For what seems like ages, “Google” has been synonymous with “search.” Have a question? Google it. Looking for a product? Google it. But consumer search behavior has changed.

Now, people are flocking to other channels. Gen Z and Millennials are leading the change, as 29% of the group prefers to search for information on social media over actual search engines.

But that’s not all — generative artificial intelligence (AI) is also coming to search result pages, throwing another wrench in old habits. If your brand relies on search traffic, big consumer shifts are coming (and already on their way). To help you prepare, here are the most significant trends we found after surveying 700+ consumers.

Table of Contents

• TLDR: How Consumer Search Behavior Is Changing & What Marketers Should Do About It
• What is consumer search behavior?
• How Consumer Search Behaviors Are Changing
• How to Adapt Your Strategy to New Consumer Search Behavior
• Frequently Asked Questions about Consumer Search Behavior

TLDR: How Consumer Search Behavior Is Changing & What Marketers Should Do About It

Consumer search behavior is rapidly evolving, with users now turning to social media, mobile devices, and AI-powered tools alongside traditional search engines. Recent data shows that over half of Gen Z and Millennials actually prefer social platforms for discovery, while mobile searches continue to outpace desktop.

With these two groups quickly becoming the most powerful market share, marketers need to evolve their search behavior to stay competitive.

This means optimizing content for multiple platforms, prioritizing mobile and local SEO, and preparing for AI-driven search. With HubSpot’s integrated marketing tools, you can start optimizing your search approach today.

What is consumer search behavior?

Consumer search behavior refers to how people discover, research, and find information online before making purchases.

Today‘s consumers don’t just “Google it” anymore. They use social platforms, AI chatbots, voice assistants, and even visual search tools to find what they need. (This has been a big one for me lately.) They read reviews, watch unboxing videos, or do price comparisons.

This shift in consumer search habits demands a new approach to digital marketing strategy — one that meets customers wherever they choose to search.

How Consumer Search Behaviors Are Changing

So, what does consumer search behavior look like in 2025? Let’s break down some of the biggest trends and some telling statistics by category to discuss what it all means for your search behavior marketing.

AI search is on the rise.

1. 72% of consumers report planning on using gen AI-powered search for shopping in the future.

While Google remains the top research destination (more on that later), our research found that consumers plan to search for products more and more on apps like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

In fact, according to GWI, 31% of Gen Zers report they already use AI platforms or chatbots most frequently to find information online, while roughly the same amount also hope to see the research experience only improve.

Add the fact that when researching a brand or product, 59% of consumers prefer to gather information themselves rather than speak to another human, and it’s no wonder experts expect ChatGPT alone to take 1% of the search market in 2025.

Ok, that was a lot of numbers, but I think it makes the picture’s pretty clear.

The days of being able to ignore answer engine optimization (or AEO) are long gone. AI is quickly becoming a part of popular consumer search behavior, and marketers need to react accordingly.

Not sure where to start? First, you’ll want to see how your website, products, and brand currently perform with answer agents. Our free AEO grader will reveal how AI interprets your brand and give you a score out of 100.

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It’ll also give you detailed competitive analysis, brand sentiment scoring, and strategic recommendations to improve your score. HubSpot’s Breeze AI in particular can aid your efforts to improve your brand’s AI visibility. (How’s that for meta?)

Social media is increasingly becoming the preferred search channel.

2. 31% of consumers use social media to find answers to their questions.

Our studies found one in three consumers use social search to find answers online. This is actually over double the amount of people who are using AI, and honestly, it’s not a huge surprise.

Social media is where people hang out. It gets a bad rap for “brain rot,” but there’s also a wealth of educational and helpful information. From how-tos and life hacks to news, people across every generation are consuming content across some form of social media.

In fact …

3. 29% of Gen Z and millennials prefer social media over search engines.

While just 15% prefer social search over search engines overall, combined, 49% of Gen Z and Millennials prefer social.

That’s a significant chunk that will likely only grow, especially as these platforms also incorporate artificial intelligence. (Think Meta AI on Facebook and Instagram, for example.)

When thinking about future strategies, this could be a major shift for marketers as younger generations come into full buying power as they rise in career ranks and generate more income.

Our research shows that B2B marketers plan to invest more in LinkedIn, while B2C marketers are looking to TikTok. Both of these moves reflect how shoppers research new products and services personally and professionally.

Traditional search still reigns supreme.

4. Most consumers still turn to Google first for general search.

All this hype might have you thinking search engines are dying, but SEO teams shouldn’t go into panic just yet – if at all.

While 79% of those who have already used AI for search believe it offers a better experience than traditional search engines, most people still default to Google for general search queries, according to BrightLocal. And that’s not even including Google Maps or users with Google as their default search engine on Safari.

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Only 5% said they default to ChatGPT for general searches, while only 1% use voice assistants. But why? Isn’t AI the new internet darling?

Yes, but not entirely.

Our studies found that one in three consumers uses AI tools like chatbots and ChatGPT, but trust is still very low. In fact, 45% of consumers admit feeling hesitant about AI, considering potential bias, misinformation, and data privacy, among other things.

This is also likely why our research has found consumers still believe search engines are most effective at answering their questions.

So, overall, while alternatives are gaining traction and improving functionality, traditional search is still a go-to for consumers looking for answers.

Plus, search engines are incorporating their own AI responses to searches and answer engine optimization (AEO) is still in its infancy. It’s unclear if search rank has an influence on agent mentions and there’s still a chance it does.

Things are changing fast, though. So, we’ll be paying attention.

Mobile search is still popular.

5. 54% of consumers primarily use phones to search.

Consumers we surveyed say they use mobile phones more than any other device when searching for questions online. But, similarly to social search preferences, mobile-first search habits become even more drastic in younger generations.

A whopping 80% of Gen Z use their phones most often when searching, with Millennials (62%) and Gen X (66%) not far behind.

Our latest Consumer Trends report also shows consumers shop on their phones more than any other device. That’s particularly true for Gen Z, of which 81% use their phone as their primary shopping device.

This mobile-first approach highlights just how critical it’s becoming to optimize web experiences for mobile search platforms and adapt to the preferences of younger generations.

Consumer search is more local than you may think.

6. The majority of consumers say at least 21% of their searches are local-specific.

A study by BrightLocal found, 71% of consumer searches are estimated to be dedicated to local searches. More specifically 32% estimating 21-40% of their searches were local, 24% estimating 41-60%, 11% estimating 61-80%, and 4% estimating 81-100%.

If your business has a specific service area or physical location, localization and local SEO should be a part of your marketing strategy.

7. 1 in 5 consumers conduct local searches directly within maps.

One habit I’ve found myself doing in recent years is using Google Maps to search for places to eat, stay, etc when travelling. I’ll type in the address of where I’m going then zoom in to see what’s close by.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Bing Maps combined make up 20% of default local search platforms for consumers. So, if relevant, you want to make sure your business is set up to appear in results.

8. 1 in 4 of Gen Z consumers use social media as their primary method for local search.

Social media plays a big role in local search as well. With location tags and user-generated content, it’s common for consumers to learn about businesses in their geographic location or those they’re going to be in.

Take me, for example. On Instagram, I have collections where I save places and restaurants I’d like to visit by state, city, or country.

Visual search is up-and-coming.

9. At least 42% of consumers are somewhat interested in using visual search.

If you’ve been on Google or Amazon lately — and who hasn’t — you’ve likely seen this feature.

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It’s a camera icon or photograph on or next to the search bar (like in the screenshot above) that allows users to upload a picture of a physical item they want to learn more about.

This can be useful for a number of different searches. It can identify plants or animals, styles of furniture, or most useful to businesses, show users exactly where they can buy a product like the one in the picture. That was me several times this summer trying to find out where I could buy a specific dress or pair of pants.

According to eMarketer, only about 27% of people are doing the same right now (with Gen Z and Millennials leading the way), but an encouraging 42% are interested in trying it out.

Amazon has also reported a 70% increase in visual searches worldwide year-over-year, while Google gets about 20 billion Lens searches a month, 4 billion related to shopping.

Visual search is growing and with the prevalence of mobile shopping, it can truly be used by marketers to increase conversions and sales.

How to Adapt Your Strategy to New Consumer Search Behavior

Now, understanding these shifts in search behavior is just the beginning. Here’s how to optimize your digital marketing strategy for the evolving search landscape. 

(Dig even deeper in our free AI search guide: “How to Rank on AI Search: 5 Strategies to Stay Visible in the AI Era”)

1. Invest in AEO.

The 2025 State of Marketing revealed that 19% of marketers are building SEO strategies for generative AI search, and nearly half of B2B and B2C (both 47%) marketers have noticed an increase to their web traffic as a result of consumers using AI search.

These numbers are not to be taken lightly. They show a dramatic shift in consumer search behavior and potential competitors’ strategies.

While AI adoption is still emerging, early AEO can help position you ahead of the curve.

Here’s what you can do:

Conduct an analysis of your brand.

First and foremost, you need to assess your brand’s current visibility in AI search, brand sentiment, perception in AI search engines, and how you compare to competitors. I mean, you can’t know how much work needs to be done until you know where you stand currently, right?

A tool like HubSpot’s free AI Search Grader can do this for you.

Study content featured in AI search responses

What’s already showing up in AI agents and engines? Look at who’s “winning” and what their brand is doing that perhaps yours isn’t. You can also use Perplexity, Gemini, and Google’s suggested follow-ups and “People Also Ask” questions to identify gaps in your content marketing.

Analyze AI-generated citations to see where competitors are getting mentioned and examine how AI overviews are structured and formatted.

Structure content for AI comprehension.

Speaking of structure, all the principles of creating high-quality content still apply with AEO. Use clear headers, bullet points, and direct answers to common questions. Optimize for featured snippets and focus on user intent.

Overall, you want to build authority and backlinks to signal to LLMs that you’re a trusted source and expert in your future content marketing. AI systems tend to prioritize credible, well-sourced information.

Pro tip: Create comprehensive topic clusters. AI tools synthesize information from multiple sources, so thorough coverage matters. Learn more about “topic clusters” here.

Build a strong multichannel online presence.

AI models aggregate data from diverse sources, so it’s important to establish a strong presence and reputation as an expert across multiple channels.

Make sure you’re participating in online discussions, monitoring and responding to reviews and feedback, and crafting a compelling narrative around the problems your product solves.

From blogging to social media and analytics. Marketing Hub has all of the tools you need to adapt your marketing strategy to new consumer search behaviors. The best part: You can get started with it for free.

2. Optimize for social search success.

Our recent report found 84% of marketers agree that consumers will search for brands on social media this year. With that in mind, your social media strategy needs a search-first mindset.

Here’s what you should do:

Create searchable content.

Use relevant hashtags, keywords in captions, and descriptive alt text on any visual content. This will help make it easier for algorithms to crawl and retrieve your content for users, as well as index the content for users to find on their own.

Pro tip: Video is the name of the social media game in 2025 — three of the top five most-used social platforms across both B2B and B2C brands are YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and these are the platforms driving the most site traffic, social engagement, and audience growth.

Get platform-specific.

Every social media platform has its subtle nuances and features. Optimize for TikTok‘s search algorithm, Instagram’s Explore page, and YouTube’s suggested videos. Also make sure you abide by any technical specifications such as aspect ratio, dimensions, file size, and file type.

Build topic authority.

Consistently create content around your core topics to establish relevance in social algorithms. Not only does this give the platform’s information about what you’re about, but your audience as well.

HubSpot’s social media management tools can not only help you schedule and publish social media content to accomplish these goals, but also create, analyze, and monitor that content.

3. Master mobile-first optimization.

When I first got started in digital marketing, mobile optimization was a big topic of discussion. We preached making sure websites were set up to offer the best user experience from a browser, but today, that’s a big factor in mobile search ranking as well.

With mobile search dominating across all demographics, mobile optimization is non-negotiable.

That means you should:

Focus on site speed.

Aim for page load times under three seconds on mobile devices. Faster websites offer a better user experience, in turn minimizing bounce rates and improving your search rank.

Pro tip: AI can help.

Read: Understanding Technical SEO: Audit Fundamentals + Detailed Checklists

Design for thumbs.

Ensure buttons, links, and interactive elements on your website are easily tappable. Similarly, make sure it’s easy to scroll or swipe through your content.

Prioritize local search.

Mobile searches often have local intent. People are looking for something nearby as they’re on the move. So, be sure to optimize your Google Business Profile and local SEO.

Pro tip: The HubSpot Marketplace is full of free mobile-responsive website templates to help make optimization easy for you.

4. Cater to your target generation.

Remember, while most trends we discussed are consistent across generations, there are subtle nuances that vary.

For example, while all generations are using social media, younger generations are flocking to Instagram and TikTok, while older generations are still enjoying YouTube. Cater your search behavior marketing to the generations you’re trying to reach.

5. Maintain your search engine foundation.

With all the talk about AI and social media, it’s easy to think you can ignore traditional SEO — but that would be a big mistake. Traditional search engines remain the backbone of online discovery. In fact, traditional search rank may even impact AI visibility. It’s still unclear.

Knowing that, continue investing in SEO fundamentals while expanding to new channels. That means continuing to work on your:

• Technical SEO: Ensure crawlability, site structure, and Core Web Vitals meet standards
• Content depth: Create comprehensive resources that search engines can confidently recommend
• User intent alignment: Match content to the specific needs users express through their searches

Frequently Asked Questions about Consumer Search Behavior

What are the 5 stages of the buyer’s journey?

The buyer’s journey typically follows five key stages, each with distinct search behaviors:

1. Problem Recognition (or awareness): Consumers identify a need and begin broad searches for solutions.
2. Information search: They actively research across multiple platforms and sources, including possible search engines, social media, or even AI.
3. Evaluation of alternatives (or consideration): Here, the consumer is comparing options, reading reviews, and seeking recommendations to determine which is the right solution for their needs.
4. Purchase decision: The consumer has identified the solution they want and are now looking at availability and how to get the best deal.
5. Post-purchase behavior: Searching for usage tips, support, or sharing their experience in reviews or feedback forms. This also could include making referrals or even a repurchase.

How have consumer search habits changed in recent years?

Consumer search habits have evolved dramatically. While traditional search engines remain dominant, we’re seeing a shift toward multi-platform search strategies. Key changes include the rise of social media search, mobile-first behavior, and emerging AI tool adoption.

Why is understanding search behavior important for marketers?

Search behavior insights directly impact marketing effectiveness. By understanding where and how your audience searches, you can refine your content to improve visibility and connect with consumers at crucial decision moments. This knowledge drives better ROI and helps your brand appear wherever customers look for solutions.

What percentage of consumers use social media for search?

One in three consumers use social search to find answers online. Thanks to enhanced algorithms, hashtags, and even AI assistance, social media can deliver robust answers to users that include content created by peers and sources they trust.

Why is mobile search becoming more important?

Statista reports that over half of global web traffic comes from mobile use, making mobile-first design essential to any marketer and brand. With mobile use being such a prominent consumer search habit, it would be misguided of marketers to neglect mobile optimization in their strategy,

How should marketers adapt to changing search behavior?

Marketers must embrace a hybrid strategy—that includes traditional SEO, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)—to remain visible across AI-powered search answers, voice assistants, and conversational tools.

The rise of AI-driven search tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, now capturing shifting chunks of search traffic, requires marketers to also optimize for AI-first formats and zero-click summaries.

Additionally, including structured data, engaging FAQ formats (like this one), and ensuring accurate, brand-level information support visibility in AI-generated results and voice search and helps position brands to still get found by their target audiences in today’s market.

What role does AI play in future search behavior?

AI-powered search tools are reshaping discovery. Tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity now account for approximately 5.6% of U.S. desktop search traffic as of mid-2025, more than doubling in a year. 

Major players like Google are embedding AI Overviews into search results—reaching billions of users and enhancing user experience, though at the cost of fewer website click-throughs.

This shift demands that brands build content designed for direct citation by AI and cultivate authentic user-generated reviews and community voices, which AI tools increasingly reference.

Which search platforms should businesses prioritize? Which search platforms should brands prioritize for maximum visibility?

This depends on your business, product, and audience, but here are some general guidelines that are worth experimenting with.

Google remains crucial for broad reach, but businesses must also diversify across emerging platforms and search modalities. Social media platforms like TikTok, forums like Reddit, and even AI chat tools like ChatGPT are becoming powerful search destinations, especially among younger or trend-driven audiences.

Additionally, optimizing for voice, visual, and local search — via tools like Google Lens, structured markup, and local business profiles— offers visibility where intent is rich and immediate.

Adapting Your Strategy to New Consumer Search Behavior

In 2025, consumer search behavior is no longer defined by a single platform or habit — it’s multi-channel, contextual, and available on-the-go.

While traditional search engines still anchor the experience and hold great power, social media, AI-powered tools, and mobile-first habits are adding new complexity and dimension. As a marketer, you need to stay flexible and experimental. This vigilance and early adoption is what will keep you relevant and easy to find when consumers go looking.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The beauty of freelancing for most of my decade-long career is that I’ve worked on both sides of the B2B and B2C marketing coin. One week, I’m helping a B2B SaaS brand rewrite a whitepaper. The next, I’m deep in campaign planning for a B2C real estate brand. It’s a front-row seat to how marketing works across different verticals.

Now, with AI, everything has changed. I’ve heard it in interviews with marketing leads, seen it in the tools people reach for, and felt it in the way teams are organizing their workflows.

In this article, I’ll share what I’ve observed, backed by insights from our State of AI in Marketing 2025 report, to compare how B2C and B2B marketers are each leveraging AI and where they’re headed next.

Table of Contents

• How B2C vs B2B Brands Use AI for Content Creation
• Top AI Tools Leveraged by B2C vs B2B Brands
• How B2C vs. B2B Leaders Feel About AI
• Is B2C or B2B embracing AI more quickly? 

How B2C vs B2B Brands Use AI for Content Creation

Although the use cases of AI are as varied as they come, one thing is clear: AI has become nearly synonymous with content creation. But the way it shows up in B2C versus B2B contexts reveals both strong similarities and subtle differences. And the data from our report makes this very clear.

1. Content Quality Assurance

One of the most widely adopted use cases across both sales models is quality assurance. According to our survey, 53.87% of marketers use AI for things like spellchecks, tone adjustments, accessibility reviews, and writing recommendations. Every marketer knows this is the kind of work that quietly eats up hours in the content cycle.

Personally, I often spend just as much time reviewing as I do writing, checking that every ‘i’ is dotted and every ‘t’ crossed. Now, it is such a relief to be able to handle that part of the process with AI.

2. Copywriting

This was the second most popular use case in our survey, with over half of all marketers saying they use AI to write content. While their content goals may differ, both B2B and B2C marketers rely heavily on written communication.

B2C teams often turn to AI for high-volume writing needs, especially when there’s pressure to churn out lots of content across different channels.

On the B2B side, where content is often required to be in-depth and technical, AI is frequently used more for structure than speed. Here, AI is more relevant for generating outlines, organizing ideas, and sometimes producing a solid first draft.

3. Creating Images With AI Art Tools

Visual content is another growing area for AI support, with nearly half of marketers across both B2C and B2B saying they use AI to create marketing images.

In this case, B2C slightly leads the way. And that’s not surprising, as they often rely heavily on attention-grabbing visuals for social media, digital ads, and branded storytelling, way more than their B2B counterparts.

4. Summarizing Text Into Key Points

I once worked in social media for a B2C brand, and I remember how important it was to take complex or detailed service information and turn it into fun, digestible content for our social media pages. That’s one of many instances where I believe AI could have supported me.

Around 40% of marketers are now maximizing this, using the technology to break down dense content into key points.

For B2C, it’s a shortcut to creating engaging captions, stories, or newsletter blurbs. For B2B, it helps transform long-form assets like reports or webinar transcripts into summaries, executive notes, or even LinkedIn carousel content.

5. Repurposing Content by Format and Audience

Let’s say you’ve shot a customer testimonial video. That same piece of content might need to become a blog post, then a LinkedIn thought leadership article, and maybe even a script for a short video ad. This kind of repurposing, taking one idea and reshaping it across multiple formats, is another space where AI shines for marketers working with B2B and B2C brands.

But it’s not just about changing the format. Many marketers (nearly 40%) also use AI to adapt content for different audiences. For example, turning a blog on male fashion trends into one tailored to women’s styling needs. It’s the same core message, but with language, tone, and focus adjusted to resonate with a new reader.

6. Translating Content Across Languages

Global campaigns demand localized content, and 35% of the marketers we surveyed are using AI to scale their content across languages faster than traditional workflows allowed. B2C brands, especially in ecommerce, use this to localize product pages, ads, and help docs.

B2B teams are also adopting it, particularly for international landing pages, case studies, or product education content. Human oversight still matters, but there’s nothing quite like the head start AI provides.

Top AI Tools Leveraged by B2C vs B2B Brands

When we asked marketers and marketing leaders what AI-related resources their organizations provide to support AI adoption, the most common response — by a clear margin — was subscriptions to AI tools and platforms.

The interesting part?

This trend was evenly distributed between B2B and B2C organizations. That tells us something important: Regardless of audience, industry, or sales model, brands are actively investing in access.

But what tools are marketers actually using in their day-to-day roles? Here’s what stood out over the past 12 months.

1. Image or Design Generators

This was the most used category overall, used by over 40% of marketers. B2C teams are slightly ahead here, which makes sense given their heavier reliance on visual storytelling.

Tools like DALL-E, Canva AI, and Midjourney allow marketers to create entirely new images from text prompts, mock up campaign visuals, or even iterate for ad creatives.

2. General Purpose Chatbots

Chatbots like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot are arguably the most versatile tools on this list and they come as the second most popular tool. As the descriptor goes, these chatbots can be used for everything ranging from brainstorming, outlining, writing, and summarizing to answering research questions.

3. Smart AI Video and Audio Editing Tools

Video content continues to dominate digital marketing, and the demand for high-quality video assets has never been higher. What’s changed is how easily marketers can create and edit that content using AI.

Now, 36% of marketers, with B2C marketers leading B2B, use tools like Descript, Runway, Pictory, and Wisecut to automatically remove filler words, add subtitles, clean up audio, fix lighting, and even repurpose long videos into shorter clips.

4. Voice and Narration Generators

And then we have voice or narration generators which allow marketers to generate human-sounding voiceovers in different languages, tones, and styles. These tools — like Murf, Speechify, Play.ht, and Soundraw — give marketers the creative range to generate voiceovers and soundtracks without needing a professional studio.

With these generated sounds, marketers can produce video ads, social explainers, or even audio content for apps, product tours, demos, training modules, product tutorials, and presentations. The possibilities are endless.

5. Smart Image Editing Tools

Imagine this: You take a product photo somewhere, but for a specific campaign, it makes more sense on a clean white or seasonal background. This is where AI-powered image editing tools come in.

Over 30% of marketers across both B2C and B2B use image editing tools like Photoshop, Fotor AI, Luminar, and others to enhance, retouch, resize, or remove backgrounds automatically. With these tools, photos are polished quickly and adapted for different uses in record time.

How B2C vs B2B Leaders Feel About AI

Marketers may be deep in the trenches of AI-powered tools, but leadership sentiment is what really signals how organizations are thinking about long-term adoption, and our data reveals a lot.

1. Leaders want more control, not just more tools.

When we asked leaders what’s driving AI adoption, the answers were practical. Top of the list at 23% was better control over data privacy and security. Right behind that at 22% was the ability to customize AI to fit their business needs, and then cost savings at 20%.

These priorities came out nearly evenly between B2C and B2B brands, suggesting that regardless of industry, leaders are trying to bring AI closer to the core of their operations, not keep it as a shiny external add-on.

2. Many leaders see growth potential but they are not fully sold yet.

Roughly 35% of leaders somewhat agreed that AI will help their businesses scale in ways that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

That’s a moderate vote of confidence, but what’s even more telling is the second most common response: neutrality. Almost 29% neither agreed nor disagreed, which says a lot about where most leaders are right now — interested, but still watching closely.

Maybe they haven’t seen the ROI yet, or maybe they’re wary of betting too heavily on a technology that is still evolving. Whichever it is, we can agree that there is optimism, but it’s cautious.

3. AI is great, but maybe not as great as the Industrial Revolution.

Yet. More than a third of marketing leaders somewhat agree that AI will rival the Industrial Revolution, especially when it comes to the impact it will have on human productivity. And yet, nearly 27% said they neither agree nor disagree — again pointing to this theme of cautious curiosity.

The hype is strong, but leaders may want to see sustained productivity gains across departments, not just faster content. Until then, the comparison to the Industrial Revolution will likely remain a metaphor.

4. Being overly reliant on AI is a red flag.

A clear majority — 65% — of leaders agree that AI should be used in people’s roles, but without them becoming overly dependent on it. This is one of the most widely agreed-upon sentiments across both B2C and B2B, and it reflects something important: Respect for human creativity and critical thinking.

This makes plenty of sense. While there is value in automating the repetitive stuff, the core skills that make marketing work should never be outsourced.

5. The ROI of AI investment is somewhat positive.

The majority of leaders describe the ROI from their AI investments as “somewhat positive.” That’s solid, but not game-changing.

Around 43% are seeing results they feel good about, while only about a third are seeing “very positive” returns. In other words, AI is working — but not blowing minds just yet.

This tracks with how most companies are using AI: to enhance productivity, speed up content production, or unlock small efficiencies.

The takeaway? Leaders aren’t walking away from AI, but they’re not betting the entire farm either.

Is B2C or B2B embracing AI more quickly?

If you’re hoping for a dramatic divide between B2C and B2B when it comes to AI adoption, you won’t find it here. What the data (and conversations with marketers) show instead is that both sides are moving fast, and in surprisingly similar ways.

An astonishing 91% of marketing teams say they already use AI in some capacity, and the split between B2C and B2B is nearly even. The same goes for employee mindset — over half of respondents described their teams as eager to use AI, and again, B2C and B2B are neck and neck.

Even when we asked leaders about future investment in AI tools, the pattern held: Two-thirds of teams plan to increase their AI spend in 2025, with a near-identical number from both sides.

The bottom line? B2C and B2B may be using AI for slightly different tasks, but when it comes to pace of adoption, they’re on the same track — and both are accelerating.

AI does not belong to one type of marketer.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned while writing this piece — and working with both B2B and B2C brands — it’s that AI doesn’t belong to one “type” of marketer. Whether your job is writing enterprise whitepapers or producing viral product videos, the core goals are the same: Be more creative, work more efficiently, and stay relevant.

To do this, marketers are maximizing every tool at their fingertips, which is a very smart thing to do. The tactics may differ slightly, but the momentum is shared.

Remember the last time you got an email that started with ‘Hey {First_Name}’ and immediately felt like deleting it? That visceral reaction isn’t just about poor execution — it signals a fundamental shift in buyer expectations.

HubSpot research shows that 78% of customers expect more personalization in business interactions than ever before. Yet only 47% of business leaders say their customer service experiences are highly personalized.

You can no longer rely on old-school personalization tactics like adding basic customer details to a holiday card or making a generic comment like “I love what your company is doing” in your outreach.

Buyers want to feel like their favorite brand understands their underlying needs and motivations. And they’re doing business with those who prioritize deep connection.

The Next Chapter of Personalization

These expectations have raised the bar. You know that “How did they know?” moment when you’re browsing Netflix and the algorithm picks your next binge-watch for you — and actually gets it right?

That’s the new personalization standard that buyers are holding your brand to.

Reaching that level of resonance isn’t possible with old marketing tactics. The good news is that we’re in the age of AI, where traditional marketing strategies have evolved and opportunities for hyper-personalization are endless.

This is where playbooks like HubSpot’s Loop Marketing come in. Businesses need the right tools to adapt to a world where you have access to unlimited information and endless distribution channels — and AI to make sense of it all.

The Loop is the four-stage playbook that helps businesses evolve with customer habits. Here are the stages:

1. Express who you are: Define your taste, tone, and point of view.

2. Tailor your approach: Use AI to make your interactions personal.

3. Amplify your reach: Diversify your content across channels for humans and bots.

4. Evolve in real-time: Iterate quickly and effectively.

Each of these stages is important, but today, we’re focusing on Tailor.

When you combine AI efficiency with human authenticity, you can deliver customer experiences that feel one-on-one at scale. And knowing how to Tailor your messaging effectively is how you get there. Here’s the breakdown.

Tailoring a Custom-Fit Message

Tailoring is about making your content feel personal, not just personalized.

As a brand, you want to leverage your unified customer data — everything from call records to website behavior — to create genuine relevance. That means developing solutions that resonate with both prospects and existing customers.

According to a 2025 HubSpot survey, a whopping 96% of marketers reported that personalized experiences have increased sales.

And that’s a big reason why brands like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon are at the top. They use data about your past behavior to predict your future preferences — whether that’s a TV show, a playlist, or a product recommendation. The more you know about your target customer, the easier it is to meet (and exceed) their expectations.

Delivering that kind of one-to-one relevance starts with the data you use to power your strategy. Here’s what that looks like in practice.

Gathering the Data That Matters

Most businesses are sitting on goldmines of customer data. Customer interactions live in help desk portals, intent signals hide in analytics, and behavior patterns are scattered across platforms.

The tricky part isn’t gathering the data — it’s making sense of it all. If you can’t connect the dots, all of that good data goes unused.

Take this example: You’re doing cold outreach to the VP of Product at a fintech startup. Sure, it’s nice to know basic information like their industry and company size. But what if you also knew that the company just secured another round of funding and is preparing to expand into the SMB market?

That’s the difference between surface-level tracking and enriched intelligence. It’s knowing exactly where each buyer is in their journey and using that context to guide your marketing strategy.

The key to nailing this is using the right tools to bring those scattered signals together. Many of these tools are powered by AI to help you layer context — like firmographics, industry movements, and company news — into your existing contact records.

You can then pull data across your entire tech stack — your CRM, marketing automation, website analytics, even your sales team’s conversation notes — and compile these touchpoints into a single source of truth.

Once your data is unified, the next step is turning those insights into customer profiles you can actually act on.

Moving from Insights to Customer Profiles

With data at the foundation, you can turn your rich, contextual insights into real target audience segments. That means going beyond traditional demographics like “Marketing Manager, 25-35, SaaS.”

Today‘s top marketing campaigns are built around intent and timing instead of job titles and company sizes. Brands are zeroing in on hyper-specific audiences like “Companies showing expansion signals who’ve engaged with competitive content in the past 30 days.”

Instead of using the static audience approach, use AI tools like ChatGPT or Breeze to identify dynamic targets based on real-time behavioral patterns and intent signals.

Here’s one approach: Choose a broad intent category (e.g., “actively evaluating solutions”) and layer in context clues (e.g., pricing page visits, competitor research, email engagement patterns, or subtle signals like increased website time-on-page).

Your prompt will look something like this:

“Find contacts who have shown signs of active solution evaluation in the past 30 days. Include behaviors like pricing page visits, demo requests, or content downloads focused on product ROI.”

The beauty of intent-based segmentation is that your messages land when people are ready to hear them, not when your campaign calendar says it’s time to send them.

Finding the Intersection Where Personalization Meets Connection

True personalization is about meeting your customers where they are with messages that make them stop and think, “Wait, how did they know that?”

Sprinkling “Hey {First_Name}” personalization into an email is so old playbook. If you truly understand your customers, you can connect your solution to their specific challenges and make your marketing feel more like advice from a trusted colleague.

This approach works across all channels. Take landing pages and CTAs as examples. Rather than using one-size-fits-all messaging, try creating variations that speak to different use cases.

You can see this in real time on the HubSpot Blog. Visitors to this email newsletter article will see a different CTA depending on where they are in our contact lifecycle.

New users will see more of an introductory message since they are likely in the early stages of product discovery: “Download now: Free Email Newsletter Guide.”

On the other hand, HubSpot customers will see a more personalized one that prompts them to try a specific tool in the HubSpot stack to accomplish a related task: Use HubSpot’s AI Campaign Assistant to Create Email Copy.”

For email campaigns, you can reference recent company announcements, popular industry trends, or seasonal factors relevant to their business in your copy.

Instead of “Save time with our productivity app,” think “Finally, a way to get through your inbox before your morning coffee gets cold.”

If you get stuck, AI can help kickstart your writing process. But the best results come when you pair AI’s speed with your own judgment and make sure the message still sounds human, relevant, and on-brand.

Leaving Room for the Human Touch

If you’re doing business during the AI era, you’re already at an advantage. From data analysis to content creation, AI is helping teams operate leaner and deliver faster results. And that’s exactly what leadership wants to see: fast results.

The catch? AI tools are incredibly powerful, but they’re not infallible. The most brilliant personalization campaigns may fall flat if AI makes assumptions that aren’t quite right or lacks human judgment about timing and context.

More than half of AI users rely on it for writing. And the top challenges they face boil down to inaccurate information and biased outputs.

That’s why it’s so important to build human quality checks into your process.

The most successful teams treat AI as a superpower that amplifies human creativity and strategic thinking — not as a replacement for it. They build systematic review processes that catch issues before prospects ever see them.

If you’re using AI to generate copy, use the right prompts and designate someone on your team to review the content before it enters the final stages of production.

• Does the brand voice feel consistent across all the variations?
• Does the personalization feel natural and helpful?
• Are the facts about both the customer and your product accurate?
• Do the CTAs make sense for where this person is in their buying process?

Even with systematic reviews in place, the reality is that some campaigns will still miss the mark. The difference is catching those misses early and learning from them rather than letting your LLM of choice run unchecked.

Creating Personalization at Scale

When you combine rich data, smart segmentation, AI-powered content generation, and thoughtful human oversight, something remarkable happens. Prospects don’t just engage with your content — they build a relationship with your brand.

And at a time when buyers are increasingly skeptical of generic outreach, that human connection is what separates prospects who delete your emails from customers who are enthusiastic about engaging.

HubSpot‘s Transactional Email add-on is a specialized email delivery solution that helps businesses send automated, relationship-based communications like order confirmations, password resets, and account updates through a dedicated IP address.

With seamless CRM integration and unlimited sends that don’t affect your marketing contact limits, Transactional Email ensures reliable delivery of critical customer communications. Here‘s what you need to know about HubSpot’s Transactional Email add-on as of 2025.

HubSpot Transactional Email Add-On Pricing Overview

HubSpot Transactional Email is available exclusively as a premium add-on for Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise customers:

Component	Monthly Cost	Requirements	What’s Included
Transactional Email Add-On	$600/month	Marketing Hub Pro/Enterprise + Dedicated IP	Unlimited transactional sends, dedicated IP, SMTP/API integration
Additional Dedicated IPs	Contact Sales	Per additional domain	Extra IP addresses for multiple domains

Note: Transactional email requires the purchase of both add-ons and is only available with Marketing Hub Professional ($800/month) or Enterprise ($3,600/month) subscriptions.

What Is HubSpot’s Transactional Email Add-On?

Price: Contact sales for custom pricing

Requirements: Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise + Dedicated IP Add-On

Email Volume: Unlimited transactional email sends

HubSpot‘s Transactional Email add-on enables you to send automated, essential business communications through a dedicated IP address separate from your marketing emails.

Unlike marketing emails, transactional emails bypass subscription preferences. Transactional emails are delivered regardless of a contact’s opt-in status, making them perfect for order confirmations, password resets, and other transaction-related communications.

The add-on integrates seamlessly with HubSpot‘s CRM, logging all email activity on contact records for complete customer journey visibility.

With API integration capabilities and unlimited sending that doesn’t count against your marketing contact limits, this solution is designed for businesses that need reliable delivery of critical customer communications.

Key Features

• Unlimited transactional email sends (don’t count against marketing contact limits)
• Dedicated IP address specifically for transactional emails
• Immediate IP activation (no warm-up period required)
• SMTP API and single-send API integration capabilities
• Custom tokens for personalized customer information
• Full CRM integration with email activity logging
• Performance tracking for opens, clicks, and bounces
• Domain authentication with SPF, DKIM, and custom domain setup

Trade-offs vs Standard Marketing Email

• Advantage: Unlimited sends, guaranteed delivery regardless of subscription status, dedicated IP protection
• Cost: Additional monthly fee on top of Marketing Hub subscription
• Limitation: Content must be transaction-focused, not promotional

Best for: Businesses with e-commerce sites, SaaS applications, or customer portals that must send automated, non-promotional messages triggered by customer actions or system events.

Prerequisites for Transactional Email

Required Base Subscriptions

Marketing Hub Professional

• Price: $800/month (includes 3 core seats)
• Additional Seats: $50/month per additional seat
• Marketing Contacts: 2,000 included

Marketing Hub Enterprise

• Price: $3,600/month (includes 5 core seats)
• Additional Seats: $75/month per additional seat
• Marketing Contacts: 10,000 included

Required Add-Ons

Both add-ons must be purchased together to enable transactional email functionality:

1. Dedicated IP Add-On: Provides a dedicated IP address for email sending
2. Transactional Email Add-On: Enables transactional email features and unlimited sending

Technical Requirements

• Domain ownership and DNS management access
• Ability to configure A, MX, TXT, and CNAME records
• Setup of SPF, DKIM, and domain authentication protocols

Key Pricing Considerations

Contact Limits and Cost Savings

Transactional emails don’t count against your Marketing Hub contact tier limits, providing significant cost savings for businesses that send high volumes of transaction-related communications. This separation lets you maintain marketing contact efficiency while ensuring critical business emails reach customers.

Email Send Benefits

Unlike marketing emails with tier-based send limits, transactional emails offer unlimited sending capacity, making them ideal for businesses with unpredictable or high-volume transactional email needs.

Required Add-On Bundle

Both dedicated IP and transactional email add-ons are required together, making this a premium solution designed for businesses with substantial transactional email requirements rather than occasional use.

ROI and Business Impact

Deliverability Benefits

• Protected Reputation: Dedicated transactional IP prevents reputation damage from marketing campaigns
• Improved Delivery Rates: Major email platforms filter messages from marketing-first IPs, making dedicated transactional IPs essential
• Guaranteed Delivery: Transactional emails bypass subscription preferences and quarantine status

Operational Efficiency

• Unified Platform: Manage all customer communications within the HubSpot ecosystem
• Complete Tracking: Full visibility into customer email interactions in CRM
• API Integration: Seamless connection with external systems and applications

Cost Efficiency at Scale

For businesses sending thousands of transactional emails monthly, unlimited sending without marketing contact impact provides substantial cost savings compared to alternative solutions or treating these communications as marketing contacts.

Feature Comparison by Email Type

Feature	Marketing Email	Transactional Email Add-On
Subscription Respect	Yes, honors opt-out preferences	No, bypasses subscription status
Send Limits	Based on contact tier (5x, 10x, 20x)	Unlimited sends
Unsubscribe Link	Required for compliance	Not included (non-promotional)
IP Infrastructure	Shared or dedicated marketing IP	Dedicated transactional IP only
Contact Counting	Counts against marketing limits	Does not count against limits
Content Type	Promotional and nurture campaigns	Transaction and account-related only
Warm-up Required	40 days for dedicated marketing IP	No warm-up, immediate activation

Making the Right Choice

Choose Transactional Email Add-On if:

• You send automated emails triggered by customer transactions
• You need guaranteed delivery of critical business communications
• You want to protect your marketing IP reputation
• You send high volumes of order confirmations, account alerts, or system notifications
• You require API integration for external system triggers
• You need unlimited sending without the marketing contact impact

Consider Alternative Solutions if:

• You only need occasional transactional emails
• You don’t currently use Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise
• You prefer specialized transactional email services with pay-per-send models
• You want to minimize platform complexity and cost

Evaluate Your Volume Needs

Dedicated transactional email services might be more cost-effective for businesses sending fewer than 1,000 transactional emails monthly. The unlimited sending and CRM integration often justify the investment for high-volume senders already using Marketing Hub.

Integration and Technical Capabilities

API Integration Options

HubSpot provides comprehensive developer tools for transactional email integration:

• SMTP API: Generate tokens for third-party system integration
• Single-Send API: Programmatically send individual transactional emails
• Direct Send: Create and send emails directly within the HubSpot interface
• Webhook Support: Trigger emails based on external system events

CRM Integration Benefits

All transactional email activity integrates with HubSpot CRM, providing unified customer communication history across marketing, sales, and service teams without requiring separate tracking systems.

Getting Started

Step 1: Assess Your Requirements

Evaluate your current transactional email needs, including volume, integration requirements, and deliverability challenges with your existing solution.

Step 2: Contact HubSpot Sales

To purchase the transactional email add-on, contact your HubSpot Customer Success Manager or sales representative. They can provide:

• Custom pricing for both required add-ons
• Implementation timeline and technical requirements
• API documentation and integration planning
• Best practice recommendations for your use case

Step 3: Plan Implementation

Work with HubSpot’s onboarding team to configure DNS records, set up domain authentication, and integrate with your existing systems.

HubSpot offers several support options:

• Professional onboarding specialists for setup and implementation
• Technical consulting for complex integrations
• 24/7 support for troubleshooting and ongoing maintenance
• Comprehensive developer documentation and API guides

For current add-on pricing or custom enterprise quotes, contact HubSpot Sales at (888) 482-7768 or visit HubSpot’s pricing calculator for estimates based on your specific requirements.

Conclusion

HubSpot’s Transactional Email add-on provides enterprise-grade transactional email capabilities with the unique benefit of unified CRM integration and unlimited sending.

While specific pricing requires custom consultation with HubSpot sales, this solution is designed for businesses already committed to Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise who need reliable, trackable delivery of essential customer communications.

The requirement for dedicated IP and transactional email add-ons positions this as a premium solution for businesses with substantial transactional email needs. For companies sending high volumes of transaction-related emails, the unlimited sending capability, dedicated IP protection, and seamless CRM integration provide significant operational value that can justify the investment.

Whether you need to send order confirmations for your e-commerce business or automated account updates for your SaaS platform, HubSpot’s Transactional Email add-on ensures your critical communications reach customers reliably while maintaining complete visibility within your CRM ecosystem.

With more than 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram is one of the most essential social media platforms for marketers and business owners to connect with their audience.

If you’re new to the platform, you’re probably wondering how to get Instagram followers who are genuinely interested in what your business has to offer.

Growing your following takes time and attention, but there are a few things you can do right now to build your Instagram platform.

Let’s dive into the steps you can take to tap into your audience on Instagram and increase your follower count.

Table of Contents

• How to Get More Followers on Instagram
• The Best Instagram Apps to Get Followers

1. Don’t buy Instagram followers.

While many social influencers and major brands work hard to build an organic following, some choose to buy followers to increase their social reach and engagement.

Buying followers is cheap; some companies charge less than $5 for hundreds of followers.

However, buying followers and likes can severely damage your brand image and decrease engagement.

For example, Hootsuite created a fake Instagram account and bought 1,000 followers for as little as $15 to test how purchased followers influence audience engagement.

The company received some new followers over the course of a month, but the followers were fake, barely interacted with the content, and were unrelated to the brand.

Furthermore, you risk Instagram removing your account for violating their community guidelines if you buy fake followers.

Moreover, fake followers won’t buy your product or support your brand. Instead, focus on gaining authentic followers to increase your engagement and sales.

2. Create and optimize your Instagram account.

Your Instagram profile should tell your potential followers about your brand, what you do, and why they should follow you. Most importantly, your Instagram should be set up as a business account and not a regular personal account.

To set up a business account on Instagram, follow these steps. Once your business account is set up, you can optimize it to attract followers.

Username

As for your account’s name, start with a recognizable and easily searchable username — like your business name. If your business’ name is already taken, try keeping your business name as the first part of your username so people searching for your business are more likely to come across your account.

For example, the Australian activewear line Lorna Jane uses the username @lornajaneactive.

Pro tip: Make sure to add your full business name to the “Name” field by clicking “Edit Profile.” This will appear under your profile picture and your username in search.

Public Profile

Make sure your profile is public. To make your profile public, open Instagram, click on the gear icon to open “Options,” and make sure “Private Account” is turned off.

Profile Photo

Choose a profile picture on-brand with your other social networks, like your company logo. Check out HubSpot’s profile picture for reference.

Profile Bio

Fill your bio with delightful, actionable, and informative information about your brand. This lets people know what you’re about and gives them a reason to follow you. Include who you are and what you do, and add a hint of personality. Here are a few examples for inspiration:

• @WeWork: “For all the #waysyouwork, we’re here #wework
• @Oreo: “Playful moments from your favorite cookie.”
• @natgeo: “Experience the world through the eyes of National Geographic photographers.”

Notice the bios are short, to the point, and may include relevant hashtags.

Profile Link

Add a link to your bio to make it easy for people to go straight from Instagram to your website if they want to.

Notifications

Enable notifications to see when people share or comment on your photos so you can engage with them quickly. To enable notifications, go to “Settings” > “Notifications” > “Posts, Stories, and Comments.” Select “From Everyone” for every category.

Pro tip: We don’t recommend you link your Instagram account to Twitter and Facebook, so your Instagram posts are automatically published on those other accounts. The post types are different.

3. Designate a content creator.

There should be one or two people managing your business’s Instagram account. If possible, assign a content creator for your account who has the experience and understands the platform, including all its unique features.

Pro tip: If you work for a large organization, keep an organized guidelines document so your content stays consistent with your brand and that others who want to contribute know what/what not to post.

4. Post high-quality content.

Get familiar with essential photography and videography tips and editing apps. Since Instagram is a mobile app, you’ll likely take most of the photos and videos you post on Instagram on your mobile device. Here are some tips for taking great photos and videos:

• Focus on one subject at a time.
• Embrace negative space.
• Look for symmetry.
• Capture small details.

• Capture a variety of angles.
• Make sure the video or image is clear and steady.
• Have excellent lighting and avoid grainy imagery.

Pro tip: Instagram also offers a wide range of filters, effects, and tools to make your content stand out, so experiment with different features to see which you like best.

5. Leverage Reels, Stories, and Live videos.

In 2021, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, announced the platform is no longer a photo-sharing app. Since then, Instagram has prioritized video content such as Reels and Stories.

It makes sense, considering videos are more engaging than photos. Our Instagram Engagement Report found that video posts got three times more engagement than photos.

So when you’re creating content for your brand’s Instagram, focus primarily on engaging, dynamic, and interesting Reels and live videos.

For example, the owner of Perfect Pooches Dog Grooming runs an Instagram page called Girl With The Dogs. The page mainly consists of videos showing the behind-the-scenes of pet grooming as well as tips for different breeds of animals.

These Reels are excellent because they showcase the groomer’s work and care for her customers’ pets.

Pro tip: You can also repurpose content from TikTok or YouTube Shorts as Instagram Reels, but avoid any logos from other apps as that can cause the algorithm to show you video to fewer people.

6. Optimize your Instagram Stories Highlights.

Instagram Stories disappear after 24 hours, but you can keep them up indefinitely by sorting them into Instagram Highlights. Highlights are especially useful if you have special, ongoing deals or offers.

Take a look at Sephora’s Instagram and how the company uses highlights to display current offers.

Sephora’s use of Highlights is a great example because the company’s highlights organize and display different categories of products, such as fragrances and hair care. Furthermore, they have a highlight showing the brand’s values.

Pro tip: When posting Stories, think of ways you can later archive them into Highlights.

7. Post meaningful content.

Post content that is relatable, authentic, and on-brand. This means posting content that highlights your products and services but doesn’t always feel like a direct advertisement.

Look at Dove’s official Instagram as an example. The company post Reels like “Choose a Dove Body Wash with Me” where viewers watch a person go through different body washes to start their morning.

However, the company also posts more heartfelt content, such as a Reel showing different mothers and daughters washing each other’s hair and playing together.

Both videos feature Dove products but in a more humanized and authentic way.

Pro tip: Keep tabs on trending topics, holidays, and social media trends to help you create meaningful and relevant content.

8. Keep a consistent content calendar.

To start posting on Instagram, download this social media content calendar template and plan your Instagram posts.

Over time, you’ll want to build up a backlog of photos for times of need, like the weekends or when you go on vacation.

Keep your target persona in mind when planning your posting schedule, as that can drastically change your posting timing and frequency — especially if you’re targeting an audience in a different time zone.

Optimizing your schedule for your specific audience might take time and experimentation.

According to our State of Social Media Report, the best times to post on Instagram are:

• 12 p.m. – 2:59 p.m.
• 3 p.m. – 5:59 p.m.
• 6 p.m. – 8:59 p.m.

Pro tip: For a United States audience, combine Eastern and Central time zones, as they represent almost 80% of the U.S. population.

For audiences outside the U.S., use whichever time zones your target audience uses.

9. Curate user-generated Instagram content.

Encourage your customers to post content using your products or services and tag your Instagram account.

This will alert you to a new tagged post, and you can repost the content on your own Instagram account or to your Instagram Story.

For example, camera company GoPro often posts content taken by athletes, stunt experts, and active influencers using GoPro cameras.

The Instagram photo below was taken by professional surfer Kai Jenny.

Pro tip: Create a brand hashtag customers can use when posting content of your products or services.

10. Optimize your captions for SEO.

Captions are integral to your Instagram because they can showcase your brand voice, double as a call to action, and contextualize your content.

They can also make your posts easier to find when optimized for SEO.

Instagram now allows users to search for content using keywords rather than just usernames or hashtags.

So, be sure to use keywords that align with your brand so your content is easier to find.

For instance, an influencer posted a Reel showing themselves using a concealer by Fyne Cosmetics. The caption included the word “concealer.”

As a result, it was one of the first videos I found when I searched “concealer” in Instagram’s search bar.

Pro tip: To help you find the right keywords, look at other brands within your industry to see what keywords they include in their posts.

11. Use relevant hashtags.

On Instagram, a hashtag ties the conversations of different users who wouldn’t already be connected into a single stream.

If you use relevant hashtags, your posts will get exposure to a broader audience than those who already follow you or know about your brand.

Research relevant hashtags in your niche or industry to find the hashtags your audience might be using. The easiest way to do this research is in the Instagram app, the “explore” tab.

Searching for one hashtag shows you a list of related hashtags at the top of your screen.

For example, I searched #shoes and was given other suggestions, such as #shoeslover #shoesaddict.

Pro tip: Look out for trending hashtags and find ways to incorporate them into your content or create content relating to the hashtag.

12. Interact with your followers.

The most natural way to draw attention to your Instagram account is by interacting with your followers. Like their comments and repost them whenever appropriate.

You should also consider following other accounts that fall within your niche. For example, Nike follows athletes like Grace Geyoro, Chris Mosier, and ShaCarri Richardson.

When another account is notified that you’ve followed them, they might check out your budget and decide whether to follow you.

You’ll also see their recent posts in your feed, so you can like their content and interact with them if you choose to.

Pro tip: As you build a following, celebrate your followers and show you appreciate them by responding to their comments, following them, and engaging with their posts.

13. Cross-promote your Instagram content.

Once you build a solid relationship with some of the folks behind these accounts with a similar audience, you might ask to co-promote each others’ accounts.

The more natural and less spammy you can make the content of these cross-promotions — especially the captions — the better.

It also helps to be picky about them and only cross-promote sparingly.

Below is an example of what that looks like from food blogger @sprinklesforbreakfast and the companies Sweets Indeed and Cookie Cutter Kingdom.

The food blogger posted a video using the companies’ products, promoted their official Instagram in the caption, and tagged them.

14. Run Instagram contests and giveaways.

Another great way to expand your reach while increasing engagement on your Instagram content is to publish a post promoting a contest or giveaway.

In that post, ask people to follow your account and like or comment on the image for a chance to win.

For example, Skinician, a skincare company, hosted a giveaway on its Instagram. To enter, people had to follow the account and tag a friend.

Pro tip: Consider collaborating with another account to run the giveaway. Doing so will introduce your brand to their audience as well.

15. Collaborate with Influencers.

Instagram is the most popular platform for influencer marketing. As mentioned earlier, influencers allow brands to tap into new audiences.

Once you have a strong enough presence on Instagram and you’ve built enough connections, look for influencers whose platform aligns with yours.

For example, if you’re a makeup company, look for makeup or beauty influencers who can promote your products.

If the idea of collaborating with an influencer sounds expensive, consider working with micro-influencers who have a following between 10,000 and 100,000 followers rather than large influencers with millions.

Pro tip: If you’re wondering how to find the best influencers for your brand, click here.

16. Make your Instagram profile easy to follow.

Place a follow button on your website homepage, “About Us” page, blog posts, and other places on your website. If your brand has brick-and-mortar locations, put out an excellent ol’ print call-to-action letting people know you have an Instagram account and encouraging them to follow you.

Also, promote your Instagram account on your other social media accounts. The folks who already follow you on Facebook and Twitter will follow you on Instagram without much prodding.

Let those followers know you’re on Instagram and encourage them to follow you by including a link to your Instagram account in the bios and posts of those other social media accounts.

You’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed. Don’t worry; that’s normal. Creating and managing a new Instagram strategy is a lot of work.

Thankfully, there are some great apps to help your Instagram posts stand out and plenty of apps to help you get followers. We’re going to talk about the latter in this section.

Crowdfire

Crowdfire is a helpful tool for pruning and growing your Instagram following. Pruning your list is as important as developing it, as it helps keep your engagement rates high.

Use Crowdfire to identify inactive followers, send automated direct messages, and discover new followers.

Price: Free

Hootsuite

Hootsuite can help analyze your competition, find the best times to post, and identify opportunities to increase engagement. Use this tool to manage your Instagram campaigns and measure your success.

Don’t miss its handy mobile app for Instagramming on the go.

Price: Paid, but you can try it free for 30 days

Iconosquare

Iconosquare is an all-in-one Instagram analytics, management, and scheduling tool. Use it to track comments on your Instagram profile (and others if you have multiple accounts) and organize a new and curated content library.

Iconosquare also offers an Instagram search engine you can use to discover influencers and cross-promotional opportunities.

Price: Paid, but you can try it free for 14 days

InstaTag

InstaTag shows you which hashtags are trending for the day.

Use this tool to power content with the hashtags most relevant to your brand and products to get your Instagram profile in front of new followers.

Price: Free

Repost

Repost is a “retweet” feature for Instagram; it allows you to easily repost other people’s content (hello, UGC!) while giving credit to the original account.

Repost is an excellent tool for resharing content from customers, followers, employees, and influencers.

Price: Free

Time to Watch Your Follower Count Go Up

Attracting genuine social media followers isn’t easy, but by following these tips and using a few additional apps, you’ll see an improvement quickly.

Give it a shot: Make a profile and start posting, testing, tweaking, and promoting your account.

Garnering a following on Instagram won’t happen overnight, but the stronger a foundation you create on your account in your niche Instagram community, the higher quality your followers will be.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Microsoft Excel know-how is so expected that it hardly warrants a line on a resume anymore. But how well do you really know how to use it?

Marketing is more data-driven than ever before. At any time you could be tracking growth rates, content analysis, or marketing ROI. You may know how to plug in numbers and add up cells in a column in Excel, but that’s not going to get you far when it comes to metrics reporting.

Do you want to understand what pivot tables are? Are you ready for your first VLOOKUP? Aspiring Excel wizard, read on or jump to the section that interests you most:

Table of Contents

• What is Microsoft Excel?
• Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Basics
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Pivot Tables
• IF Functions
• VLOOKUP
• INDEX MATCH
• Data Visualization

What is Microsoft Excel?

Microsoft Excel is a popular spreadsheet software program for business. It’s used for data entry and management, charts and graphs, and project management. You can format, organize, visualize, and calculate data with this tool.

How to Download Microsoft Excel

It’s easy to download Microsoft Excel. First, check to make sure that your PC or Mac meets Microsoft’s system requirements. Next, sign in and install Microsoft 365.

After you sign in, follow the steps for your account and computer system to download and launch the program.

For example, say you’re working on a Mac desktop. You’ll click on Launchpad or look in your applications folder. Then, click on the Excel icon to open the application.

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Basics

Sometimes, Excel seems too good to be true. Need to combine data in multiple cells? Excel can do it. Need to copy formatting across an array of cells? Excel can do that, too.

Let’s start this Excel guide with the basics. Once you have these functions down, you’ll be ready to tackle more pro Excel tips and advanced lessons.

Inserting Rows or Columns

As you work with data, you might find yourself needing to add more rows and columns. Doing this one at a time would be super tedious. Luckily, there’s an easier way.

To add multiple rows or columns in a spreadsheet, highlight the number of pre-existing rows or columns that you want to add. Then, right-click and select “Insert.”

In this example, I add three rows to the top of my spreadsheet.

Autofill

Autofill lets you quickly fill adjacent cells with several types of data, including values, series, and formulas.

There are many ways to deploy this feature, but the fill handle is among the easiest.

First, choose the cells you want to be the source. Next, find the fill handle in the lower-right corner of the cell. Then either drag the fill handle to cover the cells you want to fill or just double-click.

Filters

When you’re looking at large data sets, you usually don’t need to look at every row at the same time. Sometimes, you only want to look at data that fit into certain criteria. That’s where filters come in.

Filters allow you to pare down data to only see certain rows at one time. In Excel, you can add a filter to each column in your data. From there, you can choose which cells you want to view.

To add a filter, click the Data tab and select “Filter.” Next, click the arrow next to the column headers. This lets you choose whether you want to organize your data in ascending or descending order, as well as which rows you want to show.

Let’s take a look at the Harry Potter example below. Say you only want to see the students in Gryffindor. By selecting the Gryffindor filter, the other rows disappear.

Pro tip: Start with a filtered view in your original spreadsheet. Then, copy and paste the values to another spreadsheet before you start analyzing.

Sort

Sometimes you’ll have a disorganized list of data. This is typical when you’re exporting lists, like marketing contacts or blog posts. Excel’s sort feature can help you alphabetize any list.

Click on the data in the column you want to sort. Then click on the “Data” tab in your toolbar and look for the “Sort” option on the left.

• If the “A” is on top of the “Z,” you can just click on that button once. Choosing A-Z means the list will sort in alphabetical order.
• If the “Z” is on top of the “A,” click the button twice. Z-A selection means the list will sort in reverse alphabetical order.

Remove Duplicates

Large datasets tend to have duplicate content. For example, you may have a list of different company contacts, but you only want to see the number of companies you have. In situations like this, removing duplicates comes in handy.

To remove duplicates, highlight the row or column where you noticed duplicate data. Then, go to the Data tab, and select “Remove Duplicates” (under Tools). A pop-up will appear so that you can confirm which data you want to keep. Select “Remove Duplicates,” and you’re good to go.

If you want to see an example, this post offers step-by-step instructions for removing duplicates.

You can also use this feature to remove an entire row based on a duplicate column value. So, say you have three rows of information and you only need to see one, you can select the whole dataset and then remove duplicates. The resulting list will have only unique data without any duplicates.

Paste Special

It’s often helpful to change the items in a row of data into a column (or vice versa). It would take a lot of time to copy and paste each individual header.

Not to mention, you may easily fall into one of the biggest, most unfortunate Excel traps — human error. Read here to check out some of the most common Microsoft Excel errors.

Instead of making one of these errors, let Excel do the work for you. Take a look at this example:

To use this function, highlight the column or row you want to transpose. Then, right-click and select “Copy.”

Next, select the cells where you want the first row or column to begin. Right-click on the cell, and then select “Paste Special.”

When the module appears, choose the option to transpose.

Paste Special is a super useful function. In the module, you can also choose between copying formulas, values, formats, or even column widths. This is especially helpful when it comes to copying the results of your pivot table into a chart.

Text to Columns

What if you want to split out information that’s in one cell into two different cells? For example, maybe you want to pull out someone’s company name through their email address. Or you want to separate someone’s full name into a first and last name for your email marketing templates.

Thanks to Microsoft Excel, both are possible. First, highlight the column where you want to split up. Next, go to the Data tab and select “Text to Columns.” A module will appear with more information. First, you need to select either “Delimited” or “Fixed Width.”

• Delimited means you want to break up the column based on characters such as commas, spaces, or tabs.
• Fixed Width means you want to select the exact location in all the columns where you want the split to occur.

Select “Delimited” to separate the full name into first name and last name.

Then, it’s time to choose the delimiters. This could be a tab, semicolon, comma, space, or something else. (For example, “something else” could be the “@” sign used in an email address.) Let’s choose the space for this example. Excel will then show you a preview of what your new columns will look like.

When you’re happy with the preview, press “Next.” This page will allow you to select Advanced Formats if you choose to. When you’re done, click “Finish.”

Format Painter

Excel has a lot of features to make crunching numbers and analyzing your data quick and easy. But if you ever spent some time formatting a spreadsheet, you know it can get a bit tedious.

Don’t waste time repeating the same formatting commands over and over again. Use the format painter to copy formatting from one area of the worksheet to another.

To do this, choose the cell you’d like to replicate. Then, select the format painter option (paintbrush icon) from the top toolbar. When you release the mouse, your cell should show the new format.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Creating reports in Excel is time-consuming enough. How can we spend less time navigating, formatting, and selecting items in our spreadsheet? Glad you asked. There are a ton of Excel shortcuts out there, including some of our favorites listed below.

Create a New Workbook

PC: Ctrl-N | Mac: Command-N

Select Entire Row

PC: Shift-Space | Mac: Shift-Space

Select Entire Column

PC: Ctrl-Space | Mac: Control-Space

Select Rest of Column

PC: Ctrl-Shift-Down/Up | Mac: Command-Shift-Down/Up

Select Rest of Row

PC: Ctrl-Shift-Right/Left | Mac: Command-Shift-Right/Left

Add Hyperlink

PC: Ctrl-K | Mac: Command-K

Open Format Cells Window

PC: Ctrl-1 | Mac: Command-1

Autosum Selected Cells

PC: Alt-= | Mac: Command-Shift-T

Excel Formulas

At this point, you’re getting used to Excel’s interface and flying through quick commands on your spreadsheets.

Now, let’s dig into the core use case for the software: Excel formulas. Excel can help you do simple arithmetic like adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing any data.

• To add, use the + sign.
• To subtract, use the – sign.
• To multiply, use the * sign.
• To divide, use the / sign.
• To use exponents, use the ^ sign.

Remember, all formulas in Excel must begin with an equal sign (=). Use parentheses to make sure certain calculations happen first. For example, consider how =10+10*10 is different from =(10+10)*10.

Besides manually typing in simple calculations, you can also refer to Excel’s built-in formulas. Some of the most common include:

• Average: =AVERAGE(cell range)
• Sum: =SUM(cell range)
• Count: =COUNT(cell range)

Also note that series’ of specific cells are separated by a comma (,), while cell ranges are notated with a colon (:). For example, you could use any of these formulas:

• =SUM(4,4)
• =SUM(A4,B4)
• =SUM(A4:B4)

Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting lets you change a cell’s color based on the information within the cell. For example, say you want to flag a category in your spreadsheet.

To get started, highlight the group of cells you want to use conditional formatting on. Then, choose “Conditional Formatting” from the Home menu. Next, select a logic option from the dropdown. A window will pop up that prompts you to provide more information about your formatting rule. Select “OK” when you’re done, and you should see your results automatically appear.

Note: You can also create your own logic if you want something beyond the dropdown choices.

Dollar Signs

Have you ever seen a dollar sign in an Excel formula? When this symbol is in a formula, it isn’t representing an American dollar. Instead, it makes sure that the exact column and row stay the same even if you copy the same formula in adjacent rows.

You see, a cell reference — when you refer to cell A5 from cell C5, for example — is relative by default.

This means you’re actually referring to a cell that’s five columns to the left (C minus A) and in the same row (5). This is called a relative formula.

When you copy a relative formula from one cell to another, it’ll adjust the values in the formula based on where it’s moved. But sometimes, you want those values to stay the same no matter whether they’re moved around or not. You can do that by making the formula in the cell into what’s called an absolute formula.

To change the relative formula (=A5+C5) into an absolute formula, precede the row and column values with dollar signs, like this: (=$A$5+$C$5).

Combine Cells Using “&”

Databases tend to split out data to make it as exact as possible. For example, instead of having data that shows a person’s full name, a database might have the data as a first name and then a last name in separate columns.

In Excel, you can combine cells with different data into one cell by using the “&” sign in your function. The example below uses this formula: =A2&” “&B2.

Let’s go through the formula together using an example. So, let’s combine first names and last names into full names in a single column.

To do this, put your cursor in the blank cell where you want the full name to appear. Next, highlight one cell that contains a first name, type in an “&” sign, and then highlight a cell with the corresponding last name.

But you’re not finished. If all you type in is =A2&B2, then there will not be a space between the person’s first name and last name. To add that necessary space, use the function =A2&” “&B2. The quotation marks around the space tell Excel to put a space between the first and last name.

To make this true for multiple rows, drag the corner of that first cell downward as shown in the example.

Pivot Tables

Pivot tables reorganize data in a spreadsheet. A pivot table won’t change the data that you have, but it can sum up values and compare information in a way that’s easy to understand.

For example, let’s look at how many people are in each house at Hogwarts.

To create the Pivot Table, go to Insert > Pivot Table. Excel will automatically populate your pivot table, but you can always change the order of the data. Then, you have four options to choose from.

Report Filter

This allows you to only look at certain rows in your dataset.

For example, to create a filter by house, choose only students in Gryffindor.

Column and Row Labels

These could be any headers or rows in the dataset.

Note: Both Row and Column labels can contain data from your columns. For example, you can drag First Name to either the Row or Column label depending on how you want to see the data.

Value

This section allows you to convert data into a number. Instead of just pulling in any numeric value, you can sum, count, average, max, min, count numbers, or do a few other manipulations with your data. By default, when you drag a field to Value, it always does a count.

The example above counts the number of students in each house. To recreate this pivot table, go to the pivot table and drag the House column to both the row Labels and the values. This will sum up the number of students associated with each house.

IF Functions

At its most basic level, Excel’s IF function lets you see if a condition you set is true or false for a given value.

If the condition is true, you get one result. If the condition is false, you get another result.

This popular tool is useful for comparisons and finding errors. But if you’re new to Excel you may need a little more information to get the most out of this feature.

Let’s take a look at this function’s syntax:

• =IF(logical_test, value_if_true, [value_if_false])

• With values, this could be: =IF(A2>B2, “Over Budget”, “OK”)

In this example, you want to find where you’re overspending. With this IF function, if your spending (what’s in A2) is greater than your budget (what’s in B2), that overspending will be easy to see. Then you can then filter the data so that you see only the line items where you’re going over budget.

The real power of the IF function comes when you string or “nest” multiple IF statements together. This allows you to set multiple conditions, get more specific results, and organize your data into more manageable chunks.

For example, ranges are one way to segment your data for better analysis. For example, you can categorize data into values that are less than 10, 11 to 50, or 51 to 100.

=IF(B3<11,"10 or less",IF(B3<51,"11 to 50",IF(B3<100,"51 to 100")))

Let’s talk about a few more IF functions.

COUNTIF Function

The power of IF functions goes beyond simple true and false statements. With the COUNTIF function, Excel can count the number of times a word or number appears in any range of cells.

For example, let’s say you want to count the number of times the word “Gryffindor” appears in this data set.

Take a look at the syntax.

• The formula: =COUNTIF(range, criteria)
• The formula with variables from the example below: =COUNTIF(D:D,”Gryffindor”)

In this formula, there are several variables:

Range

The range that you want the formula to cover.

In this one-column example, “D:D” shows that the first and last columns are both D. If you want to look at columns C and D, use “C:D.”

Criteria

Whatever number or piece of text you want Excel to count.

Only use quotation marks if you want the result to be text instead of a number. In this example, “Gryffindor” is the only criteria.

To use this function, type the COUNTIF formula in any cell and press “Enter.” Using the example above, this action will show how many times the word “Gryffindor” appears in the dataset.

SUMIF Function

Ready to make the IF function a bit more complex? Let’s say you want to analyze the number of leads your blog has generated from one author, not the entire team.

With the SUMIFS function, you can add up cells that meet certain criteria. You can add as many different criteria to the formula as you like.

Here’s your formula:

• =SUMIFS(sum_range, criteria_range1, criteria1, [criteria_range2, criteria 2],etc.)

That’s a lot of criteria. Let’s take a look at each part:

Sum_range

The range of cells you’re going to add up.

Criteria_range1

The range that is being searched for your first value.

Criteria1

This is the specific value that determines which cells in Criteria_range1 to add together.

Note: Remember to use quotation marks if you’re searching for text.

In the example below, the SUMIF formula counts the total number of house points from Gryffindor.

IF AND/OR

The OR and AND functions round out your IF function choices. These functions check multiple arguments. It returns either TRUE or FALSE depending on if at least one of the arguments is true (this is the OR function), or if all of them are true (this is the AND function).

Lost in a sea of “and’s” and “or’s”? Don’t check out yet. In practice, OR and AND functions will never be used on their own. They need to be nested inside of another IF function. Recall the syntax of a basic IF function:

• =IF(logical_test, value_if_true, [value_if_false])
• Now, let’s fit an OR function inside of the logical_test: =IF(OR(logical1, logical2), value_if_true, [value_if_false])

To put it plainly, this combined formula allows you to return a value if both conditions are true, as opposed to just one. With AND/OR functions, your formulas can be as simple or complex as you want them to be, as long as you understand the basics of the IF function.

VLOOKUP

Have you ever had two sets of data on two different spreadsheets that you want to combine into a single spreadsheet?

For example, say you have a list of names and email addresses in one spreadsheet and a list of email addresses and company names in a different spreadsheet. But you want the names, email addresses, and company names of those people to appear in one spreadsheet.

VLOOKUP is a great go-to formula for this.

Before you use the formula, be sure that you have at least one column that appears identically in both places.

Note: Scour your data sets to make sure the column of data you’re using to combine spreadsheets is exactly the same. This includes removing any extra spaces.

In the example below, Sheet One and Sheet Two are both lists with different information about the same people. The common thread between the two is their email addresses. Let’s combine both datasets so that all the house information from Sheet Two translates over to Sheet One.

Type in the formula: =VLOOKUP(C2,Sheet2!A:B,2,FALSE). This will bring all the house data into Sheet One.

Now that you’ve seen how VLOOKUP works, let’s review the formula.

• The formula: =VLOOKUP(lookup value, table array, column number, [range lookup])
• The formula with variables from the example: =VLOOKUP(C2,Sheet2!A:B,2,FALSE)

In this formula, there are several variables.

Lookup Value

A value that LOOKUP searches for in an array. So, your lookup value is the identical value you have in both spreadsheets.

In the example, the lookup value is the first email address on the list, or cell 2 (C2).

Table Array

Table arrays hold column-oriented or tabular data, like the columns on Sheet Two you’re going to pull your data from.

This table array includes the column of data identical to your lookup value in Sheet One and the column of data you’re trying to copy to Sheet Two.

In the example, “A” means Column A in Sheet Two. The “B” means Column B.

So, the table array is “Sheet2!A:B.”

Column Number

Excel refers to columns as letters and rows as numbers. So, the column number is the selected column for the new data you want to copy.

In the example, this would be the “House” column. “House” is column 2 in the table array.

Note: Your range can be more than two columns. For example, if there are three columns on Sheet Two — Email, Age, and House — and you also want to bring House onto Sheet One, you can still use a VLOOKUP. You just need to change the “2” to a “3” so it pulls back the value in the third column. The formula for this would be: =VLOOKUP(C2:Sheet2!A:C,3,false).]

Range Lookup

This term means that you’re looking for a value within a range of values. You can also use the term “FALSE” to pull only exact value matches.

Note: VLOOKUP will only pull back values to the right of the column containing your identical data on the second sheet. This is why some people prefer to use the INDEX and MATCH functions instead.

INDEX MATCH

Like VLOOKUP, the INDEX and MATCH functions pull data from another dataset into one central location. Here are the main differences:

VLOOKUP is a much simpler formula.

If you’re working with large datasets that need thousands of lookups, the INDEX MATCH function will decrease load time in Excel.

INDEX MATCH formulas work right-to-left.

VLOOKUP formulas only work as a left-to-right lookup. So, if you need to do a lookup that has a column to the right of the results column, you’d have to rearrange those columns to do a VLOOKUP. This can be tedious with large datasets and lead to errors.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say Sheet One contains a list of names and their Hogwarts email addresses. Sheet Two contains a list of email addresses and each student’s Patronus.

The information that lives in both sheets is the email addresses column. But, the column numbers for email addresses are different on the two sheets. So, you’d use the INDEX MATCH formula instead of VLOOKUP to avoid column-switching errors.

The INDEX MATCH formula is the MATCH formula nested inside the INDEX formula.

• The formula: =INDEX(table array, MATCH formula)
• This becomes: =INDEX(table array, MATCH (lookup_value, lookup_array))
• The formula with variables from the example: =INDEX(Sheet2!A:A,(MATCH(Sheet1!C:C,Sheet2!C:C,0)))

Here are the variables:

Table Array

The range of columns on Sheet Two that contain the new data you want to bring over to Sheet One.

In the example, “A” means Column A, and has the “Patronus” information for each person.

Lookup Value

This Sheet One column has identical values in both spreadsheets.

In the example, this is the “email” column on Sheet One, which is Column C. So, Sheet1!C:C.

Lookup Array

Again, an array is a group of values in rows and columns that you want to search.

In this example, the lookup array is the column in Sheet Two that contains identical values in both spreadsheets. So, the “email” column on Sheet Two, Sheet2!C:C.

Once you have your variables set, type in the INDEX MATCH formula. Add it where you want the combined information to populate.

Data Visualization

Now that you’ve learned formulas and functions, let’s make your analysis visual. With a beautiful graph, your audience will be able to process and remember your data more easily.

Create a basic graph.

First, decide what type of graph to use. Bar charts and pie charts help you compare categories. Pie charts compare part of a whole and are often best when one of the categories is way larger than the others. Bar charts highlight incremental differences between categories. Finally, line charts can help display trends over time.

This post can help you find the best chart or graph for your presentation.

Next, highlight the data you want to turn into a chart. Then choose “Charts” in the top navigation. You can also use Insert > Chart if you have an older version of Excel. Then you can adjust and resize your chart until it makes the statement you’re hoping for.

Microsoft Excel can help your business grow.

Excel is a useful tool for any small business. Whether you’re focused on marketing, HR, sales, or service, these Microsoft Excel tips can boost your performance.

Whether you want to improve efficiency or productivity, Excel can help. You can find new trends and organize your data into usable insights. It can make your data analysis easier to understand and your daily tasks easier.

All it takes is a little know-how and some time with the software. So start learning, and get ready to grow.

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

Do you need to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in web design when you can easily create websites with AI-powered tools? That’s a question that stopped me in the tracks because there’s no easy answer.

Still, for someone whose first taste of web design was with Macromedia Dreamweaver, I’ll say it helps to know how websites are put together.

Even if you’re creating landing pages with advanced tools like HubSpot’s AI website generator, you never know when you’ll need to manually change the font, layout, or animate a particular web element. And knowing the web fundamentals — specifically HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — definitely helps.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through each of them, explaining how each web technology works and why it’s important for developing modern websites.

Table of Contents

• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript at a Glance
• What is HTML?
• What is CSS?
• What is JavaScript?
• How to Use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Together for Web Design

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript at a Glance

Almost every modern website uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The fact that you’re able to read this blog, presented in an aesthetically pleasing layout, and see a slide-in pop-up after scrolling to a certain depth is due to all three web technologies.

The best way to understand each of them is to use the house analogy.

• HTML provides structure to a website, just like how beams and pillars support a house.
• CSS beautifies an otherwise plain web page, much like paints and wallpapers enhance the beauty of a house.
• JavaScript allows users to interact with a website by adding behind-the-scenes functionality. It’s like adding plumbing, electricity, and internet to a house.

If you’re not familiar with coding, they might look similar and confusing. But when you’re trained to look into the details, or specifically the syntax and semantics of each, you’ll be able to differentiate them.

What is HTML?

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It structures a web page into logical parts so the web browser knows where the header, body, paragraphs, tables, images, and other elements are. For example, these are common elements that you can specifically state in an HTML document.

• contains metadata of the web page.
• consists of visible content that users can see.
• 
  

  the heading with the largest font size.

• starts a paragraph.

• bolds the text.

How does HTML work?

When you visit a webpage, the browser loads the associated HTML document from the web server. An HTML document organizes web content with a series of HTML tags. Then, the browser creates a Document Object Model (DOM), which it uses to understand how various web elements relate to each other. You can think of DOM as a building blueprint that explains a house’s structure.

Although HTML is not a programming language, I appreciate how it categorizes web elements with standard conventions. For example, if you want to underline a sentence, you mark it with and .

This is underlined text using the HTML u tag.

Just like how an architect uses a blueprint to construct a house, a web browser uses the HTML file to render the web content’s structure. Whether a text is a heading, paragraph, or belongs to a numbered list, it’s all clearly stated in the HTML file.

Here’s what the HTML structure looks like for a simple dialog box.

Hello World

Basic HTML content

Click me

You can copy the markup above, paste it into a text editor, and save it as an .html file. Then, open it in a browser and you’ll see a simple, plain web page like this. While you won’t see the HTML markup on the browser, they’re helpful for the browser to map information in ways the web designer intended.

Another important feature of HTML is that you can add attributes to the HTML elements. For example, if you want to turn a text into a hyperlink, you can add an attribute that describes the destination page.

Content

Here, href contains the destination file that you will be directed to when you click Content, which is the anchor text.

Understanding HTML5 in Modern Web Development

The first version of HTML was invented in 1991. Since then, HTML has gone through several major revisions. Today, many modern websites use HTML5, which is more flexible and supports features that modern web development needs.

For example, HTML5 provides semantic tags that better describe specific web elements. Let’s take the , which you’ll find in HTML. Basically, it tells the browser to render a particular text bold. While is still available in HTML5, you can achieve the results with . When you use , you’re also telling the browser the text is significantly important, which is helpful for assistive technologies.

HTML5 also provides better support for audio and video embedding. Remember the days when you had to download Flash to render videos on websites? With HTML5, you can embed videos with tags like and.

For more on the many features that HTML5 offers, read this article.

What is CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a rule-based language that lets you create an aesthetically pleasing webpage. You can change how every web element looks by applying CSS to override the browser’s default style. For example, if you want a different font, background colors, or margin size, you can write CSS code for the HTML document you created.

How does CSS work?

CSS follows a standardized syntax, which, in my opinion, even for non-coders, is easy to follow. Basically, you write CSS code by specifying the selector and declaration.

• Selector is the web element you want to modify. For example, a heading can be a selector.
• A declaration is the new properties that you want to assign to the web element. You use a { } pair to list the declaration, which consists of a property-value pair.

Let’s take the CSS code below as an example.

I’ve added several changes that override the original element’s style, including the background color, text color, and the padding. And here’s what the dialog box looks like with the CSS code.

Prettier, isn’t it?

But that’s not all. You can style web elements at different levels by placing the CSS code in different parts of your website.

• Inline: Write the CSS code within the HTML element using the attribute to limit the changes to one specific web element.
• Local: Place the CSS within the HTML file, usually in the header, to apply style changes for the entire web page.
• Global: Create a separate CSS file and link to it from your website’s header to enable global changes for the entire website.

For example, I can use a different font, color, and margin for landing pages by using local CSS without changing the default style for blog articles.

Responsive Web Design With CSS

CSS isn’t only for giving your website a beautiful facelift. It’s also important for enabling responsive design. CSS allows the browser to automatically adjust web elements, including font size, layout, and margin, according to the screen size.

I remember the days when smartphones were introduced. Back then, many websites looked awkward on small screens because responsive design was still in its infancy. These days, the browser can apply different styles based on the device you’re using in a method called CSS media queries. Essentially, CSS media queries define distinct sets of attributes for various screen sizes, including desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

Another CSS technique that gives you flexibility is to use relative instead of absolute scale when declaring properties.

For example, instead of stating width: 200 px, I use width:70% so the browser can adjust the web element’s width accordingly. Besides %, you can also use relative units like em, rem, and vw with CSS to create responsive web layouts.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a programming language that web developers use to add functions, animation, and integration into websites. It turns a plain, read-only web page into one that users can interact with. For example, it allows you to drag and drop files into a placeholder and view the upload progress in real time.

Since JavaScript was introduced, it has become a core technology that makes a website “livelier.” The automatic scrolling carousel, perfectly-timed pop-in dialogs, built-in rate calculator functions — basically anything that isn’t static is powered mostly by JavaScript.

That said, JavaScript is more than animating objects in modern web development. It’s also a critical technology that performs many intelligent backend services. For example, websites use JavaScript to send customer information submitted in a form to the backend server, which is later stored in a database.

How does JavaScript work?

JavaScript, like many programming languages, has its own rules and syntax. If you share a similar background with me in object-oriented languages like C#, Java, or Python, JavaScript will look familiar.

Initially, JavaScript was a client-side scripting language, which means it supports developing user-facing websites. These days, developers use JavaScript for both client and backend development. When you use JavaScript for client-side functions, the browser retrieves the JavaScript file from the server and runs the code in real time.

Let’s revisit the same example I used to explain HTML and CSS. If you click the button on your webpage, nothing happens. The reason is that there isn’t a “code” assigned to the button. With JavaScript, you can add a function to the button.

For example, what happens if I add the following JavaScript code to the button?

The result? You will see the button’s text changed to Clicked! and the dialog’s orientation shifted after you click it.

While JavaScript used to be associated with animating web objects, its role has significantly evolved. Now, JavaScript can also run backend functions. For example, you can create a function that automatically refreshes marketing analytics in real time from your CRM database. (I won’t be showing the entire example here because it takes more than a few lines of script to do that. Also, it’s better to use HubSpot Marketing Analytics if that’s what you want to do!)

Like CSS, you can include JavaScript inline, locally, or create a separate file.

Pro tip: Download my example HTML file here, which contains the CSS and JavaScript implementations. However, in actual projects, it’s better to store HTML, CSS, and JavaScript separately. Spending 10 years in application development taught me not to mix the user interface and the underlying function code together.

JavaScript and API Integration

An application programming interface (API) is a method that allows multiple software components, including web services, to reliably exchange data. Developers use an API to expose functions to the public, so you don’t have to build them from scratch. Instead, you call the API from your website to access those services.

Because JavaScript is popular for web design, you can use the script to access many APIs. And this includes browser APIs and third-party APIs.

• Browser APIs are services that are built onto the web browser itself. For example, you can access geolocation data, control audio volume, and capture images from your camera with browser APIs.
• Third-party APIs let you integrate external functions into your website. For example, you can stream live video to Facebook, access HubSpot CRM data, and use Google Maps with the APIs that these platforms provide.

Let’s check out the JavaScript below. It creates a Google Maps object with the google.maps.Map() constructor. A constructor is code that creates a new object that mimics the original blueprint. In this case, it creates the Google Map object.

Then, you can use API constructors like google.maps.Geocoder(), google.maps.Marker() and google.maps.InfoWindow() by including them in your JavaScript code.

Below is how I use the google.maps.Marker() API to mark a position on the map.

How to Use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Together for Web Design

So far, I’ve clarified the roles of each scripting and programming language. The question now lies in combining them together so that you have a beautiful, functional website with an organized codebase.

If you’re using web development tools like HubSpot’s website builder, you don’t need to worry about unifying, organizing, and maintaining the files. The tool does the heavy lifting so you can focus on creating a website your customers love.

However, if you decide to build your sites manually, you’ll need to create separate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.

Typically, the project folder of a single-page website looks like this.

• Project

• Index.html
• Style.css
• Script.js

To include the CSS file, place the following line in the of the webpage.

Meanwhile, for JavaScript, include the following line of code in the tag:

<script src="script.js“>

Depending on the use cases, you can also place the JavaScript in the , but for performance, I’d suggest using the async or defer attribute.

<script src="script.js” defer >

Pro tip: When building websites, I can be quite obsessive in keeping code maintainable, readable, and reusable. That’s why I don’t put all the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code in a single file.

Design with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Now, you’ve learned the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They’re core technologies that drive modern websites. And they do more than create beautiful sites – they also enable complex functions that enhance everything from website interactions to business transactions.

To master HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in web design, you’ll need to invest time, resources, and effort. But even with basic knowledge, you can still do wonders in your web design, provided that you’re using web development tools that bring them together.

When I started in content marketing in 2013, my digital marketing analytics strategy was refreshing Google Analytics to check if page views were up. Traffic climbing meant we were winning; traffic dropping meant panic mode.

Over many B2B SaaS roles, I learned that tracking traffic alone can‘t answer the question every exec asks: “Is our marketing actually working?” I’ve sat in countless meetings where no one had a clear answer.

Most teams are stuck in the “more traffic is better” mindset, but traffic only tells part of the story. If you want to know what’s really driving results, you need to go beyond the basics.

In this post, I’ll share the digital marketing analytics I rely on to make smarter decisions, prove impact, and confidently answer that executive question. Bookmark this guide and jump to what you need most.

Table of Contents

• What are digital marketing analytics?
• Digital Marketing Analytics vs. Web Analytics 
• What is a digital marketing analysis?
• How to Use Digital Marketing Analytics Effectively
• Digital Advertising Analytics

Digital marketing analytics help you make sense of what your audience is doing online — and whether those actions are helping your business grow.

I think of digital analytics as the thing that helps me read between the lines. It’s one thing to know someone clicked or filled out a form — but I want to know what that tells me about what’s working.

Web analytics mostly stick to site-level metrics — page views, bounce rates, and session times. But digital marketing analytics go further. They pull data from across your channels — email, ads, social — and help you understand how your overall marketing is performing and where it’s driving genuine results.

Digital Marketing Metrics to Know

Early on, I was glued to page views and social impressions. They looked great in a report — but didn’t tell me if we were bringing in leads, closing deals, or growing the business.

We were pulling in traffic and checking all the usual boxes — but none of it was turning into leads. At some point, I stopped trying to make the reports look good and started asking: is any of this actually working? That’s when I began focusing on metrics that showed real impact, not just movement.

Source

Below are the metrics I’ve found most valuable across different areas of digital marketing — starting with the basics.

Best Metrics for Website Marketing Analytics

These are the site-level metrics I track most often to understand how content and UX are performing:

Visitor

I focus on unique visitors because it shows me how many individual people are coming to the site — not just refreshes or repeat views. When I’m checking content performance, this is one of the first things I look at.

Page View

Every page load counts as a page view. It’s not the most insightful metric on its own, but it helps spot trends and identify content that’s getting attention.

Session

A session includes everything a person does on your site in one visit — clicking around, reading multiple pages, maybe filling out a form. It ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. I use sessions to get a sense of how deep someone’s engagement goes beyond a single page view.

Traffic

I rarely look at traffic in isolation. I track it over time and in context with other metrics — especially conversion rate — to understand if the traffic we’re getting is valuable.

Traffic by Channel

This shows where your visitors are coming from — search, social, email, direct, etc. I use it constantly to figure out which channels are performing well and where we need to shift focus.

Traffic by Device

This tells me whether people are browsing on mobile, desktop, or tablet. I always check this when optimizing content layout or troubleshooting drop-offs — especially if conversion rates are low on one device type.

Ratio of New Traffic to Returning Traffic

This metric compares first-time visitors to people who‘ve been to your site before, shown as percentages. I love this metric because it shows whether you’re growing your audience (new traffic) while keeping existing visitors engaged (returning traffic).

Time on Page

This metric helps me figure out if people are sticking around. If the time is high, it usually means the content is useful or engaging. If it’s low, I take that as a sign to revisit the intro, formatting, or value of the page.

Interactions per Visit

I look at how many actions people take on average during a session — clicking CTAs, downloading content, watching videos. It gives me a sense of whether we’re offering enough value or opportunities to engage.

Bounce Rate

I track bounce rate to see how many people leave after viewing just one page. Sometimes a high bounce rate is fine — like if someone finds exactly what they need on a landing page. But when I see unexpected spikes, it usually means there‘s an issue with the content or the page isn’t loading correctly.

Core Web Vitals

These are Google’s signals for user experience — things like load speed, layout shift, and responsiveness. I keep tabs on them not just for SEO reasons, but because no one sticks around for a page that loads like molasses or jumps all over the place.

Scroll Depth

I track how far visitors scroll down our pages to understand content engagement. If people aren‘t scrolling past the fold, I know the opening content needs work or the page design isn’t drawing them in.

Best Metrics for Lead Generation

These are the metrics I use to track my lead generation efforts:

Call-to-Action (CTA) Click-Through Rate

I look at CTA clicks to gauge whether the content is doing its job. It’s a quick gut check: If a post is getting solid traffic but no one’s clicking “Get the Guide,” that tells me something’s not landing — either the content didn’t connect or the offer needs reworking.

Submissions

Submissions count the number of people who complete a form after clicking a CTA. If we have high CTA clicks but low submissions, that usually points to friction — maybe the form is too long, or the offer doesn’t feel worth it.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate tracks how many people take a desired action (like signing up or downloading something) compared to total visitors. I track this across content types and channels to see what’s converting — not just what’s getting attention.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

CPL tells me how much we’re spending to generate each lead. I break this down by channel and campaign to figure out which ones are efficient and which ones are draining the budget without results.

Lead Velocity Rate

This measures how quickly leads move through the funnel — from new lead to MQL, or from MQL to customer. If the pace slows down at a particular stage, I know it’s time to revisit our nurturing strategy or look for friction.

Free Trial Conversion Rate

If you’re running a free trial model, this one’s critical. It shows how many people who start a trial become paying customers. I use it to connect top-of-funnel content to actual revenue and flag where prospects might be falling off.

Pop-Up Conversions

Pop-up conversions track how many visitors fill out forms triggered mid-browse. While pop-ups can be annoying, I’ve found that well-timed, relevant ones can move the needle — especially when tied to intent.

Ratio of Generated Leads to Marketing-Qualified Leads (MQL)

This metric compares total leads to those that are actually a good fit. I track this to evaluate the quality of leads we’re bringing in and how well our content aligns with our ideal customer profile.

Leads to Close Ratio

The leads to close ratio shows what percentage of your leads turn into paying customers. It’s one of the clearest ways to gauge content effectiveness — if a certain offer or campaign brings in leads that never close, it’s time to pivot.

Best Metrics for Email Marketing

Email’s been one of the most consistent performers in every role I’ve had. It’s straightforward, flexible, and still delivers when done well. These are the metrics I look at to figure out if an email campaign is doing its job.

Open Rate

This tells me how many people opened an email out of everyone I sent it to. I use it to test subject lines and timing. If open rates dip below our usual baseline, I dig into whether the content felt relevant — or if it even made it to the inbox. For B2B SaaS, I generally aim to hit at least 20%.

Opens by Device

This shows which devices (mobile, desktop, tablet) people are using to read emails. Most folks check email on their phones, so I always make sure our design works well on mobile first.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR tracks how many people clicked a link inside the email. I’ve seen huge differences here based on personalization and list segmentation. The more targeted the message, the better this number usually looks.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate tracks how many emails didn’t make it to someone’s inbox. I watch it to catch list issues early. If it spikes, I remove outdated or bad addresses.

Unsubscribe Rate

If more people are leaving than joining, I take it as a sign we’re either sending too often — or just not giving folks a good enough reason to stick around.

List Growth Rate

This metric shows whether our list is trending up or down. If more people are unsubscribing than signing up, I take a closer look at our content or our sending frequency.

Best Metrics for Social Media

Follower counts might look impressive in a slide deck, but they don’t pay the bills. Here are the social media metrics I track to understand whether our efforts are working:

Engagement Rate

I calculate this by taking all the likes, comments, shares, and clicks, then dividing by our total followers. A high engagement rate tells me people aren’t just seeing our content — they care enough to interact with it.

Follows and Subscribes

This metric tracks how many people choose to follow your social accounts because they want to see more of your content. While follower count isn’t everything, I track growth to understand whether our content strategy is attracting the right audience.

Shares

Shares are one of the strongest signals of content value. If someone’s willing to repost something under their name or brand, that means it hit the mark.

Audience Growth Rate

I use this to track how quickly our following grows over time. I calculate it by dividing new followers by total followers, then multiplying by 100. It’s a more honest view than just watching the number tick up.

Post Reach

Post reach tells me how many people saw a piece of content. I track this as a percentage of total followers to get a sense of how well we’re navigating platform algorithms and timing.

Potential Post Reach

This metric estimates how far our content could go based on who shared it and the size of their audiences. I don’t put too much stock in this number alone, but it helps measure brand amplification. Potential reach is typically 2-5% of this total.

Share of Social Voice

This metric compares how often people mention us versus competitors. I track both direct mentions (with @handles) and indirect ones (brand name only) to see how we’re showing up in conversations that matter.

Approval Rate

Likes are the simplest form of validation, but they still matter. I use this metric to track positive reactions across campaigns and make sure our tone is landing as intended.

Best Metrics for Ecommerce

Even if you’re not running a full-on online store, these metrics still matter if you’re selling anything through your website:

Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

I track how many people add items to their cart but don’t complete the purchase. When this number creeps up, it usually means something’s off — maybe the checkout process is clunky, or the pricing catches people off guard at the last step.

Sales Conversion Rate

This shows me how many site visitors become customers. I also pay attention to micro-conversions — like product page views or add-to-cart actions — to see where people are dropping off or getting more serious about buying.

Email Marketing Opt-in

I track how many people sign up for emails while browsing or checking out, and I break that down by traffic source. It’s an easy way to spot which channels are bringing in subscribers who want to hear from us again.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Customers don‘t always come cheap. I calculate our total marketing spend divided by the number of new customers acquired to understand our actual cost per customer. The higher the number, the more we’re spending and the narrower our profit margins.

Average Order Value

This one’s simple: total revenue divided by number of orders. I use it to see if people are buying more expensive items or adding extras to their cart. Sometimes, just tweaking bundles or offering free shipping thresholds can help bump it up.

Revenue by Source

This metric tells me which marketing channels are driving sales — not just traffic. Social might bring in volume, but if search or email drives more purchases, that’s where I double down.

These metrics cover the most important digital marketing analytics across different channels. Depending on your marketing tools and channels, you might track additional metrics specific to your business.

But why are digital marketing analytics so much more powerful than basic web analytics?

Digital Marketing Analytics vs. Web Analytics

The most significant difference between web analytics and digital marketing analytics comes down to scope.

Web analytics tell you what’s happening on your website — page views, bounce rate, time on page. That’s helpful, but it doesn’t tell you whether those visits are turning into leads or customers.

Digital marketing analytics go further. They help you connect all your marketing efforts — email, social, ads, blog content — and see how they work together to drive results. Instead of just looking at what people do on your site, you get a clearer view of how they found you, what influenced their decisions, and what led to revenue.

I’ve seen teams get stuck optimizing for web metrics that look good on paper, but don’t lead to any business outcomes. I’ve done it myself — spending months trying to improve blog performance based on time on page, only to realize those posts weren’t attracting the right audience or creating meaningful engagement.

If we’d been using digital marketing analytics from the start, we would’ve seen that we hadn’t aligned our content with our goals — or the buyer’s journey.

That’s why I always come back to the marketing and sales flywheel. It’s not just about top-of-funnel traffic. It’s about how everything works together — attracting, engaging, and delighting people at every stage. Digital marketing analytics make it easier to track that cycle and figure out what’s legitimately helping your business grow.

Web analytics gives you the puzzle pieces. Digital marketing analytics help you put them together.

Source

A digital marketing analysis is the first step to developing a strong digital marketing analytics strategy. I use this process to structure a business goal into outcomes based on three broad categories:

1. The relationship between different marketing channels
2. People-centric data on the buyer’s journey
3. Revenue attributed to specific marketing efforts

Download our free ebook on inbound marketing analytics — the key metrics your executives really want to see.

Let’s highlight these main differentiators.

1. The Relationship Between Marketing Channels

Digital marketing analytics provides a solid look into the direct relationships between your marketing channels. It‘s great to be able to see how each of your channels (e.g., social media, blogging, email marketing, and SEO) is performing. Still, the true power of analytics comes into play when you can easily tie the effect of multiple channels’ performances together.

For instance, let’s say you sent an email to a segment of your database. Digital marketing analytics not only tells you how many people clicked through from your email to your website, but also how many of those people converted into leads for your business when they got there.

Furthermore, you can compare the impact of that individual email send with other marketing initiatives. Did that email generate more leads than the blog post you published yesterday? Or was the content you shared via Twitter more effective?

2. People-Centric Data on the Buyer’s Journey

As we mentioned earlier, a key differentiator between web analytics and digital marketing analytics is that the latter uses the person — not the page view — as the focal point.

Digital marketing analytics enables you to track how your prospects and leads are interacting with your various marketing initiatives and channels over time. How did the lead first come to find your website? From Google? Facebook? Direct traffic? Is that lead an active part of your email subscriber base, clicking and converting on marketing offers presented via email? Do they read your blog, and have they downloaded any content offers that could indicate an interest in your products/services?

Full-stack digital marketing analytics can tell you all of this and more, providing you with extremely valuable lead intelligence that can help inform the direction of your future campaigns.

Looking at all of this information in aggregate can help you understand trends among your prospects and leads and which marketing activities are valuable at different stages in the buyer’s journey.

Perhaps you find that many customers’ last point of conversion was on a certain ebook or white paper. Having this data makes it possible to implement an effective lead management process, enabling you to score and prioritize your leads and identify which activities contribute to a marketing-qualified lead (MQL) for your business.

3. Revenue Attributed to Specific Marketing Efforts

One of the most valuable functions of marketing analytics is its ability to attribute specific marketing activities to sales revenue. Sure, your blog may be effective in generating leads, but are those leads turning into customers and making your business money? Closed-loop marketing analytics can tell you.

Download our free ebook on closed-loop marketing and take your digital marketing analytics to the next level.

The only requirement here is that your digital marketing analytics system and customer relationship management (CRM) platform are connected.

Having this closed-loop data can help you determine whether your marketing initiatives are contributing to your business’s bottom line. Through it, you can decide which channels are most critical for driving sales.

Perhaps your blog is your most effective channel for generating customers, or conversely, you see that social media is only as powerful as an engagement mechanism, not a source of sales.

You’ll set better, more outcome-driven goals when you measure how your channels work together, track behavior across the buyer’s journey, and connect revenue back to specific marketing efforts.

Now, let’s talk about how to use these marketing analytics effectively.

How to Use Digital Marketing Analytics Effectively

I’ve had campaigns with solid traffic and decent engagement — but nothing to show for it. That’s when I realized surface-level metrics weren’t telling me what I truly needed to know.

I’ve been there. The dashboards look fine, but when someone asks, “Is it working?” — I don’t always have a clear answer.

For me, it usually means one of two things: the goals are fuzzy, or we’re measuring things that don’t matter.

Here’s how I’ve learned to cut through the noise and use analytics to make better, more confident decisions.

Master SMART Marketing with our free, goal-setting Excel template.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

I’ve spent way too much time staring at dashboards without really knowing what I was supposed to take away from them. Traffic’s up — so what? If I can’t explain what that means for the business, the number doesn’t help me much.

Before diving into data, I try to get specific about what I’m aiming for. “More traffic” isn’t a real goal — something like “grow organic visits from X pages by 20%” gives me a direction and something I can check back on.

I use the S.M.A.R.T. framework to shape goals that are actually useful:

• Specific – Instead of “get more traffic,” I’ll set a goal like “increase organic traffic from our target keyword group by 25%.”
• Measurable – If I can’t put a number on it, I won’t know if I’m making progress. I always establish a baseline first.
• Attainable – I try to stretch, but not to the point of setting myself up to fail. Past performance helps me stay realistic.
• Relevant – I tie every goal to a bigger outcome — whether it’s generating pipeline, improving retention, or increasing revenue.
• Timely – Every goal gets a deadline. Otherwise, it’s just a wish list.

A good goal gives me something to measure, something to optimize toward, and something to share when someone asks, “How’s that campaign going?”

In my experience, most marketing goals fall into one of three buckets:

• Traffic growth and channel diversity – Bringing in consistent visitors from multiple sources
• Lead generation – Turning that traffic into real prospects
• Revenue attribution – Tracking which marketing efforts contribute to actual sales

Getting to those insights isn’t always easy. Most teams — mine included — are pulling data from five or six different platforms: email metrics from one tool, social stats from another, blog performance from the CMS, and so on.

When everything’s scattered across different tools, it’s tough to connect the dots — or figure out where to spend your time.

I’ve found it way easier to get clarity when I use an all-in-one marketing and reporting platform that brings all our reporting together. Instead of bouncing between tools, I can see the full picture and make quicker calls about what’s worth doubling down on — or ditching.

Campaign Reporting

Instead of looking at each traffic source or channel in isolation, I use custom reporting capabilities to build campaign-level views. That way, I can see how a campaign performs across all platforms — not just how one blog post or email did. I want the whole picture, from first touch to final conversion.

Source

I’ve used HubSpot’s Marketing Hub to create campaign-level views that combine data from blog posts, emails, CTAs, landing pages, and ads. These reports have helped me spot what’s driving results and what needs adjusting.

Here are a few I rely on most:

Web Traffic by Original Source

I use this to see where visitors are coming from — search, email, social, etc. — and how those sources perform over time. It’s invaluable for spotting which channels are most effective at turning traffic into leads or customers.

For example, I might discover that while social media drives a lot of traffic, search engine traffic converts to leads at three times the rate. That insight completely changes how I approach content distribution strategy.

First Conversion by Original Source/Persona

This report shows me which content offers or CTAs led to someone’s first conversion — and where they came from. I also segment by persona when I can. That helps me understand which audience groups respond to different types of content.

Contacts Funnel Report

This report helps me track how leads progress through the funnel — from contact to MQL, SQL, and eventually customer. If a large percentage of leads are stalling at one stage, it usually means something’s missing — like a nurture email, better content, or a clearer handoff.

Marketing Contribution to Revenue

This report is key to connecting the dots between marketing and closed revenue. I use lifecycle stages to see which leads became customers and their value. If I can tie a blog series or campaign to revenue, that’s the kind of stat leadership pays attention to.

Customer Acquisition Cost

You can track customer acquisition cost in HubSpot using calculated fields or custom properties to show total marketing spend per new customer.

Content marketing often comes with higher upfront costs, but over time, I’ve found it leads to lower acquisition costs compared to paid channels. These closed-loop reports help me track business outcomes — not just vanity metrics. But all the insights in the world don’t mean much unless you use them.

The real value of digital marketing analytics isn’t just proving marketing’s worth to leadership — it’s using those insights to optimize your performance across every part of your system.

With closed-loop reporting, I can also show how marketing supports sales — by delivering leads that are more likely to convert.

Digital Advertising Analytics

I’ve worked with companies that poured serious budget into paid ads — but couldn’t say whether those ads were bringing in qualified leads or just clicks. And I get it. It’s easy to report on impressions or cost-per-click. It’s a lot harder to track what happens after someone clicks.

According to the Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey, digital channels now account for 61.1% of total marketing spend, with seven out of 10 sectors investing more than 60% of their budget in online channels.

Source

But surface-level metrics like click-through rate only tell part of the story. You can’t measure actual performance unless you connect ad data to outcomes — leads, customers, revenue.

To avoid that blind spot, I always make sure our ad data connects directly to the CRM.

One thing that surprised me early on was how differently various ad types behave. Paid search and social media ads might drive fast conversions, but display ads are more about visibility and long-term brand awareness. People might not click at all — but later, they’ll search for your brand or come back directly. If you’re only measuring direct clicks, you’re missing the impact.

The biggest shift in my overall digital marketing strategy came when I stopped treating ads as a silo. Now, I look at them as just one part of a larger, integrated marketing system. When I measure them in context — alongside content, email, and everything else — I get a much clearer picture of what’s working and how to spend smarter.

Grow better with digital marketing analytics.

After more than a decade in marketing, I’ve learned that traffic and clicks only tell part of the story.

What I care about now is whether our work is creating momentum — bringing in the right leads, shortening the sales cycle, and supporting the bigger business goals. That’s where digital marketing analytics come in.

I use them to spot what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus next. It’s less about building perfect dashboards and more about having enough clarity to make good decisions and explain them to the team (or your boss).

For me, it starts with clear goals, simple reporting, and metrics that actually tie back to outcomes I care about — like leads, revenue, or customer retention.

And once I can see how our efforts connect across channels, it’s so much easier to plan our next steps.

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

There’s a challenge brewing for businesses everywhere.

Content is becoming virtually indistinguishable online, and it all boils down to the latest industry disruptor: AI.

It’s no secret that AI adoption is reaching top speed across many aspects of life and work. Forbes predicts that by the end of this year, 378 million people will be using AI.

While these tools are more accessible than ever, this also defines a growing problem — everyone has access to the same resources. The universal ability to prompt ChatGPT or your favorite LLM for the same output, over and over again.

Unremarkable AI-generated content is flooding our screens as a result, creating a phenomenon known as the Sea of Sameness — a world where inboxes are full of nearly identical emails, all sites are curating the same portable vacuum cleaners or publishing the same pumpkin bread recipes, the hosts of the videos you’re watching are all selected from a preestablished bench of avatars, and all digital ads start to look the same.

To break through the noise, taste and authenticity are everything. Brands that harness their unique value proposition — that X-factor that makes them stand out from the rest — are winning in the AI era.

And they’re using AI to help build the foundation.

Navigating the Sea of Sameness

Business leaders want fast results. Naturally, this makes AI seem like a panacea for idea generation and content production.

You ask a tool like Claude to help you draft an email to appeal to prospective customers, and you get something like the following in seconds:

Input: You’re a marketer at a software company. Create a lead generation email for cold outreach.

Output: Here’s a lead generation email template:

Subject: Quick idea for [Company Name]

Hi [First Name],

I noticed [something specific about their company/role — e.g., “your team has been growing quickly” or “you recently launched a new product”]. That’s exciting!

I work with [type/size of companies, e.g., “small businesses”] to help them [main benefit, e.g., “generate more qualified leads on a limited budget”]. On average, our clients see [insert short, tangible result, e.g., “a 30% lift in inbound demo requests within 3 months”].

Would you be open to a quick 10-minute call next week to see if this might be useful for [Company Name]?

Best,

[Your Name]

[Your Role]

[Your Company]

[LinkedIn link or website]

Speed can be an advantage, but keep in mind that a company on the other side of the globe, or a competitor in your backyard, could use a prompt like this and yield a similar result. Because, as you know, everyone has access to the same tools.

Quality in, quality out. The difference lies in what you feed them.

Churning out content at scale has never been more attainable, but that’s yesterday’s strategy. To navigate the Sea of Sameness, you need to focus on taste, not tactics.

While AI has lowered the barrier to entry for content production, the volume of content available for consumption is at an all-time high. Anyone who scrolls through Instagram knows there’s a constant stream of posts from brands and creators.

Not to mention, customer attention is spread thin. From email to websites. Instagram to YouTube. And even Threads to Lemon8. Your audience is now spending time on platforms that in some cases didn’t exist five, ten years ago. And they’re turning to AI search and forums like Reddit for product discovery.

Traditional marketing tactics, like SEO, aren’t working as well as they used to. Search Engine Land found that 60% of Google searches today end in no clicks.

We’re at the cusp of a generational shift in how people shop for products, and brands need to adapt to a world reshaped by AI. HubSpot calls this new way of acting Loop Marketing — more on that later.

Why Taste Beats Tactics

Driving traffic to your website used to be the easy part. Now, businesses need to adapt to a world where buyers are everywhere except your website, and AI answers questions before they click.

HubSpot research shows that most consumers prefer social media to discover new products, and one in four users bought a product on social media in the past three months.

Plus, 74% of those who have tried generative AI tools have already used them for a shopping-related purpose, such as researching products, pricing, or reviews.

These shifts in how people discover and evaluate products raise the stakes for businesses. With discovery happening off your site and decisions being shaped by algorithms, the question isn’t just how to get in front of buyers — it’s how to stand out when you do. That’s where taste comes in.

Taste is rooted in understanding how to deliver the right message to the right person at the right moment. It’s human. It’s difficult to imitate. It’s a team effort between defining your unique brand identity and leveraging AI to make the customer go, “Was this message written just for me?

Achieving this requires a thoughtful effort to figure out what differentiates your brand from competitors — and to codify it. The reality? Less than half of businesses have this information documented.

How to Express Your Brand Identity

The starting point for tackling this new AI-driven era of marketing is to Express your unique brand identity — at least according to the Loop Marketing playbook (told you this was coming back around).

Before you tap AI to help you create content, use what you know about your audience, like customer data, to define who you are and how you want customers to perceive you. Then, bring in AI as a brand identity concierge to help you produce content that actually connects with your audience and, most importantly, looks and sounds like you.

This Express stage is measured in efficiency. How well does your business story match how buyers need to experience it? In this stage, it’s the data, context, and point of view you give the AI that gives you a competitive advantage.

It’s worth repeating that because it’s crucial to your success: Only you can give AI the context it needs to tell your story.

That’s the difference between using AI as a shortcut and using it as a true amplifier for your business.

Here’s the breakdown.

1. Define your audience.

The first step in building a strong brand identity is outlining your audience profile. Who are they? What do they care about? Figure out what goals they’re chasing and what obstacles stand in their way.

The more you know about who you’re talking to, the easier it is to create messages and experiences that actually land.

Let AI handle the busy work. Instead of manually combing through customer reviews, call notes, and social chatter, ask your favorite tool — whether that’s Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Breeze — to summarize these insights for you. Something like: “Tell me about our most successful customers. What are the biggest pain points that they have expressed in their feedback? Give me the history of our best deals.”

In return, you’ll get a clear customer profile that guides your strategy and ensures your content resonates at every connection point.

2. Craft your style guide.

Knowing who you’re talking to is only part of the equation. You also need to articulate why you’re the right choice for them. That means defining what makes you cooler than the competition.

Drop those details into a simple, shareable style guide that captures your mission, tone, and brand POV. Then, upload that style guide into your AI agent to ensure your brand identity is embedded into every campaign, conversation, and piece of content you create.

3. Generate your concept.

A style guide defines how you show up, but the real power comes from turning those guardrails into a story buyers can rally around.

This is where you build the foundational, customer-driven narrative that defines who you are and why you’re the best option. You can then use that narrative to generate the creative concepts that will carry it into market.

Start by translating your brand story into themes, angles, or key messages that matter most to your customers. Then, use AI to expand on those themes by using prompts like: “Create three campaign concepts with key messages for our target customers,” or “List five content ideas based on our core brand themes.”

In the process, you’re building a bank of audience-informed, story-driven content ideas that your marketing team can pull from and begin riffing off of.

4. Build your content strategy.

A strong narrative is only as good as how it comes to life across formats. You have to deliver it in all the right places, whether that’s YouTube videos, ads, emails, text articles, or social media.

Create a campaign brief that maps your key messages to the channels where your audience spends their time the most. Maybe they’re heavy email users or deep into forums. Then, outline the mix of assets you’ll need to bring it all together. In this case, newsletter content and a Reddit response bank.

Once your assets are created, test and refine them before hitting “send” or pressing the “publish” button. You can use AI to get specific recommendations on what to keep or refine based on the context — customer insights, style guide, and brand narrative — that you provide.

Putting it all together turns raw data into actionable marketing. It’s a repeatable system for reaching the right people with the right story, every time.

The Bottom Line

The Sea of Sameness is rising faster and faster as AI adoption accelerates. But sameness doesn’t have to be inevitable. Instead of drifting along, you can chart your own course, one where every message feels like it was written just for your audience.

That starts with expressing your identity clearly and consistently. It means using AI as a partner to amplify your voice and scale without losing what makes you unique. When you harness AI with intention, you build a foundation that transforms it from a content factory into a true growth engine.

In a world where everyone has access to the same tools, trust, taste, and authenticity become the only competitive advantage.