What is Out-of-Home Advertising?

In our digital world, it might feel like all marketing is done online. But, that would mean ignoring an incredibly effective strategy—out-of-home advertising.

Out-of-home advertising (OOH) refers to the process of reaching consumers while they are, you guessed it, out of their homes.

While this may conjure images of NYC Times Square billboards, there are many mediums that qualify as out-of-home advertising.

The best news is, these methods are highly effective.

In fact, according to the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of America, 66 percent of smartphone users took action after interacting with an out-of-home advertisement.

Additionally, 74 percent of those who visited a business after interacting with an out-of-home advertisement made a purchase.

Those are some pretty compelling statistics that should make you think twice about adding out-of-home advertising to your campaign’s strategy playbook.

Not sold? Check out the below infographic that identifies which advertising mediums consumers trust the most. See number five? Out-of-home advertising comes in way ahead of search ads or sponsored posts.

In short, if you’re not considering out-of-home advertising, you’re missing out on valuable leads.

Types of Out-of-Home Advertising

While we already mentioned the NYC Times Square billboard, there are less ubiquitous mediums for out-of-home advertising. These include:

• local billboards
• complimentary merchandise (t-shirts, cups at sporting events)
• transit placement (bus stops, benches, kiosks)
• point-of-sale displays (backs of taxi cabs, diner tables, flyers at the grocery store)
• blimps

While it is unlikely your organization will opt to sponsor a blimp, there are many options for marketers looking to establish new sources for attracting new consumers.

6 Tips for a Successful Out-of-Home Advertising Campaign

Much like any advertising or marketing campaign, your execution is only as good as your plan. There are six must-have steps to help you get your out-of-home advertising campaign off the ground.

1. Research Your Location

Regardless of your out-of-home advertising campaign’s goals, you need to do some research on the location.

This information will not only inform the size and limitations of your ad but will also help you decide which locations are worth your budget and which are not.

Imagine you’re a local restaurant in a pedestrian-heavy area. Advertising your drink specials with a clever slogan on a chalkboard is going to be much more beneficial than a billboard with the same message.

Conversely, if you’re a car dealership offering end-of-the-year deals, a billboard is going to be a much better strategy than a sign outside of your building.

When it comes to location, you need to ask four specific questions:

• Is this visible?
• Who travels through this area?
• What do those passing by want or need?
• How can my product(s) solve this need?

After you’ve answered these three questions, you can start building your out-of-home marketing strategy around these answers.

2. Go Digital

Just because you’re advertising out-of-home doesn’t mean you have to go technology-free. Digital billboards are a great alternative to conventional billboards. In fact, here are three reasons you should consider opting for a digital billboard.

• Save money: Digital billboards have fewer associated costs than traditional billboards for installation and removal. Additionally, if research shows people will be more receptive to your product during a particular time of day, you can opt only to display your billboard during that time slot.
• Increased visibility: Digital billboards are always illuminated, whereas conventional billboards may not be. By going the digital route, you ensure travelers can see your billboard, regardless of the time of day.
• Changeability: With digital billboards, you can change your content whenever, wherever. With traditional billboards, construction and deconstruction are time-consuming and costly, limiting your ability to swap out language, imagery, or messaging.

Here are three cool digital billboards.

The Economist created a clever digital board that turns a lightbulb on over the head of a walker, connoting the idea of wisdom shared through the publication.

Beloved US baseball team The LA Dodgers created enthusiasm for their upcoming games by using a countdown on their digital billboards that ticks down to the second.

Oreo took advantage of a current event by using the hashtag #oreoeclipse.

Whether your billboard is responding to current events or simply underlining your product’s main value proposition, getting creative is a surefire way to find out-of-home advertising success.

3. Use Eye-Catching Displays

While the out-of-home advertising market is nowhere near as saturated as that of the digital advertising market, you can use the same principles to ensure your advertisement stands out from the crowd.

Below, we discuss five strategies that can make your billboard outperform its neighbors.

• Use bright colors: To get attention from drivers, you need to use all of the tools in your arsenal. Using bright colors that elicit a reaction is a great way to score billboard views.
• Countdowns: Counting down to a product launch or an event, or the end of a sale is a great way to drive viewers to take action. Consider using this strategy on your billboard, driving would-be consumers to take action.
• Simplicity: Don’t try to incorporate multiple images or messages into your billboard. You want to be succinct while being direct.
• Designs with high contrast: At large distances, being subtle does not pay off. Take this opportunity to use contrasting colors to make your ad as visible even from far away.
• Be short and sweet: You have a limited amount of time to make an impression, so be sure your message is short and to the point.

4. Make It Shareable

The true litmus test of a successful marketing campaign is action. If your out-of-home advertisement drives people to talk about or share your advertisement, then you can consider the ad a success.

To garner maximum audience interaction, brainstorm ad ideas that encourage a response.

Looking for inspiration? Check out these out-of-home advertising ideas that had people talking.

CVS made a big splash with their #BeautyUnaltered campaign.

The digital billboards encouraged viewers to upload their unfiltered selfies as a tie-in with the companies’ dedication to using unedited photos of models.

In the Ad Council’s Out There for Us campaign, the organization featured out-of-home ads that thanked front-line workers during the COVID-19 pandemic through real quotes.

The ad asked viewers to Tweet their thanks using the hashtag #OutThereForUs, encouraging interaction and then further sharing those quotes.

5. Research the Competition

Before wedding yourself to a location, see if your competitors are using similar strategies in similar locations. What works in their ads? What are they missing?

Use these answers to capitalize on what they missed.

Keep in mind that placing an out-of-home advertisement close to your competitors’ sharing lower prices or better quality could work for you, but it could also have unintended consequences. (Like a price war.)

6. Set Quantifiable Goals

As you wade into the world of out-of-home advertising, be sure to follow the basic tenets of any marketing campaign.

Regardless of digital or conventional, your campaign must have clear, quantifiable marketing goals to assess success.

Do you want to:

• Increase brand awareness?
• Deliver on a call to action?
• Share knowledge with your viewers?
• Market a new product line?
• Reach a new demographic?

To confidently determine if your campaign is reaching its aim, be sure to establish SMART goals. This acronym refers to concrete goals, achievable over time. These goals should be:

• specific
• measurable
• attainable
• relevant
• time-bound

By fitting your goals within these constraints, you establish aims that are quantifiable, rather than nebulous.

3 Examples of Great Out-of-Home Advertising

Great out-of-home advertising doesn’t happen overnight. It takes strategy, research, and a true understanding of your audience. Below, we share our three favorite out-of-home advertising campaigns of all time and break down what made them so successful.

Pepsi

Pepsi wanted to make a splash at the 2019 Super Bowl. However, Super Bowl LIII wasn’t held just anywhere—it was held in Atlanta, Coca-Cola’s home turf.

By going all-in on an out-of-home advertising campaign, Pepsi was able to grow three percent in Q1 of 2019, not to mention scoring tons of social media reactions and interactions with their hashtag #ColaTruce.

While your budget may not be quite as large as Pepsi’s (the beverage brand’s budget was $1.7 million), you can still draw inspiration from this campaign that made out-of-home advertising work in their favor.

Dallas Cowboys & AT&T

2019 was a good year for out-of-home advertising.

In September, The Dallas Cowboys took out-of-home marketing to the field, launching interactive “Pose with the Pros” kiosks at their stadium.

Through this interactive campaign, fans could snap pictures with virtual likenesses of the players.

After taking the photo, users could choose to share the image on social media or email it to themselves or others.

While on the surface, this campaign was simply a treat for Dallas Cowboys fans, it also had another motive.

Fueled by AT&T, the out-of-home advertising campaign allowed the company to demonstrate their 5G technology prowess.

The result AT&T CMO claimed: “We were able to create experiences that let people know how fundamentally different 5G is from LTE.” Not to mention some pretty happy Cowboys fans.

Reebok

When you think of running, you don’t necessarily conjure the Reebok logo.

But all that changed when Reebok ran an out-of-home advertising campaign in Sweden that challenged passersby to run at a speed of 10.5 mph in exchange for a free pair of the brand’s ZPump 2.0 shoes.

The campaign took off, earning 300,000+ views on YouTube and 30,000+ shares on social media. Invariably, next time anyone who interacted with that billboard thinks of running, they’ll think of Reebok.

Conclusion

Whether you want to add to your existing digital marketing strategy or go fully OOH, there are many mediums you can use for innovative advertising.

From billboards to park benches, the out-of-home advertising opportunities are endless.

However, OOH advertising should be viewed as a long-term campaign—it’s unlikely that you’ll see the same immediate success experienced with your digital campaigns.

But don’t get disheartened. The return on investment for your OOH campaigns is definitely worth the wait.

What’s the best OOH advertisement you’ve ever seen? 

10 Advanced Twitter Tips To Help Your Twitter Account Grow Fast

While Twitter was once exclusively a thought-sharing platform, the channel has evolved, becoming a source of limitless audience reach for the savvy marketer.

With 166 million daily active users, it’s no wonder that marketers flock to the social platform.

It may have once been enough for companies to share funny tweets or content on the platform to be successful on Twitter. However, marketers today need to stay relevant with the rapidly changing features that are a hallmark of the platform. Your Twitter marketing strategy should be in constant flux in relation to the adjustments of the platform.

Sound overwhelming?

It doesn’t have to be.

Below, this article breaks down the 10 advanced Twitter tricks and tips that can help you cut through the clutter on this unique platform. 

1. Refresh Your Twitter Profile

Remember the saying, “there’s no second chance at a first impression?”

That adage applies to your social profiles, too.

If it’s been a while since you’ve actively worked to update and optimize your Twitter profile, now is the time. Check out these four advanced Twitter tips for making sure your profile is up-to-date and positioned to attract would-be consumers.

Twitter Bio

With only 160 characters at your disposal, make sure your Twitter bio is not only giving page visitors a clear understanding of your brand but also harnessing the power of your chosen keywords.

Header Image

Your header image shouldn’t be stagnant. Instead, continually update the image to represent new offerings or seasonal themes.

Try out these different header image options:

• upcoming event
• new products
• best-selling products
• client testimonial
• capabilities

Regardless of which route you decide to take, optimize your images and take advantage of this chance to use your branded keywords by including them in the image file names to boost the likelihood that your page appears in an image search.

Profile Image

Your logo should dominate your profile image.

However, if your logo includes a lot of text or complex imagery that won’t translate well on mobile, consider crafting a secondary logo.

Website Direction

Move beyond the typical home-page link by strategically approaching where to send clients. In my Twitter bio, I direct visitors to ‘Consulting’ so they have a direct path to take.

After you’ve completed these four advanced Twitter updates, remember to keep it up. You should update your Twitter profile to reflect changing facets in your industry, as well as those in your own business. 

2. Share Different Content Types

Twitter is different from its social media contemporaries. That whitepaper you shared on LinkedIn might have seen a lot of engagement, but it may not perform well on Twitter.

According to Twitter, interactive content tends to perform best on the platform. The company suggests using:

Visuals With an Emphasis on Video

To bolster results, Twitter advocates for using arresting images, GIFs, and videos.

The data is there to back it up: With over two billion video views per day, ensure you’re taking advantage of the highly-desirable content form. Twitter suggests using your company logo and subtitles to eliminate the need for headphones and sharing videos between 6-15 seconds.

In fact, posts with visuals generate 35 percent more retweets than those that are solely text-based, and videos generate 28 percent more retweets than text.

Moral of the story? The more visually compelling your tweets, the more likely they are to generate social engagement.

Check out this visual narrative from Threadless that tells a complete story through an interactive video.

Your walls talked. They want some new art! Good thing for you, all Wall Art is 50% Off right now ~ https://t.co/v6yeZles1X pic.twitter.com/l60VC50HBn

— threadless (@threadless) August 22, 2017

Questions and Polls

In addition to visual content, Twitter suggests using the platform’s conversational format to engage your audience. While this strategy may not perform well on Facebook or Instagram, engaging with your audience through polls can be a good way to spark conversation and engagement.

Take a look at this post from Fashion for Good that encourages audience interaction.

Memes

With only 240 characters at your disposal to tell a story, harnessing the pre-existing narrative power of memes is a great way to share a message while simultaneously cashing in on the benefit of the potential of a viral tweet.

Regardless of your audience, your Twitter content strategy should be complex. As a general tip, you should adhere to the rule of thirds: one-third of tweets promote your business, one-third share personal stories, and one-third are informative insights from experts or influencers.

The same goes for content diversity. Be sure you’re offering your followers a varied palette of content.

3. Share Case Studies or Testimonial Teasers

When building your advanced Twitter strategy, attract potential leads by sharing snippets of your success stories. To ensure your audience can access the story in its entirety, create landing pages users can click that provide more information.

To make these case studies engaging and consumable, follow these best practices.

Use Visuals

We’ve already discussed the value of visuals on Twitter. This also applies when crafting testimonials. Check out this tweet from Covergirl that incorporates a branded image with a real-life review.

Compelling Quotes

Choose quotes from your clients that speak to how you solved their pain points. More often than not, other potential customers are experiencing the same challenges. 

4. Start Funny Rivalries With Your Competitors

When strategizing your advanced Twitter approach, don’t undervalue the worth of good, old-fashioned humor.

This isn’t just anecdotal: 75 percent of consumers say they appreciate humor from brands.

Amusing back-and-forths between competitors have had viral responses on Twitter.

Wendy’s has long been the king of in-good-fun competitor ribbing.

This tweet works for Wendy’s since it is, at its core, light-hearted. It performed well because it engaged with a follower’s comment while still stoking that inherent rivalry among fast-food giants.

If you have a positive relationship with any of your competitors, engage them in a silly debate or poke good fun at an aspect of their brand.

However, this strategy is obviously only relevant to some brands. If your brand voice is serious, this approach is probably not for you.

If you decide a rivalry is, well, on-brand for your brand, identify what distinguishes your business from your competition and use the rivalry strategically to stand out from the crowd. 

5. Tweet Your Position on Social Justice Issues

Staying neutral is no longer an option for brands.

Many consumers expect businesses to take a stance on social justice issues, like Black Lives Matter, climate change, and gun control.

In fact, 60 percent of the U.S. population expect brands to take a stand on racial justice. By taking a position on these topics, deepened audience connection and relation can occur. 

However, taking a stand on social justice issues demands a well-executed plan and approach. Here are three key strategies:

Be Consistent

Followers will notice if you only tweet about issues when others do. To ensure you convey authentic support for social justice issues, be sure to consistently post about the issues.

Be Decisive

Don’t wait. By mulling over your response or waiting several days to post, you reduce that feeling of authenticity.

Be Meticulous

Phrasing is always important, but never more so than when approaching hot-topic issues. Be mindful in your writing and pay particular attention to the tone and voice used in your tweet.

In addition to wanting to see brands publically address social justice issues, consumers also want to know where their spent money goes. If your company donates to charities or political campaigns, include that information as you build your advanced Twitter marketing strategy. 

6. Create Polls

We’ve already established that Twitter is all about interaction, and polls can help drive that.

As you craft your advanced Twitter marketing strategy, don’t forget you can use polls in a variety of ways.

Promote your newest products like Denny’s did in this humorous poll.

Establish thought leadership, like Rand Fishkin did. (We also did this to discuss whether or not content is king.)

Guide content strategy, like The Muse did.

Include hashtags, like Evernote did.

These strategies can benefit brands by increasing consumer interaction and brand awareness. 

7. Go Live

Going live on Twitter is easy. This advanced Twitter strategy is also successful, as it fulfills the immediate interaction desire of many audience members.

To go live, craft your tweet, then tap “LIVE.” This takes you to the pre-broadcast screen so you can frame your shot. When you’re ready, select “Go Live” and start broadcasting! 

Once you’re live, users on Twitter and Periscope can join your video to interact with your brand experience.

Wondering why you should go through the trouble of going live? Here are three clear benefits:

• Viewers often tweet about what they’re watching.
• It can be a new way to engage with hard-to-reach audiences.
• It increases authentic audience engagement.

These factors can have a huge impact on your brand’s reach and engagement on Twitter. 

8. Use Twitter Spaces

Twitter Spaces is a feature for public chat rooms that can host up to ten speakers in a conversation, with anyone listening in.

Users lucky enough to have access to Spaces have touted it as feeling akin to an interactive podcast.

So why should you factor Spaces into your advanced Twitter marketing strategy? It can help you:

• gain audience feedback
• showcase new features or products
• establish thought leadership through industry conversations
• communicate with audience members in real time

Spaces offers brands direct interaction with consumers, allowing a more casual, interactive conversation than other modes of communication. 

9. Test Different CTAs

Regardless of the action you want your followers to take, you need a strong CTA to let them know exactly what to do.

This phrase is curated through assessing your goals and best determining how to get your audience to meet you at the finish line.

To test your CTA’s efficacy, you can use a heatmap tool like Crazy Egg if you use click-based tracking. For other lead generation CTAs, you can compare the conversion rate by looking at the number of form submissions in your CRM tool. 

You can also A/B test your CTAs.

If you’re looking for inspiration to start incorporating killer CTAs into your Twitter content, check out these three examples.

Vogue teases the article by including just enough information to pique interest. The magazine then gives the reader a clear directive: Read.

Food52 uses a negative CTA that works out for the positive. Avoid is a strong action word that sparks an emotional reaction. The reader can’t help but be baited into clicking the article to learn what these six mistakes are.

InSinkErator uses several strategies to get audience members to enter their competition. From the enter CTA in the copy to the “Learn more” CTA on the bottom left, there are multiple strong CTAs inviting the reader to take the desired action. 

10. Use Twitter Cards

Twitter Cards are platform-exclusive ads that aim to get people from Twitter to your brand’s website, driving visitors to places where marketing further down the funnel occurs.

There are a few different types of cards, but they all share the same basic design. Check out this single image card used by The New York Times:

The advantage of using Twitter Cards is that, instead of just standard text, advertisers have an entire image to generate click-through. 

Conclusion

While Twitter may look like a simplistic platform on the surface, marketers and brands can harness the social site’s unique offerings and make a huge difference in campaigns.

These 10 advanced Twitter marketing tips can completely change the way your Twitter profile contributes to your overall marketing success.

As you apply these tips, keep in mind two things: your brand and your goals. With these factors in mind, pick and choose which of the 10 tips work for you and get started.

You might see a return on your efforts very quickly.

What’s your best tip for success on Twitter?

Best WordPress Backup Plugins

Disclosure: This content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of our links that we may earn a commission.

What would happen to your WordPress site if all your data was wiped out?

If you don’t have a clear answer to this question, then you’ve landed in the right place.

Using a WordPress backup plugin is one of the smartest things you can do to ensure your site is protected from disaster.

If you get hacked or accidentally lose your password, you’ll save yourself the massive headache of losing everything on your site. But only if you have a backup plugin installed.

Without one, you’d be back to square one. 

But which WordPress backup plugin should you use? You’ve got options.

In this post, I’ve reviewed my top five recommendations and included a short buyer’s guide to help you figure out which one fits your needs.

Ready? Let’s make sure your site’s backed up. 

#1 – Backup Buddy Review — The Best For Efficiently Restoring Your Site

Like Backup Buddy rhetorically asks on their site, “What good is a backup if you don’t also have a way to restore your site properly?”

And they couldn’t be more right. Backup Buddy ensures you always have the latest backup of your site by providing you with a zip file you can use to upload and restore a broken site. 

Once uploaded, Backup Buddy seamlessly walks you through the steps to get your media files, text, plugins, and more back up and running. Additionally, you can choose to restore individual files instead of restoring the whole site if that’s what you want to do. You can even schedule automated backups at intervals you customize. 

Some top features of Backup Buddy include:

• Backs up your entire WordPress installation
• Customizable backup content that you can pick and choose to restore
• Offers hourly, twice daily, daily, biweekly, weekly or monthly backups
• Automatically sends your backup files to accessible remote storage locations like Dropbox or Google Drive

Backup Buddy has three pricing options, all with one-time fees:

• Blogger — $80 for one site
• Freelancer — $127 for up to 10 sites
• Gold — $199 for backing up unlimited sites

You can quickly sign up and get started with BackUp Buddy here. 

#2 – WPvivid Backup Pro Review — The Best For Migrations

WPvivid Backup Pro is a great backup plugin you can safely set up and start using to migrate your site. They’ve been used on more than 90,000 websites to do more than just back up and safely migrate data files.  

WPvivid Backup Pro offers incremental backups to ensure it isn’t slowing down your site as it works in the background to backup all your data once it’s been configured to your needs. As far as its backup migration capabilities, WPvivid Backup Pro supports manual migration methods, as well as auto migration and migration via remote storage (as a premium feature). 

Some of WPvivid’s best features include:

• Create either manual or scheduled backups
• Advanced migration features in case you want to migrate your site quickly
• The ability to create a staging site
• It backs up all your core WordPress files
• 24/7 ticket support
• Set a size limit for files that you’re not interested in backing up

Here’s a quick look at their pricing packages: 

• Basic — $49 per year for up to three websites
• Freelancer — $99 per year for up to 100 websites
• Ultimate — $149 per year for unlimited websites

All three plans are annual subscriptions, unlike other backup plugins, many of which are a one-time licensing fee. WPvivid also offers a 14-day free trial, visiting so you can test it out before you purchase a plan. 

#3 – JetPack Review — The Best For Making Site Changes Safely

Jetpack is a strong contender for a reliable backup plugin that works great for making site changes safely.

Picture this: You’re making exciting new changes to your site, whether that’s CSS customization, adding new plugins, or altering your core site files. Then suddenly, something breaks. With Jetpack, you can quickly restore your site to how it was before you made that crucial mistake with just a few clicks. This makes it an easy and reliable plugin to work with if you’re constantly updating your website. 

The Jetpack plugin even comes complete with a mobile app so that you can virtually restore your website right from your phone no matter where you are. Plus, Jetpack offers plenty of security features, too. This can only be a plus for a backup plugin and makes it worth keeping in your corner.  

Some top features of Jetpack include:

• Provides malware scanning and protects your site from spam
• Downtime monitoring lets you know if your site is down immediately
• Malicious hacking and attack protection
• Mobile app you can take and use with you everywhere
• Automatically cleans up spam comments off your site

If you choose to go with JetPack, the question becomes what kind of pricing package you’ll feel comfortable going with, as there are many options.

The three main packages are:

• Backup Daily — $7.95 per month billed yearly 
• Security Daily — $19.95 per month billed yearly
• Complete — $79.95 per month billed yearly

The Backup Daily tier offers automated backups, one-click restores, and unlimited site storage. On the other end, Complete provides the full Jetpack suite, including real-time security, enhanced search, CRM features, and even design tools. 

Jetpack also offers a limited free forever plan that includes basic site protection, downtime monitoring, and changelogs. 

Additional product bundles you can purchase separately on a per month basis include a Security Real-Time plan, a Real-Time Backup plan, a Scan package, an Anti-spam bundle, a Site Search plan, and the CRM Entrepreneur add-on.

Jetpack offers peace of mind by providing one-click restore options and monitoring your website’s security at pretty affordable rates. Still, I recommend you visit their comparison page to ensure you’re deciding on the right backup bundle. 

Start using Jetpack’s powerful backup features here. 

#4 – BlogVault Review — The Best All-In-One Backup Solution

BlogVault makes for a reliable all-in-one backup plugin that ensures your site’s backup is stored securely in the cloud. It’s used by over 4,000,000 websites and trusted by businesses like Astra, Cloudways, and GoWP. 

BlogVault’s plugin offers key storage features like changelogs that can help you identify problematic modifications to your website. They go as far as providing 90-day archives to ensure you recover from any site mistakes, which are bound to happen at some point in your site’s lifetime.

If your site experiences downtime, with BlogVault, you can make it so that your site’s backup still shows up to users. What exactly does BlogVault backup? Everything from the basics like blog posts, your media library, and media files to blog comments, plugin files, WordPress settings, categories and tags, theme settings, WordPress core files, and even user details.

Because of how complete and robust BlogVault is as a plugin, it’s one of my favorite backup plugin recommendations to make. 

Some of BlogVault’s best features are:

• Provides centralized dashboard where you can manage multiple sites
• Provides custom WooCommerce table backups
• Performance checks that inform you about site speed and ways to improve your site
• Get uptime and downtime status checks
• Handy customer support that gets in contact with you in less than 24 hours
• Incremental backup option available so the plugin doesn’t slow down your site

If you’re not in love with everything BlogVault offers yet, take a look at their affordable pricing tiers:

• Personal — $7.40 per month for daily backups
• Plus — $12.40 per month for daily backups
• Advanced — $20.75 per month for real-time backups

You can definitely take them for a test drive with their free trial. Otherwise, get started using BlogVault here. 

#5 – UpdraftPlus Review — The Best Free Backup Plugin

If you’re looking for a free backup plugin, look no further than UpdraftPlus. It makes restoring all your site files hassle-free and straightforward. It has over 3,000,000 active installations and is a reliable backup option if you are running your site on a shoestring budget.

UpdraftPlus has a paid version you can upgrade to with a lot more features and capabilities. But for now, we’ll focus on what the free version can do for your site.

UpdraftPlus is a cloud-based plugin that ensures you have access to your site’s files and data in case of cyberattacks, server crashes, conflicting plugins, or anything else that would bring your site down. Once you upload the UdraftPlus plugin, you can set it up, forget it, and let it run in the background while you work on more important tasks for your business. 

Best features of UpdraftPlus:

• Backup to an exhaustive list of cloud options
• Lets you set up automated backup schedules for convenience
• Uses less server resources than other free backup plugins
• Has the ability to restore your site 

Updraft Plus is free, and you can read reviews and download it here.

What I Looked At To Find The Best WordPress Backup Plugins

The most basic use of a backup plugin is to keep updated backups of your site continuously. There are plenty of plugins on the market that will do just that.

Here are some of the criteria I looked at to find the best plugin options for your WordPress site. These will be helpful factors for you to think about as you choose which plugin to invest in. 

Restoring Options and Complete Backups

If you’re frantically trying to get your site back up and running and want to restore it to how it was before it crashed, you’ll be thankful for a restoring option you can upload in minutes.

This way, you’re enabled to troubleshoot fast, save your rankings in search engines, and have a contingency plan for when things go south. It’s a great feature to look for in any backup plugin you decide to use. Especially if their pricing features hook you into yearly subscriptions.  

Along with quick restoring options, it’s a good idea to ensure your backup plugin does complete backups, meaning it backs up everything on your site from images to texts, themes, media files, and your whole database. If your entire site goes down, a partial backup will be less useful. Full backups are worth any extra cost. 

Preventative Overload Configuration

It’s always a plus to know that a plugin was built to work with your site and not against it. This means it was designed with every aspect of your site in mind. This includes not overloading your site so that it slows down or has trouble loading.

Some of the best backup plugins allow for interval backups, configured so that your site doesn’t suffer from slow loading times. As you probably know, load time is a crucial SEO factor that Google takes seriously as it decides where to place you in SERPs. The fewer resources your backup plugin takes up, the better your chances of ranking on search engines. 

Cloud Storage

This brings me to cloud storage as a desirable feature in a backup plugin. It can be both a cost-effective and scalable option to give you peace of mind. 

With cloud storage, you can store all your site information safely with your backup provider, where you’ll always have access to your data within minutes. This also helps you minimize storage overhead and have easy access.

Bringing It All Together

Using a reliable WordPress backup plugin is one of the best ways to keep your site safe while you sleep soundly at night. In the scenario that you lose everything on your site, meaning your files, images, blog posts, guides, PDFs, and more, you’ll want to be able to bring all of it back with a few clicks. That’s where backup plugins come in.

To summarize the plugins I reviewed in this guide, take a quick look at the list below:

1. Backup Buddy — The best for efficiently restoring your site
2. WPvivid Backup — The best for migrations
3. JetPack — The best for making site changes safely
4. BlogVault — The best all-in-one backup solution
5. UpdraftPlus — The best free backup plugin

Take a moment to check out each one so that you’re comfortable with your final plugin choice. If you’re unsure, make sure to revisit this guide whenever you need it. 

Now it’s your turn. Which plugin do you use to backup your sites? Comment below!

Best Social Media WordPress Plugins

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Social media plays a crucial role in the success of any brand or business. By integrating your website with social media platforms, it helps expand your reach and drive engagement. 

One of the easiest ways to improve your social media strategy is by using a WordPress plugin. These tools make it easy for website visitors to share your content via social media and ultimately drive more traffic to your website. You can even use these plugins to get more followers on social media. 

But with dozens of social media WordPress plugins to choose from, finding the right one for you and your website can feel like a daunting task.

Whether you’re running a business website, small personal blog, or something in between, I’ve narrowed down and reviewed the best social media WordPress plugins on the market today.

#1 – Social Snap Review — The Most Versatile Social Media WordPress Plugin

Social Snap is arguably the most flexible social media WordPress plugin on the market today. Unlike other plugins that just focus on a single functionality, Social Snap does it all. 

With 230,000+ downloads, its popularity speaks for itself. 

The plugin integrates with 30+ social networks and apps, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Telegram, Google+, and more. Social share icons are fully customizable and can be placed anywhere on your pages.

Other noteworthy features and highlights of Social Snap include:

• Automatically display social follower counts
• Automatically publish new posts on social media
• Bring old posts back to life with auto publishing for existing content
• Social login for visitors on your site
• Click to Tweet button
• Social meta tags

Social Snap even supports advanced analytics. So you can fully grasp how your audience engages with your website content. 

Pricing starts at just $27.30 per year for a single website. Try it risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. 

#2 – Smash Balloon Review — The Best WordPress Plugin For Displaying Social Media Feeds

If you want your social media content displayed on your website, look no further than Smash Balloon. 

More than 1.3 million people use Smash Balloon to share social feeds from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

It’s worth noting that each social media platform has a separate plugin. So, if you want to display your Twitter feed on one page and your Instagram feed on another, you’ll need to install each plugin separately.

With that said, Smash Balloon recently released a new plugin called Social Wall. This plugin combines the posts on all of your social profiles into a single feed. 

Here are some other reasons why I recommend Smash Balloon:

• No-code simple setup
• Customizable feed design
• Intelligent caching and backup system to maximize the speed and performance
• SEO friendly design
• Display multiple feeds
• Display likes, shares, and comments

Pricing starts at $49 per year. 

#3 – Easy Social Share Buttons Review — The Best For Simple Social Sharing

As the name implies, the Easy Social Share Buttons plugin is designed to encourage social media shares from your website. 

The plugin has 600,000+ installs and powers more than one billion social actions. 

Easy Social Share Buttons is trusted by sites like Kinsta, Asana, Trello, AdEspresso, and more. Its fast setup and simplicity make the plugin a popular choice for WordPress beginners and experts alike. 

Here are some of the top reasons why I recommend this plugin:

• Works with 50+ social share networks
• Template builder tool with 50+ templates
• Click to Tweet button
• Ability to pin any image on Pinterest
• 12 different share positions
• 14 share button displays

The plugin even supports advanced features, like conversion tracking, engagement tracking, custom display methods, and more. 

Easy Social Share Buttons has a lifetime license, and pricing starts at $22 for a single website. All purchases are backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee. 

#4 – Revive Old Posts Review — The Best For Social Media Scheduling and Automatic Posting

Revive Old Posts from Revive Social is another WordPress plugin with a self-explanatory name.

This plugin is trusted by 82,000+ WordPress users, and it’s one of my favorite ways to bring your old content back to life.

Getting started is easy. Once installed, you just need to give the plugin permission to access your social profiles. This can be completed in a few simple clicks. Next, customize the types of posts you want shared on social media. You can control parameters like minimum and maximum post age to create the posting schedule.

Other noteworthy highlights of Revive Old Posts include:

• Ability to share new posts when published
• Share posts multiple times with a content rotation
• Ability to share blogs, pages, posts, images, products, and more
• Automatically add hashtags to posts based on category, tags, or custom fields
• Integration with Google Analytics Campaign Tracking

The plugin even lets you create different variations of your social posts for more variety. This helps you figure out which types of captions convert better than others. 

Pricing starts at $75 per year for a single website. Lifetime access starts at $225.

#5 – Social Locker Review — The Best For Getting New Social Media Followers and Driving Engagement

Social Locker is a bit unique compared to some of the other plugins on my list. It’s designed for a specific use case, which isn’t for everyone.

The plugin allows you to “lock” certain content on your website. That content will be unlocked when a site visitor completes an action, such as following your brand on social media.

Once the visitor takes the desired action, the locked content can be viewed or downloaded. The idea behind this plugin is to build quality followers on social media. Anyone willing to take this added step to view your content is likely very interested in your brand. 

There are four types of content locks that you can implement with this plugin:

• Lock downloads
• Lock promo codes
• Restricted access for subscribers
• Sign in to continue reading

It’s a popular solution for bloggers and other content-heavy websites. Download Social Locker and try it free for seven days; no credit card required. 

#6 – WordPress Social Login Review — The Best For User Registration

WordPress Social Login is the easiest way for website visitors to register accounts on your website. 

Instead of forcing them to fill out a new registration form, create a unique user ID, and remember a new password, this plugin allows them to register using their existing social media credentials.

With 60,000+ active installations, this is one of the most popular social media login plugins for WordPress on the market today.

Supported social platforms include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Reddit
• Tumblr
• Twitch
• Foursquare
• Yahoo
• Windows Live
• AOL

The list goes on and on. I like this plugin because it’s simple but still fully customizable. You’ll have complete control over the authentication widget. Developers and designers will enjoy the plugin’s advanced customization capabilities as well.

Best of all? WordPress Social Login is open-source and 100% free to download.

What I Looked at To Find the Best Social Media WordPress Plugin

Certain features and functions must be evaluated as you’re shopping around and comparing social media WordPress plugins.

This is the methodology that I used to narrow down the top picks listed above. You can use the same methodology and weigh things based on your personal needs. 

Site Performance

In general, performance is the biggest issue with social media plugins for WordPress. These plugins typically come with scripts and stylesheets that can ultimately slow down your website. 

That’s why it’s so important to look for a social media plugin that’s lightweight. Otherwise, load time and other crucial performance metrics will be impacted. Don’t just choose a feature-rich plugin if you don’t need all of its functionality. 

Active Social Profiles

What social media platforms are you currently using to promote your brand? How many of those profiles do you want to integrate with your website?

In terms of social sharing icons in a sidebar, less is typically better than more. Adding ten different social sites to this menu will just clutter your page and probably won’t drive much engagement. 

You should also consider the type of content and how it relates to specific social platforms. For example, it’s usually better to share blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. But images are better suited for Pinterest or Instagram. 

Content Goals

What is the main reason why you’re seeking a social media WordPress plugin? 

There’s a big difference between plugins designed to drive site traffic and plugins made for increasing your social media following. 

For example, social sharing plugins help encourage site visitors to share your content via social media. As a result, a wider audience can see your content and land on your website. Other plugins with a simple “Like Us on Facebook” button don’t have the same impact. These are designed to turn your website visitors into social media followers. 

Shortcodes and Custom Display Options

It’s important to have social media icons on your site that are visible yet non-intrusive. The best plugins help you customize how and where those icons are displayed. 

Do you want them at the top of your post? The bottom of the page? What about a floating sidebar? You might want to have share icons on all of your blog posts but not on your landing pages. Does the plugin allow you to customize these settings by post type?

Consider using a plugin that can match your site’s branding as well. This will allow you to change the shapes, sizing, and even colors of the widget. 

Summary

Websites and social media go hand-in-hand. Using one to promote the other is the smart way to drive traffic and engagement. 

The easiest way to encourage social shares and promote your website content via social media is with a WordPress plugin. Here is a complete list of my top picks:

1. Social Snap — Most versatile social media WordPress plugin
2. Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed — Best WordPress plugin for displaying social media feeds
3. Easy Social Share Buttons — Best for simple social sharing
4. Revive Old Posts — Best for social media scheduling and automatic posting
5. Social Locker — Best for getting new social media followers and driving engagement
6. WordPress Social Login — Best For user registration

With so many social media WordPress plugins on the market today, it can be difficult to find the right ones for your website.

Stick to the recommendations reviewed above. From simple social sharing to content locking and social logins, I made sure to include something for everyone on my list.

What Are AdChoices and How Do They Affect Your PPC?

Data is a godsend for marketers, helping us serve our audience with better, more relevant ads.

However, regardless of what we might think, consumers aren’t always fans of data-targeted advertising. According to the Pew Research Center, four in five Americans say the benefits they see from data collection are outweighed by the potential risks, while the same proportion admits they’re concerned about how brands are using their data.

Far from being excited about the prospect of seeing ads tailored to their preferences, they feel resigned to having little to no control over how their personal information is used.

Theoretically, this is where AdChoices comes in. We’ll cover what AdChoices is all about, discuss its relevance to marketers and consumers, and review the initiative’s benefits and potential drawbacks.

What is AdChoices?

AdChoices is nothing new. It’s been around since late 2010, and its roots go back even further. To properly understand what it does and why it matters, it’s worth taking a quick detour into the program’s history.

Concerned about the implications of advertisers capturing vast quantities of consumer data with no checks or balances in place, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began an investigation into the practice in 2009.

This investigation ruled that consumer privacy should be protected through stricter regulation around data collection. However, rather than directly implementing these regulations, the FTC called on the ad industry to regulate itself.

As a result, some of the biggest names in advertising joined forces under the Digital Advertising Alliance’s banner to establish the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising, which oversaw the launch of AdChoices in October 2010. Since then, it’s also been rolled out in Canada and across Europe.

The idea was that, by giving consumers an easy way to identify when online advertising data is being collected or used, people would feel empowered to manage their data and assume some level of control over the types of ads they see.

Back in 2007 (three years before AdChoices was born), market research firm Yankelovich estimated the average city resident saw 5,000 ads every single day, and it’s probably safe to assume that number has grown significantly since then. Many of the ads you see today are part of AdChoices, given that the program’s members include major advertisers and ad networks like:

• Google
• AT&T
• Facebook
• Microsoft
• Procter & Gamble
• Taboola
• Yahoo!

You can identify those behavioral ads by looking out for the AdChoices icon, a lowercase “i” inside a triangle. It typically appears in the top-right corner of behavioral internet ads served based on your data:

Clicking the icon will tell you more about why you’ve seen that ad or how the website in question collects data. You’ll also have the opportunity to opt-out of behavioral ad targeting.

Why Is AdChoices Important to Marketers?

There are a couple of reasons why AdChoices is such a big deal for marketers and advertisers.

Firstly, it should be apparent why self-regulation is better for the ad industry than being forced to adhere to many potentially far more stringent, government-enforced measures.

Secondly, it helps improve the user experience by ensuring (at least in theory) consumers are only served with ads they want to see.

Why Is AdChoices Important to Users?

Given how many internet users are concerned they have no control over how their data is collected and used online, AdChoices is broadly a good thing.

Simply put, it gives consumers more input into the ads displayed to them. If you see an ad you don’t like, you can hit the AdChoices icon and request to stop seeing it.

You might have any number of reasons for not wanting to see an ad anymore. Maybe you don’t like the company in question for moral reasons. Maybe you have no interest in the product; you could have been looking for gift ideas for a friend or family member, but you bought something else and have no need for it yourself. Perhaps you disagree with the way it’s being advertised. Whatever the case, you can block it.

Some ad networks, including Google, also allow you to dig into why you’ve been served with a particular ad in the first place.

3 Reasons to Use AdChoices

I know what you’re thinking: “PPC is a massive source of sales for my business. Why would I give the people I’m targeting the chance to switch off my ads?”

Actually, there are some excellent reasons for handing greater control and choice to your potential customers. Here are three of the biggest:

1. AdChoices Helps Marketers Target Users With Relevant Ads

Sure, you don’t want everyone to opt-out of your behavioral ad campaigns. However, at the same time, do you want to keep targeting people who actively dislike seeing your ads?

If you’re paying on a CPM basis (that is, you’re paying per 1,000 impressions), any impressions that reach the wrong people are money down the drain.

Even if you’re paying per click, it’s not helpful when your ads are served to people who don’t want to see them. Best-case scenario, those people will like you even less. Worst-case, they’ll also start deliberately clicking your ads with no intention to buy, burning your budget and skewing your figures.

There’s a flip side to this, too.

By giving consumers the opportunity to block ads they don’t like, there’s an increased chance of your ads being seen by the right people. That, in turn, means your campaigns generate better results.

2. AdChoices Helps Build Trust With Consumers

As shown by those Pew Research Center figures I mentioned earlier, consumers don’t exactly love online ads.

This is best demonstrated by the seemingly inexorable growth of ad-blocking software. Today, over one-quarter of U.S. internet users block ads on their connected devices, and while the increase in adoption has been slow, it’s also been consistent.

Universal uptake of ad blockers would clearly be a disaster for brands and marketers. Admittedly, that day may never come, but advertisers shouldn’t be complacent.

AdChoices could be the solution, or at least part of it. By raising awareness of the initiative and explaining how data is collected for ad targeting purposes, the online ad industry will appear more transparent and trustworthy to consumers.

This mitigates the risk of those consumers becoming frustrated with the number of targeted adverts they receive and resorting to ad-blocking technology.

3. AdChoices Helps Marketers Run More Effective Campaigns

You heard me right: By enrolling in AdChoices and enabling consumers to block your ads, you can improve campaign performance.

How? Because being more open about how and why you collect data may make your ads more effective.

A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research analyzed the impact of transparency on how campaigns perform. Of the authors’ learnings, I found these three points particularly interesting and relevant:

1. Consumers don’t automatically hate having their data captured: Instead, they’re broadly happy with it, as long as the data was collected from within the site (rather than from a third party) and was provided by the user, rather than inferred by the advertiser.
2. Transparency doesn’t guarantee success: If you leverage third-party data and infer things about the user, owning up to it won’t help you. In fact, revealing these “unacceptable information flows” can harm your ad effectiveness.
3. Platform trust is tied to performance: When consumers trust your website and the way you utilize their data, ad performance increases. They’ll spend longer on your site, click more recommended items, and purchase more.

3 Possible Drawbacks of Adopting AdChoices

Data transparency can improve ad performance, and AdChoices offers the transparency consumers crave. In that case, surely signing up to AdChoices is a total no-brainer?

Unfortunately, as with so many things in marketing, it’s not quite that simple. While there’s plenty of upside to AdChoices, there are also some pretty substantial drawbacks, such as:

1. Lack of Awareness Around AdChoices

The biggest criticism around AdChoices is that not enough people know what it is. Presumably, you’re a little hazy yourself, or you wouldn’t be reading this article.

Given the financial clout behind the program’s backers, it’s hard to understand why awareness of AdChoices is so low. A poll conducted in 2013, three years after its introduction, found just six percent of consumers were aware of the AdChoices icon. By 2018, awareness of the program had reached almost 34 percent.

While that figure definitely represents a step in the right direction, it should be tempered by noting 28 percent of respondents said they weren’t familiar with any of the ad filtering or blocking programs presented to them, while 43 percent admitted they’d never used any of them.

Unless those numbers increase dramatically, it’s hard to see how AdChoices can achieve its stated aims of giving consumers greater control over their data.

2. Consumers Often Misunderstand the Purpose of AdChoices

Awareness isn’t the only issue. Even when consumers have heard of AdChoices, they often misunderstand why it exists.

As an example, in 2016, Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) received 283 complaints through the AdChoices platform, double the number from 2015.

That suggests the program was working as intended, right?

Sadly not. Of those complaints, only eight percent had anything to do with behavioral ads, which, if you remember, are the sole focus of the AdChoices initiative. In contrast, three-quarters were about different types of ads that weren’t targeted on data.

To make matters worse, of that tiny proportion of relevant complaints, most were from people who incorrectly believed opting out through AdChoices would stop them from seeing any online ads in the future. They contacted the ASC because they were annoyed ads were still being served to them.

AdChoices isn’t an ad blocker; it’s about seeing more relevant ads. For whatever reason, this message doesn’t seem to be getting through to consumers.

3. AdChoices Can Look Inconsistent

There are likely lots of reasons why consumers aren’t “getting” AdChoices, but it certainly doesn’t help that there’s so much inconsistency around the program and how the icon is implemented.

What do I mean by this?

See for yourself. First up, here’s an ad displaying the AdChoices icon in the top-right corner, but without the “X” icon next to it:

Next, here’s a different ad in which the AdChoices icon appears in the top-left instead:

Even more confusingly, here are two separate ads for the same product, seen on the same website, within minutes of one another. These ads are more or less identical, yet one displays the AdChoices icon:

The other doesn’t:

This happens because different vendors and ad technology providers are responsible for serving ad impressions, and not all of those companies have joined AdChoices.

When this sort of inconsistency exists, how can we expect consumers to understand AdChoices and trust that it’s working for their benefit?

Conclusion

As you can see, there are some pretty significant concerns about the viability of AdChoices.

If it’s going to deliver its goals and make the world of behavioral ads better for consumers, it needs to be adopted by the vast majority of ad platforms and providers. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine there’ll be much growth in awareness of the program or support for the objectives it’s trying to achieve.

That’s not to say the underlying principles of AdChoices are bad or wrong. Consumers clearly want greater control over their data and the way it’s used by advertisers.

However, with Apple, Google, and Mozilla taking steps to ditch the third-party cookies that power behavioral ads, the days of relying on this type of advertising could be numbered.

Maybe it’s time we give consumers what they want and turn to less invasive, more traditional tactics like contextual and keyword-based advertising?

What do you think about AdChoices? How would you cope without behavioral targeting?