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Tapping into the Power of AI: Go Mobile's Blueprint for Winning the Battle for Customer Attention Welcome to our latest installment of "Behind the Startup," where we dive into the world of mobile marketing with Andrey Bluemental, Worldwide Managing Director. Discover the innovative strategies and technologies that set this agency apart from the rest, and learn how AI and predictive marketing are revolutionizing the industry. Join us as we explore the future of mobile marketing and uncover the trends that will shape 2023 and beyond. Behind the Startup: Meet Andrey Bluemental, the Mobile Marketing Maestro Taking Businesses to New Heights Hi Andrey Bluemental, great to have you here for our "Behind the Startup" series. What inspired you to create Go Mobile, and how did you get started in the field of global marketing? Ishan Pandey: We can see that there is a constantly growing trend for mobile marketing. That’s why we founded an agency specializing in mobile tools, specifically performance and media. Client requirements are getting stricter in matters of business KPIs, so we started investing in the development of our own technology that would meet this growing trend, and the purpose is to achieve higher effectiveness and automation of marketing. Andrey Bluemental: : Vested Interest Disclosure The author is an independent contributor publishing via our . Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR brand-as-author program How does Go Mobile differentiate itself from other mobile marketing companies in the industry? Ishan Pandey: First off, we use a combination of creativity and technology to achieve maximum performance for our advertising campaigns. Though we place our bets on attracting experts for select tasks, we invest in technologies a lot as well. This way, we guarantee not only a high degree of expertise on the team and excellent client service, but also the efficiency that only technologies can provide. Andrey Bluemental: Secondly, we are more like business partners for our clients than just another marketing agency. Our goal is to make their businesses grow. Can you provide an overview of the services that Go Mobile offers to businesses looking to improve their mobile marketing strategies? Ishan Pandey: Modern digital marketing is a set of activities aimed at promoting a product or service. It may sound easy, but in practice, many entrepreneurs focus too much only on social networks, mobile advertising, or offline activities. This is understandable, since not every business has access to a wide range of on-staff specialists. Our agency employs more than 300 professionals responsible for various domains, including user acquisition (Web + App), advertising strategy & data analytics, retargeting, our own innovative tech solutions like Go NET & Go Predicts, KOL projects, and design. We work in each of these areas with full dedication and the same level of passion. More than so, our AI tools help us perform tasks 24/7. Andrey Bluemental: Can you discuss the technology and tools that Go Mobile uses to help businesses optimize their mobile marketing campaigns? Ishan Pandey: One of our products is the Go NET programmatic platform, developed by our specialists both for internal use and for other marketing agencies. The platform consists of a large toolkit, including instruments for quick setup and launch of new advertising campaigns, support for all types of creatives, predictive tools, contextual targeting, and brand lift methodology. Andrey Bluemental: Another B2B product is our Go Predicts solution that uses predictive analysis to improve the key metrics of ads. With the help of Go Predicts it becomes possible to rank consumers based on their potential business value in the future. This way, companies can focus on the audience that is most attractive to them. How does predictive marketing work? Is it possible to build an accurate marketing strategy and predict the campaign's result in a changing market? Ishan Pandey: Predictive marketing uses advanced data analytics and machine learning algorithms to analyze large amounts of customer data and predict future outcomes. This approach can help businesses identify new opportunities, improve targeting, and optimize marketing campaigns to achieve better results. Andrey Bluemental: The predictive marketing process typically involves several steps, including data collection and preparation, feature selection, model training, and deployment. Data sources can include customer demographics, behavior, and transactional data, as well as external factors like economic indicators and market trends. That being said, predictive marketing can be a powerful tool for businesses to optimize their marketing strategies and improve their chances of success on the broader market. By leveraging the latest technologies and techniques, businesses can gain valuable insights into their customers' behavior and preferences, and make data-driven decisions that help them attain better results. How does Go Mobile help businesses measure the success of their mobile marketing efforts, and what kind of metrics do you track? Ishan Pandey: We put a lot of emphasis on measuring the success of marketing efforts, since that is an integral part of delivering great quality of service. Our team delivers regular reports about ad campaign performance for each client, holds regular meetings to stay tuned with the clients’ team and discuss every aspect of the strategy, campaign optimization, and hypothesis testing. We share our expertise and help clients understand which marketing tools and approaches can grow their business and what could reduce marketing effectiveness. Andrey Bluemental: As for metrics, we work with any of them — CPI, CPA, CAC, LTV and classic CPC and CPM, as well as business metrics like the number of new clients, retention rates, and others. What kind of customer support and resources does Go Mobile provide to its clients? Ishan Pandey: We assemble an individual team for every client based on the company’s goals and objectives. The team usually includes a media buyer, personal account manager, strategist, creative, finance and legal teams. Andrey Bluemental: We also use our native technologies — a creative approval system and real-time dashboards customized for every client. The technology helps us collaborate with clients effectively and transparently, doing it like business partners, not on a client and a performer basis. How does Go Mobile stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in mobile marketing? Ishan Pandey: In marketing, you are always in need of testing a new hypothesis. It relates to sources of traffic, marketing tools, new strategies and approaches, design, metrics, and so in. In some way, staying up-to-date with trends and best practices is our job. That is why we attend industrial conferences, organize webinars and meet-ups, and run collaborations with other agencies. All in the name of staying on par with global practices and accumulating experience. Andrey Bluemental: I also believe that the community plays an important role in improving the quality of products and creating new ones. GoMobile has its own digital community. We resort to our LinkedIn group to share experiences with marketing experts and thus propel ourselves to the next level with every acquired feedback. What tools are most effective for companies that seek to increase product sales? Has anything changed in the last 2-3 years? Ishan Pandey: The trend is apps nowadays, so it’s important to create connections between the web and mobile in terms of the target audience, communication channels, budget allocation and traffic sources for achieving more efficient business growth. Andrey Bluemental: The personalization of advertising has reached a new level and it is becoming more challenging to achieve that level due to the phasing out of cookies. Advanced analytics and an understanding of user behavior thus come to the forefront as the countermeasure. Businesses collect user information through their products and create more cases of real-time marketing — when marketing strategies adjust to the current agenda and news backgrounds, applying them in the favor of the brands. Two or three years ago, companies couldn't use AI and chatbots to improve customer service and increase their sales. Today, these tools are must-haves. Tools such as co-op websites and social networks remain unchanged, since they are still the first point of contact with potential clients, so the site must be optimized, and social networks must be filled with useful content and focus on consumer interests. What are your thoughts on the current status of artificial intelligence, and how do you see it evolving in the coming years? Ishan Pandey: I would say that artificial intelligence (AI) is a game-changing technology that has already made a significant impact on the marketing industry. AI has enabled us to automate many repetitive tasks, analyze large amounts of data, and provide personalized recommendations to customers, all of which have helped improve marketing efficiency. Andrey Bluemental: In the coming years, I believe that AI will continue to evolve and become even more sophisticated. We will see more businesses adopting AI-powered solutions, such as personalized chatbots that can provide a more human-like experience, and AI-powered recommendation engines for analyzing customer data to deliver hyper-personalized content and product offers. What will be the marketing trends in 2023? Do you advise your clients to use tools like ChatGPT? What should companies pay attention to if they want to win the battle for customer attention? Ishan Pandey: The key to surviving through 2023 is using the available marketing channels effectively. I expect that advertising will become more personalized, and video content will continue to be a reliable format for offering goods and services. Also, with the proliferation of smart speakers, voice search will be gaining prominence. The growing commitment of consumers to environmentally friendly products and production methods will also play a major role in shaping demand. Andrey Bluemental: Tech development is advancing at a rapid pace, but we see that truly impressive results can be achieved only through the collaboration of humans and AI. For example, ChatGPT is really changing the world, but it can solve real tasks only once very strict specifications have been provided. It’s just a system that belches out random results without the involvement of human expertise on the input end. The AI needs to be set up and applied correctly to be of maximum use and turn into a significant competitive advantage,  one that would allow a business to earn more. Don’t forget to like and share the story! Image credits: MidJourney.

Predictive Marketing: Crystal Ball of Digital Advertising Unveiled by Go Mobile's Andrey Bluemental

I figure since you have found yourself navigating to this page that you probably have a good amount of data that you are looking to analyze, and you may possibly be wondering the best and most efficient way to answer some of your questions about your data. The answer to your questions can be found with the use of the python package: Pandas. How to access Pandas Due to the popularity of Pandas it has its own conventional abbreviation, so anytime you are importing pandas into python, use the nomenclature below: pandas pd import as Primary Use of Pandas package is the DataFrame The pandas API defines a pandas dataframe as: Two-dimensional, size-mutable, potentially heterogeneous tabular data. Data structure also contains labeled axes (rows and columns). Arithmetic operations align on both row and column labels. Can be thought of as a dict-like container for Series objects. The primary pandas data structure. Basically, all that means is that you have data contained in the format to what you see below. Data found in rows and columns: Example dataframe with labels for data, rows and columns. Dataset from https://www.kaggle.com/yamaerenay/spotify-dataset-19212020-160k-tracks DataFrames are extremely useful because they provide a simple method to print a table visualization and then manipulate it the way you want it to be. The rows can be easily referenced by the index which are the numbers on the far left of the dataframe. The index will be the corresponding row’s number starting at zero, unless you specify names to each row. The columns can also be easily referenced by the column name such as “Track Name” or by their position in the dataframe. We will talk in more detail about referencing rows and columns later in this article. Creation Time! Photo by Rhett Wesley on Unsplash There are several ways to create a pandas dataframe: Import data from a .csv file (or other file type e.g. Excel, SQL database) from a list from a dictionary from a array numpy many, many more! In general, you will mainly be putting data from a .csv file, or some type of data source (i.e. SQL database), into a pandas dataframe. You will not be making it from scratch since that would take an insanely long time to do depending on the amount of data you have. However, in the off chance that you need to, here is a quick, simple example from a python dictionary: pandas pd
dict1 = { : [ , , ], : [ , , ]}
df = pd.DataFrame(dict1)
df import as 'Exercises' 'Running' 'Walking' 'Cycling' 'Mileage' 250 1000 550 Output: Basic dataframe made from code above The dictionary keys (‘Exercises’ and ‘Mileage’) become the corresponding column headers. The values in the dictionary being the lists in this example became the individual data points in the dataframe. The order that the lists are in matters since Running will be placed in the first row since it is first in the ‘Exercises’ list and 250 will be placed in first row in the second column since it is first in the ‘Mileage’ list. Also, you will notice that since I did not specify labels for the index of the dataframe it automatically was labelled 0,1, and 2. However, like I said before the most likely way that you will be creating a pandas dataframe is from a csv or other type of file that you will import in to analyze the data. This is easily completed with just the following: = pd.read_csv( ) df "file_location.../file_name.csv" pd.read_csv() is an extremely strong and versatile method and will be extremely useful depending on how you are looking to import your data. If your csv file already comes with headers or an index, you can specify this while importing and make you life so much easier. In order to understand the full ability of pd.read_csv() I suggest you look at the pandas API . here First things first Now, you have imported your data into your python editor and you are ready to analyze it. However, before we get to the juicy part of answering your analytical questions you have to become familiar with your data and see what it looks like. As the person who is analyzing this data, you have to become comfortable with the dataset. There are four methods that I love to use in order to get to know my data and which pandas makes super easy. .head() & .tail() info() .describe(). .sample() () raw_song .head The line above is the line that I have in the picture at the top of the page. It will display the first 5 lines of the dataframe and each of the columns to give you an easy summary of what the data looks like. You can also specify a certain number of rows inside the () of the method to show more rows if your heart so desires. .head() method on song data from Spotify dataset .tail() is the same just displaying the last 5 lines. raw_song.tail() .tail() method on song data from Spotify dataset From these two quick methods, I have a general idea or the column names and just what the data looks like just from a small sample of the dataset. These methods are also really useful especially given a dataset such as the Spotify dataset working with over 3 million rows, you can easily display the dataset and get a quick idea, and it won’t take your computer a long time to display the data. .info() is also useful in that it shows me a succinct list of all of the columns, their datatypes, and whether you have any null datapoints or not. raw_song.info(verbose=True, null_counts=True) .info() method on song data from Spotify dataset If you have completely integer or float columns (i.e. ‘Position’, ‘Streams’), then .describe() can be a useful method to understand more about your dataset as it will show many descriptive statistics about those columns. () raw_song .describe .describe() method on song data from Spotify dataset. Notice that only ‘Position’ and ‘Streams’ columns are shown since they were the only two integer columns, the other columns are strings and do not have descriptive stats. Lastly, .sample() will allow you to randomly sample your dataframe and see if any manipulation that you made has incorrectly changed something in your dataset, and can also be great when first exploring your dataset just to get an idea of what the dataset contains exactly that was not already shown in the previous methods. raw_song.sample( ) 10 .sample() method on song data from Spotify dataset. I use each of these methods consistently while exploring and preparing my datasets for analysis. Anytime I change the data in a column, change a column name, or add/delete a row/column I will then make sure it all changed the way I wanted it to by quickly running at least some of the previous 5 methods. Selecting a Row(s) or Column(s) Awesome, now you know how to look at your dataset as a whole, but you really just want to look at a few columns or a few rows and get the rest out of your way. .loc[] and .iloc[] These two methods will do exactly that just in different ways depending on the way in which you are able to reference a certain row or column. If you know the label of a row or a column, use .loc[]. If you know the index of a row or a column, use .iloc[]. If you know both, just pick your favorite, flip a coin, or use the one that you know will not potentially change. For example, if you add rows or columns to your dataframe the index will change on these rows/columns and may cause you to reference the wrong row/column later. Thus, going back to the Spotify dataset. You can just look at the column “Track Name” by using either .loc[] or .iloc[]. With .loc[] since I know the label of the column I would use the following: raw_song.loc[:, ] 'Track Name' The colon after the first bracket specifies which rows I am referencing, and since I want all rows in the “Track Name” column, I am using the “:”. .loc[] I will receive the same output with .iloc[] only this time the index of the “Track Name” column needs to be specified: raw_song .iloc [:,1] .iloc[] .loc[] and .iloc[] work the same for rows, except in this case since both the labels and the indices for the rows are the same, they would look exactly the same. Slicing and Dicing Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Another easy way to get a portion of the DataFrame is just by using [] and specifying the column name inside of the brackets. raw_song .head() [['Artist','Streams']] If you use only one column and one set of brackets you will receive a Pandas Series. raw_song[ ] 'Streams' Adding Rows, Columns from a DataFrame Utilizing what we already know from .loc[] we can use this to add a row or a column to a dataframe. You can also add columns in two other ways using .insert() or by acting as you are adding a slice of a dataframe and specifying the name of the column inside square brackets []. If you are trying to add multiple rows and columns you can create a separate dataframe and join this new dataframe of the new column or row to your original dataframe to add that column or row. To do so you would use pd.merge(), concat(), or join(); however, further discussion and examples of these methods will be discussed in a future article and are outside the scope of this post. Adding a row: If you decide to use .loc[] to add a row to a dataframe, you are only able to add it to the bottom of the dataframe. Specifying any other index in the dataframe with erase the data that is currently in that row and replace it with the data that you are inserting. In this example, I just name a new index as ‘last’ and it shows up at the bottom of the dataframe. Notice that it doesn’t have to be a specific name, just as long as it is not the same as any of the other indices. raw_song.loc[ ] = [ , , , , , , ] 'last' 0 'hello' 'bluemen' 1 "https://open.spotify.com/track/notarealtrack" '2017-02-05' 'ec' You can do the same to add a column to a dataframe using .loc[]. Once again, create a new name for the column unless you are trying to replace a column with new values. You must put either a single value that can be copied for all of the rows, or a list with the same length as the number of rows in the dataframe. raw_song [:, ] = raw_song.tail() .loc 'new_col' 0 .loc[] to add a column to the Spotify dataset. I used 0 to simplify the input. There are two other ways to insert a new column into your dataframe other than at the end. The method .insert() will allow you to specify where you would like the column to be placed into your dataframe. It takes 3 arguments, the index where it is to be placed, the name of the new column, and the values to be placed as the column data. raw_song.insert( , , )
raw_song.tail() 2 'new_col' 0 Using .insert() to make a new column in the Spotify dataset. The second way to add a column to your dataframe is by acting like it is a slice of the dataframe by using the [] to name the new column and have it equal the new data. raw_song[ ] = raw_song.tail() 'new_col' 0 adding a new column to the end of the dataframe In this way, I cannot specify the location of the new column, but is another useful way of performing the operation. Deleting Rows, Columns from a DataFrame Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash If you want to get rid of some rows or columns, it is simple, just drop them. Just specify which axis you would like to drop (0 for rows, 1 for columns) and the name of that row or column you would like to drop, and you are good to go! raw_song.drop(labels= ,axis= ) 'new_col' 1 .drop() allows for me to get rid of the “new_col” column I added in the previous section. Renaming Indices or Columns If you are looking to change the index of your dataframe to a different column in your dataframe then use .set_index() and specify the name of the column in the parentheses. However, if you know exactly what you would like to name your index use the .rename() method. raw_song.rename(index={ : }).head() 0 'first' The first index of this dataframe has been changed to “first” from 0 To rename a column specify in the .rename() method the column you want to rename and what you would like to name it inside the {} similar to the renaming the index. raw_song.rename(columns={ : }).head() 'Position' 'POSITION_RENAMED' The first column has been changed from “Position” to “POSITION_RENAMED” How to Iterate Over your DataFrame Many times when you are working with the data in your dataframe you will need to change the data in some way and iterate over all of the values in the dataframe. The easiest way to do so is already built into pandas along with a for loop: index, col raw_song.iterrows():
    # manipulate data here for in How to Write a DataFrame to a file After completing all of the manipulations to your dataframe, it is now time to export it so that you can send it elsewhere. Similar to importing the dataset from a file, it is now just the opposite. Pandas has a variety of different file types that you can write the dataframe to, but the most common is going to be to write it to a csv file. pd.to_csv( ) 'file_name.csv' Now you know the basics of Pandas and DataFrames. These are extremely powerful tools in your data analysis toolbox. Also published behind a paywall at https://towardsdatascience.com/an-introduction-to-pandas-29d15a7da6d

The Python Panda Package Tutorial

No, it’s not a clickbait title and yes, starting with $100 can get you an actual running store. In this article I’ll go through every step you need to take to get your store up and running and explain the costs involved. Granted, to keep the costs down you’ll do all the heavy lifting but hey, nothing worthwhile ever comes easy so let’s dive right in… 1. The Product It might feel odd for some that I would go about explaining how to launch a $100 store and start with the product but truth is, the site, domain, logo everything needs to be tailored to fit the product you are trying to sell. The success or failure of your business will rely on your ability to select the correct product and the right market so don’t skip over this step. Here’s a quick way to validate your idea: Go to and type in a word that describes your product, eg: “phone case” or “headlights”. You’ll see in a graph below how much interest there is in a particular region like the US. Keep in mind you can also see the results of Worldwide searches but if you are going to target a particular region I’d advise you look there. Look for trends going up or have a steady above 40 interest. That’s what you are looking for. Google Trends Google trends is a great tool to validate A couple of years ago I launched a business selling baby and toddler related toys, clothes, etc. When I looked at Google Trends I remember doing around 40 different searches and seeing what my audience was looking for to get a proper understanding of what my target audience looks for and what types of products I need to add to the store. A second, yet just as important step here is to look for what your competition does, how they address their customers and look for negative feedback from their users. See what they do wrong and aim to improve on those aspects specifically. Cost: $0 2. The Domain So you found your product and market. Good for you. Now you need to get the domain that will bring in your flock of loyal customers and though it might sound irrelevant, the domain can really hurt you if you don’t get the right one. So what makes a good domain name? Good question. It’s hard to decide if you want to get something brandable or get some keywords in the domain name. If you end up using keywords in the domain name you’d give your viewers a clear idea of they’ll be getting when seeing your store but what if you want to pivot? What if you find out 6 months in, that the store is selling more than just whatever your keyword in the domain is. If your aim is to build a strong brand, then by all means, put your brand name in the domain. In regards to the TLD (Top-level domain) you choose, get a “.com” if your audience is worldwide, and go local if you are targeting a specific country. It’s as simple as that. Other than that, keep your domain name short, be unique and unless you have no other choice, avoid hyphens. As far as providers go I usually stick to or , both are great services with good service and solid support. Godaddy.com namecheap.com Cost: $10 3. The Platform (Self-Hosted Solution vs SaaS) I could probably talk for the next hour on why you should pick one CMS or another, why you can go serverless or use a traditional hosting or even if you should go for a SaaS option or not, but I won’t go into that much detail. Instead, I’ll touch briefly on each subject and only talk about the main “players” in each category. We’ve seen, the past few years, an explosion of E-commerce SaaS options, some better than others yet the fact that almost every week you hear about a new SaaS in this segment makes me think there’s still room for innovation. What are the benefits of having a SaaS? Basically, you get to launch your store exponentially faster. You basically signup, add your products, set up payments and delivery options and you are good to go. Before I get swarmed by angry mobs yelling at me for not talking about their favorite e-commerce platform provider, I want to point out that I’ll limit this article to only two SaaS platforms, that I think, are different enough to give you a wider perspective on how far you can actually go choosing an e-commerce SaaS. SaaS the king of e-commerce SaaS: , an easy to use platform that will make sense for most people needing a simple shop with no need for a whole lot of customization. There’s a ton of support for it, themes, plugins and customizing your shop is really easy. Number 1: Shopify a newer player in the SaaS space, yet special: , a simple to use SaaS, similar to Shopify in this regards, the difference being that behind the curtains, there a fully functioning Magento platform doing the heavy lifting. (I’ll talk about Magento as a self-hosted platform below.) The main benefit of Blugento is the scalability of the store, something lacking from all other providers and an aspect that’s incredibly important. Number 2: Zentoshop Self-hosted solutions are dime a dozen and they differ from one another by a number of differences but perhaps the most important one is the community surrounding it. This is a crucial factor for you and your store. Since you are reading a “$100 e-commerce site” article you probably can’t rely on a big team of in-house developers that you can breed, educate, and have lying around until that inevitable time when your site will go down. And it will. It will crash in the most unexpected way at the most inconvenient time… Cost: around $50/month Self-Hosted CMS …that’s why I’m going to only talk about the two biggest platforms, Magento and WooCommerce. They are both immensely popular with crazy big communities around them, testing, developing and pushing the platform to the limits. has been around since 2008 and it quickly became a favorite amongst developers even if, at the time, there were bigger and more popular e-commerce CMS. Magento is not going to be for everyone, hosting costs are going to be higher, development is more complicated but in return, you get a versatile store with a lot of room for customization and it scales gracefully so when your business grows, your store can grow with it handling hundreds of thousands of products without a problem. Number 1: Magento is on the other side of the spectrum, easy to install, development is easy and you get a ton of free plugins and themes. Since it runs on top of WordPress development is cheap and it’s relatively easy to find developers to work on the store adding extra features. Compared to Magento, the management of inventory and orders is faster and easier but after about 50K products added to your store, you’ll have to think about upgrading to something like Magento. Number 2: WooCommerce Both self-hosted options described above will need a hosting company before they can see the light of day. I personally recommend going with or but there are a ton of great choices out there. hostgator.com siteground.com Installing either platform is easy as both hosting providers offer tools for installing Magento or WordPress through a simple point and click wizard. No more messing with the console, creating databases and editing confusing PHP files. Cost: $0 for the platforms, between $10 — $25 / month for hosting Serverless I’d be remiss not to mention serverless in this discussion as this is something that has been talked a lot about in the recent months and we’ve seen big names in E-commerce move their operations to the cloud, companies like . Zalora Zalora moved everything to AWS, website, mobile apps, warehouse operations, everything is running off of EC2, S3, Lambda, and RedShift. They are the biggest retailer in Asia with over 20 million users and yet, their entire infrastructure development team is composed of 3 people, which for anyone understanding the difficulties running such a large website can say it’s amazing! This is done through AWS Lambda, a service launched by Amazon that lets you upload small pieces of code that work as microservices, called functions — hence the term or FaaS. They basically do a very specific task that your website triggers, returning a simple result. The technology behind it promises to allow developers to build websites and apps without having to worry about the backend or the infrastructure, all while keeping the costs at an all-time low. Functions as a Service There are three big reasons for switching to a serverless framework: cost, development speed and scalability. There are companies saving tens of thousands of dollars a month after switching to serverless and an average of 77% faster delivery speed of the products. Check out this case study on in comparison to traditional hosting solutions. how serverless saves money Poor website performance is now measured in terms of lost customers and revenues – Tom Lounibos, CEO, SOASTA 4. Branding If I’d were to say branding is important I’d be grossly understating it. I will say that a solid logo and branding will make up the foundation of your successful store. So how can you build one that reflects your company’s image while still looking professional? Well, the easy way would be to throw money at it, but we don’t roll like that, so we’ll be doing this ourselves. The first place to start is to look for inspiration and you do this by going through design and branding websites looking at the current trends, tutorials and any tips or tricks that will help you in this endeavor. My suggestion would be to start with sites like or and then try to expand your search to Pinterest. hipsthetic.com designoholic.com Alright, you now have an idea of what you need but you aren’t going to pay a couple of hundred dollars per month for Photoshop because that will blow the entire budget we’ve set for ourselves. So what we do is we sign up with . It’s free and it will get you started quite fast. After watching a 1-minute tutorial you’ll be ready to start creating your first logo. Canva.com Don’t stop at one. Make two or three and show them to a couple of friends to get feedback. After picking the winner get back to Canva.com and make a few more: one that has transparency; one that is all black; and one that is all white. You can use the color one for your website and the rest you’ll use to watermark catalog images (I don’t really recommend using watermarks on product images but if you absolutely have to, place them in a corner somewhere) business cards, social media posts, etc. You get the point. Cost $0 5. First Marketing Steps Alright, we almost made it. There’s only one little step ahead of us. And by little I actually mean the most important thing you’ll end up doing for your business. SEO Let’s start with something basic: on page SEO, sounds easy enough, right? Well, not exactly. There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to SEO and I won’t have time to go into much detail but I will let you with that will teach you pretty much all you need. this awesome infographic Social Media You probably know this by now, SM is a tool that you can leverage to get in front of the right customers. Start posting on a regular basis but be careful not to alienate your readers with overzealous posts promoting products. I recommend people use the 8 + 2 rule. You provide 8 pieces of useful content, regardless if it’s on your site or not. Content like tutorials, tips and tricks, peer reviews, etc. Don’t be afraid to test the water with this strategy, find out what your users like and with that type of content they interact and start sharing. Content Marketing This will be your bread and butter for the next few months. It’s crucial to have a blog where you can share your experiences and knowledge with your peers. As part of the content marketing efforts, you’ll have to do guest posts. Find like-minded people who own blogs and start pitching ideas for guest posts. Most blog owners are fairly easy to reach and communicate with so I highly advise you do this. Guest blogging on small blogs is a great way to reach new audiences but perhaps even better than that would be to go on . It’s a great platform to publish content, with a ton of viewers, so I’d strongly suggest you try it out. Medium.com 6. Advertising So if my math is correct after getting set up with your website domain and host you’d be left with $30 to $40. I’d advise you drop a few dollars in Facebook ads. It’s easy to do, you don’t need to spend money on a consultant and Facebook has a bunch of tutorials on this. What I’d suggest you do is select the best products you have in your store and create a carousel. Have at least 4 products in there. Select a small audience with the demographic that fits your niche and place a $5 limit on the ad spending. You’ll have around a week to tweak the ad and if you have the right combination of audience and product, chances are you’ll have made your first sell by now. The Grand Total If you do the math, going with a self-hosted solution will cost around $50 to host ( for a 5 or 6 month period), add to that $ 10 for the domain and you get to $ 60. You’ll have to host it yourself, do all the maintenance and configuration but you get to have about 6 months to make up your investment. Going with a SaaS will cost around $60 but you will be done and ready to go in a couple of days which is great if you don’t want to spend time learning to code or set up a CMS. The downside here is that your $50 will cover only that first month which adds to the pressure of making a few sells (which shouldn’t be a problem). Featured image via Depositphotos . Originally published at www.webdesignerdepot.com on August 30, 2018.

How to Launch Your E-Commerce Empire for $100 (or less)

In case you hadn’t already noticed, devices are now most people’s preferred way to access the Internet and its vast content. That’s partially because smartphone adoption continues to rise (nearly 80% of Americans own one), and the average user is now spending more than three hours per day on their phones. Not surprisingly, the continual rise in mobile adoption and usage is compelling companies to pursue “mobile-first” strategies, which prioritize mobile experiences (such as mobile applications and mobile-responsive websites) above traditional desktop experiences. mobile These trends are also causing ripple effects in a number of related areas: advertising, media usage, and e-commerce, for example. What follows is a collection of facts, predictions, and statistics for marketers, professionals, and the general public to understand the state of mobile experiences in 2018. Mobile Advertising 1. Mobile Ad Spending Worldwide to Reach $ 176 billion in 2020. ( ) Statista Perhaps not surprising — the more people consume content on mobile, the more companies will want to advertise on mobile platforms. 2. Mobile Devices Account for 53% of Paid Search Clicks. ( ) Aumcore With the continual increase in screen sizes and improvements to mobile web experiences, people are now clicking on search ads willingly, not by mistake (as perhaps some have done in the past). 3. Phone Based CPCs are 24% Lower than Desktop & CTRs are 40% Higher. ( ) Aumcore Advertising on mobile platforms are starting to show great results, and you can (for the time) take advantage of lower costs-per-click (CPC). 4. Google Drives 95% of all US Paid Search Ad Clicks on Mobile. ( ) SearchEngineLand In addition to dominating search in general, Google is even more dominant when it comes to mobile search in the US. If you’re focused on reaching users in the US, make sure you offer a great mobile experience. 5. 87% of Facebook’s Advertising Revenue Comes from Mobile. ( ) Adweek How many of us who use are NOT using it on mobile? (Not many, right?) Mobile applications are increasing vital to companies that want to generate digital advertisement revenues. Facebook 6. By 2019, Mobile Ads are Expected to Represent 72% of all U.S. Digital Ad Spending ( ) MarketingLand As said previously, as mobile usage increases, so will ad spend on mobile platforms. 7. Worldwide Mobile Ads Revenue of Twitter to Reach $3.58 Billion in 2018. ( ) Statista Though the social behemoth was relatively late to monetize its platform, Twitter is becoming highly relevant when it comes to mobile advertising. 8. 88% of Smartphone Users Increased their Use of Mobile Coupons in the Past 3 Years. ( ) Adcolony A whole market has emerged around the growing use of mobile coupons, which incidentally, are great for the environment! Mobile Shopping/E-commerce 9. 84% of Smartphone Shoppers use Their Phones while in a Physical Store. ( ) ThinkWithGoogle Shoppers nowadays use phones as they shop in any physical bricks-and-mortar store. They might be doing price comparisons, looking for reviews, sending photos to friends, or any number of related activities. 10. 61% of People have a Better Opinion of Brands when they Offer a Good Mobile Experience. ( ) HubSpot Obviously! What would consumers think about a company who is blatantly ignoring their preferred way of consuming Internet content? 11. 80% of Shoppers Used a Mobile Phone Inside of a Physical Store to either Look up Product Reviews, Compare Prices or Find Alternative Store Locations. ( ) LinkedIn Again, shoppers don’t want to leave pertinent information out of their purchasing decisions. Smartphones bring valuable information to their fingertips, which can be great for shoppers and not-so-great for physical retail stores that do not have strategies in place to account for this shopper behavior. 12. 40.4% of all Users buy More of a Brand’s Goods after Downloading its E-commerce App. ( ) Jmango360 Offering a native e-commerce app is one of the best ways to increase share-of-wallet and purchasing behavior from your customers. 13. People view 4.2x More Products Per Session within Apps, Compared to Mobile Sites. ( ) BluesenseNetworks With a native e-commerce mobile app, shoppers enjoy a better user experience that engages them more. This leads to more product views and more purchase behavior. 14. Having an App Increases Your Chances of Getting People Further Down the Purchase Funnel. ( ) Jmango360 Apps push more people down the purchase funnel, with 3x higher conversion rates compared to mobile sites and even 1.5 times more conversions per session than via desktop. 15. For Every Second of Delay in Mobile Page Load, Conversions can Fall by up to 20%. ( ) ThinkWithGoogle If you want higher conversion rates, your load times need to be on point, especially in e-commerce. If your pages take more time to load than your customers are willing to spend staring at a blank or incomplete page, you’re not just saying goodbye to a few orders, you could be losing valuable customers that would have spent tens of thousands of dollars with you over their lifetime. 16. 78% of Shoppers will Ignore a Retailer’s Offer if it is not Personalized. ( ) Deviceatlas Personalized experiences are set to dominate, as Amazon and others have raised the bar by providing personalized recommendations based on your interests, past purchases, and other data insights. E-commerce companies must begin to invest in AI/machine-learning to provide the user experience their shoppers have come to expect. 17. Mobile-influenced Offline Spending is Already Over $1 Trillion. ( ) Biznessapps People do heavy mobile research before making offline purchases in almost all categories. So even if your business metrics don’t necessarily show a huge contribution from mobile, you should consider the role mobile experiences have on in-store behavior. 18. 69% of Consumers Worldwide Between the Ages of 18 & 39 Use Mobile Devices to Research Products before they Buy. ( ) Aumcore Again, all the more reason for you to optimize for mobile devices. Mobile Users 19. According to the data in January 2018, the Global Mobile Population Amounted to 3.7 Billion Unique Users. ( ) Statista 3.7 billion unique users! It’s no wonder companies like Facebook have . prioritized providing Internet access to every corner of the earth 20. Smartphone users in the US to reach 271 Million in 2022. ( ) Statista Needless to say, people in the world’s most advanced countries tend to be ahead in the global adoption curve. If you do business in the US, you need to provide an optimized mobile experience. 21. The number of tablet users in the U.S. is forecast to pass the 180 million mark for the first time in 2019. ( ) Statista Tablet users are not to be ignored. Unlike smartphones, tablets provide an experience that is an easier transition for people who are used to staring at gigantic computer monitors. 22. 52% of all Global Web Pages Served Mobile Phones from 2009–2018. ( ) Statista More than half of the global web traffic was from mobiles. This is going to increase exponentially in the years ahead, as more people adopt and behavior shifts towards mobile. Just having a desktop version of a website or even a mobile-friendly website won’t cut it anymore. Companies will also need to provide native mobile applications to stand apart from their competition. 23. As of 2017, 51.12% of Internet Traffic is from Smartphones. ( ) Statista The majority of internet traffic is now from smartphone users. Hard to imagine, considering that smartphones were first invented just about a decade ago. 24. Top 5 Screens Used Among Teenagers. ( ) ThinkWithGoogle Smartphone 78% Laptop 69% Television 68% Gaming Console 62% Tablet 52% Smartphones are the #1 type of screen used by teenagers. (Perhaps that’s why strong eye contact from teens is a thing of the past.) 25. Android was the World’s Most Used Operating System in 2017. ( ) MarketingLand In 2017, Android had a 38.9% worldwide market share as the most used operating system, followed by Windows (36.9%) and iOS (13.45%). 26. Mobile Email will Account for 22 to 77% of Email Opens. ( ) Emailmonday Pretty clear. People are now using mobile devices for email as well. 27. 21% are Opened on Tablets. ( ) Emailmonday Tablets are key for those providing email experiences as well. 28. By 2018, Mobile Email users are Expected to Reach 2.2 Billion. ( ) Emailisnotdead Again, people are increasingly using their mobile devices to read and keep up with email. Time Spent on Mobile 29. 94% of IT Professionals Expect Mobile Security Attacks to Become More Frequent. ( ) Mobilebusinessinsights With everything going Mobile First, mobile security will become an uphill task. 79% of IT professionals report increased difficulty in securing devices. 30. In 2017, Average Time Spent on Mobile Using Internet was 223 Minutes. (Statista) In 2016, Millennials spent 188 minutes per day on mobile for internet related tasks. In 2017, this number rose to 223 minutes per day. 31. 46% of Smartphone Users Drop off in less than 10 seconds, Making Mobile Optimization a High Priority. (Impactbnd) Without a speedy mobile experience, you could lose valuable visitors before they even have a chance to see your content. 32. Google is Responsible for 96% of all Smartphone Search Traffic. (Omnicoreagency) Completely dominant in search, especially when it comes to smartphones. 33. 90% of Media Time on Mobile Devices is Spent in Apps and 10% on Mobile Web. (Aumcore) It’s not enough to be “mobile-friendly”. If you want to occupy greater mind share versus your competition, consider building a native mobile app that attracts and retains your users’ attention. 34. Mobile now Accounts for Nearly 70% of Digital Media Time. (Marketingland) Whether you’re Youtube or just a company that uses digital media online, offering your media on mobile platforms is critical. 35. Digital Audience Comprises of 22% Females & 16% Males. (Marketingland) From the total audiences that is exclusively dependent on smartphones for using internet, 22% are Females and 16% males. 36. Top Digital Media Categories in terms of Overall Time Spent are Social Media & Entertainment. (Marketingland) Facebook, despite its well publicized struggles over the past year, remains the top social media app/website. Second to Facebook stands Snapchat, with the most engagement from its users. 37. 80% of Social Media Time is Spent on a Mobile Device ( ). ComScore Make sure that your social media presence is optimized for mobile devices, and build strong social media integrations into your mobile applications. 38. In Online Mobile Searches by Industry, 72% Goes to Food & Beverages. (Searchengineland) Food and beverage dominates with 72%. I guess we’re really that hungry/thirsty so much of the time. 39. In Feb 2018, Alphabet Accounted for 23 % of Total Time Spent on Mobile Apps. (Statista) Alphabet (Google) was at #1 with a percentage of 23% and Facebook, surprisingly was at second with a percentage of 15.1%. 40. Smartphone Owners are Using 9 Apps Per Day, and 30 Per Month. (Techcrunch) Smartphone users spread their time amongst a number of a different apps, some which they might use daily, and others they use more sporadically. Mobile User Behavior 41. Voice Search on a Daily Basis — 55% Teens and 44% Adults. (Omnicoreagency) With Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google Assistant, people have started to embrace voice search in their everyday lives. 42. 25% of People Ages 16–24 Use Voice Search on Mobile. (Branded3) The relatively new way to search for information online is showing strong adoption among teens and young adults. 43. 60% Users Don’t Return to a Problematic Mobile Site. (Impactbnd) Google says that over 60% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing, and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead. One bad experience loses you two customers, at least. One for the person who experienced it and the other for the person he would have shared your site with. 44. According to Google’s Official Blog, By 2020, More than Half of all Queries will be done by Voice Search. (MarkGrowth) If you like to search for information online, start doing those vocal exercises as the voice search market will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. 45. 46% of Americans Check Their Smartphones Before Getting Up. (Techtimes) A 2017 report found that 46% of Americans admitted to checking their smartphones before they even get out of bed in morning. I have to admit, that includes me too. While many of us know this isn’t necessarily healthy or productive, we often can’t help but want to “catch up” first thing in the morning. 46. 53% of Visits are Abandoned if a Mobile Site Takes Longer than Three Seconds to Load. (hobo-web.co.uk) This is very important. Page speed is one of the key factors that determines who stays at the top of the SERP. , page speed on mobile is now becoming even more important than ever. With Google going Mobile-first 47. Millennials Check Their Phone 150 Times per Day. (Inc) There is a science to this behavior. Checking your phone releases dopamine inside your brain. That tricks yourself into the feeling that you’ve accomplished something. For marketers and software creators, this is a powerful force to consider when building mobile applications and mobile experiences. 48. 1 in 2 Trips Starts on Mobile. (ThinkWithgoogle) Not surprising that people who like to be on the go also like to plan their trips on the go. For businesses that focus on travel experiences or transportation (think Uber or Lyft), providing an optimized mobile experience is absolutely mandatory. 49. 85% of Travelers Use Mobile Devices to Book Travel Activities. (Adweek) Even while on trips, popular digital activities include: navigation 60%, looking for restaurants (54%), 34% social media apps, travel apps (23%), and transportation apps (12%). 50. An Estimated 84 % of Communications Will be Visual by 2018. (Inc) Though this applies across all platforms, it’s critical for those who focus on mobile. In optimizing your mobile experience, ensure that you’re using strong visuals that appeal to users on multiple levels (not just rational). Originally published at citrusbits.com on April 25, 2018.

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