing viewers to click and purchase directly from the video. An example of this is the Chewy Pharmacy ad I shared earlier in the article.

Here’s an example of an in-stream video ad from Airbnb that’s both skippable and shoppable, as shown by the CTA buttons:

The type of ad you choose will determine your overall messaging and content. For example, if you create a skippable ad, the primary message must be delivered within the first few seconds.

“Non-skippable ads allow us more time to build the story within the ads,” says Harrison. “Though they may frustrate a user who is eager to reach their chosen content.”

Best Practices for Using In-Stream Video Ads

As I’ve laid out, there are solid pros and cons to in-stream advertising. While the cons shouldn't scare you from trying this marketing tactic, you should still keep them in mind in order to create a video that can avoid constant skips from your audience. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

One challenge is keeping viewers engaged long enough to recognize the brand and be attentive to the message.

We address this by using exciting or interesting visuals designed to grab the viewer's attention quickly. It is critical to deliver the core message within the first few seconds of the ad before they have the chance to either skip it or mentally disengage from it.

Another challenge is finding qualified audiences — in the case of The Corcoran Group, qualified home buyers. We overcome this by cross-referencing audience attributes, such as demographics, behaviors, and interests, to ensure we are targeting those most likely to take action. Additionally, we rely on constant testing and refinement, analyzing performance data to optimize creatives, messaging, and targeting for the best results.

Focus on the hook.

Based on what consumers told us, you have anywhere from one to five seconds to grab your viewer‘s attention before they zone out or skip your ad. You’ll rarely have more than 10 seconds to sway them.

“People usually skip ads if they find it boring, irrelevant, or too long,” says Gerti Mema, marketing manager at Equipment Finance Canada. “We address this by keeping the message short, immediately sharing the value the viewer can benefit from.”

So, begin your ad with an action-packed scene or concisely explain your product as quickly as possible. Don‘t take time to get to the point — even if the ad platform you’re using allows a 30-to-60-second video.

Refine your target audience.

Audiences will either skip your ad because they just don‘t want to see a commercial, or they’re bored by your content because it isn’t relevant to them or the video. This is why it's important to create ads that are hyper-targeted to your target audience and focus on a brand-related topic they value.

“One challenge of in-stream ads is finding qualified audiences — in the case of The Corcoran Group, qualified home buyers,” says Harrison. “We overcome this by cross-referencing audience attributes, such as demographics, behaviors, and interests, to ensure we are targeting those most likely to take action.”

Use examples as inspiration.

Luckily, millions of brands have already tested out in-stream advertising. While this means the pool of advertising could be competitive, it also means that there are plenty of effective ads out there that you can watch for inspiration.

In my experience as a marketer, if an ad gets me to pay attention, then I know they’re doing something right.

Next time you‘re watching a video that begins or features an in-stream ad, watch the content. Take a mental note of why you do or don’t want to skip the ad. If you're considering engaging with the ad and tapping to learn more about a product, ask yourself, “How did this content persuade me to click?”

Always test and refine your message.

Like any advertising strategy, you constantly test and analyze your in-stream video ads. Take a look at performance data and break down your creative, messaging, and targeting to optimize your ads for the best results.

“We always test different versions of the ad to see what connects best with our audience,” says Mema. “Messaging that feels personal and relatable can encourage viewers to take action and make sure to incorporate the action pages seamlessly into the ad.”

Getting the Most Out of Video Stream Ads

What I like most about in-stream video ads as a marketer is that they’re an opportunity to get in front of your audience when they’re already engaged.

To get the most out of your video stream ads, I suggest starting by figuring out which type of in-stream ad would work best for your product, message, and audience. Then, create your short ad using a strong hook and a memorable message. From there, take a look at your ad performance to understand user behavior. If you chose a skippable ad, did viewers skip right away, or did they linger for a couple of seconds? Use those insights to adjust your messaging, creativity, and hook for your future video ads.

In-stream video ads are a great way to get in front of a targeted audience and grab their attention. The next time you stop and watch a video ad that pops up before a video, I suggest jotting down what grabbed your attention. Use this as inspiration for your next in-stream ad.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

As liquor sales stagnated last year for nearly the first time in two decades, one segment of the market actually grew by a whopping 29% YoY: Pickle-flavored spirits.

If you’re like me, your first question was, “What the ever-loving fffff-?” But your second question is, “What are they doing right?”

So I sat down with the marketing director for the top-selling pickle liquor to find out how this small startup is beating the trend and outmarketing the market.

Meet the Master

Erin Quinn

Marketing Director, The Original Pickle Shot

• Fun fact: Was an extra in two different "This is SportsCenter" commercials when she worked as a stats analyst at ESPN.

• Claim to fame: Once ordered $3,000 worth of “Pickle Slut” friendship bracelets.

Lesson 1: Research your opportunities a year out.

Most people don’t think about National Pickle Day. Like, at all. But to Erin Quinn it means a lot of green. And that green is money. And also, presumably, dill.

“It was our biggest earned media impressions surge,” she says. “There are a lot of national news outlets doing National Pickle Day coverage. And from an online sales standpoint, it was definitely our biggest surge.”

But that never would have happened if Quinn hadn’t been looking down the whole length of her calendar.

“Look at the full year for what opportunities might be relevant for your brand,” she advises. Now, your brand may not be connected to any gimmicky holidays, but there will be conferences, trade shows, festivals, and fairs. The lesson remains: “Identify a few that look relevant to you. Then take a look at how those have been covered in the past by the news media.”

And it’s not just about news media, but social media, too. Quinn recommends doing social listening around the events to see which ones already have your audience catching a buzz.

Those will make the most rich opportunities for seasonal campaigns.

But this isn’t an “If you build it, they will come” kind of exercise. Which brings us to lesson two.

Lesson 2: You have to have news to be news.

“Media outlets aren’t going to cover your brand for the sake of you existing. You have to have news to get attention.”

News outlets could have just as easily reached out to Vlasic or Frito Lay for content about National Pickle Day, right? So why did they cover this small, upstart liquor brand instead? Because Quinn gave them a reason. Two, actually.

Two big, pickle-green, mid-calf, 100% genuine leather reasons.

Quinn says her team asked themselves, “Who’s an unexpected brand that we can partner with to do something cool that’s going to get people talking?”

The answer was Texas-based luxury boot company Miron Crosby. And the one-of-a-kind, pickle-themed cowboy boot sweepstakes was born.

Though that makes it sound a lot easier than it was.

“We really wanted to design a custom pair of pickle cowboy boots,” Quinn recalls. “But I was met with a fair amount of silence.”

By a stroke of luck, Miron Crosby was looking to target the same audience as The Original Pickle Shot. But luck isn’t a long term strategy, so what’s a new brand with a small audience and limited budget supposed to do?

Lesson 3: Collab with brands you can grow with.

Quinn offers two pieces of advice for how emerging brands can stretch their budget and amplify their reach.

First, “Identify brands that are complementary to yours,” she says. “Brands that have a similar presence, that are looking to grow, and you can grow together.”

Together, you can split the costs of campaigns and share each other’s audiences. She gives the example of how The Original Pickle Shot partnered with flavored-salt company Twang on a product giveaway. Quinn’s team handled the logistics, Twang donated products, and both companies shared the results with their social networks and influencers.

The second piece of advice is to consider what else you bring to a collaboration besides reach.

“We might not be able to offer a huge social following yet, but, hey, we’ll run the sweepstakes, we’ll pay all the fees, if you make a collab post.”

No matter the size, every brand needs good content. If you can provide relevant, eye-catching content, that can make you an attractive partner for a bigger brand with a wider audience.

“When you’re an emerging brand, sometimes that’s what partnerships have to look like.”

And, if you’re wondering, National Pickle Day falls on Fri., Nov. 14 this year. Govern yourselves accordingly.

Lingering Questions

Today's Question

What’s one marketing mechanism that will generate the most revenue quickly for a startup? —Jennifer Waters, Co-founder, 7 Figure Dojo; Executive sensei, Seigler's Karate Center

Today's Answer

Quinn says: I know it’s annoying to say “it depends,” but my recommendation for quick revenue growth would likely vary depending on the startup.

For example, paid social is likely to be a cost-efficient and impactful choice for a budget-friendly DTC skincare brand targeted towards Gen Z. (There’s a reason that paid social is the first and only paid media that many brands invest in!)

Promo codes, rebates, and couponing can be an important add-on to said campaign, as these tactics provide an extra incentive for conversion and you can use redemption as a KPI.

No matter the business model, my most important “do this before anything else” recommendation would be to spend time on your consumer target, positioning, and brand identity development so that you are targeting the right people in the right place with the right messaging and creative. It won’t drive revenue in the short term, but it should increase the likelihood of long-term success.

Next Week's Lingering Question

Quinn asks: What’s the most memorable advertisement (commercial, print ad, OOH, anything!) you can remember seeing, and why do you think it has stuck with you?

If you’re staring at a blank screen (we’ve all been there) trying to figure out how to develop a marketing brief, there are a few questions you can ask yourself to get to the heart of the problems and solutions your campaign will address.

Use these guiding questions alongside our free marketing brief templates to help you create a brief that has just enough information — but not too much — to get your team excited and on the same page.

Table of Contents

• The Importance of a Marketing Brief
• How to Write a Marketing Brief
• 8 Questions to Help You Write a Great Marketing Brief

The Importance of a Marketing Brief

One of the first steps in a campaign is to draw up a marketing brief — sometimes called a creative brief or campaign brief — that serves as the single source of truth on the project.

It sets forth a single vision that everybody can buy into, and more importantly, it defines the goal, the reach, and the problem the project is trying to solve. Writing a great marketing brief will give you a strong foundation for your campaign.

How to Write a Marketing Brief

The marketing brief is the starting point with which every decision and movement made on the project should align — and that means it is also a living document.

Marketing briefs help solve any misunderstandings before you get to work. This document should clarify for everyone involved — copywriters, designers, developers, marketers — all the aspects of the project, the goals, and even the timeline. If you’re working for an external client or stakeholder, your brief should confirm that you understand their problem and have a strategy for solving it.

As campaigns and projects change, requirements are added or removed, and new insights are discovered. You can update this document as the project evolves to ensure everyone remains focused on the underlying issue and knows their responsibilities.

8 Questions to Help You Write a Great Marketing Brief

The marketing brief isn’t being published online to the masses for approval, but it does need to grab your team by the heart and get them excited — and answer any questions they might have about the campaign.

It doesn’t need to include every piece of information available. It shouldn’t take you more than five minutes to understand the project, the strategy, and the goals. It should be a useful document that’s easy to scan, clear, and actionable.

I’ve got eight questions that will help guide you through your first marketing brief. Before you ask yourself these questions, you should already have a handle on your buyer or audience persona, so that you know who your target audience is. Using our creative brief templates as you sketch out your answers may also be helpful.

1. What problem are we solving, and why are we solving it? What’s the benefit?

Describe the problem your campaign needs to solve. Don’t just write down what your client or internal stakeholders say — try to go deeper and approach it from different angles so that you’re accurately capturing the full scope.

To change consumer behavior, you first have to understand what they’re doing now and what options they have that they’re (not) embracing.

Let’s use the campaign brief for HubSpot’s 2025 State of Marketing report as an example. The State of Marketing report is an annual offer, and it’s compiled based on extensive research that HubSpot conducts.

The question about what problem the offer solves is directly addressed in the Target Audience section:

We’re providing a resource to our readers and customers who are marketers trying to get an edge in an AI-driven business landscape. The report promises tools and insights — the benefits — and acknowledges the challenges of reckoning with the rapid rise of AI in marketing workflows.

2. Who are we trying to reach with this campaign?

Who is the target audience or persona? How is this consumer group solving their pain points now? What other options do they have?

You’ll see in the marketing brief above that we’ve also outlined our market (global English) and segments (small- and medium-sized businesses, mid-market, and enterprise). This ties into our value proposition of “helping millions of businesses grow better.”

We’ve also defined the roles our target audience is likely to occupy — marketing managers and directors, CMOs, and content strategists. As we craft the copy for this campaign, this will help us align with the people we want to target and who we think will get the most value from our State of Marketing report.

3. What are the deliverables for this campaign?

Print advertising? Social media? Trade shows? Billboards? TV ads? Podcasts? Talk shows? Video ads?

What communication channels will you use, and how will you use them? How do they build on and support each other? What are the best vehicles to reach your intended audience? What are the deliverables you have committed to?

Each communication channel needs a call-to-action (CTA) that helps the buyer move forward at that stage in their buying process. And that CTA should leverage the medium in which it’s delivered.

A video ad CTA will be different from a print ad CTA, which will differ from a CTA in a blog post. Mapping out the buyer’s journey, identifying their questions and concerns along the way, and understanding where they go for information will help you answer this question.

This is also a good time to think about the metrics you’ll use to measure success. Before you even begin, set SMART goals so everyone is clear on what really matters — getting results.

4. Do we anticipate any internal or external factors compromising the completion of the above deliverables? If so, how and why?

Be honest with yourself and your team, and do a SWOT analysis if you’re stuck. If you’re working with outside vendors on design, if you’re in a time crunch, or if there are complicated workflows and approval processes — these are all things that could compromise your deliverables.

This may or may not have a place in your final marketing brief, depending on its intended audience, but the question will still help guide your timeline and help you manage expectations.

5. What are our brand values? How can we use those to shape the tone of this campaign?

Your brand values — and your brand promise — underscore everything that you do. This marketing campaign is no different. If you’re finding that the campaign doesn’t speak to your brand values, take a step back and revisit those values. How can they reshape your campaign?

For instance, the talking points (see below) in the brief for HubSpot’s State of Marketing report are emblematic of our promise to “help millions of businesses grow better.” Even though they are specific to this product — like “AI is revolutionizing marketing workflows, enabling faster data analysis and smarter, personalized customer engagement” — each one has been carefully crafted to deliver on our brand promise.

6. What do we want our audience to take away from this campaign? What do we want them to feel?

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. They don’t know the product or service you’re offering as well as you do; what would it take to persuade you to take action on it? Is your messaging clear enough that every part of your campaign will evoke the feelings you want it to?

We know that there’s an emotional component to decision-making; we often rationalize decisions after we’ve made a choice. This means you need to understand the feelings you want to evoke in buyers during their decision process and after they’ve bought what you’ve sold. What are those feelings and when do they feel them?

At this point, you have enough information to develop a brief overview of your campaign. This is the top module of the campaign brief for the 2025 State of Marketing report:

7. What can you say that will make your audience believe in your message? What proof can you offer to build trust and validate your message?

Of course, spouting claims isn’t enough to make your audience believe in your product or service, and it’s certainly not going to build trust with them.

As you write your messaging, keep an eye out for hyperbolic language or rhetoric — you don’t want to make promises you can’t keep. Make sure you include proof or other foundational information that can help you build trust with your audience.

8. What is the campaign not going to cover? What messages, emotions, or features do you want to avoid?

Laying out what to avoid will help your team prevent missteps and misunderstandings. Perhaps there were features discussed early in the project that will no longer be part of the final product, or perhaps there are certain emotions that you want to be very sure you don’t evoke in your messaging.

Write Your First Marketing Brief

These eight questions will give you the foundation you need to write your first marketing brief. Download our free marketing brief templates to create a sharp-looking document that will get your team excited about the campaign — and provide a clear blueprint for everybody involved.

As a marketer, I’m no stranger to ad managers like Google Ads and Meta Ads. However, I was interested to learn that there’s a third option for ad buying: demand-side platforms (DSP).

What is a DSP, you ask? These tools are essentially an automated way to purchase and manage your online ads.

If you’re like me and are curious about what a DSP is and how it can benefit your paid ad strategy, I want to cover how these platforms work, why you should use one, and the best platforms available.

Table of Contents

• What is a DSP?
• Benefits of Using a DSP
• 7 DSP Advertising Tools

With a DSP, you can purchase mobile ads on apps, banner ads on search engines, and video ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google, and even more platforms. Instead of using both Google Ads and Facebook Ads, for instance, you can purchase those ads in one place on a DSP.

The purpose of this is to make ad buying faster, cheaper, and more efficient. Now, let's dive into how DSP platforms work and why you should use them.

How do DSPs work?

DSPs work by using programmatic advertising, which is the buying and selling of ads in real time through an automated system. With real-time bidding, ad placements are auctioned off in milliseconds.

When you get started with DSP advertising, you'll need to begin strategizing how much you want to spend. Think about what an effective cost per click and cost per action might be. This will help you set up your online ads so the platform knows how much to spend in any given auction.

The best DSP platforms will allow you to include multiple rich media ads, including video, images, and animation.

What is DSP advertising?

DSP advertising is the automated process of bidding on and buying ads through a programmatic advertising platform.

According to a study published by Statista, the US was the largest programmatic advertising market worldwide, spending an estimated $264.66 billion in 2024. Marketers are increasingly using DSPs as a way of purchasing, managing, and tracking online advertising.

Benefits of Using a DSP

To understand why marketers choose to use a DSP for their paid advertising strategy over other platforms, I spoke to Sean Edwards, the Director of Programmatic and E-Commerce Media at Exverus Media.

Seamless Ad Buying Experience

One of the main reasons for using a DSP is that it makes your digital ad experience easier and more cost-effective. You can control, track, and maximize all your digital ads in one place. This means you can manage an entire ad campaign across sites on one dashboard. For example, you can show someone an ad on Google, then show them ads on Facebook, and then across other sites they visit — all in one campaign.

“The DSP we use most often is The Trade Desk because it allows us to activate and measure media campaigns on many different channels from a single platform,” says Edwards. “This saves us and our clients time and money, while clarifying previously hard-to-see patterns in the complex customer journey.”

Access to Premium inventory

DSPs often have access to a wide range of ad inventory, including premium placements on popular websites and apps, according to Edwards. This means you can advertise on many networks, including all the major publishers. With an increased number of networks, you'll have a more global reach.

“This access allows advertisers to reach target audiences across a variety of channels with added visibility, control, and opportunity to optimize towards the most successful tactics and placements,” he says.

More Control Over the Ad Experience

Using a DSP also provides marketers with more control over the ad experience compared to traditional platforms. This is especially important when it comes to brand safety.

“Programmatic platforms offer tools to ensure ads are displayed in brand-safe environments pre- and post-bid,” says Edwards. “These parameters can help protect a brand’s reputation by avoiding ad placement on inappropriate sites or within unsuitable content. High-quality media placements yield stronger results.”

Precision Targeting

Programmatic advertising allows you to target specific audiences based on various criteria such as demographics, interests, and behavior, says Edwards.

“This precision targeting allows advertisers to reach the right people, at the right time, with the highest likelihood to complete the desired outcome, whether that’s purchase, video view, download, or subscription,” he says.

Additionally, DSPs often partner with third-party data providers, giving you better tracking and reporting capabilities than a single network usually provides. And in the planning process, the targeting options are more personalized, meaning you can get better conversion rates.

Now that you know more about DSP advertising and how it works, let's discuss the platforms that can help you do it.

When choosing a DSP to work with, I like to look at how many ad exchanges the DSP has access to because that affects how many people you can reach. I also like to consider cost, training (full-service or self-service), support, and ease of use. Here are some of the best DSP advertising tools to choose from:

1. Basis Technologies

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Best for: Large or enterprise-level companies

Basis Technologies is an omnichannel DSP built to generate better outcomes for your ad campaigns. In my opinion, one of the best features is that it uses AI machine learning to automatically analyze data from numerous campaign parameters to optimize your ads.

With this DSP, you can target hyper-local audiences across devices and multiple touchpoints. You‘ll also get access to the industry’s leading exchanges, along with 25,000+ audience segments across over 30 different data providers.

Why I like it: Basis Technologies harnesses the power of machine learning to analyze data and automate processes. I also like how automated monitoring helps ensure brand reputation and safety.

2. Google Marketing Platform

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Best for: Small to large businesses or agencies

Google Marketing Platform is Google's unified advertising and analytics platform for smarter marketing and better results. This DSP has several products for both small businesses and enterprise companies, including Campaign Manager 360 and Display & Video 360 (formerly DoubleClick).

With this product, you can save time with cross-channel ad management to maximize insights and optimize media and creative performance across all your digital campaigns.

The flexibility is the standout feature of this DSP. You can use third-party features and integrations so you can choose the capabilities that best help you manage and measure your campaigns.

Why I like it: Google’s products are designed to work together, but also give the flexibility to use third-party features and server to server integrations.

3. Knorex

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Best for: Mid-sized to large advertising agencies

Knorex is a universal advertising platform that automates personalized marketing across channels, devices, and ad formats. You can market on Google Search, CTV/OTT, DOOH, and social media all in one place.

This DSP also uses AI to learn from past data to predict and adjust ad budgets dynamically in real-time to drive higher efficiency.

Why I like it: Knorex values security, offering a variety of brand privacy and security tools out of the box.

4. Jampp

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Best for: Companies looking for a mobile DSP solution, such as gaming or fintech apps

Jampp is a DSP that leverages unique contextual and behavioral signals to deliver customers and in-app purchases through programmatic advertising.

The key features of this platform are user acquisition, app retargeting, geolocated ads, dynamic ads, and predictive bidding. What I like most about Jampp is its focus on mobile-first ads.

Why I like it: Jampp’s app retargeting helps re-engage existing customers and uses their previous behavior to predict whether or not they will convert.

5. Smadex

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Best for: Companies needing a mobile-first DSP solution

Smadex is a mobile DSP engineered for growth. The platform uses a combination of its own programmatic advertising technology, machine learning, and first-party data.

With this platform, you can reach global audiences at scale and re-engage audiences with its retargeting capabilities.

Why I like it: Smadex values security just as much as helping your brand scale. The platform is a registered member of TAG (Trustworthy Accountability Group) in the US and holds an IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) Gold Standard certification.

6. MediaMath

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Best for: Mid-sized to large agencies that want a custom solution

MediaMath is a customizable DSP that provides brands with a myriad of options for managing their campaigns. Opt to use their built-in creative tools to run ads on their server, or choose one of your own. You can even use APIs to run on top of your core foundation.

Why I like it: The customization is the platform’s greatest feature, in my opinion. MediaMath’s product is not a one-size-fits-all DSP. Brands can tailor their components to build an advertising solution that suits their needs.

7. Amazon DSP

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Best for: Ecommerce brands that want to advertise on Amazon (and Amazon-owned sites)

Amazon is one of the world's largest online retailers, so it’s no surprise that brands would want to tap into their advertising audience. Both advertisers who sell products on Amazon and those who don’t can use Amazon DSP.

They offer two options: self-service and managed service. With self-service, brands are in full control of their ad campaigns. Those who are new to programmatic advertising or need guidance are advised to use the managed option; however, that comes with a $35,000 minimum spend.

Why I like it: You don’t have to be an Amazon seller to use its DSP. Amazon DSP can greatly increase brand awareness for sellers on and off Amazon.

My Takeaways About DSPs

After researching DSPs and talking to the experts, my biggest takeaway is that they are the best way to manage all of your ad campaigns across channels in one place.

However, using DSPs is not a “set it and forget it” kind of solution. Marketers must still be involved in the bidding and targeting process to ensure they’re getting the most ROI out of the tool.

When you choose a DSP, make sure you understand how many inventory sources it accesses, which third-party data integrations it offers, and what targeting criteria are available. To successfully run programmatic ads on a DSP, you'll need to reach global audiences with personalized ads. While using a DSP simplifies paid ad management, it won’t replace customer research and having a clear idea of who your target audience is.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in February 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Running content strategy for B2B SaaS companies taught me that a digital marketing strategy for startups can’t just copy enterprise playbooks.

Content calendars, lead-scoring models, and expensive ABM campaigns? They fell apart when applied to early-stage businesses with tight budgets and small teams.

After working with several startups, I’ve seen exactly which scrappy marketing tactics drive leads and revenue — without draining time or budget. If you're scaling a startup, these are the strategies that actually work.

Table of Contents

• 10 Non-Negotiables of a Digital Marketing Strategy for Startups
• Startup Marketing Ideas
• 5 Startup Marketing Tactics to Explore

1. Use SMART goals to focus on business-critical goals upfront.

When I started helping startups with their marketing, I noticed a common pattern: many tried to do everything at once. Through trial and error, I learned that focusing on a few business-critical SMART goals works much better than spreading yourself thin. These are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.

In my work with early-stage companies, I've found these types of SMART goals particularly effective:

• Increase organic traffic to our website by 50% by 2022
• Create 10 new sales-focused blogs by Q3
• Secure five placements in online media using digital PR by X date

The purpose of SMART goals is to set businesses up for success. They provide a sense of direction and help to organize efforts.

And, while SMART goals are invaluable for any organization, they're particularly beneficial for start-ups.

Instead of trying to do everything at once, focus on the most business-critical goals, put everything you have behind them, and tackle things in a strategic way.

For instance, rather than spreading your time across several initiatives (some of which may not be important right now), focus on three or four that will lay a foundation for your activities or support your current efforts.

If you're launching a new product, for instance, focus on the development but also set goals like:

• Create 10 new blogs to build awareness of the product by X date
• Publish two new web pages to promote the new product by X date
• Secure five placements in online media using digital PR by X date

These are just some examples, but they can undoubtedly help raise the profile of your business idea without costing much — the only real expenditure is time. Instead of spreading your capabilities across several initiatives, try focusing on those that will support what you're doing right now.

The key to sustained growth is consistency and focus, and SMART goals enable you to do just that.

2. Create detailed documents to distinguish who your target buyers are.

SMART goals give your marketing efforts direction and focus, but who are you marketing to?

For your start-up's marketing efforts to bring in tangible results, those efforts need to be tailored to your ideal target audience.

Now you'll probably have a good understanding of who you want to do business with, but have you articulated that to the rest of your team or — at the very least — put together a document detailing who your buyer personas are?

It‘s here where buyer personas come in handy. Buyer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers. They’re based on market research, current data, existing customers, and a few educated assumptions.

Buyer personas help you understand the drivers, business challenges, and needs of those you want to market.

It's also important to note that buyer personas are not real people but archetypes of them.

Now that we've briefly covered buyer personas, you might be wondering, “Okay, but what makes them so valuable to my start-up?” Buyer personas allow you to refine your marketing and segment your audience(s).

You want and need quick wins during the product development and release stages, so why waste time (and money) casting the widest net possible when you can hone in on those most likely to buy from you?

Your buyer personas give you a good idea of who these people are. Use that information to build marketing and PR campaigns focusing on the right people at the right time and place of their buyer's journey.

3. Have clear, compelling messaging.

If you've ever seen a Ronseal advertisement, you're likely already familiar with the following phrase: “It does what it says on the tin.”

In an age of slick, big-budget marketing campaigns and buzzwords, it falls to you to keep your messages clear and concise.

People don‘t want platitudes or jargon. They want to understand what your product does and how it can help them solve their business challenges. In fact — and this may sound harsh — it’s not even about your business. It's about how you can help your potential customers.

With this in mind, any messaging that your startup creates (and this applies to all businesses of any size) needs to be created with the end user in mind. It needs to be simple, informative, and compelling. This will help convert the website traffic you generate into leads.

4. Create a content marketing strategy to generate leads.

You need a plan for bringing prospects to your site. Content marketing is all about producing high-quality content that answers your prospects and customers' questions, and nurturing them to a point of purchase.

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When I work with startup clients now, I always emphasize that blogs are just the beginning. Each piece needs to be optimized for long-tail keywords that your target audience actually searches for. I've seen this simple approach help numerous startups build their digital footprint without a massive marketing budget.

The content you create also helps to generate leads and demonstrate your expertise. You could, for instance, produce informative ebooks and gate them behind landing pages on your website. Visitors can then download your ebooks in exchange for their details.

With this approach, you know that those who do download your ebooks are interested in hearing from you. The ebooks you create will be particularly useful for targeting “early adopters” i.e., those who want to be updated when it comes to new tech.

Over time, as more and more content is created, your website becomes a repository for information. Providing it's all optimized for the right terms, the right people will find it time and time again.

5. Distribute the content you create.

It‘s not enough to hit "Publish" and wait for customers to show up. After all, content marketing doesn’t only work for organic search engine traffic. To get the most bang for your buck, you can repurpose the content you create, distribute it on non-search channels such as social and email, and promote it to new and existing audiences alike.

Let's take a blog post for example. If you created a listicle that outlines 10 tips, you can create a social media graphic for each of the tips and do an informational series for your followers while promoting the full article and/or a related content offer.

A social media plan like this should be part of every content marketing strategy, and every content marketing strategy should be developed with distribution in mind.

6. Run ads for short-term results.

Content marketing is a long-term play. While it can be extremely rewarding over time, you likely won‘t see immediate results. As you build your content platform, you’ll need a way to generate leads and ROI in the short term, and the best way to do that is with ads.

Ads are “pay to play,” so they're not as scalable as content marketing, but the benefit is that your ads will be shown to users shortly after you turn on the campaign.

But which ads should you go with first? Your ad strategy will determine that, but a good rule of thumb is this:

• Google Search Ads — Best when people are already aware of the product/service you sell and search Google to find the right provider/vendor.
• Social Ads — Because people don't go on social media specifically to shop, these are best when people are unaware of the product/service, and you can catch their attention in a fun/visual way. Also good for finding niche audiences.
• Display Ads — Best for brand awareness and re-targeting.

7. Implement a digital PR strategy to increase buzz around your brand.

Now if you want to get the most out of everything you do — particularly from a content creation perspective — why not amplify it with digital PR?

Digital PR effectively takes everything good about traditional PR — like press coverage, events, outreach, and thought leadership content — and does the same for the online space. Suddenly, the assets you've created for your marketing activity can be retrofitted to suit PR purposes.

In fact, digital PR goes one step further: the agency you work with will do its utmost to earn backlinks back to your website (editors and publications are notoriously difficult when it comes to keeping links in content). Subsequently, those reading your content via online publications can actually find your business, and the content itself is already optimized for search because you've done it already.

All-in-all, digital PR will help to increase your startup's visibility both online and offline, helping you to get featured in key trade media relating to what you do and cause a positive stir in your industry.

8. Measure and improve customer lifetime value (CLV).

Because it‘s easier and less costly to retain or re-sell to existing customers than acquire new ones, it’s critical for startups to intentionally track CLV and improve on it by:

• Enhancing the customer experience and eliminating friction
• Tracking customer satisfaction and working to improve retention
• Creating a strategy for upselling and cross-selling

9. Establish and cultivate your reputation.

97% of customers read online reviews for local businesses in 2025 (Bright Local). The internet allows customers to be more informed than ever during the buying process. A poor reputation can therefore hurt your marketing and sales efforts while a good reputation may help seal the deal.

With this in mind, you should do what you can to make a positive impression:

• Ask customers for feedback and take action on it.
• Ask for testimonials when you've exceeded expectations.
• Cultivate other types of social proof, such as case studies.
• Respond to online reviews professionally.

10. Build a referral engine.

Despite all the digital marketing strategies and tactics out there, word of mouth is still powerful.

This is especially true for those who intentionally improve the customer experience.

Referrals often happen organically, but a referral marketing strategy can help you generate them faster. For example, you can:

• Identify promoters and ask them if they know anyone who would benefit from your product/service.
• Incentivize customers to refer their friends through a referral program.
• Leverage user-generated content.
• Build campaigns that are mutually beneficial or champion a cause your customers support.

Startup Marketing Ideas

The above strategies can give you a high-level sense of where to go, but executing them is a different story. To get a sense of how a marketing strategy can produce success for your startup, we're going to lay out some ideas. These ideas are from real startups and will help you visualize how a successful strategy can be helpful for your own marketing goals.

1. Use paid ads to build a community.

Workwize is a B2B company that helps businesses manage hybrid workplace solutions and office resources. They use targeted paid LinkedIn ads to connect with office managers, HR leaders, and operations teams struggling with hybrid work challenges.

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Their LinkedIn ad campaigns focus on relatable pain points like recovering IT devices.

A similar B2B startup strategy could involve making use of a social media platform's paid ads offerings to cater to your audience. Alternatively, you can upload offers for free and use hashtags to get them seen by more prospective customers, like #B2BMarketing or #MarTech.

2. Try social media to connect with customers.

When I advise startups on social media strategy, I always emphasize that you don‘t need a big budget to make an impact. I’ve seen companies build engaged communities simply by sharing authentic content and encouraging user participation.

Take Paperless Parts, for example, a manufacturing company with a stellar Facebook page:

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Creating a Facebook Business page and optimizing it is free so leads and customers can find it. The Paperless Parts feed begins with recommendations and reviews from happy customers, showing that the business has a dedicated customer user base.

After that, the business posts videos that go behind the scenes of the manufacturing process and also posts reminders for webinars and other website content.

A social media page for a startup that showcases customers, provides helpful content, and encourages audience participation is a free strategy to expand reach, bring clicks to your website, and show credibility in the industry.

3. Crowdfunding marketing, which can generate press.

Are you thinking about starting a crowdfunding campaign? If you do, you could earn great press from publications, expanding your campaign's reach. Take Exploding Kittens, for example, which started as a simple card game with quirky artwork and a playful concept.

When the creators launched their Kickstarter campaign in 2015, they set a modest goal of $10,000. The campaign went viral, raising $8.7 million from over 219,000 backers, making it the most-backed game project in Kickstarter's history at the time.

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This massive success caught the attention of major media outlets, generating widespread press coverage and building a dedicated fan base before the product even launched.

Even if you have just a few customers, you can use your crowdfunding campaign as a marketing tactic to get more people interested in your business.

4. Host a virtual meetup instead of a conference.

The development platform, GitLab, hosts in-person and virtual meetups to provide developers a platform to share ideas.

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This idea is a cool, low-cost way to expand your professional network and provide valuable content for customers without hosting a conference.

5. Use user-generated content to tell your story.

Startups don't usually have the revenue to produce big-budget social media campaigns. For travel agency Wander Women Retreats, their marketing team found that the best way to tell their story is on Instagram.

The business page is filled with clients enjoying their destination vacations, booked using the service:

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A marketing campaign that includes user-generated content is an easy, free way to work in testimonials. You can use your social media channels to execute the campaign and include hashtags for the chance to appear in more feeds.

When thinking about campaign ideas, you might not have to look that far. You might be able to turn some of the tools you already have at your disposal to boost your campaign messages. Is there a webinar you can host about a topic or a content offer you think will resonate particularly well with your LinkedIn audience?

6. Create SEO-optimized content to attract high-intent visitors.

SEO is another free, cost-effective strategy startup marketers can use to spread the word about their business.

But here's the caveat: This one takes the longest of all the strategies mentioned.

While it‘s not incredibly time-consuming, it does require consistent effort. I’ve watched startups boost their lead generation through SEO, but it took months of methodical optimization to get there.

At this point, SEO won't net you leads or opportunities immediately, but it will lay the foundation for consistent success in the months and years to come. In fact, for 88% of consumers, search engines are the best way to get information.

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You use SEO to optimize your web pages (and content) for keyword terms you know prospects use to find products or services like yours.

Better yet, you identify long-tail keyword terms with low to medium competition and high search volume relevant to your product or service and use those instead.

Your main service pages will, of course, be competing with other businesses in your space on many similar terms, but you can use the content you create to link to these pages, bolstering their SEO value over time and increasing their ranking on SERP results pages.

Updating and optimizing your website will ensure it continues to grow and attract interested prospects for the long term, so it‘s an opportunity you don’t want to miss.

7. Implement a referral program.

One of the most powerful strategies I've discovered while working with startups is referral marketing. When my clients ask me how to get more customers with a limited budget, I always point them toward building a strong referral program.

Task management app Todoist, for example, has a Partner Program.

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Here‘s what I’ve seen work consistently:

• Collect social proof through customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies that demonstrate your track record of solving real problems
• Incentivize referrals by offering existing customers discounts or free product trials in exchange for their advocacy
• Give free access to tech journalists and industry influencers who can review your product and generate press coverage
• Feature customer reviews prominently across your website to build trust with potential buyers

Make sure to strategically place these testimonials and reviews where potential customers will see them during their decision-making process. They help build trust and authenticity in a way that your own marketing messages can't match.

8. Offer a free or trial version of your product.

One of the best ways to get your startup out there is to offer some kind of version of your product/service for free — and it's worked for many businesses already.

Canva, Dropbox, Zapier, and HubSpot are all high-profile tech companies offering a free/trial version of their product or service to let people try before buying (or upgrading).

As people use them and realize how great these products are, they feel compelled to buy the full, “unlimited” version for all the bells and whistles. Great, right?

But getting people to use your product — and inherently talking about how good it is as a result — is all about lowering the customer's acquisition costs.

What many businesses do with a freemium model is offer current trial users a discount on the full price of the software. This is significantly more appealing than paying the full price and can potentially convert more leads into paying customers very, very quickly.

Also, for those who don't convert to paying customers with this offer, it enables you to understand what features or parts of your service are lacking. You can:

• Ask for feedback from trial users who didn't convert to understand the pain points.
• Make targeted changes based on user feedback and behavior patterns.
• Roll out improvements strategically to test their impact on conversion.
• Track which features drive the most upgrades to inform product development.

For maximum effect, cross-reference what you offer against the main issues your buyer personas have in relation to technology like yours. Consider adding features to your product/service to address these problems (where possible). Maybe produce a roadmap and show people what they'll be getting. Transparency is a great way to increase users.

Lastly, bear in mind that this approach does come with the risk that people might not want to upgrade to the full version. That said, be as clear as you can with what users can get from the full version and highlight how valuable it can be for them. Keep your coolest features under wraps!

5 Startup Marketing Tactics to Explore in 2025

Marketing trends come and go, but 2025 is showing us which tactics drive results for early-stage companies.

These five approaches are gaining significant traction because they focus on efficient growth, helping startups build momentum without requiring massive budgets or large teams.

Build a niche community.

I‘m part of several thriving startup tool communities, and Buffer’s Discord channel stands out as a prime example. They've created a space where users share social media strategies, troubleshoot problems, and connect with other marketers.

Source

What makes these communities work isn‘t size — it’s relevance. On Slack, Reddit, or Discord, the most engaging groups focus on solving specific problems. Product Hunt runs a focused Slack community for makers, while Notion's Reddit community shares templates and workflows that help users get more value from the tool.

Choose the right platform for your audience. Slack works well for professional communities that need real-time interaction, while Reddit is better for long-form discussions and knowledge sharing.

Pro tip: Start your community with just 10-20 highly engaged members. Give them exclusive access to your product updates and make them feel like true insiders. These early members will set the tone and help attract others.

Use generative AI to speed up your workflow.

Generative AI can help startups punch above their weight class when it comes to content production and research. I use it to brainstorm content angles, summarize market research, and turn long-form content into social posts.

But there's a catch: AI works best as a strategic assistant, not a replacement for human insight.

I use AI to create a custom research workflow. Experimenting with different tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity helped me pinpoint the strengths of each and create a system that improves my writing. You can also use tools like HubSpot's Breeze platform for an AI assistant that supports your entire customer platform.

Use AI to suggest multiple headline variations. Identify repetitive tasks where AI can save you time while you focus on strategy and maintaining your brand's unique voice.

Pro tip: Create a “prompt library” in a simple doc where you save your most effective AI prompts. Group them by task type (research, headlines, content repurposing) so you can quickly reuse what works.

Build a personal brand on LinkedIn or Instagram.

I watch founders get this wrong all the time; they hide behind their company logo instead of showing up as themselves. Yet some of my favorite startup tools caught my attention because I followed their founders' journeys on LinkedIn or Instagram first.

Take Marie Martens from the form tool Tally. Her open posts about building in public and sharing revenue numbers built an audience — before the product took off.

Building your brand doesn‘t mean becoming an influencer. Share your authentic building journey, what you’re learning, and the problems you‘re solving. Use HubSpot’s Social Media Management tool to schedule and track engagement on your posts.

When you do this consistently, you create momentum for your product.

Pro tip: Block 30 minutes every Monday to batch-write three personal posts about your startup journey. Focus on specific lessons learned rather than generic advice — share the exact process, numbers, or tools that moved the needle.

Create short-form video content that converts.

I've been putting off creating short-form video content because I thought I needed fancy equipment and editing skills. Every time I open TikTok or LinkedIn, I see competitors getting massive engagement with simple videos shot on their phones.

I‘m finally planning to experiment with video this quarter, starting small with 60-second tutorials and behind-the-scenes glimpses of my work process. I plan to use HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics to track which social channels drive the most engagement and conversions from my videos.

My research into successful B2B videos shows three principles worth following: Keep videos under 90 seconds, open with the main takeaway, and include a clear next step for viewers.

While I can‘t share personal results yet, I’m convinced enough by other founders' success stories to make video a priority. Sometimes, we have to push past our comfort zone to find marketing channels that work.

Pro tip: Record your first 10 videos without posting them. This practice helps you find your natural style and confidence before going live. Plus, you'll have a content bank ready when you start posting consistently.

Use no-code tools to validate marketing experiments

I used to wait weeks for developer resources before testing new marketing ideas. But, after discovering no-code tools, I'm able to validate concepts in hours instead of months.

Last month, I wanted to test if my audience would sign up for a weekly newsletter about startup marketing metrics. Instead of building a full landing page, I used HubSpot's Landing Page Builder to create a simple signup form in 30 minutes.

After driving some traffic to it with LinkedIn posts, I learned that open rates for “marketing metrics” resonated more than “growth tips” — a valuable insight before I invested in a full content strategy.

My go-to stack for quick marketing tests includes Webflow for landing pages, Zapier for connecting tools, and Airtable for tracking results.

The best part? Most of these tools have free plans that are perfect for early validation. When an experiment works, I can either keep using the no-code version or build a more robust solution.

Pro tip: Before building anything, create a simple spreadsheet with three columns: “Assumption to Test,” “Success Metric,” and “Minimum Viable Test.” This framework prevents overbuilding and keeps experiments focused.

The Best Strategies Use a Combination of Ideas and Tactics

If you want to get the best possible results when it comes to marketing, you need to focus on what works.

I’ve learned that while there are loads of different ways to achieve your goals, it’s always better to focus on the most high-impact and cost-effective, and as a startup owner — I'm willing to bet you already know how important that is.

The best strategies use a combination of what I've mentioned above and then analyze their performance to determine which ones require more or less investment. No matter what you do, remember that your marketing activities are only as good as your goals and targeting.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

From short-form videos to SEO to influencer marketing, today's marketers have more marketing channels to choose from than ever before.

When it comes to identifying which channels to focus on, it all comes down to your specific company, product, and target market. But I know firsthand how helpful it is to see how your fellow marketers are navigating the evolving landscape.

That’s why I’m excited that the HubSpot team surveyed over 1,700 B2B and B2C marketers to explore the most used marketing channels.

Below, I’ll share the top marketing channels identified in that survey. I’ll also discuss how these channels can help amplify your reach and how real marketers are planning to implement them into their 2025 strategies.

Table of Contents

• Top B2B Marketing Channels
• Top B2C Marketing Channels
• Social Media Marketing
• Video Marketing
• Influencer Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Podcast Marketing
• My Takeaways on the Top Marketing Channels

Top B2B Marketing Channels

Before I dive into the channels marketers are focusing on, I want to highlight who they’re marketing to.

Over 70% of B2B and B2C marketers plan to target Millennials in 2025, followed by Gen Z at over 30%. Meanwhile, marketers’ interest in reaching Gen X and Baby Boomer audiences is down 30%.

When it comes to how marketers plan to reach these decision-makers, our survey found that the channels seeing increased investment in 2025 are:

• Brand awareness.
• Website/blog/SEO.
• Paid social media content.
• Organic social media content.
• Video marketing.

Of marketers, 92% plan to maintain or increase investments in brand awareness in 2025, making it the top marketing channel across the board. Additionally, 13% of marketers plan to invest in brand awareness for the first time in 2025.

Brand-led marketing campaigns are becoming a top priority as consumers seek authenticity. Marketers plan to use brand-led campaigns to communicate their brand values, such as social responsibility.

I’m not surprised by this response, given that 65% of marketers reported that addressing social issues in marketing campaigns in 2024 was effective for their brand.

The top B2B marketing channels that resulted in the best ROI in 2024 were:

• Website, blog, and SEO.
• Paid social media content.
• Social media shopping tools.

In my opinion, one of the most interesting findings from the HubSpot survey is that both B2B and B2C marketers are leveraging visual content over text-heavy content.

As a B2B marketer and writer, I’m personally drawn to text content like blog posts. But I can’t deny the impact of visual storytelling. Attention these days is limited, so it makes sense for both business-facing and consumer-facing businesses to use strong visuals to grab their audience’s attention.

The content formats that B2B marketers are using most are short-form video (30%) and images (29%), followed by interviews (24%) and blog posts (23%).

With increasing content needs, especially on the visual side, marketers are turning to AI tools to help them generate more content. One in four marketers plan to leverage using AI to turn text into multimedia campaigns.

Moreover, the survey found that there’s still a learning curve that comes with AI for B2B and B2C marketers alike. Marketers are reporting that they feel overwhelmed by the idea of incorporating AI into their marketing strategies and workflows, with less than half saying they have a clear understanding of how to use AI in their marketing strategy.

When it comes to social media channels, the data shows that LinkedIn is a more important platform for B2B brands than B2C, with B2B marketers substantially more likely to report investing in this platform.

Finally, the top marketing strategies that B2B marketers are turning to in 2025 are:

• Using AI to turn text into multimedia campaigns.
• Using AI-powered reporting tools to evaluate the ROI of campaigns.
• Automating marketing strategy and execution with AI.
• Creating content that reflects your brand’s values.
• Personality-led content, creators, and authentic engagement.

Top B2C Marketing Channels

Many B2C marketers use platforms similar to their B2B counterparts but with a few key differences. For B2C brands, the top marketing channels with the best ROI in 2024 were:

• Email marketing
• Paid social media content
• Content marketing

Like B2B, the top content format for B2C marketing was short-form video. Of B2C marketers, 30% say they use short-form video as part of their content strategy. Compared to B2B marketers, B2C marketers incorporated more user-generated content (UGC) and live streaming in their content.

B2C marketers are also prioritizing authenticity in their marketing in 2025 and will likely use social media channels to do so.

HubSpot’s survey offered further support for the importance of social media, finding that B2C brands are planning to invest in Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok in 2025.

Finally, the top B2C marketing strategies for 2025 are:

• User-generated content.
• Creating content that reflects your brand’s values.
• Leveraging AI to turn text into multimedia campaigns.
• Using social media DMs (direct messages) for customer service.
• Using AI-powered reporting tools to evaluate the ROI of campaigns.

Social Media Marketing

In 2025, I expect to see the rise of visual social media content driven by compelling storytelling.

The HubSpot survey found that consumers are looking for even more authenticity than ever before, and I think marketers will meet that expectation with brand-led social content and increased partnerships with content creators.

In fact, marketing leaders are prioritizing hiring for social media, creative, and content roles in 2025.

The top marketing role that leaders are making a recruiting priority in 2025 is a social media coordinator. Other top-priority roles include a content creator and social media strategist.

According to HubSpot’s survey of marketing professionals, the top performing content format in 2024 was short-form video. This points to the impact of social media — one that will continue to grow in 2025.

The top social channels for 2025 are YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. These channels make sense to me given that they all offer opportunities for short-form video.

Video Marketing

Now is the time if you’ve yet to invest in video marketing.

Across industries and markets, I’ve found that video can be a great way to boost conversions, improve ROI, reach new audiences, and help you build relationships with current customers.

That may be why marketers report that video is the top media format they leverage today.

That being said, there are a lot of different kinds of videos. Regarding marketing, short-form content takes the cake for both B2B and B2C marketers.

21% of marketers say that short-form video delivers the highest ROI compared to other visual content formats.

Interestingly, the marketing channels seeing increased investment in 2025 are YouTube (30%), followed by Instagram (29%), and TikTok (28%). All three channels allow marketers to exercise their short-form video skills, so it makes sense that they’re focusing their time and resources there in the year to come.

I was curious why marketers believe short-form video is effective, and Jay Kallman, Founder of Revvy Marketing, describes it like this:

“Let’s be honest, attention spans are short, and consumers respond to the kind of stimulus that feels personal and relatable,” she says. “People want to feel seen and understood, and short-form video is engaging, real, and proven to work.”

Going into 2025, Kallman plans to lean further into short-form video to build awareness, trust, and authentic connections.

“You’ll see us showing up on platforms like LinkedIn in ways that feel approachable and real,” she says. “We’re also encouraging our clients to ditch overly polished videos — consumers don’t need ‘perfect,’ they need authentic.”

Influencer Marketing

Both B2B and B2C marketers found success with influencer marketing in 2024, telling me that this will continue to be a top marketing channel in 2025.

Marketers report seeing the highest ROI from influencers on the following social channels:

• Facebook (28%).
• Instagram (22%).
• YouTube (12%).

As far as spending goes, brands spent anywhere from 50-74% of their marketing budget on influencers or content creators.

Our survey also found that marketers found the most success with micro-influencers — those with audiences in the range of 10K-100K followers.

In my experience, micro and even nano influencers have the most impact on their audiences. Niche influencers and content creators have built a lot of trust within their tight-knit community, so any brand they partner with automatically gains more credibility.

This is especially important as research has shown that consumers today gravitate towards authenticity. This means they tend to shy away from traditional lead-generating content, instead turning to influencers for product recommendations.

I asked Nicole Ponce Sanchez, Influencer Marketing Team Lead at Semrush, how influencer marketing is affecting the B2B space.

“The Martech influencer space is changing, and the reality of the landscape is that both consumers and brands are getting smarter,” she says. “Brands are now looking for influencers who create engaging, meaningful content that drives real results — not just entertainment for the sake of it.”

She adds, “In 2025, marketers will focus on authentic storytelling and building communities. We’re seeing a big rise in nano-influencers, which makes sense as they’re often more affordable and have deeper connections with their audiences.”

Kallman offered a similar sentiment when I asked about using influencer marketing as a channel:

“For 2025, I’d say lean into niche and local influencers who align with your brand values,” she says. “They can help build trust, foster connections, and expose your brand to the right people. At the end of the day, trust is going to be what wins in 2025, and micro-influencers are the perfect bridge to get there.”

Search Engine Optimization

Another critical component of any modern marketer’s strategy is Search Engine Optimization or SEO marketing.

If you successfully optimize your web content, it will position your brand as an authority in your domain, ultimately helping you increase organic traffic and your conversion rate.

It’s important to note that SEO isn’t just about your website. All of your web content needs to be search engine optimized.

That includes your YouTube channels, Google business profile, and podcast episodes, which should be optimized using target keywords.

And I’ll go ahead and point out what you’re probably thinking: yes, AI is changing the way people search for content online — but it’s not yet a bad thing for marketers.

Nearly half of both B2B and B2C marketers report their web traffic has increased as a result of consumers using AI for search.

Additionally, HubSpot’s survey found that 15% of marketers are increasing their investment in SEO in 2025, and 19% plan to build an SEO strategy for generative AI in search.

Case in point: Ksenia Busheva, Co-Founder and CMO at Pronounce AI, shared with me that in 2025, her team plans on investing in creating high-quality website and blog content to drive organic traffic — a strategy that’s proven to work well for the startup.

“In 2025, our organic traffic strategy is becoming even more interesting,” says Busheva. “Now, we’re not just competing with other websites for Google search rankings, but we also need to optimize for AI search results.”

She adds, “We’re optimizing our website and blog for the Bing search engine, as this can help us appear as a source on ChatGPT. To effectively rank in AI search results, we’re updating old articles, implementing better data markups, and adding FAQ/QA blocks. The SEO game is changing, and now is a great time to implement new strategies.”

Podcast Marketing

In 2024, podcast listening reached an all-time high. Research by Edison found that 100 million Americans listen to podcasts weekly.

Audio content is in high demand, so for many brands, podcasts can be a great platform to reach larger audiences.

The HubSpot survey found that 91% of marketers plan to maintain or increase their investments in podcasts and audio content in 2025.

It’s easy to see the appeal of podcasts, especially for a business. Podcast hosts help demonstrate the human side of your business while also serving as brand-specific influencers.

In addition, because people can listen to podcasts passively while doing other things, this can be an excellent channel for reaching people during their morning commutes, walking their dogs, or cleaning the house.

Featured Resource: How To Start a Podcast For Your Business

Podcasts can also be compelling because the human brain is programmed to crave, seek out, and respond to a well-crafted story.

The audio medium can be an excellent opportunity to tell a compelling story, capturing your audience’s attention while making your brand more personable.

My Takeaways on the Top Marketing Channels

Based on what worked for marketers in 2024, I expect the 2025 trends to build naturally on those strategies.

The more consumers are exposed to marketing, the less they trust it. It makes sense to me why authenticity has been becoming more of a priority in recent years. In 2025, I think authentic, creator content will drive marketing strategies across B2B and B2C industries.

Another takeaway is that visual content is here to stay. Short-form videos exploded in 2024, with TikTok and Reels leading the way and YouTube Shorts falling close behind.

There’s no shortage of video content, which means marketers must now focus on getting attention from their audience. In my experience, this is no small feat. But with the help of influencers, a strong brand POV, and the use of AI tools, marketers can find success.

Different marketing channels come with different benefits, but most businesses can find a way to use different channels in their marketing strategies to meet their unique business goals.

Using a range of different marketing channels can be a great way to create those multiple points of contact, nurture your leads over time, increase conversions, and help you achieve your marketing goals.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

With new AI tools, integrations, and use cases coming out almost daily, I know it can be overwhelming to keep up with how AI is changing business.

Take DeepSeek R1, for example. Created by Chinese company DeepSeek, the AI model turned the world on its head when it was first launched in January 2025. It disrupted the entire AI industry, helping researchers and marketers to do research, brainstorm, and generate content very quickly and at no cost.

Most professionals believe AI innovations will be comparable to the industrial revolution. So, if you’re wondering exactly how AI is changing business, then you’ve come to the right place.

At its core, I think the advent of AI means one big thing for the future of business: marketing, sales, and service professionals now have more time to work on complex, higher-impact work while AI takes care of mundane tasks.

Here are a few ways AI’s already changing the workplace and what we can look forward to, according to our State of AI survey of 1,350 U.S. professionals.

Table of Contents

• How AI Is Used in Business Today
• How AI Will Impact Business in the Future
• The Potential Dangers of AI in Business

How AI Is Used in Business Today

1. Marketing

Marketers across different organizations are leveraging AI to enhance their ability to target and effectively grab the attention of their audiences. Nearly 75% of marketers use AI to perform their day-to-day roles, and over 68% of marketing leaders who invested in AI report seeing a positive ROI, according to our recent State of AI in Marketing report.

Research by Meta also reveals that campaigns that use AI-powered tools have an average click-through rate 11% higher and a conversion rate 7.6% higher compared to those not using AI.

Example of AI in Marketing

I think a great example is how multinational beverage company Coca-Cola used AI to create the “Masterpiece ad” in 2023. Although the company collaborated with some contemporary artists — like Wonderbuhle, Aket, F. Ramadan, S. Tejada, and V. Kushwah — and used some live action shots in the video, its use of AI-powered image generation and motion synthesis played a key role in creating fluid transitions between the painting and the real world.

The result? A video that sparked global conversations and drove engagement, highlighting how forward-thinking brands can stay relevant in a digital space that is fast evolving by using AI to push the boundaries of creativity.

Pro tip: If you’re looking to start leveraging AI in your marketing strategies and are unsure of where or how to start, check out HubSpot’s AI Sales and Marketing tools to help improve your team’s performance.

2. Analytics

One of AI’s biggest selling points is its ability to comb through vast amounts of data and provide insights relevant to your needs. It’s like it promises to find the proverbial needle in the haystack in 30 seconds flat. This makes it possible for companies to consider big data in real time and provide predictions that can inform decisions.

AI-powered analytics are transforming industries across the board. From retail to finance, banking and more, all kinds of businesses are now using AI to analyze the behaviors of their customers and what drives those behaviors. And that helps these businesses to create more tailored solutions that effectively serve customer needs.

Examples of AI Analytics

Did you know 80% of what we watch on Netflix are suggestions provided based on its analysis of individual watch history?

According to Netflix, this highly personalized recommendation engine saves the streaming company from losing at least $1 billion every year. The model continuously learns from user behavior, watch history, and engagement patterns, refining its recommendations to keep subscribers hooked.

But Netflix isn’t alone.

I love how Marks & Spencer (M&S) has implemented AI technology to enhance its online shopping experience by offering personalized style advice. Customers could complete a quiz detailing their size and style preferences, and the AI system, combined with insights from in-house stylists, provided tailored outfit suggestions.

This initiative led to significant engagement, with 450,000 shoppers using the feature. In addition, M&S further increased automation of product descriptions to 80%, aiming to boost its digital fashion sales to 50% by 2028, up from one-third at the time.

Pro tip: To maximize AI-driven analytics, focus on clean and structured data — even the most advanced AI models need high-quality inputs to deliver valuable insights.

3. Operations

Operations form the backbone of any business, and AI is proving to be a game-changer in this domain by automating repetitive tasks and optimizing complex processes. In manufacturing, for example, AI-powered robotic process automation (RPA) handles tasks like assembly, quality control, and inventory management.

In fact, installations of industrial robots were at an all time high (the second highest in history) as of 2023, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

Beyond retail and manufacturing, AI-driven process automation is helping businesses optimize scheduling, streamline logistics, and improve operational resilience — allowing companies to do more with less.

Example of AI in Operations

I think Walmart’s AI-and-machine learning-driven inventory management systems is a brilliant use case of AI operations. It focuses on demand forecasting, reducing understock and overstock situations by at least 35%. That is millions of dollars saved every year!

Pro tip: AI works best in operations when paired with human oversight. The key is to automate the repetitive while keeping decision-making in human hands.

4. Customer Service and Support

And then there’s the belle of the ball — the customers and how they are supported throughout their journey. Customers want faster and more personalized service, and integrating AI always gets this job done.

Our State of Service report found that:

• 84% of customer support reps see AI as an instrumental tool for interacting with modern customers.
• 92% say that AI has improved their customer service response times.
• 77% believe that AI will handle most ticket resolutions by 2025.

Beyond chatbots, AI-powered sentiment analysis also allows businesses to detect customer frustrations in real time, prompting human agents to step in when necessary. This hybrid model — where AI handles the routine while humans focus on complex cases — ensures efficiency without losing the human touch.

As previously mentioned, AI moves customer service from the rote, tiring processes to the creative problem-solving customers will appreciate more.

Example of AI in Customer Support

One of AI’s biggest strengths that companies love is the ability to deliver personalized experience. Amazon decided to introduce algorithms in purchase recommendations and saw customer loyalty rise by 5%, boosting profits by at least 25% and as high as 95%.

By analyzing user behavior, AI tailors product recommendations to individual preferences, enhancing the customer experience and driving sales.

How AI Will Impact Business in the Future

1. AI will enable you to obsess over your customers.

While most businesses recognize the value of effective customer relationships, not many have been able to tap into the customer data within their business architecture to actually build the solutions that their customers are looking for. According to a report by PwC, only 38% of U.S. consumers say the employees they interact with understand their needs.

But AI is now stepping in to help business leaders combat the crisis of disconnection they face when it comes to really understanding customer needs. In 2023, our research found a whopping 63% of business professionals feel AI already helps their employees understand their customers better.

Today, much hasn’t changed, with another report in 2024 showing that 77% of customer experience teams already use AI with great results — including improved customer service response time, improved customer satisfaction (CSAT), and lower spend on customer service.

It’s not hard to see why this is the case, especially when you consider that AI can help you pull data from disparate sources into one single source of truth and glean unique insights about your customers that you otherwise might have missed.

But most importantly, in my opinion, it gives you the time to obsess over your customers again.

It gives your sales team time to genuinely connect with customers and work with them to identify how your products can solve for their unique needs. It gives your support team the ability to focus on complex customer challenges rather than being bogged down by tickets that could be answered by a chatbot.

AI also gives your leaders the insights they need to make more high-impact, powerful decisions that align with what matters most to your customers.

2. AI will automate data analysis for better decision-making.

One of the most time-consuming aspects of any leader’s job is wrangling the right data. It can take hours for a business leader, analyst, or marketer to analyze customer data and uncover meaningful insights, leaving less time to actually use it to make critical decisions. Not to mention, a manual data analysis process is inherently prone to human error.

Fortunately, predictive analytics — which uses machine learning algorithms, data mining, and statistical techniques to analyze large amounts of data and make powerful predictions about future trends or behaviors — can help streamline and supercharge your analytics processes.

One of the major predictions at the 2024 Dubai Future Forum was that we would see the first AI board member of a Fortune 500 company, with Khalfan Belhoul, CEO of the Dubai Future Foundation, telling me in an interview that AI could supercharge decisions in the C-Suite.

There are three main benefits to leveraging AI for data analysis and decision-making:

• AI algorithms can discover patterns that might not be obvious to humans.
• AI can learn from your data and improve its predictions over time.
• You don’t have to do it yourself.

In my view, smarter data ultimately means a more personalized customer experience. Truly understanding your customer data helps you improve how you engage with each individual prospect.

Additionally, predictive analytics can help each organization expand its reach. Sales leaders, for instance, can leverage AI-based insights to formulate reports, develop key account strategies, and build more powerful forecasts on their pipelines.

Among the leaders we surveyed in our report, one-fourth reported the biggest benefit of AI is its ability to enable their employees to make better data-driven decisions. AI has already become an indispensable part of many businesses’ reporting and analytics processes, and I see that role only growing.

3. AI will reduce business costs and improve efficiency.

In today’s difficult economic climate, business leaders need to do more with less.

There are innumerable ways AI can help your business save money — 42% of companies using AI have been able to reduce costs across various business functions, according to one 2024 AI adoption snapshot by Vention.

For one, it will continue to help automate time-consuming, manual tasks. For instance, many customer support reps need to spend extensive time responding to recurring questions from customers. By leveraging AI, you can automate responses to commonly asked questions, which frees up your support reps for more complex issues.

Additionally, you can leverage AI for predictive maintenance. Run or work at a business that uses lots of equipment or machinery? AI can help businesses predict equipment failures so you can schedule maintenance before a breakdown, minimizing repair costs. Dealing with inventory issues? AI could help predict when or if inventory is running high or low to help prevent excess storage costs or other business waste.

In 2023, AI was already saving the average employee a little over 2 hours per day. And, per a report by Thomson Reuters, AI will save professionals up to 12 hours per week by 2029, with 4 hours per week saved in 2025 alone.

With all that extra time, your business and employees can scale a stronger human connection. Ultimately, I think AI will improve efficiencies across the business — all while enhancing the customer experience.

4. Business leaders will invest in new hires specifically trained in AI.

So the question on everyone’s mind is: Is AI going to steal my job?

The short answer: no. AI is more likely to optimize the impact of existing roles and create room for additional hiring opportunities.

On Google Trends, the term “prompt engineer” — which was practically non-existent at the start of 2023 — has risen rapidly, hitting peak popularity in April of the same year.

Source

And our 2023 AI survey found that 66% of business leaders have already hired a new employee specifically to help with leveraging and implementing AI.

This number will only continue to increase. For instance, a 2024 study by Microsoft and LinkedIn's Work Trend Index revealed that 66% of business leaders say they would not hire someone without AI skills.

At HubSpot, we’ve created dedicated task forces across departments with the specific purpose of identifying how we should implement AI into our current processes across the organization.

Other businesses will do the same — either identifying internal employees who can focus on AI for their business or hiring new AI experts or consultants to fill that need.

5. AI can help businesses detect fraud.

Another benefit of AI? It will make fraud detection easier for businesses of all sizes.

In 2023, 80% of businesses were victims of fraudulent attacks or attempts.

Fraud can be detrimental financially and legally for any business. It is also increasingly challenging to detect as it becomes more sophisticated.

In 2024, businesses increasingly leveraged AI tools to detect and deter fraudulent activity. This is a trend that’s expected to continue this year. AI can point out anomalies in data, such as unusual spending behavior, which helps your employees identify potential fraudsters.

Additionally, AI can use data to make predictions on the likelihood that a particular transaction is fraudulent. Over time, AI algorithms will become better at detecting fraudulent activity, such as suspicious logins, odd transactions based on consumer behavior, or identity theft.

Companies like Certif-ID, Sygnia, and Riskified are already using AI to detect and stop fraud. The trends, according to experts, suggest that AI-powered threat detection capabilities aren’t going to slow down in 2025.

6. AI will help businesses build better products.

In the future, we’ll also begin to see business leaders leverage AI to uncover new product opportunities.

For instance, software engineers can use AI tools to sift through feedback, engagement, or other product usage data to determine which features they should improve on an existing product or discover new products or AI business ideas based on gaps in their offerings.

But it goes beyond that. AI algorithms can also help you design your product.

Yep — you heard that right. AI will be able to analyze data on customer usage patterns, feedback, and preferences to provide you with invaluable insights necessary to create more user-friendly, engaging, effective products for your customers.

It will also help you speed up the product development process start-to-finish with rapid prototyping. AI algorithms can seamlessly and instantly provide different design options, so your team can quickly identify the most promising option and iterate in real-time.

Did you know? HubSpot has integrated Breeze AI throughout our offerings to improve your experience and enhance our tools’ performance.

The Potential Dangers of AI in Business

Now, to the other side of the coin. While I think AI has numerous benefits, I think we should also be aware of the problems that may arise.

1. Losing the Human Touch

Yes, AI will respond to 1,000 times more support tickets than a human agent within the same time frame, but not every customer appreciates this.

For all its benefits, some consumers have a more negative opinion of companies that use AI instead of humans for customer service, and 77% think AI doesn’t understand the nuances of their requests as well as human representatives.

This, among many things, highlights the importance of balancing AI efficiency with human interaction to maintain brand perception.

2. Job Uncertainty

One week, you’re confident of the 5-year career plan you have mapped out, and by the next week, you’re looking up Will Robots Take My Job? to confirm if there’s anything to plan for.

By 2025, the World Economic Forum predicted that at least 800 manufacturing roles would be done by robots, and up to 20 million such jobs should be expected worldwide by 2030. And it’s not just in manufacturing.

In our State of AI in Marketing report, 40% of marketers surveyed feel like AI has already had a negative impact on their career trajectory. Another 46% feel that AI will replace all humans in the workplace at some point in the future.

Additionally, the rapid advancement of AI technologies has created a skills gap, with many workers lacking the necessary training to operate or collaborate with AI systems effectively.

3. Ethical Concerns

Bias in algorithms and data privacy risks are just some of the many ethical concerns the integration of AI in business triggers. Studies have shown that up to 38.6% of the “facts” used by AI systems can be biased, leading to unfair outcomes.

Also, AI is data-hungry, meaning that sometimes, it requires more (and some more) data. This extensive process could raise concerns about the privacy and security of sensitive information. Improper handling of the data can lead to not just misuse but also data breaches, which can have astronomical financial and reputational consequences.

Preparing for an Era of AI Disruption

AI is poised to disrupt virtually every industry. But it’s not something we need to fear.

As D-ID CEO Gil Perry notes, “The biggest risk in disrupting an industry is that you’re not following the safe, incremental path — you’re betting big, often against the current market trends. Success requires conviction, but also resilience when things don’t go as planned.”

The key to long-term growth and success is to evolve quickly with AI and accept it’s here to stay. For Perry, that means staying close to your users, adapting to feedback and data, and letting the market shape your growth. “Ethics matter too. Building trust among the ecosystem and your customers is incremental,” he adds.

In the early stages of AI, you’ll want to remain focused on your highest priorities and how your business can get the most out of AI. If you’re interested in learning more about how you can use AI, dive into our AI learning path or download the offer below.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Modern marketing is less pushy than yesteryear's — and I love that. It’s less about forcing your message on people and more about helping. However, personality marketing is one strategy that still dances the line between savvy and shady to many, including yours truly.

As marketers, we work to get inside the heads of our audience and understand what makes them buy. We learn who they are, their age and interests, but personality marketing pushes the envelope into psychometrics or deeper psychological traits.

It also raises the question of when marketing turns manipulative, and it’s not one to be shrugged off. Let’s talk about what personality marketing really is and how to use it effectively and ethically.

Table of Contents

• What is personality-based marketing?
• The Controversy of Personality Marketing
• How to Implement Personality Marketing into Your Strategy Ethically

What is personality-based marketing?

Personality marketing actually goes by many names. Some call it personality-based marketing, others personality-theory marketing, and some even psychometric marketing. But no matter what you decide to call this strategic rose, it’s when a marketer takes into account deeper psychological traits of their ideal customers to reach them more effectively.

I know what you’re thinking: “This just sounds like buyer persona research or segmentation, Ramona. HubSpot loves that stuff.” And yeah, we do and they’re pretty similar.

But personality marketing goes beyond surface demographics like age and gender. It stretches into motivations, fears, values, relationships, and even emotional states.

There are several different personality theories brands can explore here (e.g., Myers-Briggs, DiSC), but one of the most popular is the “Big 5” or OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

UK-based market research agency Brandspeak breaks them down for us:

• Openness: Intellect or imagination, curiosity, and creativity
• Conscientiousness: Tendency towards organization/structure
• Extroversion: Energy source in regards to interactions with others
• Agreeable: Orientation to others; how they get along with others
• Neuroticism: Confidence, how comfortable someone is in their own skin

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Whatever factors you end up analyzing, personality marketing aims to unpack the “why” behind the more obvious qualities (what) and buying behaviors (how).

Need help organizing all your audience information? Download our free buyer persona templates.

Benefits of Personality Marketing

So, the goal of the strategy is to understand your buyer better, right? Well, once you do, this can lead to some big benefits. The most direct is more relevant messaging and content.

One of the most high-profile examples of personality marketing is a controversial one from Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, but the CEO of the consulting firm once explained this aspect of personality marketing well.

He said, “It allows us to nuance our messaging. Rather than serving the same advert to 100 million people… [we] can sub-segment people by personality and change the creative to resonate with individuals based on how they see the world.”

You can see this idea in action in the promotion of the Apple Watch.

Apple targets its loyal base of techies who want the latest new gadget in the promo above, but it also appeals to health and fitness enthusiasts who want to track their movement on its website. 

Source

Not to mention the inherent gamification. 

Each audience has very different motivations for buying so they need very different messaging to take action and Apple took the note.

64% of consumers say they’d quit a brand if their experience wasn’t personalized or relevant, so this is not an outrageous idea.

More personalized and relevant messaging can mean increased connection and trust in your brand, as audiences feel like you “get” them. This creates a better customer experience, and ideally, over time, all of these elements come together to increase conversions and even sales.

The Controversy of Personality Marketing

As with any marketing, personality marketing has to be done strategically to reap the benefits, but more importantly in this case, it needs to steer clear of the dilemmas and controversy that can come with it.

What’s the big drama with personality marketing, you ask? It really comes down to privacy and ethics.

Data Privacy

In an age where data breaches and privacy settings are a normal part of life, critics are concerned with how brands gather the psychological details they use in personality marketing.

Whether it’s through forms on their website, market research, or inferences based on social media, marketers have to be careful about where they are gathering their psychometrics and if they have the legal rights to use.

According to Twilio’s 2024 State of Customer Engagement Report, 60% of consumers say protecting their data is the top way to build their trust. So, it’s clear consumers today are increasingly aware of how their data is being shared and used.

Any misuse of this can be extremely damaging to your brand. Meta, Amazon, and T-Mobile are just some of the corporations that have faced backlash and gotten fined for data breaches and privacy violations.

Ethics

In addition to how they’re getting their data, personality marketers need to be wary of how they’re using that data. This is the big one for me.

You see, I love marketing; it’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager. But I’ve always struggled with this perception that marketers are manipulative.

To some, we’re out here trying to trick others into buying things, making false promises to steal money. We’re like the stereotypical "sleazy car salesman" or whoever sold Jack those magic beans in “Jack and the Beanstalk.” It’s an ugly image to attach yourself to.

That’s largely why I was happy the industry had turned more inbound by the time I entered the workforce, but now personality marketing adds a different layer of potential misconduct.

Personality marketing encourages brands to cater to their target audiences’ deeper concerns and tendencies. This is great if we use it to create a better experience for consumers and give them what they need — but the fact is not everyone uses this information for good.

Think about it: Leading with a pain point is a common practice in marketing.

We often highlight common problems to get our audience’s attention, then introduce our product as the solution. And there’s nothing wrong with this. If your product actually solves the problem, great — you’re helping someone. I’m here for it.

But when marketers create a threat or fear in people that does not exist simply to sell? That’s fear-mongering — and a hard pass for me.

If you know your audience has a certain concern or psychological sensitivity, triggering that to elicit a purchase is a no-go. This is taking advantage of something a person can’t control to get them to buy something they may not want or need or could even harm them.

Hims & Hers, for instance, found themselves in hot water earlier this year after their Super Bowl ad expressed deep criticism of the American medical system’s treatment of weight loss drugs like Ozempic before presenting its pharmaceuticals as an alternative.

The FDA recently released concerns over unapproved versions of GLP-1 drugs, such as the compounded semaglutides offered by Hims & Hers. So, the fear-based messaging of the ad raised a lot of eyebrows.

A lot of AI tools are guilty of this as well, though to a less dangerous extent, as explained by comedian Alex Falcone:

But I digress. Not only is fear mongering morally unsound, it’s just bad business.

Sure, maybe you’ll get your quick buck now, but long term, that customer will likely realize you tricked them. They won’t buy from you again and they may tell others about what happened. Your long-term reputation will be shot for short-term gain.

Bottom line: It’s better to stay on the right side of personality marketing, but how do you do that exactly?

How to Implement Personality Marketing into Your Strategy Ethically

Again, personality marketing isn’t wrong per se. It’s essentially just deeper audience segmentation and that’s been a staple of successful marketing for generations. So, how can you ensure you keep it that way and don’t cross over into the dark side?

Here are some tips to keep in mind.

1. Make “psychometrics” a part of a larger buyer persona.

Your personality marketing data shouldn’t be all you know about your audience, but a part of your larger buyer persona. A buyer persona is a documented profile of your ideal customer that you create from audience and market research.

It includes essential information like demographics but also behavior, interests, challenges, goals, and other psychological traits. This is where your psychometrics should live.

Seeing them alongside other details gives them more context. It gives you, as a marketer, a more rounded, complete picture of your customer to make decisions off, rather than analyzing them in a silo.

Don’t have buyer personas yet? Use our free “Make My Persona” buyer persona generator to create a documented persona that your entire company can use to market, sell, and serve better.

Source

2. Be transparent about how you gather and use data.

Where you get your personality, marketing data can definitely be a point of contention so make sure to choose sound research methods. Perhaps that’s a survey, an interview, or social media listening, among other methods.

Whatever it is, be honest and transparent about when it is taking place and how you intend to use the data. This is especially important if someone is explicitly sharing their information with like they would be on a form on your website.

On that note …

3. Abide by privacy laws and regulations

Different countries and regions may have different laws about collecting and using data, like GDPR in the European Union, for example.

When collecting data for your personality marketing or otherwise, do your due diligence to guarantee you are abiding by all laws and regulations.

4. Ask yourself: “Is this helping my audience?”

Ultimately, all marketing, personality-based or not, should be giving your customer what they want and need to feel comfortable buying from you. It’s for them, not you.

So, before you publish or launch anything, ask yourself, “Is this helpful to my audience?”

If it is, it’ll be helpful to you in the long run as well. But if it isn’t and the effort is self-serving or even potentially harmful to your audience, it’s likely not strategically or ethically sound.

With Great Marketing Comes Great Responsibility

When done right, personality marketing helps us understand our audience better and create messaging that actually resonates (instead of shouting into the void).

But if marketers cross the line into manipulation, fear-mongering, or invading privacy, they’re not just risking their reputation — they’re eroding the trust that makes good marketing work in the first place.

Know your audience, respect their boundaries, and always aim to help, not harm. If you can do that, personality marketing can absolutely be a savvy strategy — not a shady one.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

In addition to running a marketing agency with customers around the globe and a seven-figure local business, today’s master is also a kickboxing champion and MMA fighter — making Jennifer Waters easily the marketer I’d least like to fight.

Though Flo from Progressive seems like she’d be a scrapper, right? It’s not just me?

But rather than spend our time arguing about which mascot would win in the octagon, today she’s here to teach you how to kill it… in small and local business marketing that is. But don’t worry; you SMB and enterprise marketers will get your kicks in, too.

Meet the Master

Jennifer Waters
Co-founder, 7 Figure Dojo; Executive sensei, Seigler’s Karate Center

• Claim to fame: Grew her small business to seven figures (Thus the name of her agency!)
• Fun fact: She’s a sixth-degree Kempo karate black belt and purple belt in Tetsu Shin Ryu Jiu-Jitsu

Lesson 1: Forget omnichannel. Think omnipresence.

“To survive as a local business, you need to think and market like a Fortune 500 company,” Waters says.

If that reflexively made your wallet pucker, you can relax. She means that you need to think bigger than just a few scattered Facebook ads.

“You need to do what I call omnipresence marketing. Digital marketing is just one arm of it,” Waters explains.

So while omnichannel refers to coordinating your marketing across all of your digital channels, omnipresence means you include the real world. In fact, Waters says the foundation of small-business marketing is live events.

“This is where you’re out shakin’ hands and kissin’ babies,” she smiles.

For a karate school, this might be hosting a monthly parents’ night out. For a florist, it could be weekly wine-and-design classes. (As a real-life example, the kung fu school I go to hosts a monthly classic kung fu movie night.) The exact details will differ, but the goals are the same: generating leads and building visibility.

“We want to be physically present in the community. We want to have internal events to bring people to us, to generate publicity. And because your name is constantly out there you become category king or category queen with your local business.”

Meanwhile, as your digital marketing promotes these live events, your live events provide fodder for your digital marketing. And when you coordinate them both? Voilà! Omnipresence.

Lesson 2: Relationships are everything.

Because I’m a massive dork, I can’t resist asking the cheese question: What do martial arts masters know that marketers need to learn?

Waters’ answer is anything but cheese.

“Relationships are everything,” she says. “Your relationship to the individual customer, or in this case to your martial arts student, is what is going to keep them coming back. Or feeling comfortable referring other people to you.”

Every touchpoint you have with your audience — at live events, on social media, on your website, on the phone — is a chance to build that relationship.

Imagine you see a great video ad, so you call up the company and… some rude jerk answers the phone.

“All that marketing did nothing because the relationship wasn’t there.”

This is a good time to take stock: When you reply to your emails, are you maintaining that relationship? Are you proactively reaching out to customers who talk about you on social media? When they land on your homepage, are they getting the same vibe they can expect at your live events?

Lesson 3: Cause a pause.

For Waters, the current era of marketing is all about asking, “What can we do to get this person to stop?”

Stop scrolling and watch your video. Stop clearing the inbox and read your newsletter. Stop walking and check out your booth at your local fair.

“If I’m going out in person, I’m not going in plain clothes. I’m going to throw on a karate gi and now I’m stopping traffic.”

“If I was advising a chef who was trying to get people to come over and taste the pastries, I’d say put on a chef’s outfit with the hat and everything,” she gestures at an imaginary toque like Ratatouille.

And the same principle applies online; you just have to figure out the digital equivalent of your gi. Waters notes that, since they’re still new and novel to most folks, dropping AI-generated images into your social feed is a good way to get people to stop scrolling.

The key is figuring out what makes your unique business stand out both online and off.

Now, get out there and don your gi apparel.