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20 Legit Ways to Earn PayPal Money

Lorraine Smithills — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 18:06:00 GMT

In the current economic climate, many people are looking to make some extra cash. Fortunately, you don’t even need to leave your house as there are some great ways to earn PayPal money from home.

Regardless of whether you’re looking for a little bit of extra money right now or you need to start making money on a recurring basis, there are some options available.

Here we’ll explore 20 legit ways that you can make some PayPal cash today. You’ll be able to spend the money from your PayPal balance or transfer it to your bank account. Some of these options involve quick ways to start making money, and later in the article, we’ll look at some business ideas that would be ideal if you’re looking for ongoing income.

How to Earn PayPal Money

1. Swagbucks ($5 signup bonus)

Swagbucks is an online rewards program that has some excellent user reviews and a high score on Trustpilot to highlight its legit status. You can earn PayPal cash or gift cards as a prize for completing a variety of tasks, including taking simple online surveys, playing games, reviewing samples, watching videos, or even getting paid to surf the web. You can even earn cashback when you shop through the list of Swagbucks retail partners, and there are thousands of partners in their program.

To date, Swagbucks has given its users more than $350,000,000, handing out thousands of gift cards every day. The points awarded depends on the task, so while you may only earn a couple of points for surfing the internet, if you were going to do this anyway, why not earn a few points at the same time? Each point is worth approximately 1 cent, so when you’ve accumulated 500 points, you redeem them for a $5 PayPal transfer as your prize.

With a mobile app that’s easy to use, Swagbucks is an excellent option to earn PayPal money and prizes whenever you have a few spare minutes.

Swagbucks - Easily Earn Extra Money in Your Spare Time

Sign up for a Swagbucks account and make money (and other rewards) by taking simple online surveys, watching videos, playing games, installing apps, and more. Sign up through this link for a $5 bonus!

Get $5 Sign Up Bonus

2. Survey Junkie

As its name suggests, Survey Junkie allows users to earn PayPal cash by completing paid online surveys. This market research company has accumulated four million members, and it has been established for almost a decade.

Once you complete the easy signup process, you’ll have access to surveys that you can complete in exchange for points. The surveys are tailored to your specific demographics, so the more complete your profile, the more chances of qualifying for surveys.

Depending on the length and detail of the survey, you’ll be awarded 20 to 200 points, but you may find some surveys are worth even more. You’ll see how many points each survey is worth before you start, and once you complete each survey, you’ll see the points appear in your balance instantly. You’ll also be able to see the amount of time needed for a survey before you begin.

One great thing about Survey Junkie is that, unlike many online survey platforms, there is no expiry date on the points, so even if you’re not a regular user, you can still be accumulating points for your PayPal cash. There is also a very low payout threshold of 1,000 points or a $10 cash prize.

Survey Junkie - Make Money By Taking Surveys

Survey Junkie is one of the best websites for making money by taking online surveys. Earn your choice of cash of gift cards in your spare time.

3. MyPoints ($10 signup bonus)

MyPoints has been around since the 1990s, and as a participant, you can accumulate points through a variety of tasks to earn some PayPal money as a prize. These tasks include completing surveys, watching videos, playing games, and even reading emails. Like Swagbucks, MyPoints also has a list of retail partners, and you can earn points based on the items you purchase.

The MyPoints app also features a coupon section, where you can print off coupons to use at stores in your area, so you can accumulate points and save some money. The point system is a little confusing and a bit like a mystery until you get some experience. The minimum redemption balance for payments is just 480 points, or a $3 prize, and you can further boost your point balance by referring friends. You can issue unlimited referral invitations, and you’ll earn 10 percent of your referral’s qualifying points.

MyPoints - Cash Back and Rewards

Earn cash back from purchases at thousands of online retailers and earn rewards for simple tasks like taking online surveys, watching videos, and printing coupons. Sign up for MyPoints now for a $10 bonus!

4. Inbox Dollars ($5 signup bonus)

The attractive feature of Inbox Dollars is that you can earn PayPal money or gift cards as prizes for the online tasks that you’re already doing. You’ll get paid for small tasks that can be completed in only a minute or two. This includes playing online games, searching the internet, completing surveys, and shopping online.

You’ll receive a $5 introductory bonus, which will help you toward the $30 minimum cash out.

Inbox Dollars has paid out over $50 million to its users in prizes, and many consider it to be a quick and convenient way to make some money online. The company doesn’t use points, so you’ll see a dollar amount for each task. This can be a little underwhelming when you see some tasks are only worth $0.25, but when they only take a few moments, you can quickly earn some cash in your spare time. And best of all, there’s no mystery about how much your points are worth.

InboxDollars - Earn Money from Surveys and Other Easy Tasks

Earn cash easily in your spare time by taking simple online surveys, watching videos, playing games, printing coupons, and more. Plus, you'll get a $5 bonus when you sign up today.

5. Branded Surveys ($1 signup bonus)

Branded Surveys is another excellent survey site that’s ideal for making some extra cash in your spare time. Like the others, you can create a free account and earn points for each survey that you complete. In their point system, each point is worth $0.01, so the 100 point signup bonus they offer is worth a $1 prize.

After you’ve created your profile and filled out some basic info, Branded Surveys will match you up with opportunities to make money through online surveys that you’re qualified for. This is a nice feature because it means you won’t have to dedicate time to finding surveys that you can take to earn payments.

With Branded Surveys, you’ll have a lot of surveys available to you, so you’re unlikely to run out of options quickly. You’ll only see three options in the “survey spotlight”, but when you complete one of them, another survey will take its place.

While there are a few other ways to add points like a referral program and promo codes, Branded Surveys is mostly about surveys. It’s a bit more like Survey Junkie than Swagbucks, where you can earn points from a lot of different activities.

6. Slide

Slide is a cashback app that makes it very easy to earn cash back at your favorite stores and websites. What I like best about Slide is you can easily stack the rewards with cashback from a credit card or other rewards.

You’ll also love the simplicity of Slide as it’s very straightforward to use. You’ll get 4% cash back on virtually any purchase at stores like Lowe’s, Petco, Bed Bath & Beyond, Bath & Body Works, GameStop, AMC, Dunkin’ Donuts, Chipotle, Panera Bread, Dominos, and many more.

If you want to maximize your cash back, you can pay in advance, (essentially like buying a gift card through Slide) and you’ll get 5% cashback instead of 4%. If you’re using a 2% cashback credit card like the Citi Double Cash, that means you can easily earn 7% cashback on many purchases!

With Slide, the cashback prize you earn can be redeemed by PayPal or Venmo. If you’re looking for a fast and easy way to earn PayPal money, simply using Slide for your purchases is a great option.

Get 4% Cashback from Your Favorite Stores

Slide is a new cashback app that makes it easy to save 4% on any purchase at a huge selection of retailers and websites. You can even get 5% cashback by pre-paying (and you can stack it with credit card rewards).

Learn More

7. Rakuten ($10 signup bonus)

Rakuten is a great way to get free PayPal money just by shopping. Almost every online purchase can qualify for cash back, and you can even qualify for a $10 bonus after you’ve made your first $25 purchase through the platform. With thousands of partner stores and websites, Rakuten is the most popular cashback app (see the best cashback apps here) and you can save money on many of the purchases you need to make.

The platform is easy to use, and once you’ve signed in, you just shop as normal by selecting the eligible store you want to shop in using the alphabetical list or using the search function. After you click on the store link, you’ll visit the store website as normal, and there will be no difference to your shopping experience. However, as you’ve been shopping through the Rakuten portal, Rakuten will automatically calculate cashback on any qualifying purchases. You’ll be able to use the app or Rakuten website to keep track of your cashback and providing your balance is over the $5 minimum, you can redeem it each quarter.

Rakuten - The Best Cashback App (Plus $10 Bonus!)

Rakuten (formerly Ebates) is one of the most popular cashback apps and you can easily save money at thousands of stores and websites with a free account. You can even get a $10 bonus just for signing up and making your first purchase!

Get the $10 Bonus

8. Ibotta ($20 signup bonus)

The Ibotta platform allows you to earn cashback on your grocery stores that can be redeemed as PayPal money or free gift cards as prizes. Once you’ve completed your shopping, scan your receipts, and Ibotta will calculate your cashback. There are also in-app deals and offers for both online and grocery store shopping on generic and name brands.

When you redeem your first order, you’ll receive a $10 introductory bonus and there are other signup bonuses worth up to $20 in total.

The app is continually updated with new deals and offers, so you can browse before you head out to the grocery store. You can even create a grocery list in the app by adding coupons to your basket.

Ibotta - An Amazing Cash Back App

Ibotta is one of the best cashback apps that you need to be using if you like to save money. Save money on the things you need to buy at grocery stores, department stores, home improvement stores, and online.

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9. TopCashback

TopCashback claims to be the most generous cashback site in the USA with 250,000 members and a list of over 4,000 eligible retailers. The company guarantees the highest cashback rates, and you’ll also enjoy a payout bonus on top of your cashback. There are also no minimum payout thresholds, so you can start seeing PayPal prizes almost immediately.

→ Sign up for TopCashback here.

10. PrizeRebel

PrizeRebel is another platform that rewards users with points for watching videos and completing surveys. You’ll also have access to free and paid offers that award points and these will typically offset any purchase price.

Some activities pay more than others, but you’ll see how many points you could earn and the estimated time the task should take before you start, so you can focus on higher-paying tasks.

You can also earn bonuses and prizes for referring family and friends. You’ll earn 20 percent of all the points from your referrals, so for every 100 points your friends earn, you get 20. Each point has a value of one cent, and you’ll receive an additional 10 points for completing your profile, so you can quickly start to accumulate PayPal money.

→ Sign up for PrizeRebel here.

11. OpinionOutpost

As its name suggests, OpinionOutpost is an online survey panel that allows members to be rewarded for providing their opinions on eligible products and services.

You’ll be presented with lots of survey options, and you can earn 5 to 50 points for completing a survey. However, where OpinionOutpost stands out is the conversion rate. 1 point is worth 10 cents, so you only need to accumulate 10 points to earn one dollar.

This high conversion rate means that you can cash out after completing just a survey or two, so you can quickly earn some PayPal money. You can also earn one dollar for every friend or family member you refer who completes just one survey.

→ Sign up for OpinionOutpost here.

12. RebateKey

RebateKey is different than the other options we’ve covered so far. While you will get money in your PayPal account (if you choose to get rebates via PayPal), you’ll spend some money upfront. However, you might wind up getting a product for free after you’ve got the prize money in your PayPal account.

At RebateKey, you’ll find eligible rebate offers on products sold at Amazon. Many of the rebates offer very deep discounts, including some 100% rebates. If you take advantage of the 100% rebates, that’s essentially like getting a product for free.

To use RebateKey, you’ll need to create a free buyer account. When you see a product you want, you’ll make the purchase for full price on Amazon and come back to RebateKey to enter your order number. About 35 days later, you’ll get the rebate. The 35-day wait is in place to prevent buyers from returning the product after getting the rebate.

Read our RebateKey review to see more details about how it works.

Top Pick!

Get Free Amazon Products With RebateKey

RebateKey makes it easy to find amazing discounts (up to 100% off) on products sold at Amazon. New products are added every day!

Learn More

Start a Business

Many freelancers and small business owners today are paid by PayPal. Of course, you could offer other payment methods, but if you’re looking for a way to pad your PayPal account, offering a service could be a great option.

While it’s true that starting a business will take more time than the options covered above, the earning potential is also significantly higher.

Here are some specific businesses you might way to consider.

13. Work as a Virtual Assistant

If you’re an organized person, you could consider a side gig working as a virtual assistant. Your role will vary according to your client’s specific needs, but you may be handling issues such as customer support, scheduling, email marketing, and general admin.

You can find clients through a variety of freelancing platforms, but it is possible to be a virtual assistant for multiple clients at once, providing you’re able to keep everything organized.

Working as a virtual assistant is one of the best ways to make money right now because there are plenty of virtual assistant jobs available, and the top VAs are able to earn a very good rate.

Free Workshop - 5 Steps to Become a Virtual Assistant

If you're interested in making money from home, be sure to check out this free workshop from Kayla Sloan. She shows how to use the skills you already have to start making money as a VA.

Get Access

14. Work as a Freelance Writer

If you have a talent for writing, you can turn this into a decent side gig with a little work. There are lots of platforms that connect freelancers with clients looking for projects to be completed, and many of them allow you to cash out using PayPal. This list of freelance writing jobs for beginners is a great place to start.

However, there are often other payment methods, including direct deposits into your bank account, which are an even faster way to get your hands on some cash. Many of the sites require that you set up a profile and create a portfolio of writing examples, but once you have done this, you can bid for work that interests you, set your own rates for payments, and in some cases, you can write and get paid instantly.

To learn more about making money as a freelance writer, be sure to check out Freelance Writing 101: Build a Successful Writing Career by Brad Merrill.

15. Work as a Freelancer Graphic Designer

If you have more of a talent for pictures rather than words, you can put this to good use and freelance as a graphic designer. Graphics are an important aspect of all business activities, from printables and infographics to ads and social media images. So, if you have a talent for designing graphics, you can command a decent wage for your gigs.

Just as we discussed above, you can create a profile and set up a portfolio of samples to attract new clients. You can set your own rate, and many clients will not require formal qualifications. Be prepared to receive a lower rate of pay as a beginner, but once you start to develop a reputation, you can increase your rates.

If you’d like to learn more about this opportunity, the course How to Become a Graphic Designer is an Excellent Starting Point.

16. Start a Blog

Becoming a blogger is not a quick fix to generate cash, but it can provide a solid side gig that could earn you thousands of dollars each month over time. You’ll need to find a topic that will hold your interest in the long term, but you’ll be able to make money by publishing sponsored content, advertising, and affiliate programs.

This will take time to build up. Many companies will not pay for sponsorship or advertising until you have a certain level of traffic or a specific number of followers. So, you will need to consistently post on your blog to build it up organically.

It’s important that you take a consistent approach, as one post every week for months will be far more effective than posting every day for a week and then posting nothing for a month or two. So, be realistic about your strategy and how often you will be able to post. You will then start to develop a following, and you can start to see the potential for advertising, sponsored content, and affiliate sales.

To learn more, please read How to Start a Blog.

17. Work as a Social Media Marketer

If you already spend lots of free time on social media, you can transform this interest into a way to get some PayPal money. You’ll have the responsibility to manage the social media accounts for businesses. This is similar to personal accounts, so you’ll need to reply to comments, interact with followers, and respond to any private messages.

Since social media now plays such a vital role in marketing for businesses, many business owners need to spend a great deal of time trying to remain active, so many will look to outsource this task. It pays well if you have some experience and expertise.

18. Work as a Voice Actor

Being a voice actor will mean providing the voice for audiobooks, commercials, other projects, and gigs. The rate of pay depends on the specific project and your experience, but even beginners can secure a decent amount of money. There are platforms and websites that connect voice actors with clients and projects, and most offer PayPal as a payment method.

You will need to have patience and consistency when applying for work and, of course, a pleasant speaking voice.

Voice Over Masterclass – The Official DIY Guide to Voice Acting provides a great introduction and will help you to get started and find your first clients.

19. Work as a Photo Editor

Many people look for digital photo editing services, creating an opportunity for you to develop a side gig working as a photo editor. Whether you’re removing unwanted objects or people from holiday pictures, repairing under or overexposed images, converting colored photos, or even just removing red-eye, you can make a real difference to the quality of digital photos and images. Photo editors can also change backgrounds, adjust contrast, enlarge images, and do color corrections.

You can search for clients through a variety of freelancing platforms or develop your own website advertising your services. Again, you’ll need to develop a reputation for quality work and establish a profile where clients can check your portfolio and make contact with you when they have a project.

20. Sell on eBay

Finally, you can generate some extra PayPal cash by selling items on eBay. You can start by clearing out your unwanted items and listing them on eBay. However, if you catch the bug for being an eBay seller, you could even source items that you can sell — find cheap items at yard sales or flea markets and sell for a profit. You’ll need to calculate shipping costs, seller fees, and PayPal fees into your prices, but many people find eBay an easy way to develop an e-commerce business in their spare time (see How to Sell on eBay for Beginners).

Also, eBay isn’t the only options. There are plenty of other platforms where you can sell. See our comparison of Poshmark vs. eBay vs. Mercari for more details on some of the best options.

Final Thoughts on Ways to Earn PayPal Money

As you can see, there are lots of simple ways to earn some PayPal money. Whether you’re looking for a few dollars to buy yourself a treat or want to develop a decent side gig to supplement your income, there are opportunities around that can allow you to use your talents and interests. If you look for something that will pay you money, doing something you enjoy, it won’t even feel like work, and you can accumulate some serious earnings in your spare time.

The post 20 Legit Ways to Earn PayPal Money appeared first on Vital Dollar.

How to Sell on eBay for Beginners (in 2022)

Marc Andre — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 16:58:00 GMT

Chances are, you’ve bought at least a few things on eBay in the past. Maybe you’ve even sold some things from around the house.

But have you ever considered starting a side hustle of buying used items and reselling them on eBay?

If you’re looking for a way to make some extra money, it’s an option that you might want to consider. This beginner’s guide to selling on eBay will give you all the information you need to get started, even if you don’t have an existing eBay account.

A Real-World eBay Selling Success Story

Nathan Clarke, 25 years old, works from his home in Georgia full-time as a systems engineer. In his spare time, Nathan buys used items and resells them on eBay. He started this side hustle because he and his wife are trying to save as much as possible in the pursuit of financial independence, with a goal of $1 million in net worth.

About 11 years ago, Nathan got his first taste of selling on eBay. He said, “I sold my first item on eBay using my mom’s information when I was about 14 or so. Throughout my teens, I used eBay to make money on items I wasn’t using anymore. I got serious about turning eBay into a steady income stream back in April of 2018 and have kept adding items to my inventory ever since.”

Nathan Clarke

What to Sell on eBay?

There are a few different approaches that can be taken with eBay. Some sellers take a general approach and will sell just about any product that gives them the potential to make a profit. Other sellers choose to specialize in a particular niche and try to brand their eBay business.

Nathan takes the general approach. “I will sell just about any item I can make a decent profit. One of the reasons I love selling on eBay is that you can just about sell anything! I sell a lot of clothes and hats and mostly unique vintage items that you wouldn’t think much of. I prefer to sell smaller items on eBay that aren’t easily broken because it’s less of a hassle to ship.

“The most profitable sale I’ve had so far was some vintage CB radio equipment I got at a yard sale. The people at the yard sale had this box of stuff they were going to throw away and since I seemed interested in weird stuff, they asked me if I wanted it. I ended up profiting over $700 off that box of products that was headed to the dump.”

Finding Items to Sell on eBay

Although Nathan got started by selling items on eBay from around the house, when he got serious about making more money he started looking for items to buy and resell. He said, “Finding the items is my favorite part! I get virtually all my items from thrift stores, yard sales, and estate sales. Auctions and flea markets are other great places to find things, but I haven’t gone to many of them. It’s all about finding the good spots in your area and looking through everything they have. You might walk right past a $500 item if you don’t take the time to look through every nook and cranny.

“I go to Goodwill sometimes, but the thrift stores I like are the small independent shops, usually run by a church. Goodwill has become more and more expensive, but you can still find underpriced items. There are also Goodwill outlets that sell items by the pound. I’ve heard those are good sources but don’t have one near me.

“Since America is so abundant with consumer items, finding a place to source your items is one of the easiest parts of selling on eBay. You can even find products in the trash if you’re willing to look there! You can also check the free section of Craigslist and see what items people are giving away.”

Selling on Other Platforms like Amazon

Although there are plenty of selling apps, Nathan’s primary focus is eBay. When asked if he sells on other platforms as well, he told me, “The only other platform I sell on is Facebook Marketplace. I sell larger items like refrigerators if I come across them at yard sales for cheap. I’ve have made several hundred dollars doing that. A lot of people have had good results on Etsy, Amazon, and Poshmark, but I like keeping it simple and sticking with eBay. If eBay stops being a place where I can make a profit, I’ll look elsewhere.”

Time Investment and Income

One of the reasons selling on eBay is a great side hustle is because it can be as big or small as you want it to be. You could use eBay simply to declutter and make some money from things you no longer need. Or you could invest a little bit of time each week and make some extra money consistently on eBay. And you could even turn it into a full-time business if you wanted to.

Related reading: How to Make Money by Selling Your Stuff

Nathan sells on eBay as a side hustle, so he is continually looking for items to sell and investing time each week outside of his full-time job. He said, “I haven’t been good about keeping track of the time I spend selling on eBay, but I’d guess somewhere around 5-6 hours a week. The more time you spend, the more money you’re going to make. I feel like I could be doing this full-time if I were to lose my job and start putting in 40 hours a week on my eBay store.”

With the extra effort that Nathan has put in throughout the past year, he’s seen his income from his eBay seller business rise. He said, “I’ve been consistently earning over $500 a month for several months now and that’s profit after all expenses. I’ve made over $1,000 in a month before. People shop less during certain times of the year, so income from eBay varies.”

Spending 5-6 hours per week to make $500 – $1,000 is a very realistic side hustle that could have a huge financial impact for most people. An extra $6,000 – $12,000 per year can be a gamechanger when you’re saving aggressively and trying to increase net worth, like Nathan and his wife are doing.

Although it’s a great side hustle, Nathan actually has bigger things in mind. He told me, “I am trying to scale by simply listing more items. The good thing about it taking a while for some items to sell on eBay is that you can build up an inventory quicker. I might list something, and it takes 3 months to sell. During those 3 months, I’m able to keep listing things, and eventually, I will have a huge inventory where something sells every day.

“I’ve currently got about 450 items listed and want to have close to 1,000 by the end of the year. I think I should be making a couple thousand a month at that point.

“I’ve heard of some people hiring out the parts of eBay they don’t like. If you can pay someone to take all the photos for your listings, that’s a huge time saver! I might hire someone eventually, but it’s just a one-man show for now.”

Related reading: Poshmark vs. eBay vs. Mercari

How to Start Selling on eBay as a Beginner

If this sounds like an opportunity that may be a good fit for you, here are some steps you can follow as a newbie to get started. By following along, you’ll know exactly how to sell on eBay and you’ll be ready to create your first listing and make your first sale.

Step 1: Create an eBay Business Account and a PayPal Account

If you don’t already have an eBay account, go to eBay.com and click on “register” to be able to sell on eBay.

You’ll have the option of creating a personal account or an eBay business account. If you’re only going to sell an item here or there, a personal account is sufficient. However, if you plan to be listing products on a regular basis, go with a business account.

Once you are logged in, go to the “account” tab. There you will see an option to open a PayPal account or link an existing PayPal account to your eBay account. If you already have a PayPal account set up, simply click on the button to link it to your eBay account and follow the directions. If you don’t have a PayPal account, click on the button to create a new account.

This article from eBay has some good and basic information about using PayPal as a seller – PayPal – Accepting payments guide for new sellers.

When you’re logged in to eBay, you can click on “seller dashboard” to see all of the options related to selling.

Step 2: Find Your First Product to Sell

Ok, so now that you have your eBay and PayPal accounts set up, it’s time to find something to sell on eBay.

For the purpose of getting started, I recommend finding products around your house or apartment that you can sell. If you hope to grow this into a real business, you’ll eventually need to find some places to source products (we’ll get into that later), but it’s not a bad idea to start with things you already have that you don’t mind selling.

Selling things you already have will allow you to get started without spending extra money. The main goal at this point is to get familiar with the process of selling on eBay, figure out what you’re doing, and (hopefully) start to get some seller feedback.

There are all kinds of products you could sell. Clothes, electronics, and toys are all possibilities. As Nathan mentioned, things that are light and not likely to break in shipment are ideal for eBay.

Step 3: Take Photos

Photos are extremely important to your ability to sell on eBay. You don’t have to be a professional photographer and you don’t need to hire someone to take the photos for your listing (although that is an option), but you do need to put in some effort to get decent photos.

A few years ago when my wife and I were selling on Amazon I got a lot of practice and experience with product photos. The process is the same, whether you’re selling on eBay, Amazon, or some other platform.

Natural Light is Best – Photos on your listing will generally look best when they are taken in natural lighting. Most cameras have a flash, and you can also use lightboxes, mini studios, or other types of lighting. Although flash and other lighting are options, the results will usually be better if the photo is taken in good natural lighting.

Flash and other lighting can create glare or hotspots that take away from the photo. If you’re experienced with lighting you can avoid these things, but if you’re reading this section of the article, I assume you are not a lighting pro (I’m not either).

Although natural lighting is best, not all conditions are equal. General, cloudy and overcast days will make it easy to get quality photos for your listing. Bright, sunny days are usually not very good. You don’t want shadows to ruin the photo, and too much sunlight can create some of the same challenges as flash or artificial lights.

For Amazon product photos, I would take the items outside on an overcast day. If there is too much sun you can go to a shaded area to avoid the harshness of the sunlight.

Take Photos from Different Angles – Most products should have multiple photos for the listing. This is especially true with used products where the buyer may be concerned about the condition of the item.

Don’t just take one photo of the front of the product and call it a day. Take photos from several different angles to show all sides of the product. If it’s relevant, you can also take close-up shots of specific parts or features of the item.

Multiple photos that show everything will give the buyer more confidence.

If the item has some wear and tear, you can also use photos to show these blemishes so buyers can get an accurate understanding of the item’s condition.

Use a Clean Background – In most cases, it’s good to photograph an item on a clean background. You can buy mini photo studios that give a white, black, or another colored background to your items. I have one of these, but to be honest, I usually like the results better without it.

A cheaper option is to use a simple roll of white paper that you can place behind and below the item you’re photographing. The white paper is a good background for items that have some color. Glass or clear items tend to look best on a dark background, so you can use a roll of black paper.

If you’re photographing a larger item, pay attention to things that are in the background. Try to put it next to a wall that will give it a clean, solid background. Make sure that there are no other items, clutter, or junk shown in the photo.

Not every photo needs to be on a solid background. Depending on the item, other backgrounds can work well too. For example, a wood floor can be an ideal background for some products. Other products may work well with a lifestyle photo that shows the item in use.

Crop the Photos, if Needed – After you’ve taken the photo, you may want to crop it so the image is as large as possible. You can use any number of different programs or apps for cropping photos. GIMP is free photo editing software that you can download.

Another option is to outsource photo editing. You can go to Fiverr and find someone who will put your photo on a solid white background or do any other type of editing.

Step 4: Create the Listing

Now it’s time to complete the listing for your product. There are a few basic keys that you should keep in mind to sell on eBay.

Keywords – Think about the words and phrases that people will be searching for when they want to buy an item like this on eBay. Use the most relevant and most important keywords in your product title and in your product listing. More keywords in your product’s description will give it a better chance of being found through a search on eBay.
Details – Be sure that you’re giving enough details in the listing and description to help buyers make an informed decision. The specifics that you should include will depend on the product, but it could be things like size, age, condition, type of material, color, brand name, and any other important details that a buyer might care about when buying online.

Some items will have a lot of different competing listings, and others will have virtually no competition. Nathan said, “A lot of times, I’m the only person who has a certain item listed. I’m not afraid to list something and have it sit for several months without selling. When a person comes by that is searching for an item and I’m the only one who has it, they’re willing to pay a higher price for the item due to scarcity.”

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After the Sale Step 1: Get the Payment

After your item has sold, it’s important to make sure that you receive the payment. When the auction ends, the winner will be notified so he or she can make the payment. Be sure that you don’t ship the item until that payment has been made.

After the Sale Step 2: Pack It and Ship It

Next, you’ll need to pack the item you sold on eBay and get it ready to be shipped. Make sure that it is packed well and protected so it does not break or get damaged during the shipment. After it’s shipped, be sure to mark it as shipped in your eBay seller dashboard so the buyer knows that it is on its way.

After the Sale Step 3: Leave Positive Feedback for the Buyer

As the seller, you can leave feedback for the buyer. Assuming there were no issues, leave positive feedback for the customer. Some sellers wait to do this until later, but once the buyer has made the payment, his or her job is basically complete and you can go ahead and leave feedback.

Your seller feedback will be critical to your long-term success on eBay, so it’s good to try to get some positive feedback early on. If the buyer doesn’t leave seller feedback within a few days of receiving the item, you can follow up with an email and ask them to leave feedback. If you’ve already left positive feedback on eBay for the buyer, you can mention that.

I asked Nathan about the importance of seller feedback. He said, “It’s pretty important to have nearly 100% positive feedback, but anything above 98% is good. There’s always going to be a person or two who leave you negative feedback just because they can. You’re able to get eBay to step in and possibly remove negative feedback if you didn’t do anything wrong.

“You also need to meet certain standards to become a top-rated seller. Top-rated sellers get more exposure in the searches and get a discount on their eBay fees. When I started getting serious about selling, I actually fell below standard for a little while but was able to climb to top-rated within a couple of months.”

Scaling Up to Grow Your Business

After you’ve sold a few products and you have some experience selling on eBay, the next step is to work on scaling up and growing your business. If you want to make money on a consistent basis you’ll need to continually find new items to sell on eBay via auction or buy-it-now pricing.

You can source products for eBay at places like yard sales, thrift shops, flea markets, auctions, estate sales, and Craigslist. Find an approach that works for you and continually buy products that you think are underpriced. You can see our list of the easiest things to flip for profit if you need some ideas.

You’ll also need to decide if you want to take a general approach and sell all different types of items on eBay, or if you want to take a niche-specific approach. A general approach is a little bit easier for beginners because you’re not limiting yourself to certain types of products and it’s easier to find items that are underpriced and easy to sell for a profit.

Tips for Selling on eBay

Here are a few specific tips you can put into action to have success with your eBay selling business.

Check Completed eBay Listings for Prices

Above anything else, you must know the value of your item before you can sell it on eBay. Check completed eBay listings to get a feel for the going rate and sale price. With the right price, your listing will get more visibility and will be much more likely to sell.

One of the best and most accurate ways to determine how you should price an item is to check listings that have recently been completed to see what people are actually paying eBay for the same product or very similar products. Thankfully, eBay makes this pretty easy.

To find completed sales, all you need to do is search for the product on eBay, and then use the filter and check the box in the sidebar to show only “completed items”. Now, you’ll see a list of the relevant products that have sold recently, and you can see how much the customer paid. This information is incredibly valuable for sellers who are unsure what an item is worth.

Allow Buyers to Counteroffer

Another way to increase the chances of selling your product on eBay is to allow buyers to make offers. This is a great way to gauge interest in your product and to determine how much people will pay. They’ll tell you exactly what price they are willing to pay.

When you create your eBay listing, be sure to select the “make an offer” checkbox. This will let buyers know that they can make an offer on your product. You might be surprised at how many eBay buyers will submit offers. As the seller, you have the right to accept or reject any offer, so there’s really nothing to lose by allowing this option. If you’re not currently allowing offers, we recommend that you start.

Optimize Your eBay Listings for SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of improving the visibility of a website or web page in search engine results pages (SERPs). In other words, optimizing your eBay listings for SEO will help them show up higher in relevant search engine results (including searches on eBay and from search engines like Google). This means that more people will see your listing and are more likely to buy your product.

The first step in optimizing your listing is knowing the keywords that potential buyers will use to search for your product. You can look at the titles of other similar products on eBay to see the keywords other sellers are using. You can also use the Google Keyword Planner or the free SEO Surfer Google Chrome extension to see how many people are searching Google for the keyword or phrase.

Once you’ve identified some keywords, be sure to include your most important and most relevant keyword in the eBay listing title. Include any and all keywords that you’re targeting somewhere in the listing description.

Make Sure You Have Great Photos

One of the most important factors for selling on eBay is having great photos. In fact, listings with great photos are much more likely to sell than those with poor-quality or no photos at all.

When you’re taking photos of your product listing, be sure to use good lighting and to take lots of photos from different angles. If possible, use a white background so that the focus is on your product and not on the background. Finally, make sure that your photos are high resolution and uploaded to eBay in .jpg or .png format.

Consider Starting an eBay Store

If you want to make money selling products on eBay, consider starting an eBay store. An eBay store gives you a number of advantages for selling products online.

First, an eBay store gives you a professional-looking storefront where you can list all of your products. This can help increase the trust of potential buyers and may lead to more sales.

Second, eBay store owners receive discounts on fees and other perks.

Third, an eBay store provides you with valuable statistics and data about your online sales. This information can help you better understand what products are selling well and may help you identify new opportunities for selling products on eBay.

Offer Free Shipping

While it’s not 100% necessary, one of the best ways to increase sales on eBay is to offer free shipping. This is because many buyers are reluctant to pay for shipping, especially if the product is small and lightweight. Some buyers will filter the search results to only show eBay product listings with free shipping. Surprisingly, some customers will pay more for products with free shipping just because they feel they’re getting a better value.

When you’re setting your shipping rates, be sure to factor in the cost of shipping materials as well as the cost of shipping. Don’t forget to add in a reasonable profit margin so you can make money from your sales.

Offer Free Returns

Another way to increase sales on eBay is to offer free returns. The customer may be hesitant to buy products online because they’re afraid that they won’t be able to return the product if it’s not what they expected. Listings with free returns encourage the customer to trust the seller knowing they can buy with confidence.

When you offer free returns, you’re essentially removing this risk from the online buying process. This can lead to more sales and may encourage buyers who were on the fence about purchasing your product to finally make a purchase.

Improve Your Feedback Score

Feedback is incredibly important on eBay. This number represents how reputable you are as an eBay seller. Having a high feedback score will give buyers more confidence that they can trust you.

Do whatever you can (within eBay’s terms) to get positive feedback from your customers. Provide excellent customer service and go out of your way to deliver an amazing experience for buyers. It will be worth the effort in the end as you’ll have better feedback scores and people browsing will be more likely to trust you.

Of course, pricing matters when you are trying to sell on eBay, but trust is equally important, if not more important. A customer may be willing to pay a higher price for an item if they expect the seller will provide better customer service. eBay sellers should always reply as soon as possible to any questions or inquiries from shoppers.

Final Thoughts on How to Sell on eBay as a Beginner

If you think that selling on eBay may be a good side hustle for you, what are you waiting for? Look around your house, find a few items to sell, and follow the steps in this article to get your account and listing set up.

Selling on eBay is a side hustle that involves learning as you go, and as you learn, you can scale up and start to make more money. We hope this overview of eBay has been helpful so you can start right away.

The post How to Sell on eBay for Beginners (in 2022) appeared first on Vital Dollar.

What are your marketing options without 3rd-party cookies?

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 15:36:00 GMT

When Chrome, the last of the 3 mainstream browsers, moves to block third-party cookies in 2022, this raises the question where do marketers get their data? Marketers will still want third-party data to use in targeted digital marketing campaigns. The short answer is: You just have to get it in another way.

Let’s reiterate quickly what tracking is and why it’s important for marketers, shall we? Website tracking means observing every action a visitor does. It literally can be anything:

What website is he or she looking at?
Which links did they click on?
How long did they stay?

Website tracking gives you data which you can glean insights into the customer journey:

From where did they come from?
What were the different touch points?
Which age groups prefer what product or service?
Which was the last page they visited (and why)?

Armed with these insights, you can make better decisions and plans for your marketing because you understand how visitors use your website and what they want. As a shorthand: The more precise and targeted your messaging is, the better your conversion rates. But that could give way to creepily pinpointed ads which is the reason for GDPR and why the 3 most popular browsers are killing off third-party cookies.

But fear not, there are still ways to do tracking and advertising. We’re now transitioning into a cookieless world, where customers need to be made aware of the data they’re sharing. They also have to be aware of the right to choose what data they want to share.

So, if you can show how the data they share can improve their experience, customers may be more willing to share their data.

Contents

First-party data
Advertising in a cookieless world
What will be the outcome?

First-party data

When third-party cookies are going away, it means marketers have to pivot their strategy to first-party data.

CRM

Maybe you’re scratching your head when reading this, thinking that CRMs aren’t really ways to track behaviour of website visitors or prospects. Think about it this way: A CRM like Vtiger or CRM that’s offered by Engagebay allows you to monitor, manage, and nurture the relationships your business has with your audience, from prospects to existing customers.

With a CRM, you record what calls or meetings you had with a customer (offline), and online it tracks every interaction and touch point they had with your business. It builds a history of the person: When was the first contact, which emails were they interested in, or what was their buying history, and more.

This history gives you a rich picture of the preferences of that customer. You can segment your list when you see others having similar preferences so that you can personalise your message, which enhances your chances of conversion.

First party cookies

For now, first-party cookies will not be disabled in browsers. A refresher: First-party cookies are small files created and stored by the websites you visit. This is data you give directly to the business behind the website. Whatever you do and all information you enter on a specific site counts as first-party data for that site.

In the best case, you have linked your CMS to your website so that it can track your first-party data.

Email marketing data

People are opting in for your email newsletter, that is to say, they have actively consented to give you their email and maybe other information such as a name or phone number. Your email provider should be tracking how many people have shown interest by clicking links in your newsletter. From that you can glean which content is popular.

Going over this analytics can help you create a content strategy with more interesting aka clickable content. If you take into consideration that some mail clients also have enhanced privacy features, where it blocks tracking pixels that detect when someone has opened an email, you also want to include other interactive features such as a survey.

This way, you can also learn more about your audience, what interests them or what motivates them. Again, in the optimal case, you are using the same CMS for your website as well as for your email newsletters, or if not, have the CMS linked to your email marketing provider so that the data is synced.

Social media analytics

If you’re using social media you can take advantage of the provided analytics to understand more about your audiences. You’ll get an idea about the age range, gender, locations, and other demographic info.

Advertising in a cookieless world

It’s time to wean yourself off of third-party cookies for targeting success, but develop a diverse approach.

Contextual advertising

What’s old is new again. Before third-party cookies were all the hype, ads on web pages were shown based on the content of said pages. For example, if the page was about how to prepare sushi, ads for a super sharp knife are placed. With contextual ads, the advertising that you see are based on the content and not on your behaviour.

Cultural advertising

Instead of matching the ads to the content, your prospect is viewing, you could instead match it to current events. The challenge with cultural advertising is that you need to walk a fine line between exploiting a current event and ignoring it.

Ads on social media

Social media allow you to run targeted ads. Social media allows you to display the right ad to people in your industry, target demographic, or similar audiences to your own page’s followers.

What will be the outcome?

It doesn’t matter what technology will replace third-party cookies, I think you can expect consolidation in the digital ad market.

If there are no more third-party cookies, then walled gardens are going to make a comeback. And the two behemoths Google and Facebook have mammoth pools of first-party data – users and their browsing behaviour that no one else can access.

You’ll probably find that direct engagement with your audience will increase in value. This means you want to grow your first-party data as much as possible. Let me know if you’re looking for ways to increase newsletter signups or ideas that can help you gather emails.

Original post here: What are your marketing options without 3rd-party cookies?

17 Sites Like Etsy for Selling Your Handmade, Crafty Items

Hal Kitzmiller — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 12:04:00 GMT

Modern e-commerce platforms like Etsy have made it possible for nearly any creative entrepreneur to start an Etsy shop and make money selling their handcrafted items.

In fact, the idea of selling your own craft has become such a great way to make extra money, that e-commerce giants like Amazon have even ventured into the space to host their own marketplace for selling your creative work.

While Etsy may be the biggest player in this market, there are plenty of other options. This article will cover the details of 17 other sites like Etsy that are ideal for selling your own items.

Note: While Etsy is known for handmade and crafty goods, you can actually sell a variety of different products on Etsy, including digital downloads. Printables (digital files that you download and print) are extremely popular on Etsy. For the purpose of this article, we’re mostly focusing on crafty items, but you’ll find some details about the specific products you can sell at each of these sites.

Website	What You Can Sell	Why It’s Unique
Amazon Handmade	Handmade clothing & accessories, artwork, home goods, and more	Take advantage of Amazon’s massive audience
ArtFire	Handmade and vintage items like jewelry, wedding items, home goods, photography, and more	A strong community of makers and indie suppliers
Spoonflower	Your own designs on fabric, wallpaper, living & decor, dining, and bedding	Sell your designs on unique items like wallpaper without manufacturing and managing inventory
UncommonGoods	Unique products with a purpose (jewelry, accessories, art, home goods, and more)	Because of the focus on unique products, each product must be submitted and approved
Zazzle	Your own designs on more than 1,500 blank products	All you need to do is upload your designs and Zazzle handles the rest
Redbubble	Your design on clothing, stickers, stationery, phone cases, and more	Upload your designs and set your prices

Sites Like Etsy for Selling Your Handmade Crafts and Designs

Whether it is to expand your market reach or find a platform that fits your handcrafted product better, here are 17 sites that allow you to sell your handmade, crafty items for extra money.

1. Amazon Handmade

Amazon is known as “The Everything Store” for a reason. With the growth of Etsy, Amazon saw an opportunity to utilize its current marketplace to begin selling handmade items as the best Etsy alternative.

Amazon Handmade allows entrepreneurs to reach millions of customers who already trust the Amazon brand. Each seller gets their own custom profile with a custom URL for your customers to refer to.

To keep the products authentic and top quality, Amazon audits each application to ensure its online marketplace keeps a strong reputation. Listing your products is free of charge, and when a sale is made Amazon simply keeps a small referral fee, so no overhead is required to get started!

What you can sell on Amazon Handmade: Accessories, Artwork, Baby, Beauty & Personal Care, Clothing, Shoes & Handbags, Home, Outdoor & Home Care, Jewelry & Watches, Kitchen & Dining, Pet Supplies, Sporting Goods, Stationery & Party Supplies and Toys & Games.

2. ArtFire

ArtFire is an Etsy alternative that caters to the “vintage” and “indie” markets. It’s a platform for thousands of virtual shop owners who sell their creatives. Consider ArtFire like the local niche gift shop everyone visits for unique handcrafted items, except this time it’s a digital storefront.

Sellers can list their handcrafted items such as jewelry, wedding items, clothing, children’s toys, home and living accessories, handmade craft supplies, and even handmade entertainment products.

A unique aspect of ArtFire is their Great Maker Search, a competition for all sellers who are nominated to get additional advertising benefits if elected a winner. Once you’ve been nominated, you can promote your nomination entry on social media platforms to have people choose you to win and become a named nominated seller on ArtFire.

What you can sell on ArtFire: Jewelry, wedding items (gifts & mementos, decorations, accessories, clothing, invitations), clothing & accessories, home & living (bath & beauty, art, and collectibles, pet supplies, home decor, electronics & accessories, paper & party supplies), craft supplies & tools, and entertainment (music, toys, games, dolls & action figures, drink & barware).

3. Spoonflower

Spoonflower is an Etsy competitor that caters to fabric, wallpaper, and home decor creators. They have a simple three-step process that allows both buyers and sellers to benefit from handmade products. To start, you either choose an already made design or create your own handmade design. Next, you choose a product to apply to the product you wish to purchase, and lastly, you purchase your order!

If you’re a seller, your design from step one can then be resold on the Spoonflower marketplace. Sellers can earn anywhere from 10% – 15% commission on each sale made, depending on your seller status. Currently, Spoonflower has a community of over 16,000 designers selling their artwork.

What you can sell on Spoonflower: fabric, wallpaper, living & decor, dining, and bedding.

4. Artful Home

Artful Home is a great marketplace for artists seeking to reach a larger audience interested in a variety of categories such as apparel, jewelry, wall art, glass art, furniture, lighting, sculpture, home decor, ornaments, and almost anything related. In order to be able to sell on Artful Home, one needs to submit an application on their website to become a seller.

The application is then reviewed by a team, aka “Jury”, comprised of Artful Home members. Sellers who wish to be approved have a better chance of approval when submitting artwork that is original and creative, has great aesthetic qualities, portrays excellent technical skills, is consistent with a sense of “artistic integrity”, and is an original piece, meaning it is not a copy of other people’s artwork

What you can sell on Artful Home: apparel & shoes, jewelry, wall art, sculptures, furniture & lighting, entertaining (drinkware, dinnerware), and more.

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5. iCraft Gifts

iCraft Gifts is an Etsy alternative for buyers and sellers seeking mainly handcrafted jewelry and clothing, toys, and original artwork. Their platform is great for sellers who wish to tap into the “gift” marketplace of buyers looking specifically for handmade gifts for a special event or occasion.

Each seller gets a personalized store with a unique URL designed according to your chosen shop name. Sellers get detailed stats of their sales made to optimize your future business growth plans accordingly. Shop owners also get access to unique tools such as RSS feeds to your unique product listings and social media sharing options on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Kaboodle, and more.

Rather than keeping a small percentage of each sale you make, iCraft Gifts charges one low monthly service fee for sellers starting at just $15 per month.

What you can sell on iCraft Gifts: jewelry, clothing, accessories, toys & games, home decor, bath & body, artwork, and crafts.

6. Aftcra

Whether done intentionally or not by the founders, Aftcra is Pig Latin for “Craft”, which is just the first and the last half of the word “Craft” flipped around followed by adding an “a” (pronounced -ay) at the end of the word.

Anyhow, Aftcra is a hand-crafted art website designed specifically for crafts made in America. They too have a large variety of handcrafted item categories. Aftcra makes it easy for sellers to access a market searching for a family-like business approach.

What you can sell on Aftcra: clothing, kids & baby, home furnishings, arts & handicrafts, jewelry, celebration items (like party favors), paper goods, and accessories.

7. Rubylane

Rubylane is a site like Etsy best known for “vintage” handmade products. Sellers who wish to promote products that are old-fashioned or collectible and old “well-known” brands or products will have a great marketplace of buyers on Rubylane.

Rubylane charges one monthly fee of $69 to sellers, as well as a listing fee of $3.80. They charge no additional commissions or fees for items sold, making them very competitive to other channels such as eBay or Etsy.

What you can sell on Rubylane: antiques & collectibles, art, furniture, lighting, rugs, jewelry, fashion, dolls, glass, porcelain & pottery, and silver.

8. Luulla

Luulla lets any creative entrepreneur open a free store to begin selling their handmade products quickly. They provide you with a basic online storefront along with the needed tools and resources to begin reaching your target audience.

Sellers can create a free account and list up to 100 products for free or pay a small monthly service fee of $5 to $20 for listing more products. There is a small transaction fee of between 5% and 8% depending on your seller account. Luulla is a great starting place for entrepreneurs looking to begin selling their handcrafted items or seeking to expand their marketplace.

What you can sell on Luulla: clothing, shoes, accessories, jewelry, housewares, ceramics & pottery, edibles, bath& beauty, candles & soaps, art & craft supplies, toys, and electronics.

9. Cargoh

In Cargoh’s own words, “Cargoh is a social marketplace for independent art, design + culture.” Their e-commerce platform allows you to sell your products to marketplaces seeking unique art and design with a hint of culture in your work.

What does the “culture” aspect mean? It means that sellers who come from unique backgrounds, geographies, or heritages often have a unique taste to their art that parallels this culture. Perhaps you were in the army and are great at making handcrafted items with a hint of “army” to them, for example.

To become a seller on Cargoh, you need to fill out their application which is then reviewed by their team to ensure it fits their niche marketplace. Once approved, you can begin listing your unique handmade products to a niche marketplace.

What you can sell on Cargoh: clothing, accessories, bags & purses, bath & beauty, art, house & home, paper goods, pet stuff, wedding items, and more.

10. UncommonGoods

The UncommonGoods name perhaps describes its niche marketplace. They look for products that have a purpose, solve problems, are uniquely beautiful, are handmade with expert skill, unusual and/or recycled materials, are made without leather/feathers/fur, and capture the buyer’s attention. You can think of UncommonGoods as a planet-friendly selling platform for creative entrepreneurs selling planet-friendly goods.

To list your products on UncommonGoods, you simply need to submit your product to their product team to review. You will need to include your product description, website, pictures, and other unique details about your “uncommon” handcrafted products.

What you can sell on UncommonGoods: some types of clothing, accessories, jewelry, bags & pouches, wallets, travel gear, arts & crafts, games & puzzles, electronics, home decor, furniture, garden items, food & drink, kitchen tools, barware, art, and more.

11. Zazzle

Zazzle is a marketplace for designers, makers, and do-it-yourself creatives seeking to sell their art online. Their marketplace allows you to sell a wide variety of handmade products and gifts. Designers can upload their work and customers can purchase items the designs or artwork. They even have an “Idea” section for people seeking new and different product ideas for different occasions.

Designers seeking to sell their work on Zazzle simply create their own designs and artwork that are then uploaded to the Zazzle platform. As customers like your designs, it gets more attention and ultimately more purchases. You get paid, and Zazzle handles the rest!

What you can sell on Zazzle: art, photography, and digital designs that can be added to over 1,500 blank products (fulfilled by Zazzle).

12. Redbubble

Redbubble is “A Global Marketplace For Independent Artists.” Their products range from clothing, stickers, phone cases, and wall art, to home décor, kids and babies products, stationery products, gifts, and other accessories. Redbubble was started in Australia and seeks to provide products with “uncommon designs on awesome stuff.”

To begin selling on Redbubble, you need to create a free seller account and begin uploading your designs. The amount of money you make is entirely up to how much you plan to list your products for. Red Bubble simply has a base price they charge each time a product is sold, and anything above that price is income to you. Customers can buy a wide variety of items that feature your designs.

What you can sell on Redbubble: your designs can be sold on clothing, accessories, kids & baby items, stickers, phone cases, wall art, home goods (like mugs, coasters, pillows, blankets, magnets, and more), stationery, gifts, and more.

13. CaféPress

CaféPress is a great marketplace for sellers who like to sell their designs on common souvenir items like t-shirts, mugs, hats, stickers, car license plate covers, and other related souvenir items. Other niche markets for creative sellers include selling products for special occasions like breast cancer awareness, Halloween, Fall TV, Politics, and other common holidays and events.

To start selling on Café Pres, simply upload your designs to your seller account and CaféPress will align your designs to the products they think will best suit. You get paid each time your design is used, and payment is issued by check or via PayPal.

What you can sell on CaféPress: your designs can be sold on t-shirts, hoodies & sweatshirts, pajamas, underwear, accessories, jewelry, kids & baby, home & decor (like pillows, blankets, clocks, magnets, tapestries, beach towels, and more), drinkware, stationery, stickers, yard signs, and more.

14. Zibbet

Zibbet is a great platform to sell your handcrafted items because it allows you to sell on multiple channels in one location. For example, through Zibbet, you can sell on the Zibbet marketplace as well as the Etsy marketplace directly from their platform. This makes the selling process more convenient from a seller’s standpoint and potentially saves you valuable time.

Additionally, you can make sure your inventory is properly listed across multiple platforms in one place. Other marketplaces that you can sell on from the Zibbet platform are the A.C. Moore Marketplace and through Stitch, a customizable website builder for selling handcrafted items.

What you can sell on Zibbet: handmade items, fine art, vintage goods, supplies, jewelry, home & living, kids, photography, wedding items, and digital downloads.

15. RebelsMarket

Combine artwork and the definition of a “rebel” and you get RebelsMarket, a marketplace that sells unique products with designs for those considered to be “rebels.” The marketplace was created in 2012 by a group of individuals who considered themselves rebels that wanted to create their own style of clothing outside of the norm often found in local shopping malls.

In their own words, “We are exclusive to sellers who offer unique, edgy and rebellious styles.” If you sell products or handmade goods that fit this style, RebelsMarket is a great place to reach 7 million-plus loyal customers.

What you can sell on RebelsMarket: clothing, accessories, jewelry, home & decor.

16. Society6

Society6 is an e-commerce platform that sells a wide variety of products. Artists, designers, photographers, and typographers looking to sell their artwork can create a seller’s account and begin uploading their unique designs. Society6 offers a wide selection of products that can be sold with your design/art on it.

Once you’ve uploaded your designs, you can start selling and promoting them to potential buyers. The more attention you can get to your designs, the more money you will make. Society6 handles all the fulfillment, printing, and shipping work for you so you can focus on creating your art and promoting your designs.

What you can sell on Society6: Your art or design on products like wall art, home décor, furniture, bed & bath products, tabletop items, office décor, tech products, apparel and bags, outdoor and lifestyle products, and other related retail items.

17. Bonanza

“Everything but the ordinary” just about sums up the types of products sold on Bonanza.com. As a handmade artist, you can begin selling your products on Bonanza’s “Webstores” which are their sellers’ digital storefronts on the Bonanza platform.

Each Webstore is like a basic e-commerce website with your store name and design. You can even use Bonanza’s pre-made themes for your store to begin. The difference between Bonanza’s storefronts and a regular e-commerce website is that you get access to Bonanza’s millions of customers to view your products. To start selling your products on Bonanza, you need to open a seller’s account and begin uploading your products. They offer a 14-day free trial to test out the product, with a low monthly service fee afterward.

What you can sell on Bonanza: women’s fashion, men’s fashion, home and garden, health and beauty, collectibles and art, handbags, jewelry, and other related retail products

Bonus: eCrater

eCrater is a popular online e-commerce platform similar to Amazon, but obviously on a much smaller scale. eCrater allows you to create a free online store and you can even import and sell your products from your eBay store, and this includes handmade products and artwork for creative entrepreneurs, as well as nearly any other product or service you can think of. Like other mentioned “Etsy alternatives,” eCrater’s seller storefront is just like a store website but with access to eCrater’s marketplace and customers.

Sellers make money through the selling of their products on their eCrater-built website and aren’t charged any fees unless the customer was referred to the eCrater website from the eCrater marketplace, at which point eCrater would charge just 2.9% of the sell.

What you can sell on eCrater: clothing, shoes, jewelry, beauty & fragrance, collectibles, art, crafts, glass & pottery, home & garden, toys, electronics, vintage items, and more.

Why Consider Selling on Etsy Alternatives?

Etsy is the top website/marketplace in its industry, but here are some reasons why you may want to consider selling at sites similar to Etsy.

Less competition. While Etsy makes it possible to reach a huge audience, you’ll face plenty of competition from other Etsy sellers. Some of these other stores like Etsy make it easier for your products to stand out.
Sell other types of items. Each marketplace has specific types of products you can sell. Maybe you want to sell something that is a better fit at other sites like the ones listed here.
Sell on multiple platforms. Maybe you’re looking for Etsy alternatives not because you want to leave Etsy, but because you want to sell somewhere else in addition to your Etsy store. Selling on multiple platforms may allow you to expand your reach.
Additional options. Some of these Etsy-like stores offer features or options that may not be possible at Etsy. For example, Redbubble is a favorite for selling print-on-demand products featuring your designs.

Create Your Own E-Commerce Website

Selling platforms like Etsy are ideal because they offer a built-in audience. As an Etsy seller, you can create a shop and get your products in front of Etsy’s existing audience of millions of buyers. However, there are also benefits of having your own e-commerce website instead of selling on a third-party marketplace. With you’re own website, you’re in full control with unlimited product options. You also won’t have to pay a listing fee (aside from credit card processing fees) or split the revenue with a marketplace.

Any small business with long-term goals or aspirations should have its own website. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t sell on Etsy, but you should also build your own website at the same time. If you’re looking to create your own site, here are a few options.

Shopify

Shopify is the world’s most popular e-commerce platform and the #1 choice if you want to sell products from your own website. They offer an excellent selection of themes (templates), including many that are free and others that can be purchased.

A Shopify-powered website will give you all of the functionality you need to set up a customized online store and sell your own products without relying on Etsy payments. You don’t need to worry about setting up your own merchant account, as you can use Shopify payments to process transactions. They also offer a marketplace where you can get apps that add all kinds of additional features and functionality.

Shopify is extremely user-friendly and its system is well-documented. Even if you don’t have experience building websites, you’ll be able to get your site up and running on Shopify.

What you can sell on Shopify: any type of physical or digital product. Set up shops like Etsy or sell whatever you want.

Storenvy

Storenvy promotes itself as being “The only eCommerce platform offering two great ways to sell online: Free Custom Online Store & Social Marketplace.” Consider Storenvy like a social media platform where your profile is your store feed filled with your hand-crafted items for sale. Rather than a profile page of your work and family life, you have a profile about your hand-crafted items describing your unique niche and experience. You can follow the styles you like, add stores to your watchlist, “envy” items you really like, and even create collections of different products.

Storenvy currently has 65,995 different brands listed on its platform, providing a great marketplace to reach more customers seeking handmade items. You can begin selling up to 1,000 products on a Storenvy seller account for free or choose from premium seller accounts starting at $14.99 and $29.00 for additional seller benefits.

What you can sell on Storenvy: clothing & accessories, jewelry, art, home goods, toys, games, music & merch, health & beauty products, electronics, and specialty items (products for pets, wedding items, costumes, and more).

Frequently Asked Questions

How much money can I make selling on websites like Etsy?

The potential is unlimited, but realistically, most people selling handmade or crafty goods do it as a side hustle to make some extra money. The amount you’ll make will depend on a lot of different factors, but it can be a great option if you’re looking to make an extra few hundred dollars per month.

Who is Etsy’s biggest competitor?

There are many marketplaces for buying and selling handmade goods, but Amazon Handmade would probably be considered Etsy’s biggest competitor. Obviously, Amazon already has a massive customer base, so Amazon Handmade has a lot to offer sellers.

Can you get banned from Etsy?

Yes, Etsy has the right to close shops that violate its terms. This could include selling products that are not allowed to be sold on their platform, or violating the marketing and promotional guidelines. One of the reasons sellers may be looking for Etsy alternatives is because of having a seller account banned.

Where can I sell crafts besides Etsy?

We’ve covered 17 different sites like Etsy in this article. Amazon Handmade is our top recommendation, and you may also want to create your own website with Shopify and build your own platform rather than relying exclusively on a marketplace.

Final Thoughts on These Sites Like Etsy

Etsy is the perfect platform for selling handmade, crafty, and vinage goods, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only option.

There’s a reason that Amazon decided to dabble in the marketplace of handmade products. And that’s because there’s a very large market of buyers seeking unique products crafted with two hands rather than a computerized machine.

The truth is, if you’re great with your hands and wish to turn your passion into a paycheck (whether part-time or full-time), the potential to make money certainly exists with these sites like Etsy. Your first step is finding which of the above marketplaces best suits your handmade goods to begin your ecommerce journey!

The post 17 Sites Like Etsy for Selling Your Handmade, Crafty Items appeared first on Vital Dollar.

How I Raised $2 Million During a World Crisis (HubSpot's Crowdfunding tips)

HubSpot Marketing — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 12:00:18 GMT

Search Engine Evaluator Jobs: Make $11-$17 Per Hour as a Search Rater

Hal Kitzmiller — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 12:22:00 GMT

Working from home has its perks, and there’s plenty of potential to make a decent amount of money whether full-time or part-time. Search engine evaluator jobs and Google Rater jobs are interesting options for freelancers and side hustlers who want to make extra income from home.

Have you ever entered a basic search on Google, Bing, or Yahoo and the results aren’t quite what you were looking for? That’s because the search results are based on an algorithm, and the results aren’t always perfect. That’s where search engine evaluators (also known as web search evaluators) come in.

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What is a Search Engine Evaluator?

A search engine evaluator is a person who manually reviews the results of internet searches and provides feedback regarding the accuracy and helpfulness of the search results. This feedback helps engineers to adjust the search algorithm to produce the best results.

A search engine algorithm can only do so much. Think about building a program to determine the search results of nearly any search inquiry on a major search engine. Sound complicated? That’s because it is. Some things require a human touch, and one of those things is the occasional irrelevant search results from common search engine inquiries.

Search engine evaluation jobs typically go to contracted employees such as freelancers, work-from-home individuals, and remote workers. Other names that you might see for essentially the same position include:

Ads Quality Tester
Ads Quality Rater
Web Search Evaluator
Internet Assessor
Google Rater
Human Evaluator
Human Search Evaluator
Internet Judge

All of which are relating to the same work of evaluating the relevance of search engine results.

What Does a Search Engine Evaluator Do?

A search engine evaluator’s job is to determine whether the results of common searches are relevant to the entered keyword or phrase. They also determine relevancy for paid ads from people using PPC programs like Google Adwords, Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) and other paid traffic programs.

The web search evaluator will provide feedback on the search results for a specific query. They will rate the search results to determine if they are relevant to the query and if they are helpful.

In today’s search environment, search results include much more than simply links to articles and pages. The search engine results pages (SERPs) might feature videos, recipes, maps, business listings, biographical info, and other types of rich snippets pulled from various sources. All of these results must be evaluated to ensure relevance.

It’s a flexible job that’s usually done part-time as an independent contractor from home.

Requirements for the Job

Just about anyone with internet access, a drive to learn, and some basic knowledge of search engines can get started, making it a good entry-level work from home job. There are a few things you will need to have both in terms of knowledge and equipment. They are:

Access to high-speed internet: Internet with download speeds of at least 25 megabits per second
Anti-virus protection software: Many computers come with their brand’s version of this installed, but other options include Avast, Norton or McAfee (for example).
Basic knowledge of how search engines work: You don’t have to be an expert, but a general understanding of search engine optimization, link building, and how search engines discover websites via web crawlers, etc.
Excellent research skills: The ability to find the answer to unknown questions, topics and find related resources.
Fluent language skills: You must be fluent in reading and writing for the language you wish to apply for. If you are fluent in multiple languages at both reading, speaking and writing, you may be a more marketable candidate for more positions.
Study and test taking skills: Ability to study for and pass a skills test for skills related to search engine evaluations.
You must be at least 18 years of age or older.

The biggest barrier to getting started is passing the exam. If you’re driven enough, you can expect to pass the exam relatively quickly and get started applying for jobs.

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The Pros & Cons Of Working as a Search Engine Evaluator

Being able to work from home in search engine evaluation has its pros and cons and is worth considering before spending time meeting the above-mentioned requirements. Here are some pros and cons to think about:

Pros:

Flexible schedule: Set your working hours however you want (make it a weekend job if you already have a full-time job).
Work from home: No need to leave your home or deal with rush hour traffic traveling to and from the office when you can make money from home.
Work anywhere you have internet: Anywhere you have access to the internet can turn into your new office. Work from vacation, the cabin, your bedroom or virtually anywhere.
Great way to make extra money: Perfect for side hustles or stay-at-home parents looking to make some extra cash.
Build your knowledge: Search engines aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and the knowledge of how they work could be useful and a great building block for your resume.

Cons:

Project availability: Work is not always available, and projects are posted on an as-needed basis.
Part-time work: Most available positions are only part-time work which may or may not be ideal for you.
Not the highest pay: Not only are web search evaluators limited by the number of web search evaluator jobs available, but the pay also doesn’t pay that much.

How Much Does a Search Engine Evaluator Make?

According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a full-time search engine evaluator job is $33,973, which averages out to about $17 per hour (however, most positions are part-time). Evaluator job listings typically disclose a rate of pay somewhere between $11 – $17 per hour.

It’s worth noting that there are some higher-paying opportunities as you get more experience, although they tend to fill up quickly.

It’s not the most lucrative side hustle idea, but it’s not a bad way to make some extra money.

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Companies Hiring Search Engine Evaluators

Aside from your basic job boards like Glassdoor, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter, those seeking to work as a web search evaluator can find job openings on more industry-specific websites. Among the many companies and job boards that offer this service for work as a search evaluator are:

1. Appen

Appen is an independent contracting company that hires independent agents who seek to own their own business providing digital and internet-related work. Some common jobs available through Appen are:

Search Media Evaluation (Work with the world’s top search engine companies)
Social Media Evaluation (Help improve social media around the globe)
Translation
Transcription
Survey and Data Collection (Short projects that last from 15 minutes to three hours)
Linguistic Specialties (Text to Speech, Computational, Phonetics, Pronunciation, Annotation, etc.)
Lexicon Annotation
Speech Evaluation

Appen has some basic requirements to get started on top of the general requirements listed above. They are:

Web research skills and analytical skills
Comprehension and communication skills
In some cases, fluency in another language
A computer that is able to run Googles free Chrome web browser, version 45

2. Lionbridge

Lionbridge is a company that originally began in translation and later expanded to sister industries and services such as content creation, testing services, and artificial intelligence such as search engine evaluations. Working for Lionbridge will be more of a full-time position working with Lionbridge to provide their customers with search engine evaluation services and other related web services.

3. ZeroChaos / Workforce Logiq

Zero Chaos is now known as Workforce Logiq and provides their contracted employees with multiple kinds of remote work. They work with companies from over 50+ countries and have over 1,000+ hired experts. Some of the types of work they hire include accounting, resource management, sales, and also search engine evaluation positions, and other related projects.v

4. Google

Perhaps the best opportunity as a search engine evaluator is working for the leading search engine themselves, Google. Google will occasionally post web search evaluator positions to their career page and generally seek people with a basic understanding of their search engine, a Google / Gmail account, and basic communication skills.

Is Working as a Search Engine Evaluator Right For You?

For the most part, working as a search evaluator is a job that many people seek if they are looking to work from home, have a second side hustle job, or simply want to make some extra cash on top of their full-time job. It can also be a good fit for stay-at-home parents looking to have some flexible work.

Here’s a quick recap of what’s involved with working as a web search evaluator:

Your work is evaluating the search results to common search inquiries
Other names and titles for search engine evaluators include Ads Quality Tester, Ads Quality Rater, and Web Search Evaluator.
Job availability, for the most part, is per project and contracted work (although full-time positions are available, but are harder to find)
Approximate pay will range from $11 – $17 per hour
Starting points to find jobs are looking on websites like Appen, Lionbridge, iSoftStone, Workforce Logiq, and Google. Checking the websites of these companies is usually the best way to find a job opportunity.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a search engine evaluator make?

Most part-time entry-level positions pay $11/hour to $17/hour. The number of hours you’re able to work may be limited, so full-time hours are often not possible in this position.

How do I become a search engine evaluator?

Job openings are often listed by companies like Appen, Lionbridge, Workforce Loqic, and Google. Job seekers can find openings on these companies’ websites or on major job search websites.

What is a search engine evaluator?

A search engine evaluator provides feedback related to the accuracy and helpfulness of search results. The position is critical in helping engineers to adjust and improve algorithms to produce the best results. There are also some other variations of the job, like social media evaluation.

Is being a search engine evaluator hard?

This is an entry-level position that generally doesn’t require industry experience. While it’s not really hard work, the job type does require attention to detail and research skills.

Where can I work from?

You can work from anywhere, as long as you have a reliable internet connection. Most people in this position choose to work from home, but it’s also an option for digital nomads who are constantly traveling.

Is this opportunity only available in English?

No, raters are needed for all languages. People are hired in many different countries to work in their respective languages.

Final Thoughts on Search Engine Evaluator Jobs

No doubt you can make some side cash in your spare time, the question is how valuable is your spare time and how much do you expect to make? If your answer aligns with the bullet points in the summary list above, you’re a great fit to get started with your new side hustle as a web search evaluator.

READ NEXT: How to Start a Side Hustle

The post Search Engine Evaluator Jobs: Make $11-$17 Per Hour as a Search Rater appeared first on Vital Dollar.

7 Social Media Marketing Hacks to Grow Your Business FAST!

HubSpot Marketing — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 12:30:17 GMT

How easy is it to build a website with the AI-powered Bookmark?

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 14:35:00 GMT

Bookmark approaches the website building market from a different angle. It aids you in building your website with AI and it claims it can create your business site in just minutes. With AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Design Assistant), it learns your needs and then automatically builds your site in 30 seconds. You can then add the finishing touches, that is customise your site with the drag-and-drop editor.

Its AI is powerful enough so that you can create your business website, online store, and landing pages. Bookmark was founded in 2014 by David Kosmayer and is based in Toronto, Canada. It has gained wide popularity since it gives you a plethora of customisation options combined with ease of use and the ability to make changes on the fly. And all you have to do is tell AIDA what functionalities, images, theme, and purpose of your site you need, and voila, the site is built for you.

Contents

Pros and cons of
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Bookmark for?
How easy is Bookmark to use?
Bookmark themes and design
How to manage your ecommerce store in Bookmark?
Bookmark's integrations
What are Bookmark's marketing and SEO tools?
Payment options
Bookmark security
Bookmark customer support
Bookmark pricing
Is Bookmark the right website builder for you?

Pros and cons of

The AI-powered website builder Bookmark comes with all you need to create the site you need and customise it to your liking with little to no coding skills. You can subscribe to the cloud-based and all-in-one service.

Pros

Ease of use
Forever free plan
All themes are responsive
Ecommerce app mobile app
Fair pricing
Multi-lingual support

Cons

Advanced SEO only on paid plans
Blogging engine is a bit basic

Who is Bookmark for?

Bookmark is targeting not tech-savvy people and small businesses who want to have a professional-looking website. It’s beginner-friendly and built from the ground up to be easy to use. You can build all kinds of websites, from a blog to an online store and business site.

How easy is Bookmark to use?

You can create your account by using your Google+ or Facebook account information or go the traditional route and provide your name, email, and password. Once you’ve signed up, you can answer the questions that AIDA asks you.

The first time you log into your account, AIDA asks you questions about your business and your preferred website style

The questions AIDA asks may feel familiar, you may have seen them asked by Jimdo or Wix. After you’ve answered the questions, it took AIDA really only 30 seconds to build your site. From here on, you can customise to your heart’s content. You’ll find in the lower right-hand corner the icon to open AIDA. This pop-up guide will help you get the most of your website customisation. It shows you how to do things like changing the fonts, customising sections and pages.

And if you feel really disappointed with the site, you can hit the button Re-Create Website in the pop-up guide

The drag-and-drop editor is clean and easy to navigate. Everything is well-laid out and well-labelled. It has thoughtfully added a redo and undo button. You can add elements by hitting the Modules option and then dragging it where you want. To speed up the building process, Bookmark has pre-designed content blocks. These content blocks are used for specific purposes such as a checklist or a call to action.

Both the AI as well as the well-designed editor make it so that even for beginners, there’s almost no learning curve.

Bookmark themes and design

Since Bookmark is heavily using its AI, it doesn’t have a standard template gallery. It’s all done with the help of AIDA and each time a website is built, it has its own structure. All websites are mobile-ready.

The theme of a website is based on your business type as well as your website style. It’s one of the questions that AIDA asks when you create a new website.

Instead of a theme collection, AIDA asks what your website style is

How to manage your ecommerce store in Bookmark?

If you upgrade your account to the Business Plan (Bookmarks highest plan), the shopping cart is included which allows you to sell unlimited products. The shopping cart comes with all the functionalities you need to run and manage your online store.

You find everything related to your online store in the option Features

You can connect your store with online market places such as Amazon and eBay. You can also add and manage discounts as well as shipping and tax for different countries.

Bookmark’s integrations

When you create a new site AIDA asks if you want to connect your account with the major social media. For automations, you can connect it to Zapier.

What are Bookmark’s marketing and SEO tools?

Since Bookmark is catering to small businesses, out of the box, it comes with some features that you don’t find elsewhere.

SEO

You can format HTML headings and add meta titles and meta descriptions. Bookmark will automatically create friendly a URL for each page and a sitemap.

Blogging

You find the blogging tool under the Features option. Writing and editing a blog post is a breeze. Even though you don’t have as many options as with other website builders, it doesnt feel like an afterthought that is tacked onto the Bookmark.

Booking and reservation

If your business type needs it, you can add a booking and reservation section. By adding events, you can collect the name, email address, and phone number of people who want to attend. You can create events, appointments, and reservations and it’s up to you to fill in the details such as name, description, price, location. It even comes with a Google Maps widget.

Create an event, appointment, or a reservation

Email

It goes without saying that once you’ve finished building your site, you’ll connect it with your custom domain. But most of the website builders don’t give you the option to connect your custom email so that you have to find a separate email provider so that you can send and receive emails using your custom domain. For that Bookmarks offers you its Advanced Email feature.

Payment options

To accept payments, you need to connect your account with a payment gateway. Bookmark gives you the option of using Stripe, Square, PayPal, or manual payment methods. You can also choose one of its 50 alternative payment options.

Bookmark security

All sites created with Bookmark are secured with an SSL certificate.

Bookmark customer support

If you can’t find your answer in the searchable help centre, you can ask your question in the chat. The team usually answers within a few hours.

Bookmark pricing

The free plan comes with some restrictions, but you get a taste of how easy Bookmark is. You can only connect your custom domain when you’re subscribed to one of its paid plans. The Ecommerce engine is only available on its top plan. Considering the features you get, the monthly subscription fees are moderate.

You can save 20% if you decide to pay yearly

Is Bookmark the right website builder for you?

If you want to have a website fast and without much hassle, Bookmark can work wonders. This can be because you build many websites or because you’re not so technically inclined. Just know that you don’t select the theme yourself and all is done with AIDA. Yet, you’ll have a professional-looking website with all the elements you need. Its ecommerce engine is solid while it doesn’t have significant shortcomings holding it back.

If you enjoyed reading about the pros and cons of Bookmark, I’d be delighted if you could share it on social media.

Original post here: How easy is it to build a website with the AI-powered Bookmark?

CPA (Cost per Action) Ad Marketing | Secrets to Get High ROI

HubSpot Marketing — Sun, 05 Dec 2021 12:45:01 GMT

TikTok Ads For Business - Secrets To Go Viral!

HubSpot Marketing — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 11:30:16 GMT

20 Apps That Pay You to Walk (Get Paid to Walk with These Apps)

Marc Andre — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 10:06:00 GMT

Walking is a part of everyday life, so wouldn’t it be great if you could get paid to walk?

You may be surprised by the number of apps that pay you to walk. In this article, we’ll look at 20 legit options.

If you get a lot of exercise already, some of these apps that pay will allow you to easily earn rewards for the steps you’re taking. Other apps will give you the motivation to start getting more exercise. Extra motivation can be very helpful!

Many of these apps will compensate you simply for walking. While they allow you to make a little extra money for something you’re already doing, or give you some motivation to get more exercise, you’re not going to earn a huge amount of money with these types of apps.

So if you’re looking for a serious income, pay extra attention to the options at the end of the article. They’ll give you the best chance to earn a significant amount of money. In most cases, you’ll be providing a service that involves a lot of walking.

Apps That Pay You To Walk

1. HealthyWage – a fun way to challenge yourself

HealthyWage is an option that comes with a bit of risk, but it can also serve as a great motivator. You won’t directly earn money for walking, but you can earn money based on losing weight, and walking can obviously help you to lose weight.

With HealthyWage you’ll make a weight-loss bet. If you hit the target weight by the end date of the bet, you can win up to $10,000. The amount you can win will depend on factors like your current weight, how much you want to lose, how fast you want to lose it (wagers are at least 6 months long), your sex, your height, your waist measurement, and how much you’re willing to bet per month. They have a calculator on their site. You’ll enter your details and see how much you could win.

In addition to placing a wager on your own, you can also start a challenge with friends and family, or compete in a corporate wellness program.

Making a wager is a great way to give yourself some motivation to hit your weight loss goals, but keep in mind that you’ll lose the money if you don’t hit your weight loss goal.

→ Sign up for HealthyWage here.

2. Sweatcoin – the most popular get paid to walk app

Sweatcoin is one of the most popular apps that pay you to walk. It converts your outdoor steps to cryptocurrency (Sweatcoins). The app uses your phone’s accelerometers and GPS location to track and count your steps, and then it converts the steps into Sweatcoins. For every verified 1,000 steps, you’ll get 0.95 Sweatcoins.

One of the most important things to understand about Sweatcoin is that only outdoor steps will earn anything. Indoor steps will be counted, but they won’t earn you any Sweatcoins.

You can use the Sweatcoins you’ve earned by redeeming them for prizes. The prizes change frequently. It’s hard to say how much a Sweatcoin is worth in terms of dollars because each prize is a little different, but you can redeem 20,000 Sweatcoins for $1,000 in cash.

With the base account, you can earn up to 5 Sweatcoins per day, which means it will take a crazy long time to earn 20,000 Sweatcoins. If you want to earn Sweatcoin faster, you have the option of upgrade to a plan that allows you to earn up to 10 Sweatcoins per day. The current cost of that plan is 4.75 Sweatcoins per month.

You can also earn 5 Sweatcoins for each friend that you refer.

→ Sign up for Sweatcoin here.

3. Achievement – rewards for walking and more

Achievement will allow you to earn points for healthy activities. In addition to walking, you can earn points for things like tracking the foods you eat, tracking your sleep, and other types of exercise aside from just walking.

You can connect Achievement to Fitbit, Garmin, MyFitnessPal, Google Fit, or many other apps that you use to monitor your health and get paid to walk. Once you’ve earned 10,000 points, you can redeem them for $10. If you earn a maximum of 80 points per day, you can make about $30 over the course of a year from Achievement.

There are some additional ways to you can earn extra points, like taking health surveys and referring friends.

→ Sign up for Achievement here.

4. Stepbet – earn money by walking and betting on yourself

Sometimes a little pressure or outside motivation can be just what you need to get in better shape. Like HealthyWage, Stepbet involves placing a bet or wager that you will either win or lose.

Stepbet links to several different fitness trackers, like Fitbit. Based on your current fitness level, Stepbet will set daily goals for you in terms of how many steps you need to take. If you’re confident and you want some motivation, you can place a bet and join one of the games within the app.

Games last for six weeks and in order to win the bet, you’ll need to meet or exceed your step goals at least six days each week during the game. If you hit the goals, you’ll win the bet and some money (the money is split between the winners). If you don’t, you’ll lose your money. Most bets are around $40.

→ Sign up for Stepbet here.

5. myWalgreens^TM Health Goals – rewards for healthy lifestyle

myWalgreens^TM Health Goals (formerly known as Walgreens Balance Rewards) doesn’t pay you in cash, but you can earn points and benefits that are redeemable for purchases at Walgreens.

You can earn points for a variety of healthy tasks like walking, linking a health app or device, logging your sleep, testing your blood pressure, monitoring glucose, exercising, and weighing in. You can even earn points if you quit smoking.

Since it connects to a Fitbit or other device, most of it is done for you, so it doesn’t take much effort to earn some points. You can earn up to 1,000 points per month (20 points per mile walked, 20 points for exercising, 20 points for weighing in, etc.). The max rewards is $6 per month, but that’s not a bad reward since you’ll also benefit from getting and staying in shape.

To get started, you’ll need to sign up for myWalgreens Health Goals on their website and link an app or device. Once you start accumulating some points, you’ll be able to see your balance on the website.

→ Sign up for myWalgreens Health Goals.

6. Optimity – a new option that pays you to walk

Optimity is the current version of what used to be known as Carrot Rewards. A few years ago, Carrot Rewards was a popular walking app for Canadians. Now, as one of the newest apps that pay you to walk, Optimity is not limited just to Canadians.

With Optimity you can earn points and rewards in a few different ways. You’ll earn points for each step tracked through the app (for iPhone or Android). Optimity also offers community challenges so you can compete with your friends and other users. You can also take quizzes to test your knowledge and win points.

The goal of Optimity is to promote a healthy lifestyle by providing some extra incentive, in the way of gift cards to your favorite stores. Although it’s still a new app, Optimity is one you should try.

→ Sign up for Optimity.

7. PK Rewards – get rewarded for any workout

PK Rewards is a free app that allows you to earn gift cards and other rewards for walking and exercising, and you can even earn a reward in your first week.

Once you’ve signed up, PK Rewards will track any workout, so you’re not limited to just walking or some other type of exercise. You’ll get an effort score for every workout (the harder you work, the higher your score). That effort score is then converted into coins and you can redeem the coins for your choice of prizes.

This is a great app if you already walk or exercise. You can keep doing what you’re doing and earn money walking.

→ Sign up for PK Rewards here.

8. LifeCoin – get paid for your steps

LifeCoin is somewhat similar to Sweatcoin. Like Sweatcoin, LifeCoin uses your phone’s GPS to track and count your steps, and you’ll be rewarded for your outdoor steps. Indoor steps won’t earn you anything, but any walking, jogging, or running outside will earn LifeCoin, which you can then redeem for your choice or prizes, including gift cards.

→ Sign up for LifeCoin here.

9. Fit For Bucks – make money walking and being active

Fit For Bucks is an app that is currently only available for the iOS, although an Android app is supposed to be on the way. You’ll connect the app to a fitness tracker like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch and it will track your steps.

With Fit For Bucks, you’ll earn points for every step, indoors or outdoors, and then you’ll be able to redeem your points for rewards. It’s important to note that at this time, the rewards available through Fit For Bucks are much more limited than the options you’ll have with other apps, but hopefully that will improve in the future.

→ Sign up for Fit For Bucks here.

10. winwalk (Android)

winwalk (currently only available for Android) is a pretty simple app, and that’s not a bad thing. The app acts as a pedometer and counts your steps. It uses the phone’s built-in sensor so no GPS is needed and it counts all steps, indoors and outdoors.

You’ll earn 1 coin for every 100 steps and you can earn a maximum of 100 coins per day (which would be earned with 10,000 steps). You can then redeem your coins for rewards like free Walmart gift cards, free Amazon gift cards, free Starbucks gift cards, and more.

If you’re already walking and you’re an Android user, winwalk is the perfect way to earn some extra rewards.

→ Sign up for winwalk here.

11. FitPotato (iPhone)

FitPotato (currently only available for iOS) is another app that requires you to make a bet, but if you win the bet, you can earn some cash. You can challenge your friends and other FitPotato users. FitPotato also has weekly prize groups where you’ll need to 3 sessions in 7 days to win. You can choose from walking, running, or dog walking.

→ Sign up for FitPotato here.

12. Runtopia – fitness with audio coaching

Runtopia is a bit different than the other apps that pay you for walking covered in this article. It will track your walking, jogging, or running and provide you with real-time audio coaching. It will provide you with data like the number of calories burned and the number of steps per minute.

Runtopia rewards you with virtual coins that you can redeem for your choice of prizes.

→ Sign up for Runtopia here.

13. Gigwalk – The best of apps that pay for small tasks

Gigwalk is a popular app that allows you to make money with small tasks in your local area. The app is available for both iOS and Android. Once your account is set up, you’ll use the app to view opportunities. If you’re in an urban area, you may have several gigs available to you within walking distance.

The tasks vary, but they’ll take anywhere from five minutes to a few hours to complete. You’ll be paid $3 – $100 per gig, depending on the details and how long it takes. In some ways, Gigwalk is similar to microtask websites.

→ Sign up for Gigwalk here.

14. Charity Miles – donate your rewards

Charity Miles with not pay you for walking, but it will donate money to a charity of your choice as a result of your steps.

The app uses your smartphone’s GPS and you can earn by walking, running, riding a bike, and even dancing. One of the differences between Charity Miles and the other apps here is that you’ll have to open the app and actually initiate the tracking before you walk/run/jog/ride. It’s a little bit inconvenient and you’ll need to remember to open the app, but it’s for a good cause.

There are more than 40 popular non-profit organizations that you can choose to support, and you can even get friends and family to sponsor you if you want to.

→ Sign up for Charity Miles here.

15. Rover – the best of apps that pay for dog walking

Rover is a website/app that connects pet owners with dog walkers and pet sitters. You can create a free profile at Rover and list your services as a dog walker. Pet owners in your local area can then find you through Rover and hire you. If you want to get paid to walk and make serious money, this is your best option.

Obviously, this involves a little more effort as compared to an app that automatically credits you with some points for your steps, but you have the potential to make so much more as a dog walker (plus, pet lovers can make money from a hobby).

There are many pet owners who are in need of someone to walk their dog, either because they’re not home or because they’re not physically able to do it themselves. The services are in demand, it pays pretty well, and Rover makes it easy to find work since they have a huge user base.

Dog walking presents, in my opinion, the best earning potential if you’re looking to make money from walking. As a bonus, you can also use some of the apps listed later in this article to earn more money while you’re walking dogs.

→ Sign up for Rover here.

16. Wag

Wag is another app that helps pet owners to find dog walkers. It works very similarly to Rover. You can sign up as a walker and create your profile for free so pet owners in your local area can find and hire you, and you can make money walking dogs.

If you’re a pet lover, using one of these apps that pay you to walk is an ideal way to earn something extra while taking care of pets.

→ Sign up for Wag here.

17. DoorDash – the best of apps for food delivery on foot

DoorDash is a popular restaurant delivery service that allows customers to order food from their favorite restaurants and get it delivered to their home or office. You can sign up to become a “dasher” and get paid to make deliveries. Once you’ve signed up, it will take about 1-2 weeks to complete the approval process, which includes a background check. After you’ve been approved, you can choose your own hours and login to the app to start receiving orders near you. It’s an ideal weekend job if you’re looking to make a little extra money.

DoorDash is currently active in more than 4,000 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. In some (but not all) markets you are able to make deliveries on foot so you can earn money by walking. In other markets, you may need to use a car or a bike.

Like the dog walking opportunity, making deliveries gives you a chance to earn some real money while getting exercise.

→ Sign up for DoorDash here.

18. Postmates

Postmates is another food delivery app that is similar to DoorDash. Anyone can sign up to deliver for Postmates, and you can make deliveries by car, bike, or even on foot. Unlike some other delivery services, they allow you to walk in urban areas.

If you’re in an urban area, it’s possible to make extra money by walking and delivering food through Postmates.

Of course, in order for this to be a viable option, you’ll need to live or work in the right area. A rural location is not going to work for deliveries if you’re walking. Keep in mind that the schedule is totally flexible, so if you work in the city you could make some money on your lunch break, or even stay in the area for a short time after work and take advantage of the busy dinner hour.

→ Sign up for Postmates here.

19. Instacart

Instacart is a grocery delivery service that offers two different options for making money. First, you can sign up to be a shopper without being involved in the delivery process. Your job will involve walking around the grocery store to get the items purchased by the customer. As an in-store shopper, you would be a part-time employee and you’d benefit from flexible hours.

If you’d like to be a full-service shopper, you would be responsible for doing the shopping and making deliveries. You’ll need your own vehicle and this will require some driving in addition to the walking. Instacart’s full-service shoppers are independent contractors who set their own hours.

→ Sign up with Instacart

20. CircleCare

CircleCare is different than the others we’ve covered so far. With CircleCare, companies, groups, and communities can set up their own private wellness groups with points and incentives. If you’re an employer, you could set up an incentivized program that rewards employees for healthy activities.

Users can earn CarPoints in 4 ways:

Steps
Logging vitals
Learning and sharing
Taking medication as needed

It’s basically a fitness app with a social aspect. If your employer of group offers a program through CircleCare, they’ll pay you to walk and reward you with various gifts.

→ Learn more about CircleCare

Final Thoughts on Apps That Pay You to Walk

There are plenty of apps that pay you to walk. You can get paid to walk during the daily activities you already do. Or, these apps can give you some extra motivation to stay active and live a healthy lifestyle while you earn money by walking.

There are also a few apps that pay you for walking that make it possible to earn a significant amount of money by offering a service while you’re walking.

Try a few of these apps that seem like they could be a good fit for you. Try dog walking with Rover or deliveries with DoorDash if you want to make serious money.

The post 20 Apps That Pay You to Walk (Get Paid to Walk with These Apps) appeared first on Vital Dollar.

Aritic Pinpoint review – full-stack marketing automation

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 14:35:00 GMT

Are you looking to generate leads, build and nurture a relationship, and convert them into loyal customers? If so, you’re looking at activities including

Building and launching landing pages
Tracking
Split testing
Launching and managing campaigns across platforms
Lead scoring

Central to all these tasks is to get the email address of your prospects so that you can reach out to them. Aritic Pinpoint promises to help you with your marketing activities. It calls its service full-stack meaning that you can use it for almost all of your marketing and campaigns.

This means it will help you understand where your prospects are coming from and the journey they took until they converted. And, you can get in front of them with the right message at the right time, and via the right channels.

Contents

Pros and cons of Aritic Pinpoint
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Aritic Pinpoint for?
Aritic Pinpoint user interface
Campaigns
Sign up forms and landing pages
List management, segmentation, and personalisation
Automation
Other features
Aritic Pinpoint integrations
Aritic Pinpoint reporting
Support
Pricing
Is Aritic Pinpointright for you?

Pros and cons of Aritic Pinpoint

Dataaegis, Inc., the company offering Aritic Pinpoint has its headquarters in Walnuts, US and offices in India. The service is an all-in-one marketing automation platform.

Pros

Free trial without handing over your credit card details
Nifty lead scoring and triggering
Integrated forms and landing page builder so if you can dream up a funnel, you can build it
All templates are mobile-ready

Cons

The software is unstable: Sometimes, it wasn’t possible to log in and at other times, a page just wouldn’t load
It’s a complex tool and comes with a learning curve, especially if you’re new to digital marketing
The email template gallery is not searchable

Who is Aritic Pinpoint for?

If you’re looking for an integrated and powerful marketing automation service that grows with you, Aritic Pinpoint is a good place to start. It comes with a vast feature list and consequently, the learning curve is steep.

If your approach is customer-centric, it lets position your brand with the help of the relationship you build with your audience, regardless of your business industry.

Aritic Pinpoint user interface

After your first login, you’ll be brought to your dashboard. It’s divided into the engagement, awareness, and conversion dashboard and you see with just a glance how your campaigns are performing

See at one glance how your activities are performing

If you’ve used an online tool before, navigating the interface is a cinch. You’ll find on your left the sidebar that opens up when you hover over it. The sidebar houses the feature set.

Campaigns

Aritic Pinpoint offers you different channels for your campaigns:

RSS
Web push
Mobile push
Email
Onsite widget popups

The last option is to display a popup form to capture details of a prospect on a specific page. For this review, I’m only going to go deeper into the email campaign.

Aritic Pinpoint’s campaign types

Most of the time, setting up and sending a campaign is a 5 step process, but Aritic Pinpoint’s very particular about it so that you go through

Selecting your template
Adding your content
Defining your general settings
Selecting and excluding segments
Defining your advanced settings such as adding an attachment or Google Analytics UTM tags
Adding or autogenerating the plaintext version
Sending or scheduling

Use the drag-and-drop editor to customise your template. The editor thoughtfully has a redo and undo button. You can also preview your email on different devices. If you prefer, you can also edit the templates in HTML mode or start from scratch.

Aritic email editor

Sign up forms and landing pages

As a full-stack marketing automation service, you’d expect tools to capture information about your visitors. Aritic Pinpoint lets you create forms, landing pages, and popups. You’ll find forms and landing pages under the section Assets in the sidebar.

Types of forms

You’ll find popups under the section Campaigns. To speed up the process Aritic Pinpoint has pre-designed forms (also for popups) and landing pages that you can select and then adapt.

List management, segmentation, and personalisation

Managing your contacts can be counted as the strong point of Aritic Pinpoint. You can create segments with an almost endless list of criteria such behaviour, lead scoring and source, and conversions. The segments are dynamically updated when a contact meets certain criteria. It also has pre-installed segments that can inspire you.

Use the lead scoring to determine where a prospect is in their journey. Then use score triggers to fire an automatic action when that value is reached.

Segmentation is a crucial step in automation. It will help remove the tedium of repetitive tasks as well as sending the right message to the right person.

Automation

Including the forms and landing pages, if you can dream up a funnel, you can build it in the drag-and-drop automation editor. It’s not just a simple autoresponder but you can add conditional steps, actions, and decisions.

Other features

Aritic Pinpoint has a vast feature list. You can also

Automate social media engagement
Set up gated video
Nurture your prospects with the help of a chatbot
Automate mobile marketing
Track and retarget anonymous visitors

Aritic Pinpoint integrations

If you don’t like the built-in CRM, you can integrate Aritic Pinpoint with third-party CRMs such as Salesforce. Obviously, you can integrate it with social media such as Facebook, and with tracking providers such as Google analytics. And, Zapier, the jack-of-all-trades, is also not missing.

Aritic Pinpoint reporting

Numbers are the basis for all marketing and Aritic Pinpoint knows that. You’ll see it in the engagement and analytics sections. It lets you dive into the reports to improve your marketing activities and understand from where your prospects are coming and which stage they’re in.

Support

If you’re working on a task in Aritic Pinpoint, the live customer chat is one click away in the lower right-hand corner. If self-help is more your idea, there’s a comprehensive and searchable knowledge base.

Pricing

You can experience Aritic Pinpoint for 14 days free of charge. There’s also a free plan but it’s only for up to 200 contacts and with a limited feature list. You can sign up without a credit card, which is a boon. Many want to test the service and are put off by having to first add a credit card before they make a buying decision.

Check the full feature list

Is Aritic Pinpointright for you?

Aritic Pinpoint is a comprehensive all-in-one marketing automation service. The learning curve is due to how feature-rich and versatile it is. That being said, even if it’s loaded with functions, the interface is well laid out and self-explanatory. It’s clearly geared towards SMEs and can grow with your business.

During this review, I encountered bugs here and there. Sometimes I couldn’t log in and other times the page just would not load. Once the bugs get smoothed out, Aritic Pinpoint is a nifty software if you need a tool that helps you run and track your campaigns across multiple channels.

That being said, a powerful automation tool is not the silver bullet, if you have a tough time understanding the customer source and journey. If you want to know more about customer journeys, feel free to reach out.

Original post here: Aritic Pinpoint review – full-stack marketing automation

100+ Websites and Apps That Will Pay You to Refer Your Friends

Marc Andre — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 13:11:00 GMT

Referral programs can be a great way to make some extra money or to save on things you would buy anyway. Many companies use refer-a-friend programs to get exposure, so there are plenty of opportunities.

Chances are, you already tell your friends and family about the products and services you use and love. Referral programs make it possible for you to be rewarded for that word-of-mouth advertising.

Here, you’ll find a list of referral bonus apps and referral sites that pay. If you’re looking for easy rewards, you won’t want to miss these referral programs that pay cash and rewards. In some cases, you can earn $20 per referral or much more with high-paying referral programs.

Many referral programs also give discounts or special offers to your friends, so everyone wins. These bonuses and special offers make it a little easier to share with others. It also increases the number of people who will make a purchase through your referral link, which means more rewards for you.

How to Use Referral Programs

The best companies/websites/apps to recommend are the ones you use personally because you can share from your own experience.

Not all referral programs work the same. In some cases, you will need to be an existing customer in order to get a referral link. In other cases, you can refer people even if you are not currently a customer. Sometimes you will need to log in to an account and get the link from your account, but other times you won’t need an account or a login. Some of the referral programs today simply ask for your name and email address to generate your referral link.

One method for promoting these programs is to share your referral links by using your social media profiles. If you have a blog, you can also use the links there (in general). In some cases, you’ll earn cash, but in other cases, it’s store credit that you can use for your own purchases.

If you have a friend who is also interested in saving money, you can help each other by taking turns with referrals, and you’ll both reap the benefits!

Related Reading:

100+ of the Best Referral Programs

Now let’s take a look at some of the specific companies that you can promote and apps with referral bonuses. I’ve organized them by category to try to make it easier. If you have any suggestions about other referral programs that you think should be included please leave a comment at the end of the post.

These programs and the details can change from time-to-time. I’ll try to keep the list up-to-date, but if you notice that something is no longer relevant please leave a comment.

Finance and Money Referral Bonus Apps

Many of the best apps that pay you to refer friends are related to making, saving, investing, or managing money. Here are some of the best offers.

Public.com – Public.com is an online brokerage that offers commission-free trades of stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrency. After you create your free account, you’ll be able to refer friends to earn a free slice of stock in a company of your choice (worth $3 – $300). Your friends will also get a free slice of stock when they sign up.

Tornado – Tornado (formerly known as Nvstr) is an investing app that offers a reward of $10 – $1,000 per referral. You’ll get a reward of a random amount, with a minimum of $10. Your friend will also get a signup bonus of $10 – $1,000.

Robinhood – When you refer a friend to the investing app Robinhood you will each get a free stock added to your account.

Groundfloor – The real estate investing platform will give you $10 for every friend you refer. Your friend will also get $10 for free, and all they need to do is invest at least $10 of their own money.

M1 Finance – The M1 Finance app allows you to create and automate your investing. The M1 referral program will give you and your friends $10-$50 (they change the amount every now and then).

Webull – Webull is another online brokerage that offers free stock rewards for referrals. The details of their bonus change from time to time, but after you sign up for a free account, you can get your referral link and see the current offer from your account dashboard.

Fundrise – The real estate crowdfunding platform Fundrise will waive your fees for 90-365 days for each friend you refer, depending on your account level. Your friend will also get 90 days with no fees from Fundrise to start their investment.

RebateKey – Earn up to $20 per friend you refer to RebateKey, a website that offers deep discounts through rebates at websites like Amazon. Your friend will be able to get free products and deep discounts with their own free RebateKey account.

Rebaid – Rebaid is a rebate site that’s very similar to RebateKey. In addition to some amazing deals, you can earn $10 per referral for telling your friends about Rebaid.

Bumped – Bumped is a cross between cashback app and investment app. With a free Bumped account, you’ll get free stock ownership rewards based on the purchases you make. They also have a referral program so you can get $1 of stock for each person that signs up through your link.

Swagbucks – Swagbucks is a popular app that makes it easy to earn money from things like taking surveys, watching videos, downloading apps, and playing games. Swagbucks will pay you $3 (300 Swagbucks) for each friend that you refer, plus you’ll also get 10% of the Swagbucks earned by the people that you refer. New users will get a $5 bonus when they make a $25 purchase from one of Swagbucks’ partner websites.

MyPoints – MyPoints is similar to Swagbucks. You can create a free account and earn cashback for purchases or earn points for things like taking surveys and other small tasks. MyPoints will also give you 25 bonus points for referring a friend, plus you can get up to 750 bonus points when your friend makes a purchase.

InboxDollars – InboxDollars is a popular site that will pay you for taking surveys, watching videos, playing games, and trying free offers. You’ll earn 10% of the amount your referred friends earn, and your friends will get a $5 bonus when they sign up.

KashKick – KashKick is another site for making money from online surveys and other small tasks. If you tell your friends about KashKick, you’ll earn 25% of the points they earn, and you’ll even earn 5% of the points from people your friends refer.

PrizeRebel – PrizeRebel also allows anyone to make money from surveys and small tasks. With your free account, you’ll get 15% of all points earned by people that you refer.

BlockFi – This leading cryptocurrency exchange will pay you $10 in Bitcoin for each referral that funds their account with at least $100. Your friend will also get a $10 bonus in Bitcoin. After you refer at least five people, your bonus will increase to $20 per referral.

Chase Freedom Credit Card – If you are a Chase Freedom cardholder, Chase will pay you a $100 bonus (up to $500 per year) for referring a friend that applies and is approved for the Chase Freedom credit card.

Chase Freedom Unlimited Credit Card – If you are a Chase Freedom Unlimited cardholder, Chase will pay you a $100 bonus (up to $500 per year) for referring a friend that applies and is approved for the Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card.

Discover – If you’re a Discover cardholder, you can refer a friend and you’ll get $100 when your friend applies for a credit card and makes their first purchase. Your friend will also get a $100 bonus.

Titan – Titan is a premier investment advisor and they’ll give you a chance to win a portfolio worth up to $10,000 for each friend you refer. Your friends will also get 100 days with no fees to try the platform.

Slide – This cashback app will pay you up to $20 for each friend you refer, and your friend will also get up to $20.

Rakuten – The most popular cashback website (formerly known as Ebates) will pay you $25 for each friend you refer, and your friend will get $10. The bonuses will be paid after your friend makes a qualifying purchase of at least $25 through their Rakuten account. (Read my Rakuten review here.)

BeFrugal – BeFrugal is another great cashback site that offers a bonus for you and your friends. You’ll get $10 and your friend will also get $10. To qualify for the bonuses, your friend will need to earn $10 in cashback from purchases within 365 days of signing up.

Dollar Dig – Dollar Dig is not as popular as Ebates or BeFrugal, but it’s another great option for earning cashback. Their program will pay you $2.50 for every friend that you refer, and your friend will also get $2.50. You’ll need a balance of $25 (minimum) in order to cash out by PayPal or check.

TopCashback – You can earn $10 for each friend you refer to TopCashback, but unfortunately your friends don’t get a bonus.

Giving Assistant – This cashback site allows you to donate your cashback to non-profit organizations, or you can keep it for yourself. They’ll pay you $5 for each friend you refer, and your friend will also get $5 as a bonus. Your referral bonus will be applied to your balance after your friend earns cashback.

Ibotta – The popular cashback app Ibotta will pay you a $5 bonus to refer others. Your friend will also earn $10. The bonuses are added to your Ibotta balance.

Drop – Drop is a cash back app that links to credit cards. Share Drop with others and you’ll both get 1,000 drop points ($1) when they link a card.

Shopkick – Shopkick is a cash back app, but with a twist. You can also earn points (they call them kicks) for walking into stores and scanning items. You and your friends will get 250 kicks ($1) when they walk in or scan within 7 days of installing the app.

Fetch – Fetch is a cash back app for groceries. They will give you 2,000 Fetch points for referring another user.

Honeygain – This passive income app will pay you 10% of the earnings of the people you bring to the platform. Your friend will get a $5 bonus for signing up through your link.

Personal Capital – The amazing finance app Personal Capital has a great referral program. You and your friend will both earn a $20 Amazon gift card. In order for the rewards to be paid your friend will need to link at least one financial account to Personal Capital. The referral link will show up in your dashboard after you’ve linked one of your own accounts.

Blooom – Blooom is a robo advisor specifically for 401(k) accounts. They’ll give you a $10 Amazon gift card for friends that you refer, and your friends will get their first month of Blooom for free.

Betterment – Popular robo advisor Betterment will give you a free month for each friend you refer. You friends will get 3 months for free.

Wealthsimple – Wealthsimple clients can earn 12 months of free management service (on $10,000) for each friend that’s referred. Your friend will also get free management for $10,000 for 12 months.

Worthy Bonds – You’ll earn a $5 bonus for each person who signs up to invest in business bonds through your link.

Acorns – With the Acorns app you can start investing your spare change. Acorns will pay you $5 (added to your Acorns account) for each friend you refer. The friend will also get $5 in their own Acorns account.

Qapital – The free banking app Qapital will pay you up to $100 per referral.

Digit – Digit is an automated savings app that will pay you $5 to refer your friends.

SoFi – SoFi will pay you $15 to refer your friends. Your friends will also get a $15 bonus.

LendKey – LendKey offers student loan refinancing. You can earn $200 for every referral who is approved for a loan and another $200 for each friend that takes out a loan with LendKey.

TurboTax – You can earn $25 for referring TurboTax to your friends. And your friends will get 20% off a paid online federal product.

Raise – At Raise.com you can buy gift cards at discounted prices. As a user, you can earn $5 for every friend that you refer (up to $100 earned). Your friend will also get $5 off.

CardCash – This site is similar to Raise and they will also pay you $5 to refer a friend. Your friend will get a $5 off coupon to use on their first purchase.

Gift Card Granny – Gift Card Granny will give you a $5 bonus for referring a friend. Your friend also gets $5.

Coinbase – Get $10 in Bitcoin when your referrals buy at least $100 of digital currency (your friends will get $10 of free Bitcoin as well).

Unifimoney – Unifimoney is an investment app that offers a bonus of $25 in Bitcoin for each friend you bring to the platform. Your friend must invest at least $1,000 within the first 14 days to qualify for the bonus.

Food and Groceries

Walmart Grocery – Tell your friends about Walmart Grocery and give them $15 off their first order. You’ll earn $10 in credit per referral.

GrubHub – Tell your friends about GrubHub (restaurant delivery service) and they’ll save $10 off their first order of $15 or more. You’ll get $10 for making the referral.

NatureBox – Get $20 of credit for healthy snacks when you refer your friends to NatureBox. Your friends will save 25% on their first order.

Shipt – The Shipt grocery delivery service will give you $10 in credit for referring your friends. The people you refer will save $10 on annual membership.

Green Chef – Refer your friends to Green Chef and they’ll get $55 off their first order. If your friends place a 2nd order you’ll get $25 in credit.

Splendid Spoon – If you’re a Splendid Spoon customer you can earn 25 points for each friend that you refer. Your friend will get $25 off their first order.

Home Chef – Active subscribers of Home Chef can earn $35 in credit per referral. Your friend will also save $35 on their first order.

Retail and e-Commerce

Sam’s Club – Refer your friends to Sam’s Club and they’ll get $20 when they join. You’ll earn a $10 gift card for the referral.

Vimbly – Vimbly is a deal site for things to do in different cities. You can earn $10 in Vimbly credit for each referral, and your friend will also get $10.

Swap.com – Refer your friends to the world’s largest consignment website and earn 40% off when they make their first purchase of at least $20, and they’ll get a coupon code for 40% off that purchase.

thredUP – Refer a friend to thredUP and they’ll get $10 off their first purchase from this site that sells secondhand clothes. After their purchase, you’ll earn $10 for the referral.

MeUndies – Give your friends a discount on their first purchase at MeUndies and you’ll earn $20 in credit for the referral.

Homage – Tell your friends about Homage (vintage apparel) and give them $20 off their first purchase of $40 or more. You’ll earn $20 in credit per referral.

The Clymb – At The Clymb you can get great prices on outdoor gear and clothing. Your friend will get $10 off their first purchase of $50 or more, and you’ll get $10 in credit for referring them.

Rent the Runway – Fashion rental website Rent the Runway will give you an extra item with every shipment when someone you refer places their first order. Your friend will get 40% off their first month.

Tradesy – Designer women’s fashion site Tradesy will give you $10 for every friend you refer. Your friends will also get $20 off their first purchase.

→ Related reading: 50 Fantastic Money Making Apps You Won’t Want to Miss

Health

FabFitFun – Your referrals will get $10 off their first box and you’ll earn $15 in credit.

Puritan’s Pride – Puritan’s Pride sells vitamins, supplements, and beauty care products at great prices. As a user, you can earn rewards for referrals through their Puritan’s Perks program. You’ll need to be logged in to your account to find the referral options.

MyProtein – MyProtein offers supplements and fitness clothing. As a user you can earn $20 per referral.

IdealFit – At IdealRaw your friends can save 20% on their first order of organic supplements. For referring them you’ll earn $10.

Plant Therapy – Plant Therapy sells essential oils and accessories. You can refer your friends. They’ll get $10 off and you’ll get a $10 credit for a future order.

Grove Collective – Give your friends a free gift set and you’ll get $10 when they make their first purchase.

Sweatcoin – The Sweatcoin app allows you to earn prizes for walking outdoors. You can earn 5 Sweatcoins for referring your friends to the free app (they don’t get a bonus).

Technology

Cricket Wireless – Low-cost prepaid wireless carrier Cricket Wireless will give you and your friend a $25 credit on your account. Sign up through my referral link to get the $25 credit for yourself.

Verizon – Verizon has a refer-a-friend program that customers can use to earn account credit. The amount that you earn will depend on what your friend signs up for.

DISH – If you’re a DISH customer you can log in to your account and get a referral link. You’ll earn 100 points ($50) for each successful referral.

Dropbox – Earn 500 MB – 1 GB of free store per referral to Dropbox.

Fiverr – Tell your friends about Fiverr and they will save 10% on their first order. You’ll also get 10% of their first order in credit, up to $100.

ConvertKit – Email marketing platform ConvertKit will give you 30% of the revenue generated from your referrals.

SendOwl – SendOwl makes it easy to sell downloadable products from a website or blog. You can refer your friends and earn a 20% commission for life. Your friend will get a 30-day free trial.

MailerLite – MailerLite is an email marketing service. Your friends will earn a $20 bonus by signing up through your link, and you’ll earn a $20 bonus for each friend who upgrades from a free account to a premium account.

MailChimp – MailChimp is another email service that will pay you and your friends up to $30.

Bluehost – Bluehost is a popular low-cost web hosting program. Through their affiliate program, you can earn $60 for each customer you send their way. The bonus can increase from there, depending on how many customers you refer.

BigScoots – BigScoots is another web host with an affiliate program. You’ll get 90% of the first month’s revenue for any customers you refer.

WP Engine – This WordPress hosting provider pays a minimum of $200 per referral through its affiliate program.

Siteground – Siteground is another host that pays at least $50 per sale through its affiliate program.

Travel

Outdoorsy – This RV rental website will pay you $75 to refer your friends, and your friend will save $50 on their first RV rental.

VBT – Refer your friends to a bicycling or walking vacation with VBT and you’ll earn $150 in travel credit. Your friend will also get $100 in travel credit, and you can earn cash bonuses for more referrals.

Pavlus Travel – This travel company will pay you up to $500 per referral.

Getaround – Getaround is a peer-to-peer car rental marketplace. As a user you can earn $20 when your friends rent through Getaround, and your friends will also get $20 off.

Zipcar – Zipcar is another ride-sharing site that will give you $25 for referring others. The people you refer will also get a $25 bonus.

Other

Skillshare – The online learning platform Skillshare will give you a free month of membership (unlimited access to courses) for each friend you refer.

Neighbor – Neighbor is a peer-to-peer rental platform for storage space. They’ll give you a $50 bonus if you refer a friend who signs up to list their space for rent on Neighbor.com. Your friend will also get a $50 bonus.

OhmConnect – OhmConnect is a free service that helps you to save on your utility bills. As a user you can refer your friends. You’ll earn $20 when a friend reaches Silver status. Your friend will get $10 for signing up and another $10 if they link a smart device.

Casper – Help your friends save 20% on a Casper mattress and you’ll earn a $75 Amazon gift card for yourself.

Dollar Shave Club – If you’re a Dollar Shave Club customer you can earn $5 for each friend that you refer.

EyeBuyDirect – At EyeBuyDirect you can get glasses and sunglasses. Give your friends $10 off their first purchase and you’ll earn $10 for yourself.

Fat Lama – At Fat Lama you can rent just about anything from other users. The people you refer will get a $20 credit when they open an account, and you’ll get a $20 credit when they make a rental.

Rover – Refer your friends to Rover (pet sitting) and give them $20 to use on the site. You’ll earn $20 credit for each referral.

BarkBox – If you have a BarkBox subscription you can get a free month for every friend you refer.

Handy – Tell your friends about Handy (handyman and cleaning services). Your friend will get a discount and you’ll earn $40 in Handy credit.

Final Thoughts on the Best Referral Bonus Apps

Taking advantage of referral bonuses is an easy way to make some extra cash or earn rewards. There are many apps that pay you to refer friends and we’ve showcased some high-paying referral programs here. Through these apps with a referral bonus and referral sites that pay, you can help your friends and yourself at the same time.

The post 100+ Websites and Apps That Will Pay You to Refer Your Friends appeared first on Vital Dollar.

How to Use an Instagram Link Sticker | Swipe-up removal

HubSpot Marketing — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 12:30:15 GMT

How to Save $10,000 in a Year (10 Steps to Make it Happen)

Marc Andre — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 11:26:00 GMT

Saving a significant amount of money, like $10,000 can be a life-changing accomplishment. There are a lot of great things you could do with that money. You could buy a car, use it towards a down payment on a house, boost your retirement savings, pay off credit card debt or student loans, save for a wedding, save for your kids’ education, or anything else that’s important to you.

After learning how to save $10,000 in a year, chances are, you’ll feel empowered and want to continue with the good habits that you’ve developed.

Not only will that $10,000 allow you to do some awesome things, but going through the process of saving money can also help you to develop strong financial habits that will put you in a much better position going forward as you head toward financial security.

Of course, saving $10k in one year won’t be easy, and it will require some sacrifice. But you’ll be able to look back a year from now and see that it was all worth it.

The Math Behind How to Save $10,000 in a Year

While it’s great to set a goal of saving $10,000 over the next 12 months, to have a realistic chance of succeeding, you’ll want to break it down so you know how much you’ll need to save each pay period.

It breaks down to:

$27.40 per day
$193 per week
$385 every two weeks
$834 per month

Saving the set amount from each paycheck is one way to go about this money-saving challenge. Another option would be to save a variable amount each week. Sometimes this can be a little bit more fun, and you can also start with a smaller amount and work your way up, so it’s not such a big shock.

Download the Printable to Save $10k in One Year

We’ve created a free printable PDF that you can download and use if you want to track your progress. You can cross off each week as you put that money aside. You may find that having a printable resource to track your progress makes it a little bit more fun. Click on the image below to open the PDF that you can save or print.

How to Save $10,000 in a Year

Now that we’ve looked at how much you’ll need to save each week or each pay period, let’s move on to the most important topics, like how you can actually make this financial goal happen.

1. Have a Purpose

Because saving a big amount like $10,000 is not easy, it’s a good idea to have a clear understanding of why you’re taking this challenge. It’s easier to make sacrifices when you know why you’re making them or how you’ll benefit in the future.

Your purpose could be any number of different things. The only part that really matters is that it’s important to you and it’s something you’re willing to sacrifice for.

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2. Commit to It

Don’t be wishy-washy on this money-saving journey. If you’re not committed to it, you’ll be likely to take the easy way out when some challenges arise. Commit to reaching your savings goal and you’ll be more likely to make the changes needed to save the money, and ultimately, more likely to succeed.

If you’re married or with a significant other, it’s extremely helpful to have a partner who is onboard as well. If you’re single, maybe you can find a friend or family member who wants to take the challenge along with you, or at least someone who will encourage you along the way. Getting someone else involved can help for accountability, and it’s just more fun.

3. Create a Budget

If you don’t currently live based on a budget, I highly encourage you to create a budget as soon as possible. Budgeting and tracking your expenses will go a long way in getting the most out of your money and reducing unnecessary expenses. You’ll probably find some easy ways to start saving money right away.

If you’re not sure how to budget, read my article How to Create a Budget That Works that breaks down the budgeting process for you.

4. Automate the Savings

While it’s not 100% essential, automating the savings can be a really big help. The best way to do it would be to set up a direct deposit so you have some money going directly to a high-yield savings account each pay period.

Most employers that offer direct deposit will allow you to deposit to multiple bank accounts, so you could have the majority going to your checking account, and have a smaller amount going to a savings account.

If direct deposit isn’t an option, you could set up an automated transfer from your checking account to your savings account each week, bi-weekly, or each month.

The only downside of automating the savings is that you’ll need to make sure you can still cover your essential bills with the amount that’s left in your checking account. If it’s going to be really tight, you might want to opt against the automated transfer.

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5. Put the Money Someplace Safe (Where it Won’t Be Touched)

It’s essential that you don’t spend the money that you’re saving throughout the year as a result of budgeting. The best way to do it is to create a new savings account specifically for the money that you’re saving. Most online banks allow you to easily create additional savings accounts.

Keeping the money in a separate savings account makes it a lot easier to see exactly how much progress you’ve made, and to avoid spending the money. If you’re adding the money to an existing account, it’s really easy to accidentally spend it or use it for some other purpose.

6. Sell Stuff You Don’t Use

Most of us have a lot of stuff around the house that we no longer use. An easy way to quickly boost your savings is to sell things you don’t need or don’t use.

Even though you don’t use it, the item may have a decent value to someone else. Selling things like clothes, electronics, books, tools, furniture, or whatever else you have around the house can be a great boost to your savings (for ideas, see What Can I Sell?).

Fortunately, selling your stuff is actually pretty easy. You can use eBay, the Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or several other selling apps to find people who are looking for the things that you want to sell.

If you don’t have experience with selling your stuff, be sure to read my article How to Make Money by Selling Your Stuff.

7. Take Advantage of Easy Wins

When it comes to personal finance and saving money, there are a lot of what I call “easy wins”. These are ways that you can save money without spending a lot of time and without a huge impact on your life. Any time you’re looking to save money, I think it’s a great idea to start with easy wins to get the ball rolling. Here are a few ideas.

Cancel Cable

Cable TV (or satellite) is a major expense each month that you can do without. This one change can possibly save you about $100 in monthly expenses, or $1,000+ per year.

Fortunately, there are a number of really good cable alternatives. The cheapest option is to buy an antenna and get free TV. Netflix, Hulu, and Sling are all excellent options that are far cheaper than cable. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you also have a big collection of TV shows and movies available through Prime Video.

My wife and I got rid of cable about 9 years ago and we’ve never missed it. Netflix has more than enough options to meet our needs.

Switch to a Discount Cell Phone Carrier

Another big monthly expense is for cell phone or wireless service. And an easy way to reduce that is to switch to a cheaper carrier. Several years ago, my wife and I switched from a major carrier to a discounted carrier and it literally cut our monthly bill in half. It went from $140 per month to $70 per month, which comes out to a savings of $840 per year! And it’s really had no impact on our service.

We use Cricket Wireless, but there are also some other great options like FreedomPop, Mint Mobile, and Ting. If you’re not currently using a discounted carrier I would highly suggest looking into it. It’s probably the easiest money I’ve ever saved.

Look for Cheaper Insurance

Insurance is one of those monthly bills that’s easy to overlook. You set it up, and then it’s probably billed to your credit card or taken out of your checking account automatically. But it pays to check in on your insurance rates every once in a while.

Obviously, there’s a lot of competition in the insurance industry and it’s usually not too hard to find better rates than what you’re currently paying. You can use resources like Quotacy (only for life insurance) or Policy Genius to easily compare rates and find better options.

Another way to lower your insurance premium is to adjust your coverage. Take a look at your current policies and see if you are over-insured. You may be able to reduce the coverage or increase the deductible to save a significant amount of money each month.

Credit Card Signup Bonuses

Many credit cards will offer bonus money if you sign up and meet a few basic requirements. Typically, you’ll need to charge a set amount of money to the card in a given period of time (usually 90 days). If you already pay for most of your expenses with a credit card, meeting the spending requirement may be no problem at all and without wasteful spending. See the best credit card signup bonuses here.

Of course, it’s not a good idea to sign up for a card if you have to change your spending habits in order to reach the spending requirements. And if you currently have credit card debt or if you don’t feel like you have the discipline to have a credit card, you should skip this one.

Most credit card signup bonuses will be at least $100, and some will reach $500 or more. Getting a $500 bonus from a credit card would give you 5% of your savings goal of $10,000 with virtually no effort. And if you’re married or with a significant other, if both of you were to get a $500 bonus, that gives you 10% of the savings goal very easily.

The best signup bonuses tend to come from cards in one of two categories: cash back credit cards and travel rewards credit cards. You can see an updated list of the best cash back credit cards here and an updated list of the best travel rewards credit cards here.

Let Trim Reduce Your Bills

Trim is a free app that can help to save you money in a few different ways. First, Trim will analyze your spending and look for subscription payments that can be canceled. Maybe you have a gym membership that you never use or subscription box payments that you could easily do without.

But the best thing about Trim, in my opinion, is the bill negotiation service. You can allow Trim to negotiate your cable, internet, and cell phone bill on your behalf. They have a great track record of being able to lower bills. I used Trim last year and they were able to reduce my monthly Comcast bill for internet access.

Trim is free to try. If they are not able to negotiate a lower rate, you will owe nothing. If they are able to reduce your bill, they will keep 33% of what you would save during the first year. There’s really nothing to lose and it takes just a couple of minutes to sign up.

→ Sign up for Trim here.

Set Up Automatic Refunds

Paribus is a free app that can save money by getting refunds that are owed to you. Some stores and websites offer a low-price guarantee. Paribus will link to the email address that you use for online shopping, and when it sees a receipt from a store or website with a low-price guarantee, Paribus will automatically search for a lower price. If it finds a lower price or if the price drops, Paribus will automatically request a refund for the difference on your behalf.

It works.

I’ve received multiple partial refunds for purchases with no effort on my part.

The other thing that Paribus does is track shipping on purchases from Amazon. If the shipment is late, Paribus can try to help you get compensation for it. You may be able to get a small gift card or a free month of Prime.

Paribus is completely free and it takes just a minute to set up. Once it is set up, there’s no effort needed on your part.

→ Sign up for Paribus here.

Take Advantage of Passive Income Apps

The last easy win that we’ll look at is to take advantage of passive income apps and websites that offer easy money. There are a number of apps/websites that will pay you with very little effort on your part.

In general, you’re not going to make a ton of money with any one of these apps, but it can add up (and it doesn’t take much effort). Here are a few specific apps to try:

MobileXpression – MobileXpression is a research company that studies online internet usage and patterns, and they will pay you (in the form of gift cards) for access to your mobile browsing activity. They don’t collect any personal or private data. All you need to do is install it on your phone, and open the app every now and then to claim the points that you’re earning. You can earn $50 in gift cards per year.

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Drop – Drop is a cash back app that links to your credit or debit card, so you’ll earn cash back automatically when you make purchases at participating stores. They have a lot of great retailers and restaurants that participate like Walmart, Target, Walgreen’s, McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts, and many others. You can also earn more by accepting special offers that are available inside the app.

Dosh – Dosh is another cash back app that, like Drop, links to your credit or debit card. Dosh has a lot of partners, including some local stores and restaurants and the amount of cash back that you can earn is pretty good in some cases. Dosh is also offering a $1 bonus when you link your first card – sign up through this link.

Honeygain – If you sign up for Honeygain and install the app, you can make money completely passively. Data scientists pay Honeygain to use Honeygain’s network to connect to the internet. Honeygain manages the connections and pays you for your unused net traffic.

Swagbucks – Swagbucks offers several different ways to make extra cash. The passive part of the income is from earning cash back for your online purchases. Swagbucks has partnered with thousands of different stores and websites and it’s easy to earn cash back for many of the purchases you would make anyway. There are also some other active ways to make extra money, like taking surveys through the app. Swagbucks is also offering a $5 bonus if you signup through this link.

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Related reading: 27 of the Highest-Paying Apps

8. Scrutinize Your Recurring Bills

When you’re trying to save money, one of the best things you can do is lower or eliminate your recurring monthly bills. Even bills that may seem small will add up over the course of a year. Try to avoid recurring bills for anything that isn’t essential or very important to you. Sometimes you might not be able to completely eliminate a recurring subscription payment, but you may be able to reduce it by taking a cheaper option.

Earlier, I mentioned that Trim will help you to find subscription payments that can be canceled. While that can be helpful, you can also do it on your own without the help of an app. Simply go back through your credit card and bank statements and look at all of the recurring bills. Scrutinize each one to determine if it’s something you really need, or if you could reduce or eliminate it.

Things like gym memberships, subscription box services, streaming services, and website memberships can often be eliminated if you’re looking for ways to save money.

For others, entertainment can be a huge line item in the budget. If that’s the case for you, look for some free or low-cost alternatives that would still allow you to have fun without spending as much money. See our list of stay-at-home date ideas and ways to get free concert tickets.

9. Tackle the Biggest Expenses in Your Budget

If you want to make a big impact on your monthly budget and free up a lot of money for saving, one of the best things you can do is focus on the biggest expenses in your budget. All of the budget categories, the ones that tend to account for the most spending are:

Housing
Food
Car payments
Gas

There may be some others that make up a big part of your budget, but these four are at or near the top for a lot of people. Reducing your expenses in these categories may not be easy, but it can have a big impact on your budget if you are willing to make some changes.

Since we’re focused on saving $10,000 in the next 12 months, let’s consider options that can be put into practice quickly. Options for lowing your housing cost quickly could involve refinancing a mortgage (depending on your current rate) and renting out a room or part of your house. These won’t be viable options for everyone, but if either is a possibility for you, it could make a big difference for your savings.

Food is probably the easiest of these four categories for most of us to save. If you’re regularly eating meals at restaurants, an easy way to save a big chunk of money is to start preparing more of your meals at home. Aside from reducing spending at restaurants, weekly meal planning and doing your grocery shopping from a list can have a big impact. Many individuals and families are able to cut their food expenses in half by making some simple changes.

Related reading: 30 Brilliant Ways to Save Money on Groceries

If you currently have car payments, you may want to see if there is a way to get rid of that payment. Is the car essential? Are you a two-car family that could really go down to a one-car family? Do you have a car that’s far more expensive than you need?

Depending on how much you drive, gas can also be a big expense. The most significant way to cut back here is to drive less. You could carpool to work, combine errands and other trips to drive less, ride a bike or walk, and simply find more activities to do at home rather than going out.

Related reading: How to Save Money on Gas

10. Increase Your Income

When we look at how to save 10000 in a year, ways to reduce spending tend to get most of the attention. But increasing your income can also allow you to save more, assuming your living expenses remain the same.

In fact, increasing your income can have far more impact in the long run than finding ways to cut costs. You can only cut expenses so much before you run out of options, but you can always make extra cash.

The first thing you should consider is how you might be able to make more from your job, and there are a few options.

Get a raise. Getting paid more for the same amount of work is the best solution. See this article about how to ask for a raise.
Get a promotion. A higher-paying job at your current employer would allow you to save more.
Find a higher-paying job. If no promotion is available at your current employer, you may be able to find a job with another company that pays more.
Work overtime. If your job allows you to get paid for overtime, it can be an effective way to make more money.

Increasing your income through your job is the ideal solution, but it may not always be possible (or maybe you don’t want to leave your job). If that’s the case, starting a side hustle is a realistic alternative.

There are plenty of different side hustle ideas that you could pursue, but if your goal is to save money in the next 12 months, you should choose a side hustle that allows you to make money quickly. Some side hustles involve starting a business, which can be great for unlimited potential, but typically it will take a while before you start making money.

Here are some side hustles that allow you to start making money quickly.

Freelance

There are many different services that you can offer as a freelance (see this list: 25 In-Demand Freelance Services to Offer) including writing, designing, coding, and much more. Freelancing gives you the flexibility to work around your existing job and you can make a good rate for your services. It also has the potential to turn into something full-time, if that interests you.

Rent Out Your Stuff

It may not be the first side hustle that comes to mind, but renting things can be great when you’re dealing with limited time availability. You could rent a part of your house, a bedroom, office space, storage space, land for farming, your car, boat, RV, tools, baby equipment, and more. For a detailed guide, please see 20 Things You Can Rent Out for Extra Money.

Become a Flipper

Another surprisingly lucrative side hustle is to buy items at places like yard sales, thrift stores, auctions, estate sales, and flea markets and resell them. You could sell on eBay, the Facebook marketplace, or a number of other sites/apps. To learn more, please see 40+ of the Easiest Things to Flip for Profit.

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Work as a Virtual Assistant

Working as a virtual assistant (VA) is an excellent option. There are a wide variety of services that you could offer as a VA, including managing social media profiles for clients, editing blog posts, designing graphics for blog posts and social media posts, providing customer service, and much more. For more details, please see How to Become a Virtual Assistant.

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Become a Transcriptionist

If you have some typing skills, working as a transcriptionist is a perfect option. Most transcription jobs are extremely flexible and allow you to work whenever you choose. It’s great as a side hustle and won’t interfere with your life outside of work. To learn more, please read How to Become a Transcriptionist and find the best transcription jobs here.

Donate Plasma

This is another one that probably is not the first side hustle that comes to mind, but you can make good money by doing it. If you donate plasma twice per week (which is the maximum that is allowed), you can make $300 – $400 per month in extra income. That adds up to $3,600 – $4,800 over the next twelve months! To learn all of the details, please see Get Paid to Donate Plasma.

Take Surveys

Taking online surveys is generally not the most lucrative side hustle, but it can be a good way to make some extra money from your spare time. It’s extremely flexible and doesn’t require any hard work. Our favorite sites are Swagbucks, MyPoints, and Survey Junkie, but you can see a bigger list here – 11 of the Best Websites to Take Paid Online Surveys.

Final Thoughts on How to Save $10,000 in a Year

Using these strategies, you should be able to increase your income, reduce your expenses, and save more in your bank account. You can use the money to pay off student loan debt, save for retirement, establish an emergency fund, save for a house, or any number of things. Now that we’ve broken down the steps of how to save $10,000 in a year, all that’s left is to take action and make it happen.

To get started, be sure to think about your own reasons for embarking on a money-saving challenge and download our free “How to Save $10,000 in a Year” printable. In just one year, you’ll have an extra $10k in savings and your financial life will be significantly changed. Once you know how to consistently save and make the most of your money, you’ll be well on your way to financial freedom.

The post How to Save $10,000 in a Year (10 Steps to Make it Happen) appeared first on Vital Dollar.

Boxmode review – free drag-and-drop website builder

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 11:35:00 GMT

Boxmode is the new kid on the blog in the website building space. It was launched in 2020 and already making a name for itself. Namely, because you get to make a website free of charge on a domain provided by Boxmode, and if you want to use your custom domain, you subscribe to a paid plan. OK, this doesn’t sound so much different from the likes of Weebly or Ucraft.

So, what are its distinctive features? For one, a shopping cart solution is integrated. Then, you get access to the asset library powered by Unsplash. You also have access to a range of icons.

You don’t need coding skills and can build all kinds of sites such as landing pages, businesses websites, and of course online stores.

Contents

Pros and cons of Boxmode
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Boxmode for?
How easy is Boxmode to use?
Design and themes
How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Boxmode?
Integrations
What marketing tools does Boxmode provide?
- SEO
- Blogging
Payment options
Security
Customer support
Pricing
Is Boxmode the right solution for you?

Pros and cons of Boxmode

Boxmode is a one-stop shop to build and maintain your website. It gives you templates, a free domain, hosting including SSL, content management system, shopping cart, and other features with its plans.

Pros

Forever free plan
Well rounded ecommerce feature set
Affordable prices
Easy to use
Pretty solid SEO covering all pages

Cons

Limited integration
Basic blogging tool
Not for larger projects
No live chat

Who is Boxmode for?

As an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop website builder, Boxmode was developed for small business owners but also marketing and web design specialists who are developing websites or marketing campaigns for their clients.

It’s also a good place to start if you’re a novice, as you don’t need coding skills to work with the service. As always, there’s a trade-off between ease-of-use and what you can do in terms of customisability.

How easy is Boxmode to use?

Boxmode was built from the ground to be user-friendly. Hence, everything from the signup process to building and publishing your site.

From signup to launch, it takes only a few steps

Choose your template
Customise the design
Add pages
Check (and tweak) how your site looks on desktop, tablet, and mobile
Add SEO meta tags
Publish

Pick up an element and move it where you want it on your page

The drag-and-drop editor lets you add buttons, forms, and other interactive elements. It also has predesigned sections such as About Us or Testimonials to speed up the creation process. The drawback is that you don’t have a lot of basic elements, widgets, and sections to choose from.

The entire interface is well-designed and uncluttered so that it’s easy to find all the options. Nothing is hidden behind endless submenus. It’s certainly easy enough so that anyone finds their way within minutes.

Design and themes

Depending on the niche you’re operating in, you can choose a pre-designed layout for barbershop, church, or portfolio from the 22 categories. All templates are mobile-ready so that they look nice regardless of whether they’re viewed on a desktop, tablet, or mobile. The designs are clean and modern.

Modern, mobile-ready templates

How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Boxmode?

You can add a store even if you’ve only subscribed to the free plan. If you’re running a store, you can access your store manager from your store page in the drag-and-drop editor. You get all the essential tools needed to manage an online store. If you upgrade to a paid plan, you get advanced features such as

Gift cards
Discount coupons
Abandoned cart
Automated mails

You set up your store with just one mouse click. Managing your store in Boxmode is a breeze.

Integrations

Boxmode has limited integrations. At the time of writing this review, it integrates with

Mailchimp
Google Analytics
Google Tag Manager
Facebook
Hotjar

If a service provides iframes for it to be embedded, you can integrate it with your site.

What marketing tools does Boxmode provide?

If you run a store, it’s best to upgrade to a paid plan so that you can use its advanced features which include newsletters (via Mailchimp) and automated mails. You also get access to sales channels so that aren’t available on the free plan such as Amazon.

SEO

You can edit the page title, meta description, keywords, canonical link for each page. Boxmode didn’t forget products and blog posts. You can also disallow crawling links and even block the page from being indexed. Boxmode also creates a sitemap.xml and a robots.txt automatically.

Blogging

Adding a blog to your site is just like adding an ecommerce engine to your site. With just one click you get a basic blogging tool.

Payment options

You can accept payments via Stripe, Square, Paypal, or set up manual payment options so that you can also accept other payment methods such as invoices or cash on delivery. And, it’s a boon Boxmode doesn’t add a transaction fee.

Security

All websites built with and hosted on Boxmode are encrypted with an SSL certificate. A backup function is (still) missing.

Customer support

The main support is the self-help resource: A searchable help centre. If you still need help, you can contact customer support in the last paragraph in the help centre.

Pricing

Including the free one, Boxmode offers 3 plans. If you choose to pay annually, you can save 25%. The prices are fair. It’s in the ballpark of Ucraft.

If you plan on running an online store, be sure to select a paid plan so that it removes the branding and you get the advanced ecommerce features.

Compare the features

Is Boxmode the right solution for you?

Boxmode was created to be easy to use. As it’s still quite new, its feature set is still somewhat limited, particularly regarding what elements, widgets, and sections you can add to your site. This means, as long as your web project is small, Boxmode can cover your needs. But it’s not ready for larger web projects and growing companies.

If you liked reading about new website builders, sign up for our newsletter and stay ahead of the curve.

Original post here: Boxmode review – free drag-and-drop website builder

How to Use Affiliate Marketing to Drive Sales and Signups for Any Business

HubSpot Marketing — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 13:00:07 GMT

Master TikTok Marketing For Your Business | Go Viral & Increase Sales Quick!

HubSpot Marketing — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 13:15:02 GMT

13 of the Best Real Estate and REIT ETFs

Marc Andre — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 12:16:36 GMT

Many investors want to add exposure to real estate in their portfolio, and one of the most practical ways to do it is by investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) focused on real estate holdings. ETFs tend to have low expense ratios, although the details can vary significantly from one ETF to the next.

The best REIT ETFs allow investors to overcome some of the major obstacles that prevent many people from getting involved in traditional real estate investments like rental properties. Liquidity is a concern with most real estate investments, but ETFs are highly liquid since they can be bought and sold at any time, just like a share of stock or a mutual fund.

Many of the leading real estate ETFs invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs). While you can invest in individual REITs directly, buying an ETF allows you to hold an ownership interest in many different REITs, which provides better diversification and broad exposure.

It’s also possible for a real estate investor to get started with as little as $1 for a real estate or REIT ETF, overcoming the common obstacle of needing a large amount of capital to invest in real estate.

If you’re looking for a passive investment option, buying REIT ETFs may be something you should consider.

The purpose of this article is to highlight some ETFs that may be a good fit if you’re looking for a way to invest in real estate. This is not investment advice and it’s possible to lose money with these ETFs. If you have questions about your own situation, be sure to seek personalized help from a financial professional.

Related: How to Get Free Stocks

The Best Real Estate and REIT ETFs

Now, let’s take a look at some of the most popular and best-performing real estate ETFs. These ETFs are presented in no particular order, they are not ranked. Look at the details of each and see which REIT ETF might be right for you.

The details for each investment listed below are taken from ETF Database and are valid as of the day this article was published, November 18, 2021. Be sure to check the current details as they will change with time.

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1. Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ)

The Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ) is one of the most popular real estate funds with more than $40 billion in assets under management. Part of the reason for its popularity is because it offers excellent diversification through multiple asset classes. VNQ invests in many different types of real estate, including housing, office buildings, storage facilities, hotels, and more. With well over 100 holdings, VNQ is well-rounded. VNQ is primarily focused on properties that generate current income, and appreciation is secondary.

With a solid track record of excellent fund performance, broad diversification, a focus on income-producing real estate, a competitive dividend yield, and a low expense ratio, VNQ is a solid choice.

Vanguard Real Estate ETF Details

Price: $110.05
Expense Ratio: 0.12%
Annual Dividend Yield: 2.96%
1 Year Return: 31.60%
3 Year Return: 52.85%
5 Year Return: 68.67%

2. iShares Core US REIT ETF (USRT)

USRT attempts to track the FTSE NAREIT Equity REITs Index, which is made up of U.S. real estate equities (excluding infrastructure REITs, mortgage REITs, and timber REITs). At least 80% of the fund’s assets will be invested in the securities of the underlying index.

USRT stands out as one of the best REIT ETFs through a very low expense ratio of just 0.08%, which is even lower than VNQ. It’s an excellent, low-cost choice.

iShares Core US REIT ETF Details

Price: $64.85
Expense Ratio: 0.08%
Annual Dividend Yield: 2.10%
1 Year Return: 35.20%
3 Year Return: 47.95%
5 Year Return: 65.89%

3. Invesco S&P 500® Equal Weighted Real Estate ETF (EWRE)

EWRE attempts to replicate the performance of the S&P 500 Equal Weight Real Estate Index as closely as possible. This index includes stocks of companies in the S&P 500 that are real estate-focused. At least 90% of the fund’s assets will be invested in securities that make up the index.

With this fund, you’ll get a blend of large-cap and mid-cap holdings. Unlike a REIT ETF, this ETF does not invest directly in real estate. Instead, it invests in real estate stocks or companies that conduct business in the real estate industry.

Invesco S&P 500® Equal Weighted Real Estate ETF Details

Price: $40.19
Expense Ratio: 0.40%
Annual Dividend Yield: 2.91%
1 Year Return: 40.26%
3 Year Return: 61.36%
5 Year Return: 85.46%

4. Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLRE)

XLRE is a REIT ETF that attempts to track the Real Estate Select Sector Index, and at least 95% of its assets are invested in the securities that comprise the index. This includes real estate management companies and REITs, excluding mortgage REITs.

By investing primarily in large-cap U.S. real estate companies, XLRE does not offer a great deal of diversification. However, it offers a low expense ratio and could be a good choice if it fits with your real estate investment strategy.

Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund Details

Price: $48.48
Expense Ratio: 0.12%
Annual Dividend Yield: 2.89%
1 Year Return: 32.09%
3 Year Return: 61.12%
5 Year Return: 91.46%

5. iShares Residential and Multisector Real Estate ETF (REZ)

While most of the funds we’re covering focus on commercial real estate, REZ is an excellent choice if you’re looking to invest in residential REITs. This fund invests in housing, public storage REITs, and health care real estate. It tracks the FTSE Nareit All Residential Capped Index, with at least 80% of the portfolio invested in assets from the underlying index.

The expense ratio is higher than some of the other funds listed here, but REZ is a solid choice if you’re looking for a passive way to invest in residential real estate.

iShares Residential and Multisector Real Estate ETF Details

Price: $93.10
Expense Ratio: 0.48%
Annual Dividend Yield: 1.98%
1 Year Return: 36.46%
3 Year Return: 57.62%
5 Year Return: 84.90%

6. SPDR Dow Jones REIT EFT (RWR)

RWR tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Select REIT Index, with at least 80% of the portfolio invested in assets that are a part of the underlying index. With this fund, you’ll get exposure to a wide variety of publicly traded REITs for both commercial and residential real estate properties. It provides a little more diversification than some of the other funds covered here.

SPDR Dow Jones REIT EFT Details

Price: $117.55
Expense Ratio: 0.25%
Annual Dividend Yield: 3.03%
1 Year Return: 37.72%
3 Year Return: 40.86%
5 Year Return: 56.20%

7. iShares Cohen & Steers REIT ETF (ICF)

ICF tracks the results of the Cohen & Steers Realty Majors Index. This index is made up of about 30 holdings that fall into the mid-cap and large-cap ranges of U.S. REITs. At least 80% of ICF’s portfolio will be invested in assets that are a part of the Cohen & Steers Realty Majors Index.

iShares Cohen & Steers REIT ETF Details

Price: $71.50
Expense Ratio: 0.33%
Annual Dividend Yield: 1.67%
1 Year Return: 30.53%
3 Year Return: 49.93%
5 Year Return: 69.41%

8. iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF (IYR)

IYR is a REIT ETF that tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index, which includes about 100 mid-cap and large-cap REITs. At least 80% of the fund’s assets are invested in equities that make up the underlying index.

IYR is considered to be somewhat similar to VNQ, but VNQ’s expense ratio is significantly lower. Although there is some overlap in the holdings of both funds, they are weighted differently. Both IYR and VNQ provide some level of diversification.

iShares U.S. Real Estate ETF Details

Price: $110.43
Expense Ratio: 0.41%
Annual Dividend Yield: 1.69%
1 Year Return: 29.55%
3 Year Return: 49.53%
5 Year Return: 73.75%

9. Fidelity MSCI Real Estate Index ETF (FREL)

If you’re looking for an ETF that provides broad coverage of U.S. real estate, FREL could be a solid choice. It tracks the MSCI USA IMI Real Estate 25/25 Index, which generally represents the performance of real estate in U.S. equities.

The diversification of FREL is good, and the expense ratio (0.09%) is extremely low.

Fidelity MSCI Real Estate Index ETF Details

Price: $32.85
Expense Ratio: 0.09%
Annual Dividend Yield: 2.83%
1 Year Return: 31.61%
3 Year Return: 52.12%
5 Year Return: 76.75%

10. Pacer Benchmark Industrial Real Estate SCTR REIT (INDS)

INDS is one of the more unique funds on this list. It tracks the performance of the Benchmark Industrial Real Estate SCTR Index. This is a non-diversified fund that invests in warehouses, storage facilities, manufacturing facilities, and other real estate involved in the distribution of goods.

With the increasing popularity of e-commerce, partially driven by the pandemic, the need for warehouses and distribution facilities has dramatically increased in the past few years. If you believe the trend of e-commerce sales will continue to increase, the future performance of INDS is intriguing. The downside of INDS is the expense ratio of 0.60%, which is higher than any of the other funds on this list.

Pacer Benchmark Industrial Real Estate SCTR REIT Details

Price: $51.18
Expense Ratio: 0.60%
Annual Dividend Yield: 1.35%
1 Year Return: 43.53%
3 Year Return: 113.71%
5 Year Return: N/A

11. VanEck Vectors Mortgage REIT Income ETF (MORT)

MORT aims to track the results of the MVIS® US Mortgage REITs Index. Unlike other types of REITs that invest in income-generating properties, mortgage REITs invest in mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. This may include small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies.

Typically, mortgage REITs offer higher earning potential but also present a higher level of risk. The annual dividend yield of MORT is significantly higher than any of the other funds on our list, so it’s easy to see why this fund is attractive.

VanEck Vectors Mortgage REIT Income ETF Details

Price: $19.14
Expense Ratio: 0.40%
Annual Dividend Yield: 7.10%
1 Year Return: 32.04%
3 Year Return: 7.78%
5 Year Return: 33.65%

12. US Diversified Real Estate ETF (PPTY)

PPTY attempts to track the returns of the U.S. Diversified Real Estate Index (USREX). As you can tell from the name, this fund offers diversification, which will be attractive to many investors. You’ll get exposure to residential real estate, offices, and industrial properties. It’s a multi-cap ETF with holdings in companies of all sizes. You’ll get diversity in terms of property types, location, and company size.

This is a newer fund that began in 2018, so the history is limited to just a few years.

US Diversified Real Estate ETF Details

Price: $38.22
Expense Ratio: 0.49%
Annual Dividend Yield: 2.75%
1 Year Return: 33.29%
3 Year Return: 52.61%
5 Year Return: N/A

13. Nuveen Short-Term REIT ETF (NURE)

NURE is another ETF that has only been around for a few years. The fund seeks to track the results of the Dow Jones U.S. Select Short-Term REIT Index. Since the focus is investments with short-term leases, most of the holdings are REITs that focus on apartment buildings, self-storage facilities, and hotels.

With inflation becoming a more significant concern, short-term leases can be attractive because they provide the opportunity for increased rental income as rent rises. NURE has produced some of the best returns in the industry over the past year thanks to the hot real estate market and current economic conditions.

Nuveen Short-Term REIT ETF Details

Price: $38.49
Expense Ratio: 0.35%
Annual Dividend Yield: 2.05%
1 Year Return: 46.37%
3 Year Return: 58.86%
5 Year Return: N/A

Real Estate Crowdfunding

Real estate crowdfunding platforms offer another way to passively invest in the real estate sector, with many of the same benefits as real estate ETFs. Let’s quickly look at some of the leading crowdfunding platforms your might want to consider.

Fundrise

Fundrise is probably the most popular real estate crowdfunding platform, and it’s one of the best options for those who are new to real estate investing. Unlike some other crowdfunding platforms, you won’t invest in a single property or project. Instead, Fundrise pools investor money and you’ll own a share in a diversified portfolio of income-generating properties, providing instant diversification.

There’s a lot to like about Fundrise. You can invest in their starter portfolio with as little as $10, or invest at least $5,000 to get access to one of their core portfolios: income, growth, or balanced. You’ll have the option to receive dividends as cash (transferred to your bank account), or have the dividends automatically reinvested.

Fundrise also has a very user-friendly platform that makes it easy to track and manage your real estate investment. With an average return of around 8-10%, Fundrise is a solid choice for almost any investor.

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Groundfloor

Groundfloor is another popular choice for new real estate investors, and you can get started with as little as $10. The main difference between Fundrise and Groundfloor is that with Groundfloor, you’ll invest in specific properties (mostly house flips). You’ll be able to see all the details of each opportunity and choose the projects you want to invest in. Alternatively, you can set parameters and have Groundfloor automatically invest in projects that are a match.

Historically, Groundfloor has produced average returns exceeding 10% per year. These are short-term loans that are typically anywhere from a few months to one year long, so you’re money won’t be tied up for a long time.

Get $10 Towards Your First Real Estate Investment

Groundfloor makes it possible for anyone to start investing in real estate with as little as $10. Choose the projects you want to invest in and earn returns from 7-14%.

Learn More

Arrived

Arrived is a newer platform that focuses on rental properties. If you’ve always wanted to own a rental property but you don’t want the work that comes with managing property or dealing with tenants, Arrived could be the perfect solution.

It’s similar to Groundfloor in that you’ll choose the specific properties you want to invest in. Arrived allows you to earn ongoing rental income by owning a share of a rental property with an investment of as little as $100. Income investors will love the ability to earn rental income with the responsibilities of being a landlord.

Final Thoughts on the Best Real Estate and REIT ETFs

If you’re looking to add real estate exposure to your investment portfolio, consider the best real estate and REIT ETFs featured above. Instead of investing all your money in the stock market, you’ll get some diversification, along with plenty of upside potential, by investing in the best REIT ETFs. We’ve provided details to help make your decision easier, but be sure to do your own research and due diligence to find the best exchange-traded fund for your own situation.

The post 13 of the Best Real Estate and REIT ETFs appeared first on Vital Dollar.

iContact review – email marketing for SMBs

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 13:35:00 GMT

Since its inception in 2003, iContact markets itself as an easy to use email marketing service for anyone, built to take out the pain of email marketing. As you’d expect, it offers you a drag-and-drop editor so that you can create responsive emails that look good on screens of all kinds of sizes.

Although iContact has been serving small and mid-sized businesses worldwide, they’ve also garnered leading companies and organisations such as NASA.

Contents

Pros and cons of iContact
- Pros
- Cons
Who is iContact for?
iContact user interface
Campaigns
Sign up forms and landing pages
List management, segmentation, and personalisation
Automation
iContact integrations
iContact reporting
Support
Pricing
Is iContact right for you?

Pros and cons of iContact

iContact is a browser-based email marketing service with a solid set of features combined with a reasonable price plan. It comes with tools for segmentation, automation, and more.

Pros

Easy to learn interface
Reasonable pricing
Unlimited sending regardless of what plan you choose
Spell checking and spam checking tools integrated

Cons

Can be slow at times
Signing up was a frustrating process until I found out it doesn’t work when you’re using an ad-blocker
No Google Analytics integration in the free plan
The free forever plan is quite limited, especially if you want automation
Basic segmentation

Who is iContact for?

If you’re a business owner and want to have a simple yet powerful and effective way to get in front of your audience. It’s good for creating campaigns fast and hassle-free and lets you optimise them without forcing you to be glued at the computer all day to work out how to use it.

Its well-rounded feature set gives you all the essential tools you need to create, manage, and optimise your campaigns. It’s not for you if you only send a few emails per month.

iContact user interface

If you’re using an ad-blocker, you may not be able to sign up. But once you’ve overcome this hurdle, you’ll be taken to a well-thought-out dashboard. It gives you an overview of your latest email statistics and contact lists.

Dashboard gives you an overview of your recent emails stats

The interface is easy to understand and use. Its features are set up based on tasks which are Email, Landing Pages, Automation, Contacts, and File Library. If you’ve used browser-based services, the interface will feel familiar.

Campaigns

A campaign is set up in 4 steps. First, you pick a template from its gallery and customise it to your needs. Then, you select the list or segment that you want to address. And the last step is of course to send your email.

The templates gallery showcases themes

You pick a theme in the templates gallery and then choose a layout. You can also design your message from scratch. In this case, you have the choice to use the

HTML editor
Plain text editor
Import from URL

While designing your message, iContact gives you tools to

Spell check
Spam check
Send a test message
Create a split test
Export as HTML
View as plain text

If you want to re-use the mail you created, you can save it as a template.

Sign up forms and landing pages

Sign up forms and landing pages help you capture the details of your audience. For landing pages, you’ll find a dedicated section in the sidebar navigation. If you want to create a form to embed in your website or any site that allows embedded code, you’ll find the form builder under the menu item Contacts in the sidebar navigation.

iContact’s form builder

You can customise your fields as well as design attributes such as the button color or size of your form. The landing page builder looks and behaves like the email builder.

List management, segmentation, and personalisation

Everything that you need to do to manage the details of your audience can be found under the section Contacts in the left menu. To help you send the right message at the right time to the right people, you can segment your list.

You can build segments based on specific criteria such as when the contact has signed up or the activities of the subscriber. The segments are automatically updated when a contact fulfills a condition. And then you can use these segments for your automation workflows.

Automation

The automation comes in with predesigned templates that you can use for certain events such as trigger at the birth date of a subscriber or any time a person meets a condition for a segment. You can send autoresponders, email sequences, and drip campaigns. Just know that its automation is basic (following its philosophy of quick and hassle-free). But that also means you can’t build complex workflows.

iContact integrations

iContact provides integration with the major CMS and ecommerce platforms, payment gateways, and CRMs. If you can’t find what you need, you can connect it with Zapier or build your own with the help of its API.

iContact reporting

Since you can only connect your account with Google Analytics when you’re subscribed to a paid plan, you have to rely on iContact’s own reporting. The reporting includes standards such as open and click through rates, unsubscribes, and more. It also reports how your audience is growing

Support

You get live chat and email support when you’re on a paid plan. If you’re using its free plan, you’re limited to email support and self-help resources.

Pricing

A subscription in iContact is based on the number of subscribers you have. The free plan is really just so that you can experience how it is to work with the service. Even so, you can sign up without having your credit card ready, which is nice sich many want to first test the service before they have to make a buying decision.

Compare the 3 plans of iContact

Is iContact right for you?

iContact includes all the basic tools needed for email marketing. You can capture emails, design and send campaigns, and alleviate repetitive tasks with basic automation. This makes it a solid choice for business owners and individuals who don’t want to spend all day figuring out how to make the service work.

iContact is a simple email marketing that will cover the needs of most small and medium businesses, where some parts are specially tailored for beginners.

That said, even if you’re running an SMB, you may find that you reach rather sooner than later its limits, especially if you want more advanced automation. It also lacks innovations in machine learning or optimised time sending.

If you liked reading this review, join the newsletter and stay ahead of the curve.

Original post here: iContact review – email marketing for SMBs

How to Find The Best Instagram Influencers for Your Brand (2022)

HubSpot Marketing — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 12:00:05 GMT

How to Invest in Cryptocurrency: Easy Ways to Buy Crypto

Marc Andre — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 13:18:48 GMT

If you’re looking for an investment that has the potential of producing strong returns, you may want to consider cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other popular cryptocurrencies have generated incredible returns over the past few years. With blockchain technology being used in more ways, many experts believe the adoption of crypto will continue to increase.

Investing in digital currency doesn’t come without risk. Prices are extremely volatile and can swing 10%+ in a single day. However, many investors are bullish on the long-term value of Bitcoin and other crypto tokens, so it could be a good investment depending on your risk tolerance.

In this article, we’ll look at how to invest in cryptocurrency for beginners. We’ll present several specific and easy options to buy cryptocurrency (or sell).

This article should not be taken as investing advice. You’ll need to do your own research and decide if crypto is right for you based on the inherent risks. Don’t invest any money that you can’t afford to lose.

How to Invest in Cryptocurrency for Beginners

1. Public.com

Public.com is one of the best investment apps that offers commission-free trades of stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrency (crypto was added in October of 2021). There’s a lot to like about Public.com and it’s become very popular with everyday investors. It’s a very user-friendly platform that’s simple and intuitive for beginners or seasoned investors. You can buy fractional shares for as little as $1, which means anyone can get started today.

Fees are common on the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, so a platform like Public.com that offers free crypto trading is enticing.

The following cryptocurrencies are currently available through Public.com:

ETH – Ether
BCH – Bitcoin Cash
ETC – Ethereum Classic
DOGE – Dogecoin
ZEC – Zcash
XLM – Stellar
DASH – Dash
ADA – Cardano
SHIB – Shiba Inu
SOL – Solana
LUNA – Luna (Terra)
UNI – Uniswap
AVAX – Avalanche
LINK – Chainlink
MATIC – Polygon
ALGO – Algorand
SUSHI – Sushi Swap
BAT – Basic Attention Token
REN – Ren
ATOM – Cosmos
MANA – Decentraland
FTM – Fantom
GRT – The Graph

Top Pick

Get Free Stock from Public.com

Learn More

Investing in crypto with Public.com is just like investing in stocks or ETFs. Your crypto holdings will be displayed in your portfolio along with the stocks and ETFs you own. You can also add them to your long-term portfolio if you plan to hold them for more than a year.

When you’re buying and selling crypto, Public.com allows you to set limit orders to buy or sell at the price you want (just like stocks and ETFs).

Public.com also provides additional information about each cryptocurrency so you can learn more prior to making any investment decision.

You don’t need a digital wallet to hold your digital assets when investing through Public.com. They use Apex Crypto for the execution and custody services, so you don’t need to worry about things like security and private keys. According to Public.com, they’re currently working towards supporting digital wallets for users who prefer to store their own crypto.

For readers of Vital Dollar, Public.com is currently offering a free slice of stock, worth up to $70, when you sign up. To get the bonus, please sign up through this referral link.

If you’re looking for a simple solution for how to invest in cryptocurrency, Public.com could be the answer.

Offer valid for U.S. residents 18+ and subject to account approval. This is not a recommendation. You can lose money with any investment. Open To The Public Investing is a member of FINRA & SIPC. Regulatory and firm fees apply. See Public.com/disclosures/.

Get started with Public.com

2. Titan

Titan is a “premier investment firm, but for everyone.” They currently offer four different strategies or funds for individual investors, including cryptocurrency. Titan’s offering is unique and different than what you’ll find anywhere else. Their cryptocurrency investing experts handpick a portfolio that includes roughly 5-10 digital currencies based on a long-term investment strategy. I’m not aware of any other crypto funds like this.

One of the most common roadblocks that keeps people from investing in crypto is a lack of familiarity. If you like the idea of investing in cryptocurrency but you feel like you don’t know enough about it to choose the right options, Titan could be the solution for you.

Titan is also an option for anyone who wants a chance to maximize their returns by investing in up-and-coming cryptocurrencies. The experts at Titan identify opportunities for significant growth, which often involves cryptocurrencies that many people don’t know about yet. Instead of pouring all of your time into research and technical analysis, you can let Titan do it for you. It’s probably the easiest way to invest in crypto and have a chance for outstanding returns.

Titan: A Premier Investment Firm For Everyone

Titan provides world-class asset management for the average investor. You can get started with as little as $100 and get similar benefits as investing hedge funds and with robo advisors.

Learn More

Just like Public.com, Titan does not require you to store crypto in your own digital wallet. They also use Apex and you’ll see your crypto holdings in the Titan mobile app along with any investments you have in their other strategies.

Titan charges a management fee of 1% per year. You can reduce or eliminate the fee by referring your friends to their platform. Since the company was founded in 2018, they’ve produced excellent results, so the fee may or may not be an issue for you.

If you’re wondering how to invest in cryptocurrency for beginners, Titan is an excellent choice since their experts will create and manage the portfolio. It’s an ideal option for getting your first exposure to cryptocurrencies.

Get started with Titan

3. Unifimoney

Unifimoney is a unique investing app because it combines the capabilities of several different apps or platforms. Some of the features include:

Commission-free trades of stocks and ETFs
Trading of more than 30 crypto tokens
Trading of gold, silver, and other precious metals
Automated investing (like a robo advisor)
High-yield checking accounts
A credit card with rewards redeemable as gold, bitcoin, or equity
Refinancing of student loans and home loans
Home insurance and life insurance
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)

Unifimoney makes it easy for investors to purchase cryptocurrency. They use Gemini as an exchange and custodian, so you don’t need your own digital wallet. Unifimoney will store your crypto securely, just like they’ll store stocks, ETFs, or other investments.

Unifimoney frequently adds new options, but currently, they support the following tokens: BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH, ZEC, LINK, OXT, DAI, BAT, AMP, COMP, PAXG, ZRX, BAL, CRV, MANA, KNC, MKR, REN, STORJ, SNX, UMA, UNI, YFI, AAVE, FIL and now including Bancor (BNT), 1inch (1INCH), Loopring (LRC), The Sandbox (SAND), Skale (SKL), The Graph (GRT), and Enjin (ENJ).

Currently, Unifimoney is offering up to $5,000 in free bitcoin as a signup bonus. The bonus amounts range from $25 – $5,000 based on the amount you deposit. The cryptocurrency rewards credit card is also a unique feature that could allow you to grow your assets in a unique way.

Get started with Unifimoney

4. Robinhood

Robinhood is an extremely popular online brokerage that was one of the first to offer commission-free trades. Like Public.com, Robinhood allows you to buy fractional shares for as little as a $1 payment, so it’s very beginner-friendly for the retail investor.

With a free Robinhood account, you can trade stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrency. You can buy or sell Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Litecoin (LTC).

Also like Public.com (read our Robinhood vs. Public.com comparison here), you’ll be able to see your crypto, stock, and ETF holdings all together in your Robinhood portfolio. The process of cryptocurrency trading is the same as trading a stock or ETF, except you can do it 24/7.

Get a Free Stock from Robinhood!

Robinhood is a free investing app that allows you to trade stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrency with no-commission trades and no minimums. Right now you can get a free stock just for creating an account through this link.

Get a Free Stock

You don’t need your own digital wallet to own crypto with Robinhood. They’ll store it securely for you. They also provide insurance for theft or cybersecurity breaches. Currently, Robinhood does not allow you to use your own crypto wallet, but this option is coming soon.

5. BlockFi

BlockFi is an appealing option to buy cryptocurrency because you can earn interest on your crypto. They offer interest accounts that will pay you up to 8.25% APY, and of course, your interest will be paid in cryptocurrency. Instead of investing and only making money from an increase in value, you can also earn a significant amount of interest on your holdings.

You can also trade cryptocurrencies through BlockFi’s platform. Currently, you can trade BTC, ETH, LTC, PAXG, USDC, GUSD, PAX, and USDT (USDT is only available to non-U.S. residents).

The BlockFi crypto exchange allows you to start investing in crypto with as little as $20. Simply transfer money from your bank account via ACH and begin trading right away. The crypto assets you purchase will begin earning interest immediately. You can also set custom schedules for automated repeat buying.

Unlike some of the other options (Public.com for example), BlockFi charges a small fee for each transaction. There are also withdrawal limits per day. For example, you can withdraw up to 100 BTC or 5,000 ETH in a 7-day period.

BlockFi also offers a rewards Visa card that earns crypto rewards. Instead of a regular cashback credit card, you’ll be building up your cryptocurrency holdings with each purchase.

It’s important to note that the crypto savings accounts from BlockFi, just like other crypto savings account providers, are not FDIC insured.

6. Webull

Webull is an investing app that’s similar to brokers like Public.com and Robinhood. They offer commission-free trades of stocks, ETFs, and crypto. Webull currently supports the following cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Zcash (ZEC), Stella Lumens (XLM), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Cardano (ADA), Dash (DASH), and Shiba Inu (SHIB). And like several of the other platforms already mentioned, transactions are processed through Apex Crypto.

We have Public.com and Robinhood ranked higher because we find those platforms to be a little more user-friendly, but Webull is also an excellent choice.

Get a Free Stock from Webull!

Webull is a free investing app that provides advanced reporting tools and allows you to make free trades of stocks, ETFs, and options. Right now Webull is offering a free stock when you signup through this link and deposit at least $100.

Get a Free Stock

7. Coinbase

Coinbase is one of the leading crypto exchanges. Many people who are wondering how to invest in cryptocurrency turn to Coinbase because it is an industry leader. They offer a bigger selection of crypto than any of the other platforms covered here. You can store the assets in your own digital wallet, or use Coinbase’s wallet.

While Coinbase is a leading cryptocurrency exchange, there are two reasons it’s not ranked higher on our list:

Fees. Using other platforms like Public.com and Robinhood, you can trade cryptocurrency with no fees. Coinbase charges fees for each transaction.
User Reviews. Coinbase has a very low rating at TrustPilot (currently 1.6 out of 5 stars). If you read the reviews, you’ll see a lot of different complaints from Coinbase users.

The Coinbase fees aren’t the most transparent or easy to figure out because there are multiple factors that can influence the fee you’re charged. Those factors include the payment method, size of the order, and market conditions.

Active traders may be interested in a Coinbase Pro account, which involves a small monthly fee and then lower fees per transaction.

8. Buy Stock

Investing in cryptocurrency doesn’t necessarily require you to own or hold crypto. Another option is to invest in publicly traded companies (or a mutual fund) that are involved in the industry, instead of directly buying a crypto asset. The stock price of these public companies will be heavily influenced by what’s going on with Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as other cryptocurrencies.

Some of the top crypto stocks include:

Coinbase (COIN)
Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA)
Square (SQ)
PayPal (PYPL)
Nvidia (NVDA)
MicroStrategy (MSTR)
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

To invest in any of these stocks, simply use Public.com or your preferred online brokerage.

9. ETFs

In October 2021, the first Bitcoin-related exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were approved. The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) has the distinction of being the first, but a few similar funds followed shortly behind. Instead of investing directly in Bitcoin, these ETFs track Bitcoin futures.

As an investor in a Bitcoin ETF, you won’t technically own cryptocurrency. Instead, you’ll hold an asset that is directly influenced by the value of Bitcoin.

Investing in a crypto ETF is easy. ETFs can be purchased through brokerages like Public.com, Robinhood, and Unifimoney.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can a beginner invest in cryptocurrency?

The easiest way to get started with a crypto investment is an app/brokerage like Public.com or Robinhood. We like Public.com because it’s very user-friendly and they offer a bigger selection of crypto tokens. You can start with as little as $1 and there are no fees for buying crypto. You’ll simply transfer funds from your bank to Public.com and then purchase the crypto just like you would buy a stock. Crypto wallets are not needed if you’re investing through Public.com as they will securely store the crypto for you.

Which cryptocurrency is best for beginners?

There’s no definitive answer to this question as it depends on your situation and your goals. Bitcoin is a popular choice for beginners because it’s the most popular and most established cryptocurrency. Ethereum is also a popular choice. If you’re looking for the potential to get massive gains, you may prefer to go with a smaller up-and-coming option. But be aware that you could also wid up losing your money.

How much does it cost to buy cryptocurrency?

You can get started with as little as $1 by purchasing through Public.com or Robinhood. If purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other crypto token with a value over $1, you’ll get a fractional share.

How can you convert Bitcoin to cash?

You can sell your Bitcoin or other crypto assets to convert to cash. The apps and brokerages listed above make it easy to sell. It’s essentially the same as selling a stock, except you’re not limited to stock market hours since crypto can be bought or sold 24/7.

Can you transfer Bitcoin to a bank account?

You’ll need to convert cryptocurrency assets to cash (sell it) before transferring to a traditional bank account. Alternatively, you could use BlockFi as a bank account equivalent. You can earn interest on crypto assets held in a BlockFi account, but be aware that this account is not FDIC insured like a typical checking or savings account with a bank.

Will crypto make me rich?

Many people have made millions of dollars by investing in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, but past results are not an indication of future success. Crypto is a volatile asset. You might make a lot of money, or you might lose your money. Be sure to do your own due diligence before investing.

Do you pay taxes on bitcoin gains?

Yes, when you realize a gain on bitcoin or another cryptocurrency investment, you’ll be responsible for paying taxes, just like any other investment or asset.

How to Invest in Cryptocurrency: Final Thoughts

Cryptocurrency is an intriguing asset class that more and more investors are turning to. With the growing popularity of blockchain technology and NFTs, digital currency is something you may want to consider. If you’re wondering how to invest in cryptocurrency, thankfully, there are multiple solutions There are a growing number of ways to invest in crypto, either directly or indirectly.

We’ve covered what we think are some of the top options to buy cryptocurrency, but be sure to do your own research. Crypto is highly volatile and while there’s a significant upside, it’s possible that you’ll lose a lot of money with these speculative investments. Be sure you’re comfortable with the risks before making financial decisions like purchasing crypto.

The post How to Invest in Cryptocurrency: Easy Ways to Buy Crypto appeared first on Vital Dollar.

How To Sell Products On Instagram in 2022 (Tips That Work!)

HubSpot Marketing — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 12:00:20 GMT

20+ Microtask Websites That Pay You for Micro Jobs

Lorraine Smithills — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 11:15:00 GMT

If you’re looking for a side gig, but need something ultra-flexible to fit around your current schedule, you may want to consider microtasking.

As the name suggests, microtasks are small tasks or jobs that are performed in a matter of seconds or a few minutes. The best microtask websites allow you to work during the gaps in your schedule without getting too involved in something that would distract you from other obligations.

Here we’ll explore the websites for microtasking and how you can use these online micro jobs as a side hustle.

How Much Money Can I Make from Microtask Websites?

Microtasks are not the highest-paying side gig in terms of hourly wage. Many tasks only offer a few cents or less, but the strength of this opportunity is that it’s highly flexible and anyone can do it. Generally, you won’t need any previous experience (just basic computer skills), so you can jump straight in and start completing micro tasks for money.

Typical microtask jobs include basic proofreading, testing games, writing reviews, testing apps, sorting email, content moderation, and URL searches.

Most microtaskers earn a fairly low hourly rate. While it’s not the best option for someone wanting to make a significant amount of cash, if you need the flexibility in your side gig, it’s possible to earn $50 to $100 per week or more without any specific time commitment.

Also, you can start immediately. Sign up now and complete your first microtask job in a few minutes. Some other side hustles require more significant time investments or a waiting period before you’ll be able to start making money.

Best Microtasking Sites for Micro Jobs

With so many micro job sites available, it can be tricky to determine which ones are legit and represent decent earning potential. So, here are some of the best microtask sites.

1. Clickworker

Clickworker is a microtasking website that hires independent contractors who provide services using their own computers. The platform has a standard web browser that allows you to complete tasks, which are usually a part of a more complex, larger project.

Clickworker has a sophisticated platform that allows its team to coordinate and oversee tasks for optimum workflow. The projects may include processing data, text translations, web investigations, and tagging.

According to Clickworker, workers can earn an average of $9 per hour, but if you have experience and concentration, you could boost this to “well over” $10.

2. Mechanical Turk

Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a branch of Amazon and is one of the original employers offering micro jobs. Amazon Mechanical Turk offers HITs or Human Intelligence Tasks. You can choose specific tasks and complete them for the listed fee. This can include image processing, information gathering, data verification, and data processing.

The tasks are posted by “Requesters,” and they may require that you take a test or obtain a “qualification” to ensure you have the aptitude for specific tasks. The payment for each short task is typically quite low, so you’re not likely to earn more than 10 cents per minute.

Additionally, the requester needs to approve the quality of your work. So, you do need to be careful when you’re choosing tasks, so you only select ones you have the skills to do well and quickly.

Overall, MTurk is one of the most well-known microtasking sites, partly because it is owned by a world-famous company, Amazon.

3. Swagbucks

If you like the idea of getting paid to share your opinion or review items, Swagbucks is a great microtask platform. You’ll earn SBs, which are Swagbucks’ point system for each small task. While primarily the tasks are online surveys, you can also earn SBs for playing games, watching videos, online shopping, and surfing the internet.

Once you accumulate sufficient points, you can redeem them for PayPal cash or your choice of gift cards, including Amazon gift cards and Google Play credits, with a minimum payout of just $3. Currently, you need approximately 2,200 SBs for a $25 Google Play gift card. There are also introductory bonuses for new users.

While there are several microtask apps, Swagbucks is our favorite because there are so many different ways to earn money or rewards. And you’ll probably even find that using Swagbucks is fun.

Swagbucks - Easily Earn Extra Money in Your Spare Time

Get $5 Sign Up Bonus

4. Survey Junkie

Another GPT (get paid to) site like Swagbucks is Survey Junkie. As the name suggests, the microtasks are primarily online surveys, and it’s one of the most popular survey sites. Surveys typically pay $0.20 to $3.50 and can take up to 30 minutes to complete. Generally, the longer the survey, the more pay you’ll be offered.

Other online tasks can pay $0.25 to $1, depending on the complexity. For example, if you complete your profile or install a browser, it will only take a few seconds, but you can earn $0.25 or more.

Once you reach 1,000 points or the minimum payout of $10, you can cash out your earnings via PayPal or gift card.

Survey Junkie - Make Money By Taking Surveys

Survey Junkie is one of the best websites for making money by taking online surveys. Earn your choice of cash of gift cards in your spare time.

5. InboxDollars

Like Survey Junkie and Swagbucks, InboxDollars is another GPT or micro job website (Swagbucks and InboxDollars are owned by the same parent company). You’ll be paid cash for performing normal online activities or tasks. You can earn taking surveys, reading emails, watching videos, playing games, and other micro jobs. You can also earn cashback on your online shopping and get coupons for groceries and other items.

InboxDollars does not use a points system, so you can see the cash earning potential of each task before you begin. You can earn anywhere from $0.10 to $5 per task.

The InboxDollars minimum cashout is a rather steep $30, but you can claim your earnings via PayPal, check, or gift card.

InboxDollars - Earn Money from Surveys and Other Easy Tasks

Earn cash easily in your spare time by taking simple online surveys, watching videos, playing games, printing coupons, and more. Plus, you'll get a $5 bonus when you sign up today.

6. KashKick

KashKick is a microtask website that works with companies that are keen to obtain feedback and get deals in front of potential customers. With an internet connection and some time, KashKick will take care of all the other details.

Once you sign up, the platform makes it easy to find and complete “missions.” From answering surveys to watching videos, surfing the web, and looking through deals, there is no limit to how many tasks you complete.

One area where KashKick stands apart is that you can cash out easily and often. The platform has one of the lowest payment thresholds, and you can receive your cash via PayPal from $5.

KashKick - Make Money from Surveys and Simple Tasks

KashKick allows you to make money easily in your spare time by taking online surveys, watching videos, surfing the web, and other simple tasks.

Get Started

7. Microworkers

Microworkers currently has over 1.4 million workers and has accumulated over 42 million microtasking jobs. The online tasks include completing surveys, ad monitoring, data entry, and categorization.

You’ll receive a start rating as you complete each task, and having a higher rating will allow access to a greater array of tasks. You’ll need to reach $9 in earnings before you can cash out. Payments are processed twice a week via Transpay, Dwolla, or PayPal.

As one of the more popular and active micro job sites in the industry, Microworkers is one you should try if you want to get paid for microtasks.

8. Spare5

As the name suggests, Spare5 allows you to complete simple tasks in your spare five minutes throughout the day. These microtask jobs can be completed on a PC or Mac. They include assessing the tone, meaning, or attitude of audio files, annotating images, providing keywords, or isolating elements.

Spare5 provides tasks, which you will need to complete and then get paid. Payments are sent out weekly on a Friday via PayPal, so you’ll need to link an active PayPal account to your profile during setup.

9. Fiverr

Fiverr is a little different from many of the websites we’ve listed here and is not a typical micro task website. You can earn cash by using your existing skillset and interests for higher-paying tasks. You’ll need to design a gig and post it on the Fiverr platform. You can also create a package of extras and charge higher fees.

There are almost endless possibilities for what you can offer on Fiverr to make real money online, but common options include things like writing, graphic design, SEO, link building, video endorsements or testimonials, product reviews, voiceovers, and more.

If you’re not sure what you can offer or how you should price your services, browse the site to get some ideas. To date, Fiverr has facilitated over 50 million gigs.

Although there are many lower-priced gigs on Fiverr, the income potential is unlimited. It’s possible to get paid to complete tasks and make good money on Fiverr if you have some skills that are in demand. When you complete the gig, you’ll receive 80 percent of the fee, as Fiverr takes a 20 percent commission.

10. Zeerk

Zeerk markets itself as a micro job and freelancer portal. You can browse or offer gigs that range from $3 to $200 per task. This makes Zeerk an alternative to Fiverr, with a great focus on micro jobs.

The tasks vary, but you’re likely to see lots of freelancers offering to sell followers, likes, and upvotes on social media platforms.

Despite these questionable gigs, Zeerk is often less competitive than Fiverr, so it could be a good alternative.

11. Appen

Appen, one of the largest and most popular microtask websites, advertises that users will find jobs they love and help to solve big problems to shape the future. The list of microtasks on this site range from a basic survey to ongoing projects that could last for weeks or months.

Appen does look for a variety of skills. This can range from regular social media users to holders of a linguistics degree. Available opportunities may include search media evaluation, translation jobs, social media evaluation, transcription jobs, data collection and linguistics specialties.

The average hourly rate of pay ranges from $9 per hour to $30 per hour, depending on the complexity of the task and the required skill set.

12. Lionbridge

Lionbridge is a similar company and microtask platform as Appen. The tasks include website testing, search engine evaluation, quality rating, transcription, and translation. If you’re having difficulty finding work on Appen, Lionbridge is a good alternative.

However, you should be aware that it is against the Terms of Service to simultaneously work for Lionbridge and Appen, so you’ll need to choose one or the other.

You can expect to earn $8 to $14 per hour, depending on the task. Just be aware that the microtask jobs and working hours can be just as volatile as Appen.

13. FancyHands

FancyHands is one of the most popular platforms for the gig economy. It’s particularly good if you want to find work as a virtual assistant. Virtual assistant jobs on FancyHands include scheduling appointments, data entry jobs, making travel arrangements, and making calls on behalf of a client.

Being a VA is considered one of the higher-paying micro jobs, making it an easier way to scale your income and develop a decent-paying side hustle. The great thing is that you can work for multiple VA clients, to create a part-time or even full-time income.

The FancyHands tasks typically pay $3 to $7, but if you work with the same client, there is the potential to earn more. Payments are made twice a week via Dwolla. However, you need to have an audio headset to get jobs on the platform.

14. GrindaBuck

GrindaBuck is a rewards site where you can complete a variety of minor tasks. This includes taking surveys, participating in offers, watching video clips, and Paid to Click. The latter task requires that you visit websites from a list and remain on the site for less than a minute. You’ll only earn one cent for this task, but it is remarkably easy.

You can receive your earnings via Bitcoin, PayPal, or gift cards. After your first redemption of at least $10, you can cash out at any time as long as you have money in your account. You can expect to receive your funds in less than 12 hours after cashing out.

15. Field Agent

Field Agent specializes in market research tasks. The platform helps companies explore their brand visibility and store functions. You may be tasked to check product prices, give your opinions on specific products, answer questions about competitor marketing, or verify if a special display is correctly set up.

Tasks typically pay $3 to $20, depending on the complexity of the task and the time required. You will accumulate earnings on your account until you’re ready to cash out. There are no minimum redemption levels, and you can request a prepaid debit card or bank transfer.

16. ySense

ySense is a mix of micro task website and survey platform. You can make money online participating in surveys, watching videos, or downloading offers. This allows for jobs for everyone according to your interests and preferences.

The tasks can earn you anything from a few cents to a couple of dollars, depending on the difficulty level. You’ll also receive a $5 bonus for every $50 of tasks you complete. There are also contests where you could win $50 in the weekly draw.

You can redeem your earnings via PayPal or with a variety of gift card options. The redemption rewards start at just $3.

17. Remotasks

Remotasks is a more recent entry in the world of microtask websites, and they typically pay less than companies such as Lionbridge and Appen on average. However, the entry requirements are less stringent, and the tasks tend to be less complex.

You can earn money online performing tasks such as data collection, moderating content, transcription, image annotation, and identifying spam. You’re likely to earn less than $10 per hour, but payments are made via PayPal, so you can quickly access your earnings.

18. Task Rabbit

Task Rabbit is a little different than many of the microtasking websites we’ve listed here, as you can use it to find offline jobs in your local area. This can include delivering packages, cleaning, gardening, food deliveries, and other errands in your neighborhood or nearby locations.

You can also register to get email or mobile alerts of tasks that come up in your locality.

The average Task Rabbit worker earns $110 per month, but if you live in an area where demand is high, you may be able to earn far more.

19. EasyShift

EasyShift allows you to connect to “shifts” or work in stores in your local area. You can get paid to eat, shop, or otherwise explore your city. There are new shifts every day, and you can simply search the map to find and reserve a shift that appeals to you. Each shift typically requires less than 15 minutes, and you can earn $4 to $20 per shift.

You’ll receive payment for your shifts as a direct deposit in your PayPal account approximately 48 hours after the shift is approved.

There is no application process to join EasyShift, and you can work flexible hours to suit your schedule. There are also additional “perks” when you complete various shifts.

20. GigWalk

GigWalk operates completely through its app. You don’t need to log onto a website to fill a timesheet or send any emails. All you need to start earning is the app and a compatible mobile phone.

You can browse the list of gigs and choose the ones that are of the most interest to you. These can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours, and you can earn $3 up to $100 per gig.

The GigWalk app links to your PayPal, so each time you finish a micro task and your work is approved, you’ll receive a direct payment.

21. appJobber

AppJobber is a crowdsourcing site that provides a fast and cost-effective way to collect commercial data. As a worker on the platform, you’ll be asked to complete microtasks on your smartphone.

Most of the tasks are geared towards retail, so you may need to take pictures of certain retailers, confirm the price of the day from a specific retailer, validate addresses, or even check on local road networks.

You’ll earn at least $1 per task, but you will need to leave your home for most tasks. However, if you’re already out and about in your local area, the tasks should be easy to slot into your day.

22. Humanatic

Humanatic is a company that listens, reviews, and sorts phone calls that need to be examined for various businesses to assess quality assurance. As a “Human” or contractor for the platform, you’ll be required to listen to calls and put them in the correct category. This is a relatively simple task, but it does require good attention to detail and some patience.

Your earning potential depends on the call category you specify. The lowest paying categories offer $0.06 to $0.10 per task. However, you will be allocated an accuracy rating, which will earn you a higher rate of pay. Payments are processed every Monday via PayPal, but you need to have a minimum of $10 in your account, or you’ll need to wait until the next pay cycle.

23. 25Clicks

25Clicks (formerly PartTimeClicks) allows you to earn cash performing simple internet research micro gigs. Most of the tasks involve Google searches, clicking on results, and providing page feedback. However, you can work wherever and whenever you work, providing you remain in the U.S.

You’ll get paid for every task you complete, and you can expect to earn $0.20 to $0.40 per task. The tasks typically take less than a minute, but you may receive an invite to write a review that will take longer, but will earn you $5.

Although there are limited tasks on the site, there is no minimum payout, and you’ll get paid by PayPal each Friday.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are microtask jobs?

Microtasks are small jobs that can be completed in just a few minutes or less. Most of them can be done online. It’s a very flexible, although not very lucrative, way to make extra money in your spare time.

Are micro jobs worth it?

It depends on your situation. Microtasking certainly isn’t a side hustle that offers high income potential that you’ll get with another online job, but it does provide infinite flexibility and anyone can do it (no experience or particular skill required). If you’re looking to maximize your income and you have other options, short task sites may not be your best option. But if you’re looking for a flexible way to make extra money whenever you have a few minutes to spare, micro job sites could provide the right side hustle.

How much do micro jobs pay?

It depends on the task and the platform, but most will pay less than $1 per task. You’ll need to complete a lot of tasks to earn a decent amount of money, but thankfully, each task can be completed very quickly.

Where can I find legitimate micro jobs?

The sites we’ve covered in this article are your best options. Clickworkers and Mechanical Turk are the biggest in the industry. Appen and Lionbridge are also popular, but the availability of work is not constant.

How much does Appen pay for microtasks?

The average worker will earn anywhere from $2.50/hr to $10/hr.

How much do Clickworkers make?

Clickworker users make an average of about $8/hr.

How much do Mechanical Turk workers make?

Workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) earn about $2/hr – $8/hr.

Final Thoughts on Microtask Websites

As you can see, there are some legit microtask opportunities out there. You certainly won’t earn a high hourly rate, but you’ll love the flexibility and the possibility to earn extra cash whenever you have a few minutes to spare. Check out the different options on our list of websites for micro jobs, and you’re sure to find something that interests you and can offer the opportunity for additional income. Microtasking isn’t for everyone, but it can be a good fit in the right situation.

The post 20+ Microtask Websites That Pay You for Micro Jobs appeared first on Vital Dollar.

The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Sales Process - Sandler Training

HubSpot Marketing — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 14:00:23 GMT

Payhip review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 11:35:00 GMT

If you’re looking to sell digital goods, you don’t necessarily need all the bells and whistles of the usual shopping cart software. You don’t need certain features such as a way to print shipping labels but on the other hand, you need a way to allow downloads only to those who’ve paid.

Payhip is a shopping cart software geared towards people who sell digital products such as ebooks, music, in short, all types of digital files. When you look at shopping cart software, on the one hand, you can take a self-hosted solution such as WooComerce and on the other hand, you can use an all-in-one service such as Squarespace.

Payhip takes from both worlds: It’s both an all-in-one service and you can use it to embed it into your (self-hosted) site to sell your work. It was founded in 2011 in London by Abs Farah and Kahin Farah.

Contents

Pros and cons of Payhip
- Pros
Cons
Who is Payhip for?
How easy is Payhip to use?
Payhip design
How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Payhip?
Payhip integrations
What marketing and SEO tools does Payhip have?
- Blogging
Payment options
Payhip security
Payhip customer support
Payhip pricing
Is Payhip the right tool for you?

Pros and cons of Payhip

Although Payhip is best known as an ecommerce platform for digital goods, you can also sell physical products.

Pros

It’s free to sign up with a forever free plan
Easy to set up and use
Fair pricing
You have different marketing tools such as upsell, cross-sell, coupons, and affiliates, out of the gates
You can embed your store in your website or other platforms
No limits on products and revenue for all 3 plans (but charges transaction fees)
EU VAT is handled for you

Cons

Limited integrations
No SEO features

Who is Payhip for?

Selling digital goods can make an awesome revenue stream if you’re a blogger, musician, author, photographer, that is if you’re a creator. It’s a great way to monetise your expertise.

How easy is Payhip to use?

Signing up for an account was a breeze. You’re welcomed by a 3 step wizard that helps you set up your account so that you’re ready to sell. The user interface is clean and uncluttered making it very easy to learn and navigate.

3 step wizard to help you set up your account

You can customise your store with Payhips editor. You can add more sections and products. Once you’re done, you can connect it to your domain.

Payhip design

The design is modern, very clean, almost simplistic but does the job well in putting your products centre stage. You can customise the colour and fonts.

Payhip store editor

How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Payhip?

If you’re considering Payhip, it’s safe to say that most of your products are digital. Payhip supports all kinds of digital files, including software, media files, font files, and more.

You can find all you need to manage your products in the tab Products. And should you also have physical products, you can add SKU and weight. You even can set up shipping rates for different regions. Which brings us to EU VAT. You’ll be happy to know that you can set the tax rates for different countries and even let Payhip handle digital products EU VAT automatically for you.

Payhip’s product editor

With digital goods, you may possibly become a victim of copyright infringement or illegal distribution. To prevent this, Payhip gives you the option to limit how many times a customer can download a product. The other way to protect your products is to stamp the PDF with the email to the customer.

Payhip integrations

Payhip integrates with the known email service providers such as Aweber or Mailchimp so that you can automatically add new customers to your mailing list.

You can also use the always handy Swiss Army knife Zapier to integrate with other services or create your own custom-made integrations with webhooks.

What marketing and SEO tools does Payhip have?

If you’re using Payhip as your storefront, you’ll want to track its performance. For that, you can add your Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel. As for SEO, everything is generated for you.

To help with your marketing efforts, Payhip has put together the following tools under the tab Marketing

Coupons
Social discounts
Affiliates
Mailing lists
Cross-selling
Referral
Upgrade

Blogging

For Payhip, blogging belongs to your storefront. So, you’ll find its blogging tool under the section Store. Writing a blog post feels the same as adding a product. It has the same easy-to-use interface. Just don’t expect that you have advanced blogging features such as scheduling a post.

Payment options

You can connect your account with Paypal and Stripe to accept payments. The usual Paypal and Stripe fees apply.

Payhip security

Your pages are secured with an SSL certificate. Paypal also helps you protect yourself from copyright infringement or illegal distribution.

Payhip customer support

Even with such an intuitive interface, you can still get stuck from time to time. If you’re working in the backend, you’ll always find the chat icon to contact support. They usually answer within a few hours. There’s also a searchable help centre.

Payhip pricing

It’s nice to see that all 3 plans include all features and don’t limit products or revenue. The higher you go, the lower the transaction fee gets.

Including the free plan, you get to choose from 3 subscriptions

Is Payhip the right tool for you?

Payhip makes it easy for anyone to start selling digital goods without worrying about a monthly fee or about the technical stuff.

It’s great to test a new product without much overhead.

As Payhip is focusing on digital goods, it doesn’t provide tools optimised for selling tangible goods. So, you’re better of with an all-rounder shopping cart such as Squarespace or Ecwid if you want to embed it.

If you enjoyed this post and want to start your own online store, get my newsletter.

Original post here: Payhip review

How To Write Amazing Ad Copy | Google Expert Reveals Top Tips (2022)

HubSpot Marketing — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 13:15:01 GMT

3 Affordable AI Marketing Tools To Create Dynamic Ad Copy (AI Copywriting)

HubSpot Marketing — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 13:00:35 GMT

Is it all doom and gloom with the looming cookie death?

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 01 Nov 2021 12:35:00 GMT

You might have heard how Apple’s operating system is limiting companies’ abilities to track people around the web, most notably Facebook. This is how its Safari browser blocks tracking cookies. Firefox is also blocking these by default and Google’s Chrome browser will do too in 2022.

The questions on all our minds as marketers and advertisers are what can we do without third-party cookies? And what does this mean for everyday users? Will it break digital campaigns that rely on audience targeting? Does this mean the end of retargeting ads? Wait why did the term third-party cookies sneak in here?

Contents

What are cookies?
First and third-party cookies
How do browsers treat cookies?
Cookies are messy or why third party cookies are problematic
What does it mean for digital marketing?
Ready to future-proof your digital marketing?

What are cookies?

A cookie is a tiny data file stored in your browser as you surf the web. It keeps track of your browsing activities, such as which website pages you viewed. They can also help pre-fill some form fields (e.g. name, email, etc).

Cookies make browsing the internet convenient: A website that remembers where you left off, your language preferences, or products added to your shopping cart is helpful. Imagine how cumbersome it would be without these kinds of cookies. You’ll have to manually enter your login details each and every time you visit a website or if you accidentally close the tab, re-add items to the cart.

But it’s not these kinds of cookies that are phased out. It’s the third-party cookies.

First and third-party cookies

First-party cookies are used to remember your login details, website preferences, products added to your shopping cart, or pre-populate some form fields. They’re created and stored by the website you’re currently visiting to provide a good user experience and to allow the website owner to collect analytics data. So, it’s up to the website owner to decide what information to collect and store.

The main downside to first-party cookies is that they can only be read when a user visits the site. This is the reason why they’re not useful for advertising or retargeting on other websites.

Third-party cookies are also a small piece of data stored in your browser. But they’re not created by and not stored by the website you currently visit. They also keep track of your browsing activities and your behaviour.

They’re used by a third party which also explains the name. Their purposes are for advertising, retargeting, analytics, tracking, and adding additional functionality such as live chat. They’re placed on a website through a script or tag.

Third-party cookies can track users across many websites and collect long-term browsing history. Suppose you’re viewing a pair of boots on Amazon. Now, a third-part cookie keeps track of what you’ve viewed, what products you clicked or added to your shopping cart.

This way, what you’ve viewed on Amazon follows you around on the web. That’s what’s called retargeting or remarketing. Amazon is not the only company using them. You’ll not be surprised to know that many social media sites and search engines as well as publishers use them.

Of second-party cookies you don’t hear much, because they’re not considered cookies. Cookies are either first or third-party cookies. That is they’re either stored by the website you’re visiting or by another domain, third-party.

How do browsers treat cookies?

Considering the business models behind each browser, they all have different goals. This can be seen with first-party cookies. Even though they’re supported, some limit their lifespan.

Firefox and Safari are blocking third-party cookies. But considering that Apple sells products, it can adapt the position for privacy and against tracking.

Google’s business model relies on collecting data about consumers. So Google Chrome’s goal is to block third-party cookies without impairing its advertising business.

Don’t forget that

users can block or delete first-party cookies
they can install browser plugins and ad blockers such as Ghostery
when they surf in incognito mode, browsers don’t load third-party cookies

Cookies are messy or why third party cookies are problematic

Instead of the dreaded fear of loss, why not justify its loss by saying it wasn’t that great anyway?

Ok, ok, with third-party cookies, brands could create user profiles based on their online behaviour and activities. But that’s problematic in many ways.

The third-party cookies are often set by brands the user has never heard of. The actual data collection process is not known, shady. Moreover, these cookies then need to be synced with cookies data of the various data management platforms so they know when they’re dealing with the same user. This process is not as precise as you may think.

Cookies are not person-specific. If you’re sharing a device or allowing your children to play on your laptop or phone, the next thing you know, you’re bombarded with Fortnite or Minecraft messaging. Cookies are device-specific which means that as a marketer, you may paying for impressions that are not even seen by the target audience.

Also, do you use only one device only? Is it not so that you use multiple devices interchangeably during the day? Third-party cookies can’t hop over from one device to another. This means, the user journey is not fully tracked and conversions may not be correctly attributed.

All of these mean that you may very well be wasting your ad budget or missing opportunity.

What does it mean for digital marketing?

Third-party cookies provide live chat and social media buttons, but their main task is tracking used for remarketing. This means that behavioural targeting with remarketing campaigns as the core of your marketing strategies needs to be evolved, since it’ll play a smaller role when third-party cookies are scrapped.

It’s not all doom and gloom. First party cookies are still safe and going to be more valuable than ever. You can see what a user did while visiting your website, see how often they visit it. In short, it gives you basic analytics that can help you develop your marketing strategy. The downside is that you’re flying blind regarding their activities on other websites.

If you’re using Google products such as Google Analytics and Google Ads, you can still make use of behavioural tracking cookies within the universe of Google products. Even if Google is scrapping cross-site tracking and targeting across the open web when Chrome blocks third-party cookies, advertisers can still target ads on non-Google sites through Google.

You can still target ads on Google assets such as on the search engine results page or YouTube, using your first-party data, or when someone is logged into their Google account. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to know more.

Ready to future-proof your digital marketing?

The death of the third-party cookie might be sharing up digital marketing, but it really isn’t a surprise in the wake of all the new regulations for privacy (GDPR) or the latest iOS update.

Connect with me if you need expert advice and guidance in your digital marketing during the transition.

Original post here: Is it all doom and gloom with the looming cookie death?

Facebook Is Now Meta | Everything You Need To Know About Metaverse

HubSpot Marketing — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 14:57:01 GMT

Ontraport review – is the all-in-one marketing tool overwhelming?

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 13:35:00 GMT

It’s not enough to just launch a website, do some SEO and if there’s a budget buy some advertising, and then expect that people will just come and hopefully buy whatever it is you’re offering.

Nowadays, it takes on average 32 touch points until someone converts from being interested into a paying customer. This means you need to go where your target market is to educate about your product and services.

And for that, you need the right tools. Cue in Ontraport. It’s the classic email marketing service that also offers a page builder and forms so that you can build a customer journey with the required steps.

As is with many of these services, Ontraport was created by Landon Ray, the founder, to scratch his own itch. Started in 2006, it has grown to support SMEs in marketing automation, customer relationship management (CRM), Ecommerce, and payments with over 120 team members.

Ontraport is more of an all-in-one marketing service with a focus on CRM. Its CRM covers the complex customer journey or in its lingo customer life cycle.

Contents

Pros and cons of Ontraport
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Ontraport for?
Ontraport user interface
Campaigns
Sign up forms, landing pages, and funnels
List management, segmentation, and personalisation
Automation
Ontraport integrations
Ontraport reporting
Support
Pricing
Is Ontraport right for you?

Pros and cons of Ontraport

Ontraport is a multi-channel marketing automation service with a built-in CRM that allows you to track your audience as they journey down your funnel. You access its service via your browser and pay a monthly subscription fee based on the number of contacts you have.

Pros

CRM with lead scoring
Landing pages and forms available on all plans
Email and land page templates mobile ready
Even with many features, the interface is intuitive
Systems the funnel wizard will build your funnels automatically after you’ve answered a few questions

Cons

Price creep since it’s based on the numbers of your contacts
Only works in Firefox or Chrome (or any Chrome-based browser)

Who is Ontraport for?

Both the feature set as well as the pricing structure suggest that Ontraport is more useful for SMEs. For SMEs, the CRM and landing pages come in more handy than for large organisations. That being said, it’s flexible enough to work for almost all business types and sizes.

Particularly, if you sell information products or run any kind of educational or training site, Ontraport is a good starting point, since you don’t need to cobble together your funnel from different tools and providers. For the same reasons, it’s also interesting if you run an online store.

Ontraport user interface

As with many email marketing automation providers you need to provide your real business name, URL, address, and phone for anti-spam regulations. After you’ve keyed in your URL, Ontraport will quickly scan your website to find your logo and brand colours.

Given that its focus is on the CRM, the first time you log into your account, you’ll land in the tab “Contacts”. You’ll also see that in the other tabs “Pages”, “Task”, “Sales”.

The first time you land on a tab, you’ll see a short onboarding tutorial

The interface is logically structured and you’ll find the controls well grouped and clearly labelled without any cryptic icons. That being said, the more features an application has, the more you got to learn.

Campaigns

You’ve got 3 kinds of campaign Ontraport. The first is as you’d expect messages. Ontraport lumps emails, tasks, and SMSs into messages. The second type of campaign is forms.

The third kind of campaign is just “Campaigns”. But these are actually entire funnels with automations.

Searchable and sortable email template gallery

Both in the case where you start from scratch or use a pre-designed template, you can customise with the help of the block editor. You’ll find this block editor also when you want to create a form or a landing page. Once you’ve finished the design, you can add it to a system.

Sign up forms, landing pages, and funnels

A user journey often starts with a form or landing page and also ends in one of them. Since there’s only the block editor for everything you build (emails, forms, or landing pages), you only need to learn it once.

You can add a form on your site. You can also add or a pop-up on your website or on a page built in Ontraport. Both landing pages and forms have a templates gallery.

Under the tab “Systems”, you can build entire funnels automatically. Ontraport guides you through each step, including setting up a page and email follow-ups, and then automatically builds all the necessary pages, forms, and mails.

Build with Systems a funnel with all the landing pages, forms, and email follow-ups automatically

List management, segmentation, and personalisation

The list management is powerful and customisable. The CRM allows you to track every detail of your interaction with your audience and apply lead scoring. You can add tasks to a contact such as a phone. Then, you can automate what comes after you completed the task, depending on its result.

You can segment your contacts into groups according to labels or fields. Segmenting is dynamic, so a contact will be automatically added or removed to a group.

Add an abundance of information to a contact in your CRM

To segment your list, you can add tags and custom fields. The segments are also used for automation workflows. Frustratingly, you can inspect the contacts in the different segments you’ve created. Ontraport only shows how many contacts are in a given segment. You also can’t sort your list in any way as you may be used to coming from other mail automation providers.

Automation

In Ontraport, you automate your marketing or business processes with campaigns. Out of the gates, there are pre-built automation workflow templates that you can customise.

The visual editor shows you all the steps including triggers, conditions, actions, and so on

Ontraport integrations

Ontraport offers integrations to all kinds of services from appointments and bookkeeping to fulfillment and shopping carts. And of course the “Swiss Army knife” Zapier is also not missing.

Ontraport reporting

You’ll find a quick overview of what’s going on under the tab “Dashboard”. It’s divided into trends and metrics. The overview of Campaigns (Messages and Forms), Tasks, Sales, and Pages have their own reporting.

Support

You can reach Ontrapot’s support team via chat, email, or ask or a screen sharing session. You can also find a comprehensive and searchable support center.

Pricing

You can test drive Ontraport for free for 14 days and afterward, you got the choice of 4 plans. The plans are based on how many contacts you have as well as how many features you plan to use.

Check the full feature list

Is Ontraport right for you?

Ontraport is a powerful marketing automation service, especially its CRM. It depends on where your business is if it’s the right tool for you. For one, if you know you need a powerful CRM and are expecting to grow, then it’s a good choice. Especially, if you know you’ll be using many if not all of its features.

But, if you know that your funnels are not as elaborate – simply put if you know you’re going to send broadcast email campaigns, there are more affordable options.

An all-in-one marketing service is only going to be helpful, if you know what funnels you need for your business.

Original post here: Ontraport review – is the all-in-one marketing tool overwhelming?

Sendpulse review – multi-channel marketing automation tool

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 11:35:00 GMT

Nowadays, it takes an average of 22 days and 32 touchpoints on different devices and channels until a prospect converts into a paying customer. If you want to be where your target market is, you need to be present and communicate across multiple channels and platforms.

This means you’re probably using an email marketing service such as Aweber, and then SMS, push notifications, and chat messaging. Typically, it means for each channel a different service provider and this comes with 2 major drawbacks:

It quickly adds up to a costly sum
It’s difficult to track what’s happening across the different providers

This is where Sendpulse shines. It combines the following channels into one:

Email marketing and automation
Web push
SMS
Transactional mails
Chatbots for Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Telegram
Viber

Of course, you can do everything you know and expect from an email automation service such as segment your audience.

Launched in 2015 by Konstantin Makarov and Eugene Medvednikov, Sendpulse is headquartered in Ukraine with offices in Russia, Belarus, Brazil, Mexico, and Nigeria. It grew from a team of 15 to an international employee base of over 100. It’s used by over 1’300’000 customers and boasts household names such as Samsung and Swatch as clients.

Contents

Pros and cons of Sendpulse
- Pros
Cons
Who is Sendpulse for?
Sendpulse user interface
Campaigns
Sign up forms and landing pages
List management, segmentation, and personalisation
Automation
AI
A/B testing
Other marketing channels
- Web push, SMS, Viber
- Chatbot
Sendpulse integrations
Support
Pricing
Is Sendpulse right for you?

Pros and cons of Sendpulse

As a cloud-based service, you access Sendpulse on your browser and pay a monthly fee. At its core, it helps you communicate with your audience through emails, SMS, chat, and push notifications. The basic tools except for SMS are free.

Sendpulse comes with an advanced feature that is not often seen with other email marketing providers: Its AI helps you optimise the click-through rates, page views, and other key metrics.

Pros

24/7 support for all customers
Basic tools, including automation, are free to test and use
Reasonable pricing
Pricing structure grows with you
Easy to learn and to use
Landing page and form builder with templates
Lives up to multi-channel with SMS, email, push notifications, chat
Email segmentation based on behaviour
Android and iOS app to manage your campaigns on the go

Cons

Loading times can be slow at times

Who is Sendpulse for?

Given that you can start using its basic tools except for SMS for free, as well as that it’s one of the few email providers that provide multiple channels, Sendpulse is a good marketing automation service for small and medium businesses.

No matter if you’re an experienced marketer or a beginner, you can simply start for free and later subscribe to any plan as and when you grow.

Its marketing features appeals to both solopreneurs as well large corporations. That’s why it’s popular both with large companies such as Samsung and bloggers and small online stores alike.

Sendpulse user interface

Setting up your account is a walk in the park. You can start working without paying a penny, you don’t even need to have your credit card handy. Once you’re logged in, Sendpulse asks you a few questions to get a better grasp of what you want to do. Its interface is intuitive so that its easy to learn and makes working with it easy, also for beginners.

Campaigns

Personalisation takes a high position in Sendpulse so that you can easily tailor elements of your messaging according to the reader’s information and behaviour. The campaign builder lets you add variables and criteria to your subject line.

With the drag-and-drop editor, you can create unique and professional email templates without design or programming skills. To help you speed up the email creation, you can build templates of any of the blocks within the email as well as of the email itself or use a pre-designed template. All templates are mobile-ready so that they look nice on all kinds of screen sizes.

Sendpulse comes with its email template gallery

It doesn’t take much time to create an email campaign. It takes you 4 steps

Information about your campaign
Design your template and compose your message
Campaign parameters such as analytics and language of the unsubscribe form
Preview and send

You can use the scheduler to set the date when you want to send your campaign and also enable resend to unread to increase your email open rates.

Sign up forms and landing pages

Often, one of the steps in your marketing funnel is about capturing email addresses, and as a multi-channel marketing automation provider, this is not neglected by Sendpulse. These are the signup forms you can create

In-line (embedded)
Pop-up
Floating
Fixed

Just as important are landing pages. These are not just pages with a sign up form but you can even make a one-pager online store for one product. Your customers can order via a chatbot and payments are planned to come soon. Both sign up forms and landing pages come with a template gallery. Know that the landing pages feature is still in beta.

The drag-and-drop editor is easy to use across emails, forms, and landing pages

Of course, you’ll want to optimise your landing pages for search engines and track what’s happening. For SEO, you can add a page title, a page description, keywords, and a picture for preview. You can use any of the following for your analytics:

Google Analytics
Yandex Metrica
Facebook Pixel
Vkontakte Pixel
Facebook Meta Tag

List management, segmentation, and personalisation

The more you know about your readers, the better you can personalise your messaging. Not only can you create segments on the fly when you build a new email campaign but you can also prepare your segments beforehand. The segmentation is dynamic, where Sendpulse automatically adds or removes contacts to segments according to their latest behaviour.

Of course, importing your contact list is a standard. You can upload a file and also import from another service.

Sendpulse offers a CRM (customer relation management) where you see exactly where a contact is in their journey.

Sendpulse CRM is still in beta

Automation

This is where Sendpulse shines. Its automation encompasses every channel you use and you can use events to launch email, SMS, push automations and even chatbot flows for a specific contact. Of course, you can set up autoresponders, but you can also set up complex flows with conditional steps, filter contacts based on data, and much more with its visual editor. You can use automation to build

Abandoned cart sequence
Registration and confirmation email
Birthday greeting

AI

The Sendpulse AI promises to make your campaigns more effective. The AI watches the behaviour of your audience, things like

When the mail is opened
User communication preference
Time zone
Previous clicks or purchases

After detecting the pattern, the AI suggests the best time and channel to communicate with a contact. However, the AI needs a lot of data points to work, so you need to send at least 10 emails to each and every contact.

A/B testing

If you don’t want to just rely on the AI to increase your key metrics, you can test sending a campaign to a set of your list and a variation to a second set. Then you study the performance of both variations to figure out the winner. In this manner, you can find which elements of your email your subscribers like the most. For example, you can find a subject line that leads to more opens.

Other marketing channels

Web push, SMS, Viber

Sometimes, people don’t open their emails, then, you’d want to have other means to reach them. You can send push messages on any topic on your site. It’s very interesting if you’re running an online store and want to show visitors special offers, or discounts.

The same can be said about SMS and Viber. If your audience is predominantly using these instead of email, it’s a no-brainer t also use them.

Chatbot

You can use a chatbot in Telegram, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook to streamline your customer support or help close sales.

Sendpulse integrations

Since its an automation provider, Sendpulse needs to work with different kinds of content management systems (CMS) and ecommerce platforms. The list of integrations include among others

If you have a specific need, you can also use its REST API service to integrate it with your business software.

Support

All customers have access to a 24/7 live chat. It’s also good to see that its contact info isn’t hidden away as it’s common among many internet services. There are also a

Knowledge Base
Video tutorials
Glossary

Pricing

You’ll see that Sendpulse has separate pricing for each of its tools. In general, the pricing is based on the number of contacts you have and how many emails you’re going to send each month. You can save up to 20% if you choose to set your billing period to be semi-annual or yearly.

See the current prices

Is Sendpulse right for you?

Sendpulse is an outstanding option because you don’t need special training or help and it’s easy to set up, all the while offering a ton of features. Even if you’re on a shoe-string budget you can start using Sendpulse, and test out its advanced marketing features. It will power your digital marketing strategy and pay for itself when you grow.

Original post here: Sendpulse review – multi-channel marketing automation tool

What’s the impact of Facebook’s downtime on digital marketing?

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 11:35:00 GMT

Last week was not such a glorious week for Facebook. It suffered its most devasting PR debacle yet and then its services went offline globally for hours on Monday and Friday.

After weeks of revelations of serious malfeasance and mounting criticism, Frances Haugen testifies before US Congress. And just hours after CBS’s Interview with Frances Haugen, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram went down for around 6 hours on Monday and then again for about 2 hours on Friday.

For many, the downtime is just an inconvenience. Even so, if you use the chats to keep in touch because you and your team are working remotely, it’s still a major headache. But depending on your location, the outage piles lifelines and livelihoods into one single point of failure.

Contents

What happened?
What's the digital marketing cost for businesses?
Which countries were most affected?
Will it happen again?
What can you do?

What happened?

The entire network of services and apps owned by Facebook was down at around 17:30 CET on Monday. This included the services WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus VR. The outage even impacted Facebook employees as the company’s internal systems were affected. So, they couldn’t access email clients, internal communication tools, or even use authentication systems to open doors.

The downtime was caused by an internal configuration mistake in their backbone routers. These coordinate network traffic between the company’s data centres. Simply put, the machines stopped communicating with each other because of the misconfiguration which is called a DNS (domain name system) error. It wasn’t a hack.

What’s the digital marketing cost for businesses?

The world experienced a forced break. The outage has impaired the marketing campaigns of many businesses and saw their operations curtailed. Although it’s not known yet how the downtime has impacted digital marketing, it’s fair to say that it most likely caused businesses to lose millions in sales.

According to Invesp, Facebook gets more than 9% of the digital ad spending. For Germany, the Online-Vermarkterkreis has estimated the digital display advertising for 2021 to be €5,068 billion or around €13.9 million a day. Of course, this for all digital display advertising.

Still with these numbers, you can get a ballpark figure. Taking €13.9 million a day and the 9%, you can guesstimate that just for Germany, around €1.25 million may have been lost on Monday. This is just for Germany. And then it happened again on Friday.

For Facebook itself, the share price dropped by 4.9 % on Monday. And if you look at its global revenue for the second quarter of 2021, you can work out how much it may have lost on Monday.

In the second quarter of 2021, Facebook made in total about $28.5 billion. This makes around $313 million.

Which countries were most affected?

On Monday, Facebook’s social networking tools couldn’t be reached from around 17:30 CET. Although India has the highest numbers of users with 320 million, at least it happened during its nighttime hours.

The outage was the worst for the US&Canada and Europe, where also most of the advertising revenue comes from: USA and Canada with almost 56% and Europe with 27% (numbers according to Invesp).

To drive the point home, these are the main markets that normally make up about 83% of advertising revenue for Facebook and that during the primetime for digital marketing.

Will it happen again?

Of course, an outage of this scale is (or should be) rare. But alone in 2021, downtimes in March and April were reported in major news outlets. In 2020, there were 4 major WhatsApp outages.

The outages in October 2021 were one of the longest for Facebook at a group level. You can check Downdetector if you rely heavily on Facebook’s services.

Take from that what you will. But if you want to avoid being too affected, you should take a leave from the book of investors and diversify.

What can you do?

With ever more revelations, growing criticism, and now the outages, momentum is building among politicians to do something. Facebook was even likened to big tobacco by US Senator Markey. Which might mean new regulations or even breaking up the giant into smaller discrete entities.

New regulations, updates in iOS, changes in how browsers allow cookies, and changes in how we all use tech can affect digital marketing. Just as investors never put all eggs in one basket, neither should you.

If you rely on Facebook not only for your communication with your friends and family, to log in to other services including ecommerce as well as for your marketing activities, it means it’s a single point of failure. Just a little change can affect your entire business. So, it’s prudent to consider using alternatives for your campaigns such as:

Amazon
Google
Snapchat
Tiktok

Staying up to date with changes in digital marketing is one of the best ways to prevent the consequences of services being unreachable such as in the case of the Facebook outages last week.

There are many ways to stay ahead of the curve such as following the news closely. Perhaps the most reliable and time-saving method is to hire a digital marketing consultant.

I realise it can be a bit of a daunting task to read up and stay on top of things in digital marketing. If that sounds like you and you’d like to avoid the fallout of something so unexpected as an outage, feel free to talk to us.

Original post here: What’s the impact of Facebook’s downtime on digital marketing?

Readymag review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 14:35:00 GMT

The drag-and-drop website builder Readymag styles itself as a design tool that lets you create websites without coding. When you head over to its website, you’re greeted with just one word: design.

Readymag is an online design tool intended to help creative professionals (hence the word design) to easily create microsites, portfolios, presentations, digital magazines, or landing pages.

The tool comes with layouts for different screen sizes, a wide range of font options as well as freely usable images of Unsplash.

Contents

Pros and cons of Readymag
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Readymag for?
How easy is Readymag to use?
Design and themes
How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Readymag?
Integrations
What marketing tools does Readymag provide?
- SEO
- Blogging
Payment options
Security
Customer support
Pricing
Is Readymag the right solution for you?

Pros and cons of Readymag

As a website builder, Readymag takes care of web hosting and gives you the tools (a drag-and-drop editor) to design and build your project.

Pros

Forever free plan, if you don’t want to host on your own domain
Easy to understand and easy to use
The drag-and-drop editor gives you a lot of control over your design
Beautiful, mobile-ready templates
Huge library of fonts, images, and icons
Reasonably priced
Collaboration with your teammates is possible as you can share your projects

Cons

No backup function
Not for larger projects
Somewhat limited templates selection

Who is Readymag for?

If you don’t need to regularly update your website or anything that has a complicated structure, but want to let your creativity reign free, Readymag is an interesting option. Particularly, if you know a design application such as Indesign.

As Readymag doesn’t require coding skills but is design-centric, it lends itself to creative professionals such as designers or photographers. It has built-in animations, a plethora of fonts that you can fine-tune for your typography. You also have access to freely usable images of Unsplash and a ton of icons.

No matter if you work alone or in a team, you can share your projects with your teammates and give them access to edit your projects.

How easy is Readymag to use?

The sign-up process is simple, you key in your name, email, and password. That’s it. No credit card required. You can also choose to create an account with Google or Facebook. Once your account is created, you’re welcomed by the getting started guide.

Since its editor doesn’t look like the run-of-the-mill site builder, going through the introductory tour will help you hit the ground running. You’ll quickly see how uncluttered and cleanly laid everything is in the interface.

Clean, uncluttered interface of Readymag

Creating your page is very easy. It’s just a matter of learning what the icons mean. These have tooltips to prompt you. You add widgets such as a button, text field, a form, or even custom code to your page. You have a preview that shows how your site looks on mobile and desktop. When your site is ready, click publish.

Design and themes

If you’re coming from other website builders, you might feel intimidated by a white layout with nothing on it. But fret not. You can add beautifully designed and mobile-ready templates to your project and customise them.

The designs put your work on centre stage, although the selection of templates is quite small

How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Readymag?

You can add an online store through a widget for Ecwid or Stripe. This widget is only available if you’ve subscribed to a paid plan. Or you can embed a third party shopping cart such as Shopify or Gumroad (although Ecwid and Stripe are also third party services).

Since the shopping cart is handled by a third party, you’ll be managing your online store there and not on Readymag.

Integrations

You can add social media via the provided widgets. As you can add custom code, you can add any service or product that offers an embedded code or widget.

What marketing tools does Readymag provide?

Out of the gates, you can add your Google Analytics account to your projects.

SEO

Each page has an editor for you to add your page titles meta description, keywords, and custom URL, although that’s only available in the paid plans.

Blogging

Blogging means you’re updating your website with new content regularly. Of course, you can brute-force it together by adding a new page to your project, but that’s cumbersome.

Payment options

The payment gateways are provided by third party ecommerce services.

Security

All your projects are encrypted with an SSL certificate.

Customer support

Interestingly, the help centre is translated into Spanish and Russian, if English isn’t your first language, although the interface itself is in English. When you’re browsing the help centre, you can support the customer support via the support icon in the lower right-hand corner.

Pricing

No matter if you’re just trying out the service, are a one-man team or working in an agency, you find a plan suitable for you. Note that the free plan has the Readymag branding.

If you pay annually, you can save 20%

Is Readymag the right solution for you?

It’s obvious that Readymag went to great lengths to create an easy-to-use site builder. Clearly, it’s catering to the creative professionals and not the web developers.

It’s also not the right choice to build a fully functioning business website including a blog or an online store, except if you accept to manage your store in another tool.

But, it’s great to great landing pages, an online presentation, or a simple portfolio that showcases your talent.

If you liked reading about Readymag, I’d be really grateful if you could create a link to it on your website.

Original post here: Readymag review

Collaborative website building with Vev

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 09:35:00 GMT

It’s often the case that your business needs more than one website. Sometimes, you need a new website for a product launch or you’re running a social media campaign and one of the steps needs a landing page. Even if you only need one website, a website builder can speed up the process of development.

The all-in-one website builder Vev is catering specifically to creative professionals, be it designers or developers and even marketers. Its drag-and-drop builder is slightly different from the usual crowd, so as to better satisfy the needs of a creative professional.

The company was founded in 2017 by Fredrik Evjen Ekli, Tine Karlsen, Nicolay Thafvelin. It’s based in Oslo, Norway. It counts well-known brands such as Netflix and The Economist as clients.

Contents

Pros and cons of Vev
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Vev for?
How easy is Vev to use?
Vev design and themes
How to manage your ecommerce store in Vev?
Vev integrations
What marketing and SEO tools does Vev have?
- SEO
Vev security
Vev customer support
Pricing
Is Vev the right tool for you?

Pros and cons of Vev

As an all-in-one service, you get to create websites with Vev and the hosting is also taken care of. You can access the service on your browser and should you opt for a paid plan, pay a monthly subscription fee.

Pros

Forever free plan, albeit your sites will have a Vev watermark
Powerful editors (if you know your way around professional design software like Figma)
Reasonable pricing
The designs made are automatically responsive (that is they resize to the screen sizes of desktop, tablet, and mobile)
You can export the files and host them on your own servers
You can collaborate across teams and functions without disrupting the work of your coworkers

Cons

Only works on Chrome and Chrome-based browsers

Who is Vev for?

If you’re a freelancing creative professional and working with other freelancers or with your client, you’ll appreciate Vev. You can also use Vev to work across teams or departments in larger organisations or agencies all within its interface.

The entire process of building a website, that is designing, developing, and copywriting can be done with Vev. It comes with a Design Editor so that designers can create complex layouts without coding. For developers, there’s the code editor that lets them create their own React Components. With the Content Editor, content creators can work alongside.

How easy is Vev to use?

The sign-up process is straightforward. You can create an account with Google, Facebook, Azure AD, or your plain old simple email. You also don’t need to have your credit card ready. During the sign-up process, you’ll be asked what your role is. This can be

Designer
Developer
Content editor
Marketer
Project manager
Freelancer

For this review, I’m going to pick designer (even if I’m a programmer). This is because I want to see how easy it is to build an attractive site without a line of code in the Design Editor.

To help you along the way, Vev will ask if you want to start on a blank or the demo project. If you’ve just signed up, I recommend you start with the demo project because this is how you learn how to use its interface with a practical example.

If you’re working with professional design software such as Figma or Adobe Illustrator, Vev will feel familiar to you. It’s built with the same design logic.

If you know Figma or other professional design software, you’ll get to grips with Vev Design Editor very fast

If you want to go beyond what you can do in the Design editor, you can develop your React Components in the Code Editor. And even if the layout is not quite complete, if you want to start working on the content, you can do so in the Content Editor without disturbing the work of the designer. Working in the three editors is a breeze.

Vev design and themes

Vev is not your typical website builder in that it doesn’t offer a range of templates that you can choose from. But you do get 7 example projects from which you can draw inspiration or adapt to your needs.

Sites built with Vev you can use to be inspired

In my view, not having templates in Vev is not a bad thing at all since you can let your imagination run free and it’s a walk in the park to build what you thought off in the editors. If you’ve subscribed to a paid plan, you can build your own templates that you can then share with your coworkers.

How to manage your ecommerce store in Vev?

Vev is not the best option if you want to run an online store.

Vev integrations

If you choose to let Vev host your website for you, you can add plugins so that you can add tracking pixels and custom code. Should you opt for self-hosting, you can add webhooks to your project.

Since it’s quite a young company, more plugins and integration options will be available in the future.

What marketing and SEO tools does Vev have?

Vev is a static website generator. So, it’s not the best option for sites that are dynamic or very dependent on a database. Thus, it’s not ideal for blogs, news sites, or online stores.

SEO

Once you’re ready to publish your site, you can add plugins with which you can add and edit metadata.

Vev security

All projects including those built in the free forever plan are secured with an SSL certificate when hosted by Vev. Of course, if you self-host, you’re responsible for security and maintenance yourself. For backups, you can download the files as ZIP.

Vev customer support

If you don’t find an answer in the searchable help centre or the help chat takes too long to answer, you can get help via Discord, a modern take on communicating with a company. If you prefer video tutorials, hop over to its YouTube channel.

Pricing

You can always start with the free plan and upgrade later to a paid subscription. If you just want to go live without a Vev watermark on your free plan, you can also choose the Single Project for $5 a month.

See what’s included in the 3 plans

Is Vev the right tool for you?

If you need to build many websites, accelerating the process is always a boon. With its three powerful editors, you can build unique and attractive static websites, especially in a multi-disciplinary team. It’s a robust option for creatives working as a freelancer as well as agencies and larger businesses.

Vev is not a general-purpose website builder. So, if you want a dynamic website relying heavily on a database – this would be news or ecommerce site, take a look at Squarespace or Wix.

If you enjoyed reading about Vev, please feel free to share it with someone who finds it useful.

Original post here: Collaborative website building with Vev

Will Apple’s new email privacy change email marketing?

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 11:35:00 GMT

Today is the day that Apple is rolling out iOS 15 and along with it the new Mail Privacy Protection. Email marketing is one of the most effective tools in the toolbox of a marketer. Depending on the source, the average return on investment (ROI) is anywhere between 3600% and 4400%.

This new privacy feature is sending shockwaves through the industry. It’s expected to create some major roadblocks for accurately tracking IP addresses and email opens of recipients. And then there is the question of when (and not if) others will follow suit.

Contents

What to expect
What does it mean?
What about campaigns and triggers relying on opens?
Mail privacy protection isn't new
What about personalisation?
Why is privacy important?
The bigger picture

What to expect

Until now, when you opened an email, only then the content along with any images are downloaded. This includes a pixel, often called tracking pixel, that allowed your email provider to see that the email was opened, what device and browser were used, the IP address, and sometimes also the location. In short, up until email marketing relied heavily on tracking pixels to detect when someone opens an email among other things.

The Mail Privacy Protection is a feature of the mail client on iOS 15, iPad OS 15, and macOS Monterey. It allows users to block email senders from detecting when they open an email and other things.

In practice, Apple won’t block the tracking pixels. Instead, it sets all the email content to be automatically preloaded a user sees the email. This will make it appear that a subscriber has opened every email even if they don’t.

What does it mean?

Historically, the open rate has been the de facto standard for measuring email campaign success. But I think it’s a lazy KPI. Who hasn’t opened an email and then ignored it? Open rates don’t really relay what actually matters: engagement.

It really means did you get a subscriber to not only open your mail but to take an action, to click-through to your site: Redeem a coupon, schedule a call, or whatever action you’ve planned.

With this new feature, the open rates are going to be inflated so that you need to question their reliability as a success metric. But not all is bad news: This feature will not impact your total clicks. So, even if the click-through rate is also going to decrease since it’s based on the email opens, it remains a reliable metric.

Knowing this, you can compare total clicks across your campaigns with a similar number of recipients to gauge their performance.

What about campaigns and triggers relying on opens?

Even if email opens were often a shorthand to measure success or worse considered to be a vanity metric, opens are used as triggers for

Re-engagement campaigns
Classic automation
Real-time personalisation

Opens are also used in other ways:

Segmentation or targeting based on last open date
Segmentation or targeting based on location
A/B testing subject lines
Countdown timers
Dynamic content
Send time optimised mails

In short, the data of your subscribers is going to become less dependable over time. Take for example classic automation for any customer journey: If a trigger is based on opens, the email will be sent to a larger audience.

Mail privacy protection isn’t new

What Apple does in its mail client isn’t so new. In fact, it’s quite similar to what Gmail is already doing. In 2013, Gmail has an image policy where it preloads attached images.

What about personalisation?

It’s not going away. It’s just changing a little. Personalisation such as including the recipients’ name in the subject line will remain as is. Other ways of personalisation by creating segments that don’t depend on email opens will also not be impacted.

Why is privacy important?

Privacy is a fundamental right. It allows subscribers to create barriers and guard who can access their information and communication. The mail privacy protection gives subscribers a way to have more control.

Although Apple’s intention is to give control and protect subscribers, it might backfire and they get even more unwanted emails. Think of it like this: if email opens are inaccurate, you don’t know if your subscriber list is healthy. And email list health depends on open and deliverability rates. The higher the better.

The bigger picture

Regulations and technology changes will always raise the bar on privacy. With the latest, mail opens are no longer an indicator that shows you the health of your subscriber list. But you can still use it to figure out if the email addresses in your lists are valid since Apple can only preload the content of an email if the mail client of a subscriber is active.

The mail privacy protection is about giving control back to the subscribers, it means that you as a marketer are invited, nay you have the responsibility to cultivate a more two-way and personal relationship with your audience.

Just like GDPR before it, mail privacy protection is another wake-up call to start thinking about how to develop campaigns that give your audience what it wants to receive while at the same time serve your goals.

At first glance, Apple’s newest policy may bring send shockwaves up and down in our industry: The open rate is not the KPI it used to be and has gotten unreliable. But it’s actually a good thing in that it’s going to force publishers and marketers to make changes to their campaigns. Changes that probably should have been made long ago. Email will continue to be a key marketing channel and people want personalised emails.

If you feel get more from your campaigns and explore ways to set up a customer journey, feel free to reach out.

Schedule a call

Original post here: Will Apple’s new email privacy change email marketing?

Payhip review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 10:35:00 GMT

Contents

Pros and cons of Payhip
- Pros
Cons
Who is Payhip for?
How easy is Payhip to use?
Payhip design
How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Payhip?
Payhip integrations
What marketing and SEO tools does Payhip have?
- Blogging
Payment options
Payhip security
Payhip customer support
Payhip pricing
Is Payhip the right tool for you?

Pros and cons of Payhip

Although Payhip is best known as an ecommerce platform for digital goods, you can also sell physical products.

Pros

It’s free to sign up with a forever free plan
Easy to set up and use
Fair pricing
You have different marketing tools such as upsell, cross-sell, coupons, and affiliates, out of the gates
You can embed your store in your website or other platforms
No limits on products and revenue for all 3 plans (but charges transaction fees)
EU VAT is handled for you

Cons

Limited integrations
No SEO features

Who is Payhip for?

Selling digital goods can make an awesome revenue stream if you’re a blogger, musician, author, photographer, that is if you’re a creator. It’s a great way to monetise your expertise.

How easy is Payhip to use?

3 step wizard to help you set up your account

You can customise your store with Payhips editor. You can add more sections and products. Once you’re done, you can connect it to your domain.

Payhip design

The design is modern, very clean, almost simplistic but does the job well in putting your products centre stage. You can customise the colour and fonts.

Payhip store editor

How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Payhip?

If you’re considering Payhip, it’s safe to say that most of your products are digital. Payhip supports all kinds of digital files, including software, media files, font files, and more.

Payhip’s product editor

Payhip integrations

Payhip integrates with the known email service providers such as Aweber or Mailchimp so that you can automatically add new customers to your mailing list.

You can also use the always handy Swiss Army knife Zapier to integrate with other services or create your own custom-made integrations with webhooks.

What marketing and SEO tools does Payhip have?

If you’re using Payhip as your storefront, you’ll want to track its performance. For that, you can add your Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel. As for SEO, everything is generated for you.

To help with your marketing efforts, Payhip has put together the following tools under the tab Marketing

Coupons
Social discounts
Affiliates
Mailing lists
Cross-selling
Referral
Upgrade

Blogging

Payment options

You can connect your account with Paypal and Stripe to accept payments. The usual Paypal and Stripe fees apply.

Payhip security

Your pages are secured with an SSL certificate. Paypal also helps you protect yourself from copyright infringement or illegal distribution.

Payhip customer support

Payhip pricing

It’s nice to see that all 3 plans include all features and don’t limit products or revenue. The higher you go, the lower the transaction fee gets.

Including the free plan, you get to choose from 3 subscriptions

Is Payhip the right tool for you?

Payhip makes it easy for anyone to start selling digital goods without worrying about a monthly fee or about the technical stuff.

It’s great to test a new product without much overhead.

If you enjoyed this post and want to start your own online store, get my newsletter.

Original post here: Payhip review

Mailmunch review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 11:35:00 GMT

Mailmunch started as a lead generation service. It gives you tools such as forms and landing pages to capture leads and grow your list. But it has grown into email marketing.

It was created in 2015 by Adeel Raza. It offers a plethora of form templates for all kinds of form types such as popups and banners. So it was mainly used by small and mid-sized businesses to create and embed forms on their websites. The so captured leads were then imported into services such as Mailchimp and Aweber.

So as not to miss out on this opportunity, Mailmunch now also offers email marketing. Of course, you can still use it now just to build forms and landing pages as a frontend and as the backend use another automation tool such as Esputnik.

Contents

Pros and cons of Mailmunch
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Mailmunch for?
Mailmunch user interface
Campaigns
List management, segmentation, and personalisation
Automation
Mailmunch integrations
Mailmunch reporting
Support
Is Mailmunch right for you?

Pros and cons of Mailmunch

Its core is to help you collect contact info such as email address from your website visitors. As an email list builder, it has a ton of integrations with other service providers.

Pros

Intuitive and easy to use
Reasonably priced
Huge template selection for forms, landing pages, and campaigns
The many campaign types, so that you can choose to send an autoresponder, drip, or broadcast

Cons

SEO tool for landing pages only available for paid users
Automation still in beta

Who is Mailmunch for?

In the career of a marketer, you often face the task of collecting emails in one of the steps in your funnel. This also applies to business owners or bloggers. Oftentimes, the main task of a website is to capture and convert a lead. Mailmunch gives you an easy way to create optin forms and landing pages at affordable prices.

Mailmunch user interface

Since its core is lead capturing, when you sign up, you have to choose the platform you’re going to use Mailmunch:

Shopify
Wix
WordPress
Weebly
Other

This are the most popular website builders. Then you’re taken through a multistep setup. This is to help you get a consistent design with your logo and to connect with your social media.

You can build the following types of forms

Popup
Embedded
Topbar
Scrollbox
Cover

5 form types

For each form type, you’ve got a wide range of templates to select from. The templates can be filtered by goals or categories. You’re guided through each step until you can publish your form.

Landing page templates gallery

Building a landing form is just as easy. It also has a large selection of templates that you can filter by category.

You’ll find the important KPIs on your dashboard and can monitor the performance of your forms, landing pages, autoresponders, etc, which are all called campaigns in Mailmunch’s lingo.

The interface is intuitive and uncluttered

To improve your lead capturing, Mailmunch gives you the option to split test your forms. You’ll directly in the dashboard the conversion rate, impressions, and subscribers so that you can decide which variant to keep.

Campaigns

In contrast to Mailmunch, I will not call forms and landing pages a campaign. You have can set up

Autoresponders
Broadcasts
Drip sequences
Automations

These are the new features. As with forms and landing pages, you’ll find a wide range of templates for your campaign and you’ll be guided through the steps of setting up a campaign.

List management, segmentation, and personalisation

The CRM too follows the same design philosophy and is easy to understand and use. You can filter the list with the predefined criteria and directly create a segment out of the filtered list.

This is useful to segment your list so that you can send the right message to the right people at the right time. But it doesn’t have segmentation logic and conditions. And, there’s another but…

Automation

The automation is still in beta and only available as a premium feature. Read: Pay Mailmunch for an immature feature and to iron out all the bugs.

Mailmunch integrations

Mailmunch has many integrations. As it first started out as a tool to build forms, it can integrate with the known email providers. And then of course there’s Zapier.

Mailmunch reporting

You’ll find all the metrics in your dashboard so that you can track how your campaigns, forms, and landing pages perform

Support

Not only will you find a searchable knowledge base, but there’s always a chat icon in the lower right-hand corner on the website. So, if you’re working on something, you can always open the chat and contact the support team. The average response time is a few hours but it’s not clear on the website when the support is available.

Pricing

Mailmunch has 2 separate sets for its lead capture tools and email marketing platform. Both include a free tier and you can save if you choose to subscribe annually instead of monthly.

Lead capturing tools pricing

Email marketing pricing

Is Mailmunch right for you?

With its ease of use and ginormous template gallery for forms and landing pages, Mailmunch is great if you want to add a form on your site without having to trouble a developer.

Should you be on the hunt for an email solution, you might want to use Mailmunch to create attractive forms and use another provider so that you have access to advanced email marketing features such as automation with if conditions.

If you enjoyed reading about the features and benefits of Mailmunch, sign up for our newsletter and stay ahead of the curve.

Original post here: Mailmunch review

10 reasons why marketing automation fail and how you can avoid frustration

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 06 Sep 2021 12:36:00 GMT

Marketing automation promises many advantages:

A more consistent pipeline of high-quality leads
Showing the right message to the right audience at the right time while of course saving time and money
Track customer behaviour, if possible across multiple channels
Give you all the reporting that you need
Integrate with your CRM

If you’re a marketing pro who is aware of and dedicated to driving conversions and improving ROI, you know marketing automation is an absolute must. Put in numbers, marketing automation increases sales productivity by 14.5% on average while reducing marketing costs.

Now, why do some of us not get the same results? Why does marketing automation fail for some of us? A powerful platform can’t do much without the right pieces in place to set you up for success. To help you avoid frustration and make the most out of your service, here are 10 pitfalls.

Contents

Poor strategies
No or poor communication between sales and marketing
Wrong service
Not using user behaviour to target your audience
Poor understanding of your customer personas
Wrong timing
Not being on the channel your audience uses
Trying to automate things that shouldn’t be automated
Not knowing which KPIs are used to measure success
Your business can't grow with the service
Ending notes

Poor strategies

A marketing automation service doesn’t replace your marketing strategy. Placing technology, a tool ahead of your strategy is like putting the cart before the horse. The tool is there to help you deploy your plan and enhance your work.

If you don’t work out beforehand a plan with the goals and objective, don’t be surprised if the technology doesn’t deliver.

No or poor communication between sales and marketing

Marketing automation is there to help your business increase revenue. This by definition includes the sales department. A lack of collaboration and communication between marketing and sales spells problems for your business.

It means not only to include the sales team early into the conversation but also that marketing and sales have the same definitions. Say, do they understand the same thing under a qualified lead?

Wrong service

Choosing the right marketing automation vendor and technologies can prove to be both complex and onerous. For one, you need to exactly know your requirements from marketing, sales, and IT. But you also need to keep your goals and objectives in mind.

Lastly, you don’t want to use too many different marketing automation systems in a siloed, non-integrated manner. If you’re using different automation services, you’ll want to be able to track all the steps in the user journey. Which leads to

Not using user behaviour to target your audience

If you’re only broadcasting your message to all of your audience without segmenting them based on their behaviour, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

The fact is that a message that evokes responses such as opens, clicks, or conversion is contextual and based on user behaviour. You can observe what your audience is doing and also set up a scoring model. This will help you gauge the interest of a prospect.

Poor understanding of your customer personas

If you don’t truly know your audience and understand its motivations, your communications aren’t going to resonate with your customers. If your email doesn’t elicit a reaction from your customers, you’re not going to see the results you projected – with or without automation.

Wrong timing

If you look at your audience at any time, only a small part is ready to buy and the others are still learning about your business, products, or services. If you’re only pitching, pitching, pitching and the prospect is not in that stage yet, of course, you’re going to be annoying.

Understanding the journey a customer takes from being aware of you to buying and using your campaigns to guide and help them in each stage at key decision-making moments is key to success.

Not being on the channel your audience uses

If you take a look at the customer journey, you’ll see that the average prospect needs about 32 touchpoints across multiple devices and channels to convert.

This means a well-designed marketing system is needed that spans across the channels that your audience uses. You need to know where your audience is and communicate there with them.

Trying to automate things that shouldn’t be automated

Sometimes, there are things that can’t be automated. Think of it like this: The best way to make a sale is through one-to-one communication. That’s individual and personalised communication, not a broadcast.

Take social media for example, communication is real-time and unpredictable. You also have no idea what someone’s going to say or how they react to your post.

This is not to say you can’t automate content-based messages that go out on a regular basis. But you don’t want to send automated replies if you want to answer with accuracy and nurture the relationship.

Not knowing which KPIs are used to measure success

Metrics like open and click-through rates, page views can cause you to constantly hit the refresh button, they’re not the numbers that people dedicated to growth and ROI are interested in.

This is the reason why marketing in general and advertising, in particular, are looked at as costs drivers rather than revenue multipliers. If you focus on driving revenue, that is track KPIs that back the overarching corporate business goals, it’s the best way to contribute directly to the company’s bottom line.

Your business can’t grow with the service

Not only does the service not let you create advanced, non-standard automations needed to achieve specific goals, but it is not even able to handle your plans to grow and expand (aka more mails, more contacts, more automations, etc).

Of course, your marketing automation service must align with your business needs, or do you want to spend your time adjusting your business to the service?

Ending notes

Marketing in general and with it marketing automation is an investment in the success of your business. Don’t let these marketing automation fails frustrate you. Stay ahead of the curve and sign up for our marketing newsletter.

Original post here: 10 reasons why marketing automation fail and how you can avoid frustration

Campaigner review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 10:35:00 GMT

Campaigner believes wholeheartedly that nowadays you have to be there where your customers are. So, aside from email automation, it also offers SMS automation marketing. It doesn’t follow the classic linear AIDA funnel, put thinks in user journeys.

In 1999, Campaigner was founded by Zohar Loshitzer and Hemi Zucker. That makes it one of the original email marketing services. In the meantime, it has garnered over 120’000 clients including household brand names such as Adidas. It has its headquarters in Ottawa, Canada, and offices in the UK and USA.

Contents

Pros and cons of Campaigner
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Campaigner for?
Campaigner user interface
Campaigns
Sign up forms and landing pages
List management, segmentation, and personalisation
Automation
Campaigner integrations
Campaigner reporting
A/B testing
Support
Pricing
Is Campaigner right for you?

Pros and cons of Campaigner

Campaigner offers all the features, you’d expect of an email marketing service such as email templates or customer relationship management (CRM) so that you can create and send personalised one-to-one email communications (and SMS).

Following the standard, Campaigner also provides its service cloud-based and on a monthly subscription basis.

Pros

Powerful segmentation feature
Visual editor for creating automation workflow (only available in the plan “Advanced”)
Many templates to help you get started
Easy to learn and to use
Signup forms and landing pages help you build your list
A/B testing to find out which variations work best
24/7 email and phone support (reduced due to the pandemic)

Cons

Slow at times
Complicated pricing structure that limits how much you can send and also what features you’ve access to
Requires your credit card details for the free trial

Who is Campaigner for?

If you’re looking to make your marketing life easier, you’re most likely thinking of automating repetitive tasks. That’s where Campaigner can do the heavy lifting for you. Although you’d need deeper pockets.

Particularly, if you’re running an online store, you’d be happy to see that it has integrations with the most widely used shopping carts such as Magento or Shopify. You can then tailor your marketing activities based on your customers’ history.

Campaigner user interface

The signup process has an unexpected step in which Campaigner checks to see if your email address is correct as well as reviews your application. You’re going to be asked some questions so that it can better understand your needs.

The dashboard gives you an overview of your current campaigns and as your contact growth summary

When your account is created, you’re taken to the dashboard. The interface is well designed and easy to navigate. It’s uncluttered with clearly labelled elements and centres around the horizontal menu. Nothing is hidden behind countless submenu so that you can do your task without first clicking on the various menu items.

Campaigns

When you create an email campaign, you have the option to use

Editor options

If you just click on the “New Email Campaign” button without hitting the arrow pointing down, you’re taken to the drag-and-drop editor.

The default option is the drag-and-drop editor in which you’ll find a large choice of templates and layouts. If you’re used to other website or email builders, you’ll know the drill.

Campaigner drag-and-drop editor

The full email editor also has a range of templates to choose from and it allows you to design your email in a What You See Is What You Get editor as well as in HTML. With this, you can go beyond the design limitations of the default editor.

Once you’re done designing your email, you can preview and test it. You can choose to save it as part of a workflow or schedule and send it independently.

Sign up forms and landing pages

Knowing that a customer journey is non-linear, Campaigner also gives you the tools to build landing pages and signup forms. A landing page is a simple website that it hosts for you and that you use to collect contacts similar to a signup form. You can create multilingual forms.

List management, segmentation, and personalisation

Contact management is divided into 2 tabs. In the tab Contacts, you find all your contacts. You can filter the list with the presets or with the advanced search. This brings you into the tab Lists which is for segmentation.

This is where Campaigner shines: You can set rules and it dynamically compiles the segments based on specific criteria or your marketing goals. This is particularly intriguing for ecommerce stores: You can segment customers based on their past orders from your online store, using data such as how much they spent or which products they purchased.

Automation

Automation consists of the tabs Autoresponders and Workflows. As you’d expect, autoresponders don’t have conditional steps and are used when you want to send emails on a specific date and on a recurring basis or when a specific action triggers.

In the tab Workflows, you can create automated workflows with conditional steps and delays easily with the visual editor. With it, you can cover a broad spectrum of situations. You need to subscribe to the advanced plan to get it though.

Campaigner integrations

The integration with Shopify and Magento helps you improve the conversions of your online store, as you can segment your customers based on their previous behaviour. It also integrates with

Adobe Analytics
Surveytown
Google Analytics

If this is not what you want, you can use its API to build your custom integration.

Campaigner reporting

See how your different campaigns are faring under the tab Reports. You’ll see the open and click rate as with the number of replies and unsubscribes. If you hit the “Refresh” button, you get to see real-time results. You’ll also find how your experiments are doing. Which leads to

A/B testing

In the tab Experiments, you can set up variations to test your subject lines or email designs. A/B testing or sending out variations of your campaign helps you find out what your audience finds the most attractive and engaging.

Support

This is another area where Campaigner shines. It offers 24/7 email and phone support for all plans. Note though that it has reduced the times due to the pandemic.

If you’re working on a campaign, you’ll find the help button in the upper right-hand corner. This will open a searchable help page with a glossary. Of course, there are also tutorials and videos that you can browse in your own time.

Pricing

The pricing structure is based on how many contacts you have as well as what you’re going to be using both for sending emails and SMS. For online stores, Campaigner has another pricing structure.

See what’s included in the plans

Is Campaigner right for you?

Some editors may look a bit outdated or not appear as attractive as you might be used to, but they get the job done and are not distracting in any way. This makes Campaigner easy to learn and easy to use. If you don’t need automation workflows with conditional steps, its basic feature set combined with support via phone and email is a well-rounded package.

It’s a solid offering for SMBs with a larger contact list. It’s particularly interesting for online stores.

If you enjoyed reading about Campaigner, sign up for our newsletter and also share it on your social media.

Original post here: Campaigner review

Groovefunnels review: What’s to like?

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 18:35:00 GMT

If you want to create a converting sales funnel, you may need to cobble it together using several disparate systems and it’s a time-consuming process. You may find that you can’t track what your audience is doing in all the steps of your funnel and across different systems or even worse, something is broken and eats even more of your time to repair and test it.

This is what makes all-in-one funnel-building services attractive. In the best case, you get marketing automation, page builders, membership sites, video hosting, and visitor tracking all rolled into one. Even better if it comes with a visual sales funnel builder so that you can visualise where a potential lead enters your funnel and they drop out.

Queue in Groovefunnels. It gives you all the tools you need to build your funnel and keep track of your visitors across all steps. At the time of this review, Groovefunnels was still in beta. Once it leaves beta, its monthly subscription fee will be $299. But for now, you can get its lifetime deal at a very high discount if you pay a one-time amount of $1497 which gives you access to all its features without any other costs.

Contents

Pros and cons of Groovefunnels
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Groovefunnels for?
How easy is Groovefunnels to use?
Groovefunnels design and templates
How to manage your ecommerce store in Groovefunnels?
Groovefunnels integrations
What marketing and SEO tools does Groovefunnels have?
Payment options
Groovefunnels security
Groovefunnels customer support
Groovefunnels pricing
Is Groovefunnels the right tool for you?

Pros and cons of Groovefunnels

Groovefunnels is a new player in the funnel building space. It was launched in early 2020. As an all-in-one marketing service, it covers everything from website building and conversion to o email campaign management, tracking, and social media marketing.

In other words, you can create funnels, follow up leads with emails, create websites, hold webinars, teach courses, and manage your affiliate all under one roof and without a line of code.

Pros

Fast loading speed
Ready-made content blocks speed up the page building process
Ease of use
No coding skills required
Templates for single pages, websites, webinars, and funnels
Free forever account
No credit card is required when you sign up

Cons

Still in beta
It has a learning curve, for one, you need to know what a funnel is
Its feature list is great and all but can be overwhelming
Many features are on the roadmap and yet to be launched

Who is Groovefunnels for?

If you’re looking for a tool to simplify your marketing activities, Groovefunnels is an interesting place to start. No matter if you’re a seasoned professional or just starting, having all under one roof is an attractive proposal. Not only because it spares you the headache of keeping track of all your disparate systems but also because you could potentially save the subscription fees of each of them.

If you have a service or product you want to promote and sell, whether you’re a consulting, a photographer, or a marketing agency, take a look. It’s more like an entire online sales system than just only a funnel builder.

How easy is Groovefunnels to use?

Groovefunnels is made up of several components

Groovepages/Groovefunnels
Groovesell
Groovemail
Groovemember
Groovvideo
Grooveblog
Groovekart

Even with these many components, its interface is easy to navigate. It’s clean and well organised with clear labels or instructions so you’ll find your way in no time.

As an all-in-one marketing solution, Groovefunnels offers many features. Still, the interface is uncluttered and easy to navigate. You’ll find everything you need to within a few clicks.

The interface is self-explanatory and uncluttered

The interface has a left sidebar that gives you access to higher-level applications such as a marketplace or the app store. The horizontal menu gives you quick access to its components and to the help desk.

Probably the most important component is Groovepages/Groovefunnels. It’s a drag-and-drop editor that lets you build websites, landing pages, and funnels without coding. The created websites are mobile-ready.

The page editor is similar to others in the website building market

You can start with a template or build a single page or an entire website from scratch. Groovepages has ready-made content blocks to speed up the process of creating a page. Its editor is similar to other editors in the website builder market.

Groovefunnels design and templates

To help you create a single page, complete websites, webinars, even an entire funnel, Groove comes with a template gallery. The templates can be filtered by type of industry or business or type of page. The templates are mobile-ready and look good on different devices.

The templates can be filtered by industry or page type

How to manage your ecommerce store in Groovefunnels?

One of the components of Groovefunnesl is Groovekart. You can build your online store complete with storefront and payment providers. You can sell digital and physical goods as well as services with it.

The shopping cart was modelled after Shopify but comes with marketing features such as upsells and bumps.

Groovefunnels integrations

Even though Groovefunnels is an all-in-one marketing service, an SDK, as well as an app store, are projected for 2022. To bridge the time until these arrive, you can use Zapier.

What marketing and SEO tools does Groovefunnels have?

As an all-in-one marketing service, Groovefunnels has a plethora of features already ready or on its roadmap.

SEO

The pages built in Groovepages load fast, which is an important factor in SEO. You can also add meta tags such as title, description, or keywords to each page.

Blogging

Grooveblog is the tool for you to add a blog. The blog is SEO friendly out of the gates and you can easily add meta tags just like with any page you’ve built. The blogging tool is very easy to use and doesn’t feel like an afterthought. It comes with customisable themes, templates, and even a royalty-free image gallery.

Automation

Groovemail comes with an email autoresponder, automation workflows, and customer relationship management (CRM).

Webinars and classes

Upload and host your videos with Groovevideo so that you can conduct webinars and classes. It comes with its own reporting, showing you stats such as impressions and unique views.

Membership sites

No matter if you’re teaching or selling coffee if you’re planning on running a membership programme, you’re covered. If you’re teaching, you can organise and deliver your online courses. It also lets you set different levels of membership.

Payment options

To accept payments, you need to connect your account with one of the following payment gateways:

Groovepay
Stripe
Authorize.net
NMI
Paypal
Braintree.

Groovefunnels security

Even on the free account, Groovefunnels secures your pages with an SSL.

Groovefunnels customer support

When you’re working on a project, you’ll find in the left-hand sidebar GrooveDigital Academy which is split in the academy itself and tutorials. In the lower right-hand corner, you’ll see the chat icon with which you can contact the support team. The team usually answers in a few hours.

Groovefunnels pricing

Groovefunnels is in beta at the time of writing. You can sign up to its free account and upgrade to its free-for-life offer for a one-time payment of $1’397. Once it leaves its beta, you can subscribe at $299 per month.

Is Groovefunnels the right tool for you?

Groovefunnels was launched in early 2020 and so a very young service. You may notice it here and there when a feature is a bit shaky and buggy.

But if this doesn’t deter you, it’s an interesting choice for someone who doesn’t want to wants to concentrate on promoting and selling their product or services in one dashboard. It was designed with entrepreneurs, marketers, and small businesses in mind, who want to ease their workload and automate their marketing activities without the need of an entire developer and marketing team.

If you need immediate access to all features and they need to be stable, then Groovefunnels is not for you. Also, note that the free tool is quite limited and so can only help your business so much.

If you liked this review about Groovefunnels and reading about funnels, join our newsletter to stay ahead of the curve.

Original post here: Groovefunnels review: What’s to like?

Activecampaign review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 11:36:00 GMT

If you run an online business, be it a blog, an online store, or even if you just have a website with a contact form, you need email marketing.

Your email list is central to your business and you’ll want an email marketing and automation provider that helps you grow it as well as reliably get in touch with your contacts.

If you believe the messaging of Activecampaign, it’s an all-in-one solution: It gives you all the tools to build your list, reach out to and get in front of the people on your list at the right time. There’s email marketing – that’s the basis. And then there’s SMS messaging and social media, making it an omnichannel marketing provider. There’s also customer relations management (CRM), and of course automation.

Activecampaign has been around since 2003, with headquarters in Chicago, USA. At the time of this review, it serves more than 170’000 businesses in 170 countries.

Contents

Pros and cons of Activecampaign
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Activecampaign for?
Activecampaign user interface
Campaigns
Sign up forms and landing pages
List management, segmentation, and personalisation
Automation
Other Features
Activecampaign integrations
Activecampaign reporting
Support
Pricing
Is Activecampaign right for you?

Pros and cons of Activecampaign

As a one-stop-shop marketing provider, you can reach out to the people who’re interested in your business where they are. The main channel is email, but you can also reach out via SMS, social media, and live chat.

Pros

Intuitive interface that’s great for beginners and business owners who have more on their plate than just email campaigns
Template gallery for emails and landing pages
Forms and landing page builder, so, if you can dream up a funnel, you can build it
CRM with lead scoring, albeit not in the entry subscription

Cons

No forever free plan
The feature list can be overwhelming
Learning cure for advanced features, especially if you’re new to email marketing automation

Who is Activecampaign for?

If you’re serious about getting in front of people who’re interested in what you have to say and your business, marketing automation is the way. This is the main feature of Activecampaign.

Put differently, its strength is automation. You can pretty much build any kind of customer journey you can think up.

Activecampaign user interface

After signing up, you’ll be greeted by an onboarding video and a checklist to help you hit the ground running.

Onboarding checklist

Navigating Activecampaign’s interface is easy. It’s designed to help you make the most out of it. So, you won’t have to click to endless submenus to find what you need. Particularly, if you’re into automation, the automation tool is well thought out and you can visually see and design a user journey.

Campaigns

Email campaigns are the fundament of Activecampaign. So, you can create your standard email campaigns. All you need to do is design your email and send it out to your contact list.

But then you can create campaigns based on automation, send autoresponders, split test, send emails based on RSS triggers, and on certain dates.

Activecampaign’s campaign types

Creating a campaign takes 5 steps. Once you have selected the type of campaign and the contact list, you design the email, either from scratch or by customising one of the pre-designed templates. Activecampaign provides a formidable templates gallery for all kinds of occasions and industries.

With the drag-and-drop editor, you can drop content blocks into your mail and change everything from the fonts, background colors, and more

In the last step, you can add the subject, confirm the list, and set what you’d like to track in your email such as open rate. You can also connect your account with Google Analytics. Then you can send a test mail or schedule your campaign.

Sign up forms and landing pages

To help you build your list, Activecampaign lets you create signup forms and landing pages. Depending on your design, you can create an inline form, a floating bar, a floating box, or a popup form.

As an all-in-one email marketing service, you can also build landing pages. As with the email templates, the landing page template gallery is also comprehensive. Both for the forms as well as landing pages, Activecampaign provides you with a drag-and-drop editor. It looks and feels the same as the email builder. If you’ve used MailerLite, the editor will feel familiar.

With landing pages, you’ll want to optimise them for search engines as well as track their performance. You can add meta tags such as meta title, description, and keywords. You can even add a favicon. GDPR compliance is included as well. For monitoring the traffic, you can add custom code into the head and body section.

List management, segmentation, and personalisation

The built-in CRM will help you manage your list. Perhaps more intriguing is that you can apply scores, be it manually or automatically, and so find who your best prospects are. The lead scoring is aided by Activecampaign’s machine learning engine to calculate win probability. Albeit that’s not available in the entry subscription.

If you decide to use the CRM, you can use Deals to automate sales follow up and remove much of the manual work in closing deals and sales.

Segmentation will help you in your automation workflows. You can segment your list using contact details, location, pages they visited on your site, and more.

Automation

This is the strong point of Activecampaign. You’ll find pre-built automations sorted by industry. There are even automation templates in Portuguese, French, Italian, German, and French. Use these as a basis and edit them to suit your needs, or build one from scratch.

A visual editor helps you build your automation workflow

The visual editor is both advanced and easy to use. You can buy and import automations from the marketplace. Although you should note that some automations have SMS steps. SMS messages are available at the higher tiers.

Other Features

As an omnichannel, you can opt to reach your audience through other means than only mail. For one, you can nurture your prospects through SMS marketing. There’s also a live chat, with which you interact with your audience on your site. Then with Web Personalisation, you can show each individual visitor content tailored to them.

This is just the briefest overview of what you can do and how you can target your audience.

Activecampaign integrations

Out of the gate, Activecampaign comes with a plethora of integrations. If you can think of another service you want to use, you’ll most likely find an integration for it. And, as any self-respecting service should do, it also integrates with the Swiss Army knife Zapier, so you can indirectly still use the service.

Activecampaign reporting

Without numbers, we marketers would be flying blind. The stats help you figure out who is most interested in what you have to say, or lets you find out what isn’t working. So, you’ll find basic stats on email campaigns, automation workflows, and contacts. You’ll see numbers such as how many people have opened your email, or the click rates.

If you’ve connected a campaign to your Google Analytics, you can track its performance in your Google Analytics.

Support

The help centre, styled as Activecampaign University or Education Centre has all kinds of tutorials and courses on how to use the service. There’s also a community and a forum.

When you’re working on a funnel and need help, just click on the help icon in the lower right hand corner and chat with the support team.

Pricing

In contrast to what you often see, you don’t get a 30 day free trial. The free trial lasts only 14 days. On the upside, you don’t need to hand over your credit card details.

There are 4 prices all in all, so it should cover your needs from when you’re just starting to where your business is a large enterprise. That is to say, it can grow with you as your needs change.

Check the feature list

Is Activecampaign right for you?

Activecampaign is a well-rounded and feature rich service. Since its versatile, it works well for businesses in all kinds of industries, B2C, and B2B.

If you’re looking into optimising your marketing and sales processes, you’ll find that much of its features are right on spot.

On the other hand, if you just want to send a simple newsletter, it can be overwhelming and you’ll most likely not be using all its features.

Original post here: Activecampaign review

Cartflows review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 13:35:00 GMT

A customer journey or sales funnel is a complex path made off a series of pages and triggers based on how a potential customer interacts. You can cobble together your custom mix of tools such as Leadpages combined with an email marketing provider or use an all-in-one solution such as Clickfunnels.

In both cases, you don’t own your content. Moreover, if you’re running your site on one of the most popular CMS, WordPress and it’s self-hosted, you’re building your funnel outside of your infrastructure. It often means that learn a whole new interface and way of doing things.

Enter Cartflows. It’s a WordPress plugin to build sales funnels integrating with WooCommerce. It means if you’re already running a WordPress site, you need to install WooCommerce for Cartflows. It will allow you to create a customer journey with as many order bumps and upsells as you need, all the while owning the entire funnel including the checkout.

Another boon is that you can tap into the vast ecosystem of WordPress and install any kind of plugin to enhance your site as well as that it can help you save money on the subscription fees.

Cartflows is installed in over 200’000 WordPress sites. There are 2 versions of Cartflows. It’s only in the paid version called Cartflows Pro that you have features such as upsell and downsell.

Contents

Pros and cons of Cartflows
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Cartflows for?
How easy is Cartflows to use?
Cartflows design
How to manage your ecommerce store in Cartflows?
Cartflows integrations
What marketing and SEO tools does Cartflows have?
- Add bump orders, upsells, downsells to any WooCommerce product type
- Split testing
Payment options
Cartflows security
- Cartflows customer support
Cartflows pricing
Is Cartflows the right tool for you?

Pros and cons of Cartflows

Cartflows sits on top of WooCommerce, the native shopping cart plugin for WordPress sites. You can build as many funnels with as many steps as you see fit for your business. It comes with templates for landing pages, checkout page, upsells, downsells, order bumps, and thank-you pages. It works with the known WordPress page builders such as Elementor, Divi, and more.

Pros

Ease of use
Cost-effective while being very feature-rich
Modern templates
Works well in WordPress
You own all your funnels and content
Enhance the WooCommerce checkout process

Cons

If you’re not comfortable with WordPress, you’ll find you’ll have a learning curve
As it’s a WordPress plugin, you’re responsible for the security and maintenance of your site and funnels

Who is Cartflows for?

Anyone who is already running a WordPress site and wants to sell on the internet. Actually, the last sentence can be rephrased to “anyone who wants to sell on the internet”. But of course, you need to satisfy the prerequisite of using WordPress and Woocommerce.

Cartflows gives you more tools than “just” a shopping cart software. You can build the entire journey a customer takes from being aware of you or your product to pressing the checkout button and paying.

If you don’t want to rely on subscription services because you want to own your content or because you want to save money, Cartflows is an interesting proposition.

How easy is Cartflows to use?

Since Cartflowss integrates with WooCommerce, it follows the user interaction principles of WordPress. It comes with templates that work with all popular page builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Divi Builder, The Architect, and Gutenberg. So, you can just import the templates and then customise, or build your own.

Once you’ve installed Cartflows, you can start its wizard that helps you set it up. To be able to sell, you first need to add your products.

After the products, you add and design your flows. When you click on add new flow, the flow templates gallery opens and you can select a pre-built flow or create one from scratch.

Cartflows template gallery

You can customise the flow templates as well as the page templates. Everything is clearly labelled so that using it is intuitive. To customise the page templates, you’ll be using your favourite WordPress page builder or the default WordPress Editor.

Cartflows design

The design of the templates is all modern, mobile-ready and attractive. This is because a founder of the WordPress Astra Theme was co-creator.

How to manage your ecommerce store in Cartflows?

You’ll not be managing your store in Cartflows but in WooCommerce. For an in-depth look at WooCommerce jump to WooCommerce review.

Cartflows integrations

Since Cartflows sits on top of WooCommerce, you have the full selection of all the plugins and themes that the vibrant community of WordPress has to offer.

What marketing and SEO tools does Cartflows have?

We’re not going to look at the standard marketing tools such as SEO or blogging (which have been covered in the WordPress review).

Add bump orders, upsells, downsells to any WooCommerce product type

Adding orders, upsells, or downsells is as simple as checking a checkmark when you design your checkout page.

Add an order bump to your checkout

Split testing

Each step can be split tested. You can split test the copy, images, button colours, and more. Cartflows will monitor the traffic so that you can optimise your funnels.

A/B split test your steps

Other nifty marketing tools are dynamic links, countdown timers, abandoned carts, and coupons.

Payment options

Payment options are part of the shopping cart so it’s handled in WooCommerce.

Cartflows security

You are responsible for securing your WordPress installation since it’s a plugin for WordPress.

Cartflows customer support

For pre-sales questions, you can fill in the contact form. There’s also a support ticket system. The help centre is well organised and well documented.

Cartflows pricing

You can use the basic Cartflows plugin for free, but that’s quite limited so that you can’t use features bump orders. You can get the pro version as an annual license for $299 or a lifetime license for $999.

Reasonable pricing

Is Cartflows the right tool for you?

If you know you’re running many campaigns and thus have many customer journeys, you’ll find Cartflow a joy to work with. It’s very easy to use, assuming you know and like how WordPress works.

Go for the basic version first to get to grips with it and once you’re comfortable, upgrade to the premium version to get the advanced features.

Original post here: Cartflows review

Shopify review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 12:35:00 GMT

If you know from the get-go that you’ll also be selling, then Shopify, one of the most popular online store builders popped up on your radar. It’s a browser-based ecommerce solution and a one-stop-shop for you to go online. This means it takes care of hosting and if you want you can also buy a domain name.

You can build all kinds of E-shops with Shopify, from a general store to sell digital goods. It gives you all kinds of tools to build and manage your store while striking a balance with ease of use. It’s actually aiming at small and medium-sized businesses, but you also find more notable brands using Shopify such as General Electric or Tesla Motors.

In 2006, a youngster living in Canada wanted to sell snowboards online. But there wasn’t anything that lived up to his expectations and requirements. So, he created his won shopping cart software and the rest is history – as one might say.

Contents

Pros and cons of Shopify
Pros
Cons
Who is Shopify for?
How easy is Shopify to use?
Shopify design and themes
How to manage your ecommerce store in Shopify?
Shopify integrations
What marketing and SEO tools does Shopify have?
- SEO
Blogging
- Email marketing
- Point of sale
Payment options
Shopify security
Shopify customer support
Shopify pricing
Is Shopify the right tool for you?

Pros and cons of Shopify

Shopify sets out to be the all-in-one solution for people of all walks of life so that they can set up their online store quickly without the help of a developer and concentrate on the business. To get this convenience, you pay this ecommerce website builder a monthly subscription fee.

Pros

Ease of use
No coding skills required
Abandoned cart recovery on all plans
Accept multiple currencies all be it in the top tier plans or with a plugin

Cons

No forever free plan
Limited blogging tool
In case you want to migrate, you’re going to deal with some headaches
Transaction fees for third-party payment gateways
Learning curve due to its own jargon

Who is Shopify for?

Shopify is aiming at anyone who wants to sell online. This can be a first-time seller or one of the household brands such as General Electric. You can also use it if you’re already running a bricks-and-mortar store and branch out online.

How easy is Shopify to use?

Even though there’s no forever free plan, you can start to test-drive Shopify for 14 days without having your credit card at hand. It has a pretty simple, clean, and intuitive interface.

Following most of what you see in most website builders, you’ll find a menu on the left that gives you access to features or content. The main part on the right is for editing or customising.

WYSIWYG editor

If you’re coming from other website builders that use drag and drop, you might need a bit of getting used to its content editor. It’s a more traditional WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.

Even so, there’s a way around it, you can install one of the many apps available so that you can drag and drop again.

You may find that you have a learning curve since Shopify has its lingo. An example is that they call product categories “collections”.

Shopify design and themes

Shopify has a ton of paid (compared to just) a few free themes. All of them are mobile-optimised. You can browse by categories such as purpose, design style, or industry. If you stay within the limits of what the themes offer, they’re easy to work with.

If you want to go beyond, you can customise the themes yourself, if you don’t shy away from code. Shopify gives you with Customiser a tool to edit the code, for example, change eh colour in the CSS. If this is not your cup of tea, you can commission an expert on the marketplace. Or, you can commission an expert to develop a customer theme for you.

The themes are grouped into categories

How to manage your ecommerce store in Shopify?

As you see in the menu on the left, most of the navigation is dedicated to managing a store. You have your order management, product inventory, customer management, and discounts in separate sections. Shopify makes it easy to do all the tasks you need to run your shop smoothly.

You can sell all kinds of goods, be it digital, physical, or services. If you plan to sell a recurring subscription, you’ll need to install an app or ask a developer to code this for you.

Shopify has recognised how important abandoned cart recovery is for your sales and so has included it into all plans.

Shopify integrations

Since no tool can do everything for everyone, Shopify has a Shopify App Store for plugins and integrations. It even includes a page for their so-called experts, coders so that you can customise a theme, plugin, or have something custom built for you.

The apps you find in the store range from dropshipping to sales features to payment gateway to social media integration.

You can even find marketing specialists that help you with SEO for example. All this with their simple Buy Button.

Find an expert

What marketing and SEO tools does Shopify have?

Out of the box, you can connect your Shopify store with social media such as Facebook or Instagram.

SEO

It automatically takes the title and the first 300 or so characters of your description and sets them into the fields for the page title and description. It’s easy to then edit them in the tile “Search engine listing preview”. Though, the URL structure isn’t 100% customisable. This means for product pages, it will always add “product”. Google prefers a simpler structure.

Each page has a search engine listing preview

Blogging

Even though you’ll find a blogging tool, it’s fairly limited. You’ll be missing a gallery, or you can group your posts into categories, and there’s also no related posts feature to name a few limitations.

Email marketing

A basic email marketing tool is included with which you can send branded email newsletters. It’s quite a new feature, so don’t expect it to be on par with Mailchimp (yet).

Point of sale

Say if you’re on a fair and you want to sell offline, you can use its Point of Sale (POS) feature. This gives you a “Buy button” that you can also add anywhere online (Facebook, your blog, etc) to let your customers click to buy your products.

Buying offline and online normally creates a gap and you need to sync everythign together. With POS, everything is completely synced to your Shopify backend this means, your reporting, inventory management, prices will all be updated automatically.

Payment options

Shopify comes with its own built-in payment system. But depending on your location, you may want to use a third party payment gateway’ to process card transactions. And there are over 100 to choose from.

If you use the built-in system, you’re not going to be chard a transaction fee. Depending on your subscription plan, you can expect transaction fees if you use a third party payment gateway.

Shopify security

Shopify’s infrastructure runs on Level 1 PCI compliant servers. Seeing that it has its own payment system, it’s a must for it to accept credit card payments. All plans include an SSL certificate.

Shopify customer support

Should you have a question, you can contact the support team 24/7 via phone or live chat. You can also try your luck and see if your question was answered in the community forum and lastly, there’s a help centre.

Shopify pricing

You can choose from 3 plans. However, the core features on each plan really only seem to cover the absolutely necessary so that it seems that Shopify heavily relies on its apps which also can be pricy. There are also transaction fees for third party payment gateways that you have to consider…

Check out Shopify prices

Is Shopify the right tool for you?

If you’re only concentrating on ecommerce and you’re looking to grow, Shopify lets you focus on just doing your business. It’s even better if you want to sell online and offline.

On the other hand, if you value content marketing and crips, eye-catching design, take a look at Squarespace.

Original post here: Shopify review

Instapage review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 14:35:00 GMT

If you’re using social media in your marketing mix or driving traffic with PPC, you’ll want to set up landing pages. All the more, if you want better results from your social media and PPC campaigns. Then you want converting landing pages – and it’s not all about having “just” beautiful-looking pages.

Not so long ago, you most likely had to go back and forth with a designer and probably also a developer to tweak something here and change something there to optimise your page for your campaigns.

This is exactly what Instapage wants to help you with and streamlines the process. It gives you the tools to build landing pages, optimise them for search engines, test them with split tests, and of course capture user data with opt-in forms.

Instapage was founded in 2012 by Tyson Quick and is headquartered in San Francisco, USA. It serves known brands such as Vimeo or Soundcloud, but that is not to say smaller organisations can’t use it. It serves companies with employees from 1 to 10’000+.

It’s important to know that you can only build landing pages.

Contents

Pros and cons of Instapage
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Instapage for?
How easy is Instapage to use?
How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Instapage?
Integrations
What marketing tools does Instapage provide?
- SEO
- Tracking, testing, and reporting
Payment options
Security
Customer support
Pricing
Is Instapage the right solution for you?

Pros and cons of Instapage

It features not only the basics such as a drag-and-drop website builder with a wide range of templates, but you also get

Analytics tools
Split testing combined with heat mapping
Collaboration tools so that you can work with your team
Integration with the known email and marketing providers such as Mailchimp

But it comes with a hefty price tag, so is it worth it?

Pros

Easy to use with a nifty page builder
You can add custom HTML, CSS, and Javascript code
A wide range of crisp, mobile-ready templates

Cons

No forever free plan
You get a 14-day free trial, but you need to hand over your credit card details
Expensive
In general, the customer service is terrible
You can’t cancel in the interface within your so-called free- and you can’t get customer service to answer

Who is Instapage for?

When you’re running advertising campaigns, you’ll want a converting landing page, no matter if your business is small or large. It also applies if you’re a marketer, an agency, or running an ecommerce site.

Whichever the case, you’ll want landing pages that convert and so help you generate more leads, increase ROI and expand your email marketing list.

How easy is Instapage to use?

Once your account is created, you’d be taken to your dashboard. It’s designed so that you see at a glance how your landing page is performing. As you see, it’s all about conversions with Instapage and how to tweak your page to get better conversion.

See at a glance how your landing page is performing

The interface is uncluttered and self-explanatory. Since it’s all about building converting landing pages, let’s look at the landing page builder. Following industry standards, you first choose a template – or as Instapage calls it “a conversion optimised layout”, then customise it by dragging and dropping elements. The last step is to publish your page.

Landing page builder

You’ll see that Instapage has grouped elements that are often used together like in a beautiful layout. The blocks are what make up your layout. That is, each section is an independent block that you can move where you want. If you’re happy with how you’ve designed your header, you can save the block for re-use on other pages.

You can search for or filter the blocks

When you’re done, you have can publish your page

As a custom domain
Through WordPress
Through Drupal
On a subdomain of Instapage as a demo page

Design and templates

You not only have a choice of over 200 templates but also a myriad of pre-designed blocks. All of them are mobile-ready, so they fit the size of any device. This is an important factor to ensure your conversions don’t fall on mobile and tablet devices

Attractive, sleek templates

How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Instapage?

The goal of Instapage is to help you create pages that are geared towards the goal of your marketing campaign. In most cases, you’re probably collecting user data via a form and not trying to manage an online store.

Integrations

Not in all cases do you need to connect with an email marketing company. You can also collect all of the leads and download them in a spread sheet when your campaign has concluded.

Obviously, it’s more practical to connect Instapage with a service such as Autopilot, or the jack of all trades Zapier.

What marketing tools does Instapage provide?

A landing page is an integral part of a campaign. And without analytics, you can’t improve and optimise your page.

SEO

Some campaigns only last a few days to weeks. And then some run for months or always the same weeks every year. This means, you’d still want to optimise your page for search engines.

You’ll add your meta tags into the head section of your page with the custom code editor when you’re designing the layout of your page.

Tracking, testing, and reporting

When a page is published, you’d want to track it so that you can see what’s working and what isn’t and optimise for better results.

One option is the heat map tool that shows what your visitors have been doing while viewing your page. Heat maps help you find potential issues, such as a form that is too far down the page and visitors don’t scroll to that point.

The second option is to split test your landing page. You can also split test specific elements by simply cloning a page and only changing one element.

Since it’s all about conversions, you can enable conversion goals from the page builder. And lastly, you can easily add Google Analytics.

Payment options

Accepting payments is not within the scope of Instapage.

Security

All pages created with Instapage are secured with SSL and GDPR compliant.

Customer support

All subscription plans include customer support by chat and email. The support is described as available 24/7. But it’s actually inexistent. Worse still, if you try to cancel within the 14 days free trial, the interface will display an error message and you can’t cancel. Contacting support doesn’t yield results as there’s no reaction. In short, you can’t cancel within the time limit and Instapage will automatically charge your credit card.

Pricing

Instapage has 2 subscription plans and you can choose to pay monthly or annually. The annual fee saves you 33%. It says you can try it free of charge for 14 days but you need to hand over your credit card details and you will be charged if your landing pages are viewed by more than 2,500 visitors. And worse, you can’t cancel the subscription in the interface as you’ll only be shown an error message.

Instapage offers no free plan

Is Instapage the right solution for you?

If you’re running many campaigns and need sleek and mobile-ready landing pages, you’ll find that Instapage’s builder is a pleasure to use. Albeit expensive, you get the tracking and analytics you need to optimise your page for better results.

If you’re trying your hand with campaigns, then you may want a cheaper lead page builder like for example Leadpagees.

But, there’s a big BUT: Even if the user interface is well-designed and uncluttered, in the case you should decide to leave, you can’t get out. You can try its so-called 14 days free of charge trial period but it can’t cancel your subscription. If you try to search on the internet, you’d find many horror stories how dreadful the customer service is and it how difficult it is to cancel your subscription, if you’re one of the lucky ones.

Original post here: Instapage review

Shift4shop (was formerly 3dcart) review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 08:04:00 GMT

Shift4shop started its life in 2001 under the name 3dcart. It was an affordable shopping cart software and in late 2020, it was acquired by Shift4payments, a payment processing company. In that, it shares a history with Weebly which was also acquired by a digital payments company (Square).

What can you expect, now that 3dcart is acquired by Shift4payments and rebranded as Shift4shop?

For one, you can subscribe to Shift4shop to get a fully hosted online store. And with it, you get features such as

design tools
inventory and order management control
marketing tools
simple checkout
return authorisation

Maybe more importantly, it has changed its pricing structure: As long as you agree to use its in-house payment processing, you can create and run Shift4Shop online store for… $0, and that without any compromises.

You surely have experienced it with other services in general, and with shopping cart platforms in particular. The free version is always a mixed bag – to put it nicely. With the free plan, you have access to a pared-down version that more or less does its job as described but is missing at all corners and ends. And for each additional feature that you need, you’re asked to upgrade your plan until you’re at an eye-watering level…

It’s the opposite approach with Shift4shop: As long as you subscribe to its End-to-End Ecommerce plan, you get all the features of the original 3dcart and then some. If you prefer to use other payment options you’ll find a plan that should cover your needs.

A note though: you can only subscribe to the End-to-End Ecommerce plan if you’re a US merchant.

Contents

Pros and cons of Shift4shop
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Shift4shop for?
How easy is Shift4shop to use?
Shift4shop design and themes
How to manage your ecommerce store in Shift4shop?
Shift4shop integrations
What marketing and SEO tools does Shift4shop have?
Payment options
- Shift4shop security
Shift4shop customer support
Shift4shop pricing
Is Shift4shop the right tool for you?

Pros and cons of Shift4shop

As an all-in-one solution, you don’t need to install any software, do any of the maintenance staff, and can buy a domain. This means, you build an online store from start to finish, and also manage it using Shift4shop.

Pros

Easy to use, once you’ve completed the sign-up process
Has a range of over 100 payment gateways

Cons

End-to-End Ecommerce plan only available for US merchants
Free trial for the rest of the world only with credit card details
SSL certificate is not included
Convoluted sign-up process
Even more aggravating is the process to cancel: Shift4shop makes you jump through what feels like seven thousand hurdles

Who is Shift4shop for?

Since you can build a fully operational online store without a single line of code, you don’t need to be a web designer or developer and can start your business. Put differently ever one can start their store with Shift4shop. Also seeing how it includes a generous free plan and paid plans that include varying price points, it suits fits many businesses of all types and sizes.

With its nifty and advanced structure optimised for handling hundreds of products, it’s a robust choice for people who expect their stores to grow fast or are already in this phase. With Shift4shop, you don’t need to go out and buy a ton of complementary and auxiliary tools only to make it useful to handle large volumes of products and buyers.

How easy is Shift4shop to use?

If you’re non located in the US, you first need to pick your plan and hand over your credit card details. In the process, you also need to purchase an SSL certificate. Once you’ve completed signing up, you’d expect to be logged in directly and brought to your Shift4shop dashboard.

Instead, you get an email with the URL where you find the login page and your login details. And then you still have the extra step of agreeing to the terms and conditions. And another step where you re-enter and confirm your email address. And another step to reset your password…

The onboarding wizard takes you through the paces

Finally you’re taken to your dashboard and an onboarding wizard will help you set up categorise, products, and shipping. Fortunately, it can be turned off otherwise it would show every time you log in.

In general, the interface is self-explanatory, especially if you’ve already used other website builders such as Squarespace. Your store is fully functional from your first login. Of course, you can change and customise your theme.

Block-based page editor

If you want to customise the content on a page, you can use the page editor. The page editor is block-based, similar to what you’d see with Tilda or Ucraft. You can also edit the HTML code itself.

Shift4shop design and themes

Shift4shop has more than 100 free and paid themes. All of them are mobile-ready. You can search by category, but don’t expect the design to be eye-catching as what Squarespace offers.

Searchable theme gallery

How to manage your ecommerce store in Shift4shop?

Store management is all done within your dashboard. You’ll see in the navigation on the left-hand side everything you need. You can sell physical, digital, and service-based products. Managing your store including tasks such as inventory, customer, and order management is straightforward.

Shift4shop integrations

Should Shift4shop not offer a feature out of the box, you can integrate your store with a multitude of leading applications including analytics, accounting, CRM, email marketing, shipping, and much more. It has partnered with over 350 app developers so that it’s highly likely, you’ll find what you need.

If the integrations still don’t do what you need, you can still fall back on Shift4shop’s API and task a developer to build a custom integration.

What marketing and SEO tools does Shift4shop have?

You’ll find a section in the left-hand menu fully dedicated to marketing. You can add promotions such as buy 1 and get 1 free in the Promotion Manager and connect with search engines so that your products can be pushed and advertised.

SEO

Each page, product page, and blog post has a section for you to add and edit page titles, meta tags. Strangely, you can’t edit meta descriptions.

In the section for SEO Tools, you can configure your sitemap and optimise not only for Google but also for Facebook.

Blogging

Blogging doesn’t feel like it “just another tool” that you need for marketing. It’s easy to use and an integral part of your website. You can write and schedule posts, add categories, and tagged products.

Newsletter and campaigns

Instead of adding another integration with a mail service provider, you can use the inbuilt newsletter tool to communicate with your customers. It’s quite a basic tool so that you can’t expect advanced email marketing features such as automation.

If you want to capture the emails of people who are not yet customers, you need to install an integration so that you can create forms.

Payment options

The standard payment gateway is the in-house payment processing Shift4payments. If you don’t plan or can’t use the free End-to-End plan, you can choose from over 100 payment providers including Authorize.net, PayPal, Stripe, and Square.

Shift4shop doesn’t levy a transaction fee but you still need to pay these to the payment gateway provider you’ve selected including the in-house option.

Shift4shop security

Contrary to my expectations and industry standards, you need to buy an SSL certificate to secures your site. You do this when you create your account.

Then again, Shift4shop guarantees an uptime of 99.99% and is PCI Level 1 compliant.

Shift4shop customer support

In case you’ve got any questions, you can contact Shift4shop support 24/7 via phone, chat, or ticket. If you don’t have the patience to wait for an answer be it because the queue is too long, you can fall back to its knowledge base. It’s searchable and includes how-tos, tutorials, and FAQs.

Shift4shop pricing

You can choose between 3 plans. The top-tier plan has the same value as the free End-to-End plan. But that is only available to US merchants.

The more advanced marketing and automation tools you need, the more expensive it gets

If you’re outside the US, you need to choose one of the 3 plans and hand in your credit cards even for the free trial.

Is Shift4shop the right tool for you?

With its vast list of features, Shift4shop is still quite reasonably priced. Especially, if you can subscribe to the free End-to-End plan. It lets you focus on running your store and doing some marketing.

Shift4shop is easy for everyone to use, but it has some advanced features such as the code editor tool for those who need it. That means that it’s a nifty tool for those who’re comfortable with HTML and CSS, and those who want to take advantage of its set of robust and flexible ecommerce features.

Lastly, if you know you need a wide range of payment gateways, Shift4Shop is an interesting option.

If you’re on the fence, maybe you’d want to check out our guide on how to find the best website builder for your needs.

And if you enjoyed this post, I’d be grateful if you could create a link to it on your website or blog.

Original post here: Shift4shop (was formerly 3dcart) review

Drupal review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 12:38:00 GMT

Drupal is a popular open-source content management system (CMS) mainly used to create powerful websites. Its popularity can be attributed to its flexibility so that you can create a simple one-pager as easily as an interactive and complex business website, that can handle large volumes of visitors and serves hundreds of pages of content.

With flexibility at its core, you can solve the same problem in different ways. This is the reason why many web developers love to work with it. At the same time, it’s also a powerful CMS for newbies, albeit you’d need to be willing to get into the nitty-gritty. The community describes Drupal as a publishing system since you can use it for blogs, forums, wikis, ecommerce, and of course business websites.

2021, Drupal sees its 20th anniversary. It’s a mature CMS with a ton of features. It’s powering over 1 Million websites and used by household brands’ websites such as BBC and 7-eleven. It was developed by 2 Dutch college students in Antwerp, the Netherlands.

As open-source software, you can download Drupal for free. To have your website up and running you need to have a hosting provider and are fully responsible to keep up with the maintenance and security.

But it gives you all the freedom and control over everything

Your content
Design
Domain name
How you solve a task

Contents

Pros and cons of Drupal
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Drupal for?
How easy is Drupal to use?
Drupal design and themes
How to manage your ecommerce store in Drupal?
Drupal integrations
What marketing and SEO tools does Drupal have?
Drupal security
Drupal customer support
Drupal pricing
Is Drupal the right tool for you?

Pros and cons of Drupal

Drupal includes a wide range of functionalities, such as comprehensive menu management and user management. This makes it easy for you to create any kind of website, social networking, These features make it easy for users to establish a simple yet advanced website, blog, social networking page, wikis, and more.

Pros

Open-source software so it’s free to download and use
Great flexibility and customisation
Mobile-first
Strong user and developer community
Easy to use, once installed

Cons

You need time to set up everything
Learning curve for beginners

Who is Drupal for?

Drupal is best suited for businesses and organisations that need a large, complex website that handle high traffic volumes well and be fully customised. That is to say, if you run a content-heavy website or have large resource libraries and databases, consider Drupal.

How easy is Drupal to use?

To drive this point home: Drupal is not an out-of-the-box solution. This means you need to plan some time to set it up. Drupal is designed to be a blank slate and is meant to be customised before you can really use it. So, out of the box, it’s a functional but poorly design website.

It’s possible to explore and apply the feature set of Drupal without coding skills. That’s to say, you can master Drupal without facing serious problems, as long as you use only ready-made tasks or download the software installation package needed to complete a particular task. Obviously, if you have programming skills, you can go about it so much quicker.

The flexibility of Drupal is because it’s designed to be modular. The CMS is based on modules. That means you have all the modules that are commonly used to build a website when you download the core Drupal code base. Whatever idea you have, most likely there’s a module with the ready-made feature set needed to successfully complete your task.

Once it’s set up, it gives anyone who contributes to your site, be it writers, editors, or site administrator tools for creating content and they don’t need HTML or coding experience. The editor is designed to be user-friendly, the sections are clearly labelled, so that it’s intuitive to write your content.

Editing pages and articles in Drupal is straightforward

The standard Drupal comes with 2 kinds of pages, a basic page and an article. The article is for your blog posts and the basic page is for static content such as an “About” page.

When it’s time to lay out your content, you can rearrange the content blocks

Drupal design and themes

Drupal has a mobile-first approach so that the design is mobile-ready. Following its philosophy, you can customise what your audience sees (aka the frontend) as well as the admin area. This appeals to experienced web designers who want to have the system set up so as to exactly meet their needs in all aspects.

You can change your themes in the section Appearance

If you want to add a new theme, you have to find it on Drupal.org’s theme page, download it and then upload it to the website server through the Appearance section. In the settings of the theme, you can tweak your color scheme. If these options are not enough, you can always edit the theme files.

Modify your colour scheme in the theme settings

How to manage your ecommerce store in Drupal?

The core functionality of Drupal doesnt include a shopping cart. But you have more than 500 ecommerce modules, covering essentials such as

Checkout
Order management
Inventory management
Multichannel
Price
Coupon codes
Recommendations

Drupal Commerce is its native ecommerce module. This means each store has to be set up, configured, and themed basically from scratch just like the website itself. This means every piece of your store’s design, workflow, and capabilities can be modified and improved. Moreover, you can go further and extend the functionality by adding an already developed module. This leads us to

Drupal integrations

The flexibility of Drupal lies in the many additional modules that you can add. It has more than 47’000 modules that you can add. Similar to how you install themes, you also first need to download the modules and then upload them through the Extend section

What marketing and SEO tools does Drupal have?

Any marketing tools you want, you need to install such as a web analytics and marketing modules.

SEO

By default, Drupal fulfills the basic search engine requirements. You can improve your website’s ranking by installing modules to help you with technical optimisation.

Blogging

You can create your regular blog with the page-type article. You can even a book page, a forum, and a poll. The book page is a collaborative type of content many users can add to. If you run a forum, each topic has comments and reply threads. Lastly, with polls, communist members can with a set of possible answers to a question.

As you see, these default content types already show that Drupal is built to be used for more than just a website. It allows you to create a website that has user generated content.

Payment options

Payment gateways are added by installing the payment modules. You have a choice of the over 150 payment processing gateway, amount them

Amazon Pay
Authorize.net
Braintree
Paypal
Stripe

Drupal security

Even if Drupal takes security very seriously, the most vulnerable are is its modules. But as is with all open-source software, you’re responsible for

Maintenance
Security
Optimisation

The core code base itself is well maintained and the community takes security seriously. This means that it has a security team around the world to respond to any issues as they arise.

Drupal customer support

As free and open-source software, you can’t expect any level of customer support. Still, you have access to a wealth of self-help resources such as a forum, tutorials, and guides.

Drupal pricing

You can download and install Drupal for free as soon as you have a reliable hoster. That means that you “only” have to plan and pay for your hosting provider and domain name registrar. Of course, you have to plan in the time to set up and maintain it and any developer that you commission to do work for you.

Is Drupal the right tool for you?

If you need something fast or if you’re a first-time user, you may find Drupal needs too much time. However, if you’re an experienced web designer or a web developer who values flexibility and scalability, Drupal is very interesting. Then, you’ll find Drupal a great choice to use for large-scale projects.

Drupal is a solid choice if you’re a large business or organisation which is reflected on your website. Certainly, if you have the resources for a web design team, with Drupal you can build a website exactly according to your specs with its unlimited customisation and scalability.

If you’ve got any question or thoughts about Drupal, feel free to leave a comment below.

Original post here: Drupal review

Tilda review

noreply@blogger.com — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 13:38:00 GMT

If you want to create your website, you’ve got a ton of choice of website builders. They offer non-coders a way to build and launch their site. But, in order for them to make a name for themselves, they have to distinguish themselves and offer a special feature set.

The website builder Tilda’s specialty is to give you the ease of use while also not limiting your options. It strives to balance simplicity with simplicity so that it appeals to both pros and non-coders alike.

Tilda was founded in 2014 by Nikita Obukhov and has its headquarters in London, UK. It’s a general-purpose website builder so that you can build whatever you can think of: an online store, a blog, …

Contents

Pros and cons of Tilda
- Pros
- Cons
Who is Tilda for?
How easy is Tilda to use?
Design and templates
How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Tilda?
Integrations
What marketing tools does Tilda provide?
- SEO
Blogging
CRM
Marketing emails
Payment options
Security
Customer support
Pricing
Is Tilda the right solution for you?

Pros and cons of Tilda

Tilda is offered on a monthly subscription basis and includes hosting. You build your site not only form elements but also from blocks that are predesigned by professional designers. Tilda is like a modules system for you to put together your site.

Pros

Forever free plan
No need to enter your credit card details for a paid plan
Easy to use
Beautiful, mobile-ready templates
You can export the source code – all the files needed so that you can host your site wherever you want
You can add custom HTML, CSS, and Javascript
Multi-lingual support
Solid blogging feature
Built-in CRM
Built-in email campaign builder
Fair pricing
You’re not tight down to only use their templates but can create your own from scratch
You can design your web pages in Tilda and integrate them with your site via an API or with the WordPress plugin with the top plan

Cons

No backup function
You have to install the SSL certificate yourself
Upgrading a plan means you need to buy the next higher up plan as Tilda doesn’t have an automatic upgrade
Not for larger projects

Who is Tilda for?

Since Tilda doesn’t require any coding or design skills and comes with a myriad of mobile-ready, attractive, and free templates, it’s a good way to start a website. It’s suitable both for people who want to build their own website fast (without knowing any code), as well as designers who are doing work for clients. It’s also a valuable tool to have in the toolbox for marketing teams and agencies.

How easy is Tilda to use?

If you build many websites, no matter if you’re a designer or a marketer, you often have to implement the same objects time and again. Knowing this, Tilda has designed its website builder to be a modular system. The blocks contain elements that are often used together like for example a contact form that contains input fields and a description paragraph.

Tilda’s website builder

It has a library of over 550 blocks. The library is constantly growing and the blocks are regularly updated. To help you find the needed block more easily, Tilda has grouped them into categories. The blocks are categorised by function (for example, about) or by meaning (for example, store, contacts, etc.). For the super impatient, the block library has a search function.

You’re not limited to use the predesigned blocks. You can add a custom HTML block and create your individual style with your custom CSS file. If you want to add a unique block with specific elements you can use Tilda’s Zero Block. It’s kind of like a graphic editor for your website.

When you sign up, even for a paid plan, you don’t need to enter your credit card details. A short onboarding is part of the sign-up process so that you can hit the ground running. The interface is not only beautifully designed but also intuitive. The options and controls are well-placed so that you can easily finish the task at hand.

Once you’ve completed your site, you can launch it with a free site provided by Tilda that follows the pattern of yourchosendomain.tilda.ws. Needless to say, you can connect at any time a domain to your site.

Design and templates

The templates are categorised by use cases. All of them are stylish and mobile-ready. You’re not forced to answer questions during the sign-up process and then stuck with the template that was recommended. If you’re in a hurry, choose a template that suits your project best and then customise it to your needs. Or, you can start with a blank state and create everything to your liking. The cool part is, you can then export all the files and use them on any hosting provider as you like.

Tilda templates are mobile ready

How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Tilda?

Interestingly, you can just add a payment system for individual products or services or create an online store. It all depends on the blocks you add to your page.

Tilda is great for creating the frontend of your store, but it doesn’t offer the full set of capabilities for running an online store. That is, you’ll be missing features such as inventory management. Although it’s not a fully-fledged online store, you still can offer promo-codes for your products.

Integrations

Tilda has no official plugin or integrations marketplace. Still, you can add third-party services. You can either add the block containing the integration (for example with Soundcloud) or you can add a custom HTML code block.

Tilda’s integrations are mostly for collecting and working with your audience’s email

Integrations for Tilda are first and foremost offered in the forms for capturing data and email addresses. The data captured via a form can be added to email marketing services, CRMs, or the the Swiss Army knife of automation among others. Social media integration is built-in.

What marketing tools does Tilda provide?

As an effective tool for marketers, Tilda not only covers the basics such as SEO and blogging. It also provides you with free SVG icons, a campaign URL builder so that you can track your ad campaigns, a colours library, and more.

SEO

Tilda lets you edit page titles and meta descriptions for each page. It then has an SEO assistant that helps you fix any errors. You can connect your site with

Google Analytics
Yandex Metrica
Facebook Pixel
VK Pixel

Blogging

You need to add the appropriate block to have a blog on your site. Then, to add new posts, you first need to create a feed. You have options to show an author and company photo, enable Google AMP, and select the language of your blog among others. You can add categories to your blog posts and schedule them.

CRM

When you have captured email addresses and more data of your audience, you’ll want to manage your contacts. Built-in is a customer relationship management tool, with which you can see and manage all your leads and contacts in one place. You can visualise your funnel right in your dashboard and create email campaigns.

Marketing emails

Email marketing is also built-in. The email marketing campaign tool works similarly to the website builder. Its campaign editor also works with blocks and then you can either use an external email service such as MailChimp or send it directly from within Tilda. The email campaign builder is included in the paid plans.

Payment options

The “usual suspects” PayPal and Stripe are available as payment gateway. But you also have the option of

Using 2Checkout
Accept cash on delivery
Accept bank transfer
Set up a custom payment gateway

Security

You can choose to install a free Let`s Encrypt SSL certificate to protect your site. Tilda doesn’t offer a backup function or integration with a backup service.

Customer support

Even when working with a tool as straightforward as Tilda, you may have one or another question. When you’re working on your site, you have in the lower right-hand corner the help icon. It will open the searchable help centre. If you didn’t find an answer, you can open a ticket. The support team usually answers within 2 hours on business days (Monday through Friday, from 10:00 to 18:00 UTC+3). On weekends, you can expect them to answer within 24 hours.

Pricing

Tilda offers 3 plans. On the free plan, you can’t try out the advanced features such as the online store. But, you can start with a 14 day free trial of all the paid plans. The business plan is when you want to export the code and build t websites.

Check out the current prices

Is Tilda the right solution for you?

With Tilda, you can build all kinds of websites without breaking out in a sweat in just a few hours. As such, it’s great

For startups
To build MVPs
Landing pages
Marketing pages

And, you have integrated an email marketing campaign with CRM. Most likely you have seen it coming: It’s not for larger projects.

If you enjoyed reading this post, I’d be hugely grateful if you could share it on social media.

Original post here: Tilda review

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