Senior Android developer with 8 years of experience. 2 years of iOS experience. Build and deployed production apps for Android and iOS from scratch. Basic knowledge of React Native and Flutter. Interested in learning Kotlin Multiplatform.
Interested in working in the education industry, as well as AI, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision.
Location: Tokyo, Japan Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: No. Not at the moment. Change my mind ;). Technologies: TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, React.js, PHP, PostgreSQL, MySQL Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chathuras Github: https://github.com/chathuras Email: chathuras at gmail dot com Experienced Full-Stack Software Engineer skilled in leading development teams and delivering innovative solutions. Expertise in JavaScript and PHP technology stacks. … Continue reading New comment by chathuras87 in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2023)"
Bill and his guests – Jeffrey Lord, Bill McKibben, Rosa Brooks, Charlie Sykes, and Joy Reid – answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 3/3/17) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. The post Overtime – Episode #417: Correspondents Dinner, GOP vs Trump, Climate Science appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And … Continue reading Overtime – Episode #417: Correspondents Dinner, GOP vs Trump, Climate Science
Looking for a diverse online ad platform that will put your marketing campaigns in front of tons of people? Facebook Ads is the way to go.
With an almost endless amount of detailed targeting options and features, you can reach virtually any Facebook user with an ad. Combine those targeting options with the functionality of Meta Business Suite; and you’re ready to dominate the platform.
But the sheer number of targeting options also presents big problems for the average Facebook advertiser. The platform is almost so complex that it can leave inexperienced users overwhelmed.
Case in point, most people create custom audience targeting on Facebook but have no idea how to optimize it. That’s a problem, given that there are more advertisers on Facebook than ever before. Competition is rife, which means businesses must make full use of the opportunities available to them.
If your Facebook ads are not working, it could be a problem with your custom audiences. Facebook custom audiences are the bread and butter of Facebook’s ad platform. It’s why it’s so popular in the first place. So when users don’t find success, they quickly give up, claiming that Facebook Ads don’t work. Or believing that Facebook isn’t meant for advertising.
But that’s not true. And thankfully, there are several ways you can fix your custom audiences to perform better.
Here’s why your Facebook custom audiences are failing and how you can fix them ASAP to improve your Facebook ad effectiveness.
Don’t Only Target Demographic Data
One of the biggest reasons your Facebook custom audience is not working is because you are using basic demographic data.
A standard marketing playbook will tell you to create simple buyer personas or customer profiles that describe your typical customers. These are a great tool when you are finding your target audience.
Buyer personas are a summary of basic information, including a name, age range, gender, and job title.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Buyer personas are amazing. I use them on a daily basis to drive sales and traffic to my businesses. But when it comes to Facebook Ads, buyer personas aren’t sufficient. They aren’t nearly detailed enough to find scalable growth and profit.
But I’ve seen a lot of marketers take data from buyer personas and use it to create a new custom audience.
For example, if you head to the Meta Business Suite (formerly Facebook Business Manager) and create a new audience, do you create something fairly basic like this?
Saved audiences on Facebook are great. But not when you limit yourself to demographic-based targeting. Simple metrics like age and gender aren’t going to get you qualified buyers.
Just take a look at how diverse and large this audience is:
Trying to target 33 million people with a single ad set and a niche product isn’t going to get you very far. Why? Because if 33 million people were interested in your product, you wouldn’t need Facebook to advertise.
You simply can’t appeal to everyone. And that’s fine! If anything, it’s a good thing. Larger audience sizes on Facebook often perform poorly because the targeting isn’t specific enough. You could be wasting tons of money on clicks and impressions without ever seeing a dime in return.
Part of this is Facebook’s fault. It asks you to create an audience when you create a new ad.
And the main options are demographic data.
On top of that, if you navigate to your audience insights within the Meta Business Manager, you also see a range of demographic data:
Facebook constantly promotes the use of basic demographic data in its analytics and audience options. It’s the most visible, widely-used form of targeting they offer. But it’s not sufficient.
So, if you see your Facebook custom audience isn’t working, it’s probably because you are relying only on demographic data. Creating a custom audience that is not custom enough is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when managing Facebook ads.
Luckily, there are literally a dozen different ways you can create a custom audience that doesn’t focus on demographic data. These include:
Website data using a Facebook pixel
The activity of users on your app
A list of your customers
Offline data you collect in-person
People who watch your Facebook videos
People who have interacted with your Instagram account
People who clicked on your Facebook or Instagram shopping experiences
I’ll touch on some of these in more detail below, but why not give them all a try?
Use Interests and Exclusions
You should also focus on interests and exclusions when managing Facebook ads.
As I’ve already explained, you can’t use simple demographic data and expect stellar results. But people often glance over the Detailed Targeting option of interests and exclusions:
If you like to target by demographic data, but don’t use Detailed Targeting, then it’s no wonder your Facebook custom audience is not working.
Interests and exclusions let you narrow down your audience from 33 million to a few hundred thousand. This gives you a much better shot at targeting qualified buyers.
Interests and exclusions let you target anything from income to spending habits and job positions. You can get hyper-specific with your custom audience targeting on Facebook.
For example, let’s say that I run an SEO agency that works with Fortune 500 companies. I can specifically target them using the interests section:
But even then, we’re not specific enough. My audience size is still in the millions. So let’s take a moment to think more about my ad. I can ask myself the following questions:
Do I sell to specific segments or industries?
Are there customer types that make up the majority of my sales?
What job positions do they hold?
Answering these questions can narrow down your audience even further. In this example, let’s say that I only find myself closing deals with chief marketing officers.
I’d select the following:
That gets us a little closer, but we still have a ways to go. Because even within this level of specificity, there will still be some segments of this audience that aren’t interested in my product.
For example, let’s say sales managers don’t show a lot of interest in my agency. So, I’d want to exclude them from targeting:
Narrowing down your custom audience with interests and exclusions will help you refine your custom audience to a sensible size.
For example, I’ve narrowed my audience down to just over 700,000 thanks to those three inclusions and exclusions.
Keep tailoring these groups as much as you can. Don’t limit your Facebook ad effectiveness because you haven’t been as specific as possible.
Make Sure Your Recency Window Isn’t Too Short
Most people use custom audiences when they run simple remarketing ads on Facebook. That’s because you can quickly set up a new website-visit-based remarketing campaign and audience within Meta Business Manager.
But custom audiences for remarketing often fail for one very specific reason: the default 30-day cookie window isn’t effective.
Here’s what it looks like when you create a new custom audience based on website visits:
Facebook defaults to custom audiences from the last 30 days.
This is the number of days you want people to remain in your audience after meeting the traffic criteria or goal. In plain English, this means that when someone visits your website, they will only remain in that audience for 30 days after that visit.
But that’s problematic when you look at the typical sales funnel:
Most customers won’t make a purchase the first time they see your product. They’ll need to transition through the various stages of the buying process first.
In the awareness stage, customers are still trying to figure out what their problem is and how they can solve it. They are only just beginning their research. In the interest stage, they start to explore various products or services to fix their problem. They have still not committed to a purchase, and they are considering your competitors.
Next, they decide which business they think will help them the most. They still haven’t made a purchase at this stage. It’s only when they finally take action that you see a return on your investment and a full completion of the sales cycle. And that conversion cycle can last much longer than 30 days in many cases. In fact, research shows that almost three-quarters of B2B sales to new customers take at least four months to close.
If you’re lucky enough to convert prospects to sales in fewer than 30 days, you’re probably fine with Meta Business Manager’s default settings.
But if you are like most of us who aren’t able to convert a non-brand-aware user to a customer in under one month, you should be using a much longer window for your audience.
BigCommerce first noticed this mistake when they were running ads for clients and found that the conversion windows were heavily delayed:
Tons of the sales for their client weren’t coming in until 12-30+ days. So a 30-day window wasn’t the most efficient option.
So if your retargeting Facebook ad is not working, use a longer window like 30-90 days, instead.
Experiment with this number by creating two custom audiences with different cookie windows to see which performs best over the period of two months.
Target by Specific Page Visits and User Flow
One of my favorite ways to create better custom audiences and fix Facebook ads that are not delivering is to get even more specific by targeting users who visit specific pages and take certain actions.
We know that demographics don’t cut it. Even adding in interests and exclusions might not be enough.
When all else fails, you need to jumpstart your campaign with visitors who are highly likely to buy from you. And thankfully, with custom audience targeting on Facebook, you can target users taking incredibly specific actions from your website.
Let me give you an example before we dive in. Check out this advertisement I ran for a webinar that I hosted:
Notice how specific it is? It’s not a basic, awareness-style ad aimed at grabbing the attention of millions. It’s directly relevant to the webinar that I was hosting at the time. And these ads were only targeted to a custom audience that showed a deep interest in my webinar.
I ran these because I knew that people would convert if they had shown prior interest by visiting my webinar landing page. So instead of remarketing to all my website visitors, I targeted specific page visits and URLs where leads showed an interest.
This isn’t the only way you can use site behavior to optimize your custom audience. You can also target:
High average order customers by creating a conversion event when a purchase is 20% or more above your site average.
The users who spend the most time on your site by targeting the top 25% of active users
Users who haven’t visited your site in a while.
Here’s how you can implement the same strategy to improve Facebook ad effectiveness.
Open up your Meta Business Manager and go to the audiences tab:
From here, create a new custom audience:
Select “Website Traffic” from the list of options:
But now, instead of selecting the basic remarketing option of targeting all website visitors, select “People who visited specific web pages”:
Next, you can outline specific buyer behavior patterns.
For example, do you notice that people are viewing multiple pages before they buy? Are they visiting your pricing page after a specific blog post?
What is the common user path?
If you don’t know, head over to Google Analytics and open up the “Behavior Flow” report:
This will show you how people are moving through and interacting with your site before they convert:
Start to analyze the most popular entry points and typical viewing paths customers take on your website. If you start to notice trends and common sequences, you can take advantage of them to create a specific custom audience.
For example, a common user flow on my site looks like this:
About page -> blog post -> consulting page conversion
I’ve noticed that the majority of people who convert on my site follow that same route.
Once you’ve figured out a great behavioral pattern, head back to the Business Manager and input those links:
This is the path I mentioned earlier, which will add visitors to a new custom audience when they land on these three pages over the course of 60 days.
This is a hyper-specific audience based on specific page visits that I’ve seen convert well. I’ve even received ads on my own Facebook page that I can tell are using this strategy.
For example, check out this ad from Hootsuite that I got after visiting their product page:
They didn’t target this ad to everyone on their remarketing list or everybody who visited their website once. They only targeted visitors who visited a specific landing page.
Custom audiences tend to fail due to a lack of creativity and detailed targeting. If your Facebook ads are not delivering, try to create a custom audience based on site visits and behavior flow to drive more sales.
Make Sure to Target by Frequency
Another great way to fix a failing custom audience is to simply add another parameter: Frequency.
In theory, the more someone has visited your site, the higher the chance that they’ll buy from you.
First-time visitors aren’t likely to convert.
In fact, 92% will not purchase from you on the first visit. So if you don’t sort by frequency, you continue to risk targeting too large of an audience.
As we discussed, the sales funnel is complex. Especially when it comes to Facebook. Here’s an example of just how complex a sales funnel can be when using Facebook Ads.
Sometimes it takes upwards of five ads to convert a customer.
And it’s the same way with your website. If you can’t expect first-time visitors to buy, you shouldn’t waste ad spend on anyone who hasn’t visited your site more than once. That’s why you need to enable frequency targeting when managing Facebook ads.
Enable frequency tracking by clicking “Further refine by” when creating a custom audience.
Next, select a frequency from the menu.
Now you can add an extra buffer layer to your custom audience to give you an even better shot at converting users with less money and fewer ads:
Here’s what your entire custom audience will look like:
In the above example, a user will get added to your custom audience if they visit your specified URL two or more times within 60 days. This is one of the easiest fixes when your Facebook custom audience is not working.
Simply up the frequency, and you’ll narrow your audience to users who’ve shown strong engagement levels on your site.
Create a 1% Lookalike Audience
Lookalike audiences are pretty simple. You create a custom audience from your email list, and Facebook replicates that audience with new people.
Facebook does this by taking your existing customer list, matching those emails to accounts, and then finding other users with similar data that would also be interested in your products.
And it works.
It’s great for creating fast custom audiences without doing the legwork of interests, exclusions, or detailed remarketing optimization.
Lookalike audiences give you the option of choosing what percentage of the population you want to target:
The range is from 1 to 10%, with 10% producing the largest audience size and 1% producing the most specific and smallest audience size. 10% will net you 10% of the total population in the countries you choose, with those selected more closely resembling your other audiences and customers.
Given that Facebook’s user base totals 2.9 billion people, you might think that a 10% lookalike audience sounds like a good idea. A bigger custom audience will generate better results, right?
Actually, the exact opposite is true.
AdEspresso proved this by spending $1500 on a lookalike custom audience experiment in 2017. They wanted to test the three most common levels of lookalike audiences: 1, 5, and 10%. So they conducted a study over a period of 14 days, using the same ad for each audience.
These were lead-based ads that meant to capture emails via lead magnets. They offered deals to customers who had shown interest in their blog posts or services but weren’t ready to convert just yet. So when someone clicked on the ad, they had to enter information to receive the free e-books.
Next, they created a new campaign and used Facebook’s A/B testing functionality to test their audiences against each other.
With Facebook, you can split-test multiple audiences, which is what AdEspresso used to simultaneously evaluate those three audience levels. Their timeline was 14 days with a budget of $1,500, which gave them $35 a day to spend:
They set up their three targeting percentages:
The results showed some significant data as to why many marketers were not finding success with this custom audience type. Here’s some of the most important information and concluding data that they found:
You can see the results of the study in the image above. The far left column is the 1% audience, the middle image is the 5% audience, and the far-right image is the 10% audience.
The 1% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $3.748. The 5% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $4.162, and the 10% lookalike audience had a cost per lead of $6.364.
One key factor stood out that proved how effective smaller audiences are on Facebook:
The 10%-based lookalike audience was found to have a 70% higher cost per lead than the 1% audience. That could be a game-changer for improving Facebook ad effectiveness.
So, what’s the reason behind the results? Larger custom audiences just aren’t specific enough to drive great results.
10% audiences sound great in theory because they give you the option to corral tons of users, but they just don’t deliver specific enough results. Targeting a large audience usually works, but on Facebook, more users mean less targeting accuracy.
Creating a 1% lookalike audience of your own is easy. Simply navigate to your audiences section under your Meta Business Suite and select Lookalike Audience.
Next, you need to choose the source for your lookalike audience.
The source could be anything from a custom audience to an email list to a specific page or profile. Once you’ve selected it, make sure you select 1% as your audience size.
If you want to perform your own A/B test like AdEspresso, click on Show Advanced Options.
Then, select the number of audiences and the sizes you want to create.
Try creating an audience at 1%, 5% and 10%, just like AdEspresso did. Once you’ve done this, head to your Ads Manager to create a new lead magnet ad.
Before continuing, make sure to select the split-testing feature to compare your audiences with the same ad.
Now that you have enabled the split-test feature, scroll down to the variables section.
This is where you can choose what variables you want to test.
You have three options here. For this custom audience test, you want to select the Audience option:
You’ll notice two different ad sets to begin with. But thankfully, Facebook allows you to test more than two ad sets at a time.
Hit “Test Another Ad Set” to add a third to your list.
If you created four or even five lookalike audience versions, feel free to add the corresponding amount of ad sets to make this split test accurate.
Next, click “Edit” on each ad set to select your corresponding lookalike audiences.
Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to push your new ads live and see which audience produces the most conversions at the lowest costs.
Remember, Facebook custom audiences are all about specificity. Don’t make the cardinal sin of trying to cast too wide of a net. The more specific your audience, the better your conversion rate.
Custom Audience Targeting on Facebook FAQs
What is a #2654 error?
A #2654 is a failure to create a custom audience. It occurs when Facebook does not have permission to create a custom audience from one or more of your event sources.
What happens if your audience is too broad when you set up a Facebook ad?
If your Facebook ad audience is too broad it won’t be very effective. Targeting too many people will result in high CPCs and low conversion rates. That’s why it’s important to use a custom audience to narrow down your target audience as much as possible.
How long do Facebook custom audiences last?
The maximum time people can stay in your custom audience is 180 days. After that time, users will be removed unless they trigger an action that includes them in the audience again.
How small can a Facebook custom audience be?
The minimum number of people you can have in a custom audience is 100. That being said, you should be creating larger audiences if you want to have success with Facebook ads.
A #2654 is a failure to create a custom audience. It occurs when Facebook does not have permission to create a custom audience from one or more of your event sources.
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If your Facebook ad audience is too broad it won’t be very effective. Targeting too many people will result in high CPCs and low conversion rates. That’s why it’s important to use a custom audience to narrow down your target audience as much as possible.
The maximum time people can stay in your custom audience is 180 days. After that time, users will be removed unless they trigger an action that includes them in the audience again.
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Conclusion
Meta’s advertising platform is one of the best ways to reach new customers. With boost posts and ever-powerful remarketing, you can reach almost anyone. On top of that, custom audiences are a gold mine when it comes to detailed targeting.
But with so many options to choose from, they can often cause problems for marketers. Having tons of features is wonderful, but it can also be overwhelming. Targeting is the main reason your Facebook ad is not working.
If you target the wrong audience with the wrong offer, you won’t get a single sale. But if you target the right audience with a stellar offer, you can skyrocket sales almost instantly.
One of the biggest mistakes is targeting only demographic data. Most people don’t target interests and exclusions, either. Those are both huge mistakes when using custom audience targeting on Facebook.
On top of that, people target too narrow of a recency window, limiting their sales potential. Instead, try creating custom audiences using your Google Analytics data. This will allow you to target users who have shown proven interest with specific offers.
Try targeting by frequency, too. This will help you appeal to people further down the sales funnel who are more primed to buy. Lastly, create a 1% lookalike audience to find the best results.
Facebook custom audiences that are properly optimized are a solid way to amp up your return on investment, so make sure to get them set up to work for you.
What are some of your best custom audience hacks to generate better results?
As Diana Taurasi turns 40, we take a look at how the sustained excellence of her, Sylvia Fowles and Sue Bird have dominated WNBA scoring, rebounding and assists.
Business credit is a journey, not a destination. The destination is Fundability, and business credit is just one of many tools you need along the way. If you’re interested, our business credit guide can help any user ensure their toolbox is well stocked.
Making this trip isn’t easy, but some routes are easier than others. We have the roadmap to starting Fundability, but you have to trust the process.
Business Credit Guide: What is Fundability?
It might help if we first define Fundability. Fundability is the ability of any business to get the funding it needs. Obviously any business will be interested in funding for the purpose of improving and to grow. That is the way to success, and being Fundable means you have access to the money to do it.
Business Credit Guide: How Businesses Can Get Started
The first step, before you even open the roadmap, is also one of the most important steps in the journey. Think of it like choosing the most efficient and comfortable vehicle for your trip. It doesn’t take an expert to figure out some types of transportation are better than others.
Just like that, a Fundable Foundation gives you the best start not just with Fundability, but with business credit as well. It will help you avoid issues that can slow down your ability to get approved for credit.
Businesses with a Fundable
Separate business contact information
EIN
They are incorporated
Business bank account
Licenses
Website and email separate from the founder
This is the easy part, but it is vitally important.
To be successful on the road to Fundability, there is more than this to consider. The goal is to have lenders see your business and you as the owner as low risk. Here are some things to think about.
Your Business Name Makes a Difference
When developing your business name, it’s best to leave any indication of a risky industry out of it. This may not help you get financing, but it will minimize the likelihood of being turned down immediately due to being linked to a risky industry before you get a chance.
It’s also important for your company name to be consistent and in alignment everywhere. Even inconsistencies in small details, like using the word “and” sometimes and an ampersand at others, can indicate higher risk. Lenders are not interested in why there is an inconsistency. They will just deny it.
Get a D-U-N-S Number from Dun & Bradstreet
All entrepreneurs need a D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet for their organization. Set your business up for success by getting it as soon as you can. It is how Dun & Bradstreet will identify your business in their network and how your PAYDEX is linked to your business.
Business Credit Guide: Start The Journey
Once you have the foundation, or the right vehicle to make the journey, it’s time to get on the road. Making sure you are prepared is the only way to reach where you are going.
The foundation is definitely something you can control. After that, it’s time to start establishing and building strong business credit. This is only part of what makes a business Fundable, but it is a big part. It’s important for most any type of company financing if you want to run a profitable business.
Business Credit Guide: Use Vendor Credit to Fuel Your Way to Becoming a Profitable Business
Now, it’s time to fill the car up with gas. That gas is business credit accounts that report payments to your business credit reports. It all starts with vendors. Not just any vendors however. Just like any journey, you have to start at the beginning.
Starter vendors are those that will give net terms on invoices. They are not as interested in credit scores, so you can get approved with less focus on that and more on other factors. Not only that, but they will also report the positive payment experience to thebusiness credit reporting agencies.
How Do You Get Starter Vendors to Grow Business Credit?
At Credit Suite we discuss vendors in terms of tiers. Starter vendors are those in Tier 1. Since most vendors do not classify themselves as such, how do you get them? A simple search will give you a few options. However, how do you know if those vendors work with your company marketing and growth strategies? Furthermore, the information changes without warning.
It’s Worth It to Get Help from An Expert
The answer to all of these questions is Credit Suite. Our product includes select vendors that we know report, and what they require for approval.
We also track changes with recommended vendors. So, if they change requirements or reporting standards in ways that make them no longer align with the values we have for our clients, we can adjust.
Maybe they now rely more heavily on personal finance data and need to be moved from Tier 1 to another tier. Maybe they decided to adjust their minimum business credit requirement. Perhaps they no longer report payments? All of these things will stunt business credit growth.
Credit Suite will check in with your business at each level in the process. We will discuss the risk you present to lenders, and determine what needs to be done in order to reduce that risk.
Credit Suite Can Save You Time and Money
Our processes allow us to keep our vendor database updated. Our industry experts have the skills necessary to help clients find the best vendor options for them. Whatever stage of the journey our clients are in when they come to us, we can help them find the vendors that can best help them be successful, with confidence.
Working with Credit Suite to find starter vendors and to figure out which vendors to apply for when is kind of like using help to find a gas station that’s open in the middle of the night. It lets you avoid paying more money than you have to for gasoline.
Our resources get you where you are going faster. Team recommended strategies save you both time and money, and one of the best benefits is your business can grow and transform along the way. Our team uses best practices to add value.
Business Credit Guide: Refill Your Fuel Tanks and Get Financing to Grow
Starter vendors are just the first fill-up a company makes to get on the road, but it will only get you so far before your check engine light comes on. As you move further into the process, you’ll need to get credit with more vendors and apply for business credit cards to continue to operate. You can’t just sit back and read a good book, you have to keep moving.
If you handle your approved credit responsibly, you’ll soon have enough accounts reporting to more easily get business credit cards. Even better, you should be able to get higher limits, better rates, and less if any personal guarantee. This is the best way to grow and increase earnings. There are no shortcuts.
Other Factors that Support Fundability
Of course there are parts of the car you cannot see. There are curves and bumps in the road you may not be able to predict. As a result, things happen that you cannot control, making the trip quite uncomfortable at times. However, you can do your best to be prepared.
Here are a few things that can affect Fundability, and thus your ability to get money for your company easily, that you have less control over.
Other Business Data Agencies
In addition to the business credit reporting agencies that directly calculate and issue credit reports, there are other business data agencies that affect those reports indirectly. This can throw a kink in your business journey if you aren’t careful.
Two clear examples of this are LexisNexis and The Small Business Finance Exchange. These two agencies gather data on businesses from a variety of sources, including public records. This means they could even have access to data relating to automobile accidents and liens. They share this information with their partners, some of which are business credit bureaus.
Fight Back With Positive Data
While you may not be able to access or change the data these agencies have on your business, you can be making sure you always use strategies to guarantee any new information they receive is positive.
Enough positive data can help counteract any negative data from the past and reduce those risks over time. Consequently, your personal risk tolerance with underwriters will be easier to overcome. This is how you start to see your company success grow.
Financial Statements
Lenders are going to ask for both personal and business financials. They want to see income and profit. They need to know you have the money to pay back any financing you get. The numbers are what they are, and underwriters will verify them. Don’t try to create a false idea about money, whether personal or business. It is not worth the risk.
Bureaus
There are other agencies that hold data related to your personal money as well. Take ChexSystems for example . This agency keeps up with bad check activity. That makes a difference when it comes to your bank score, your ability to open a checking account, and definitely Fundability.
Personal Credit History
Personal credit can affect business credit. Not only do many lenders consider owner credit background alongside business credit, but some business credit reporting agencies use your personal credit score in their business credit score calculation.
Business Credit Guide: The Road Goes on Forever
You never stop building business credit. But, after a point you will want to keep your progress at a steady pace. Just don’t stop. That’s where many businesses go wrong. Business credit that isn’t growing is doing nothing. They do not understand that, the only option if you want to stay successful, is to continue to use it. Then, be sure to let it keep growing.
Business Credit Guide: Credit Suite Can Be One of Your Best Resources
Interested in business credit and want to explore more about how Credit Suite can help you? We love to share how to utilize our products to launch your own business credit journey. We want to help businesses understand what we do and how we can help them.
Check out our free business finance assessment now. We will discuss and explore where your business is currently, so we can best learn how to help you. We’ll work to understand what you need, and help you determine what your next steps should be.
However, many business owners don’t take advantage of email marketing best practices, which decreases their chances of success.
In this blog post, we will discuss 25 of the best practices of email marketing that too many people ignore.
These include:
5 general email marketing best practices
5 email marketing campaign best practices
5 B2B email marketing best practices
5 email design best practices
5 subject line best practices
Why You Need to Consider Email Marketing Best Practices
Email marketing is a powerful tool that can help you reach your target audience, build relationships, and grow your business.
With over 4 billion daily email users, and more than 306 billion emails sent and received each day, it’s no wonder email is one of the most popular ways to communicate.
However, despite its popularity, email marketing is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
To be successful as a business, you need to know the best practices of email marketing.
Failing to follow email marketing best practices can lead to large but unengaged email lists, or budgets wasted on campaigns that go nowhere.
But if you do it right? There’s no limit to what email can do for your business.
By following the best practices of email marketing, you’ll be able to connect with your customers and grow your business by turning subscribers into sales.
Plus, your customers will be excited to hear from you. A great way to build brand loyalty!
5 Email Marketing Best Practices
Although email marketing is different between industries, some tactics ring true for any email marketing strategy.
Whether you want to focus on email design best practices or subject line best practices, remember that your goal is to create content that is valuable and relevant to your audience. This way, they are more likely to engage with you and become customers or subscribers.
Understanding your audience, your brand, and your overall goals can help you get started.
Create email content that is relevant to each group.
The goal is to create email campaigns that are personal and relevant to each recipient. To do this, you need to understand what your audience wants and needs.
Take some time to think about the problems they are trying to solve and the information they need to make a purchase decision.
Then, create email content that provides them with the information they need at each stage of their buyer’s journey.
For example, if you have a segment of email subscribers who are interested in your product, but have not yet made a purchase, you would want to send them email content that is designed to move them further down the sales funnel.
This could include email content such as product demos, free trials, or coupon codes.
On the other hand, if you have a segment of email subscribers who have already made a purchase (or have an active subscription), send them email content that is designed to upsell or cross-sell them on other products.
This could include product reviews, case studies, or testimonials.
By segmenting your email list and tailoring your email content to the specific needs of each segment, you can increase email relevancy. This can lead to improved email open rates and click-through rates.
Email list segmentation is just one of many email marketing best practices that too many people ignore. If you want to improve your ROI, start by implementing some of these forgotten strategies into your next campaign.
When you personalize your email content, you make a connection with your contacts on a human level—which can lead to improved click-through rates, higher open rates, and more conversions.
One way to do this is by using personalization tokens, which are placeholders for information like a contact’s first name or company name.
For example, let’s say you want to email a newsletter to your list of subscribers.
You could start the email with “Dear Subscriber,” but that doesn’t tell the recipient much about why they should care about your email.
Instead, try using a personalization token like “Dear [First Name].” This way, each subscriber will see their own first name in the email greeting, which makes the message feel more personalized.
You can also use personalization tokens to customize the email content itself. For example, you could include a sentence like “If you’re looking for [Topic], you’ll love what we have in store for you this week.”
While personalization is important, email marketing best practices state that you should never sacrifice relevancy for personalization. In other words, don’t add a recipient’s first name to your subject line if it doesn’t improve the email’s overall relevancy.
3. Optimize Your Preview Text
The best way to ensure your customer opens your email is to optimize the subject and preview text. These are the first two things a recipient will see in their inbox, so they need to be engaging.
Unfortunately, research from MailerLite has found that 94 percent of campaigns sent from their platform do not use custom preview text.
This means that you have an opportunity to stand out from the crowd and show readers that your email is the one worth opening.
What is preview text? Preview text is the small amount of text that appears beneath your email’s subject line in the inbox. This is also referred to as the “pre-header.”
If you don’t optimize it, most email clients will pull the first few lines of your email’s body copy as preview text. This can often result in low-quality or irrelevant preview text that doesn’t accurately reflect the email’s content.
For example, if the first line of your email says “Email not displaying correctly?” you’re going to have a hard time convincing someone to open it.
You should also test your preview text on mobile and desktop email clients to make sure it’s appearing correctly and as intended.
Here are a few other email marketing best practices to keep in mind for your email subject lines and preview text:
Make your subject line and preview text work together.
Use your preview text to entice your user to open the email.
Keep it short and to the point, with no fluff.
Include a call to action.
Provide value.
Think about what’s most important to your reader.
Test, test, test!
4. Offer Something Valuable
Your email marketing should always be focused on what your recipient is interested in, not what you want them to do.
Make sure the content of your email provides value that’s relevant to your audience’s interests, and more importantly, that doesn’t come across as a sales pitch.
You could send exclusive discounts or offers, or access to content or information that’s normally gated.
Remember, examples of valuable information will change depending on your industry.
Not every brand sells a product—some may be offering educational information or updates on new projects.
Just because you aren’t making a sale, doesn’t mean your audience isn’t interested.
Consider their pain points and what content will help to alleviate those, then create email content that’s laser-focused on providing that value.
5. Make Unsubscribing Easy
It’s important to remember that while your main goal in email marketing might be to grow your email list, people will unsubscribe at some point.
There may be many reasons for unsubscribing, such as your customer moved or bought a similar product somewhere else.
Whatever the case may be, if your content is no longer valuable to them, don’t take it personally, and definitely don’t try to force them to stay on your list.
Instead, make unsubscribing easy and painless. Your customers should be able to unsubscribe with one or two clicks, and the unsubscribe link should be visible in the email footer.
The text for your unsubscribe link can simply say “Unsubscribe.”
Some email service providers will even allow you to include an image of the unsubscribe button in your email.
If you’re using a hyperlink, make sure the link is big enough so people using mobile devices will be able to click on it easily.
Finally, avoid using dark patterns or tricky copy on the unsubscribe page.
Don’t try to trick people into staying on your list. Just let them go gracefully.
5 Email Campaign Best Practices
Email campaigns can be a great way to stay in touch with your customers and build deeper relationships with them.
However, if you’re not careful, your email campaigns can come across as spammy, sales-y, or just plain annoying.
Here are five email campaign best practices that you should be aware of.
What are you emailing about? New products? Sales? Tips and advice?
Your email campaign goals will dictate the type of content you send, as well as how often you send it.
If you email too frequently, your subscribers will get annoyed and may even unsubscribe.
On the other hand, if you don’t email enough, you risk becoming invisible.
The key is to find a happy medium that works for both you and your subscribers.
For example, e-commerce businesses may benefit from emailing subscribers weekly, or even daily. This is because they often have sales, promotions, and new products to announce.
In contrast, a B2B business may see their audience tune out when they touch base too often.
Many B2B businesses who follow email marketing best practices find they get more engagement and click-throughs email subscribers when sending emails monthly or quarterly.
The key is to experiment and see what works best for you and your business.
If you’re just starting out, try sending out a monthly newsletter and see how your audience reacts.
If engagement is high, or you’re finding you don’t have enough space to promote everything you need to, you can up your frequency.
Lack of strategy is one of the main email marketing problems many businesses face.
One of the easiest ways to stay organized and strategic is to plan your email content in advance using a content calendar.
This will help you determine the best time to send emails, what type of content to include, and more.
Your email marketing content calendar should include:
the dates you plan to send your email campaigns
a list of email marketing topics
any other content that needs to be included in your emails (such as images, videos, etc.)
Here’s an example from Moosend of a very simple email marketing campaign content calendar. You can also find free downloadable templates through their platform.
Remember, your email marketing strategy is unique to you and your industry. Always be sure to keep your audience in mind when planning and sending your email campaigns.
3. Create Separate Emails for Each Goal
Now that you know when you’re going to send your email campaigns, it’s time to start thinking about the content.
Creating separate emails for each goal will help you create more targeted campaigns and ensure that your email recipients are getting the most relevant information.
For example, if your goal is to drive more traffic to your website, then your email should include links to a recent blog, whitepaper, or contact form.
On the other hand, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, then your email should focus on creating a strong impression with potential customers.
This can include using a powerful email subject line, eye-catching visuals, and/or personalizing the email content for each recipient.
As you can see, there are very important email campaign best practices that too many people ignore. By keeping these tips in mind, you can create more effective email campaigns that will help you achieve your business goals.
4. A/B Test Timing
When you A/B test your emails, you can see as much as a 28 percent higher return.
One of the most important email campaign best practices is to A/B test different email timing options. This includes testing different days of the week and times of day to see when your recipients are most likely to engage with your email.
It’s also important to keep in mind that your email list may have different preferences depending on their location. For example, if you have a large number of subscribers in India, you’ll want to pay attention to the time difference and send your emails at a time that’s convenient for them.
You can also experiment with segmenting your audiences by location to ensure you’re sending the most relevant content to each group.
To get started with A/B testing, you’ll need to create two versions of your email campaign with different subject lines, content, or email timing options.
Then, you can use an email marketing tool like Mailchimp to send both versions to a small group of subscribers and track which one performs better.
Once you know which email performs better, you can use that timing to inform your next campaigns.
By testing different email options and strategies, you can fine-tune your email marketing campaigns to better meet the needs of your subscribers. This ensures that your messages are timely, relevant, and engaging, which is essential for maintaining a strong email list.
5. Track and Optimize
In a recent survey, 90 percent of marketers said they track email engagement, meaning it’s the most tracked metric by marketing professionals. It beats website traffic, website engagement, social media analytics, and conversions.
Engagement isn’t the only email marketing metric you should track though. Like any good marketing campaign, email marketing requires ongoing tracking and optimization of multiple elements to be successful.
The good news is email marketing platforms make it easy to track a variety of different metrics.
For example, Mailchimp’s analytics dashboard shows you things like how many people opened your email, what links they clicked on, whether they forwarded the email to a friend, and more.
You can also find information on who unsubscribed from your email list, which can be helpful for troubleshooting.
All of this data is valuable for understanding what works and what doesn’t in your email marketing campaigns.
That’s why it’s important to periodically review your email analytics and make adjustments to improve results going forward.
For example, if you’re noticing a low open rate, you may want to experiment with different subject lines or send times.
On the other hand, if your click-through rate is high but your unsubscribe rate is also high, that could be a sign that your email content is too sales-y or promotional.
That said, the content and frequency of B2B emails look a lot different than B2C.
Let’s take a look at the five B2B email marketing best practices.
1. Deliver Relevant Content
One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a B2B brand is to email your list without considering what type of content will be most relevant to them.
While blasting out discount offers and sale promotions might work for B2C brands, B2B audiences are more interested in content that’s going to help them do their jobs better.
This could include things like blog posts, infographics, eBooks, or even just helpful tips and tricks.
Your B2B email should always have a purpose, and that purpose should be clear from the subject line through to the CTA.
Here’s an example from HelpScout. Their first email introduces you to their login page, points you in the direction of help documents, and offers a free demo (just in case you’re interested).
Their purpose? To get you introduced to the platform and sign up for more features.
Before hitting send, ask yourself: does this email deliver valuable, relevant content that my audience will appreciate?
If the answer is no, don’t send it.
If you’re unsure what kind of content your audience wants to see, try conducting a market research survey or sending out an email with a question in the subject line (like “What type of content would you like to see more of?”).
Delivering relevant content is one of the most important B2B email marketing best practices—if your email isn’t relevant, it’s not going to be successful.
2. Build Drip Campaigns
According to SaleCycle, 50.7 percent of customers report being influenced to buy a product due to a marketing email.
For B2B businesses, adhering to email marketing best practices is an essential part of the sales process.
Drip campaigns are a great way to nurture leads and move prospects through your sales funnel.
A drip campaign is a series of email messages that are sent out over a period of time.
They usually include information about your product or service, as well as helpful tips and resources.
For example, the first email in a drip campaign is typically an introduction to your company.
The second email might provide more information about your product, and the third email might offer a free trial or e-book link.
Drip campaigns are usually done through email automation. This involves setting up email templates and creating a schedule for when each email should be sent.
If you’re using a mail provider like Mailchimp, Klavyio, or Active Campaign, you can set up automated email drip campaigns within the platform.
When crafting an email drip campaign, start here:
Segment your audience into lists of active customers, prospects, and past customers.
Create a welcome email for new subscribers.
Set up email automation rules to send additional emails based on subscriber engagement.
For each email in the drip campaign, create custom content for audience segments.
Make sure each email has a clear CTA.
Monitor email analytics to see which drip campaigns are most successful.
3. Segment Audiences by Interest Level
We know customers like personalized experiences. In a survey taken by over 8,000 consumers, 91 percent of them said they are more likely to make purchases from brands who remember their past interactions and offer customized deals and content.
We already know B2B customers aren’t interested in a one-size-fits-all email campaign. The next best B2B email marketing best practice is to segment your audience based on interest.
This means breaking down your email list into different groups so you can send targeted, specific emails. The best way to do this is by tagging customers according to their level of past engagement.
For example, if a customer hasn’t shown interest in your past emails, maybe they have a low open rate or don’t click through your links, you can tag them as uninterested. Then you can send them a different email than someone who frequently interacts with your content.
By segmenting your email list, you’re increasing the chances that customers will engage with your emails.
Don’t know where to find audience engagement analytics?
Most email marketing automation platforms will have some sort of tagging system in place. For example, Mailchimp’s groups and segments feature allows you to tag customers based on interests, purchase history, and other data points.
You can also see stats on how often your subscribers open your emails and if they click links, CTAs, or images.
You can also try using a tool like Pardot’s Engagement Studio. This tool allows you to send automated emails based on subscriber behavior.
This is because email deliverability is constantly changing and email service providers (ESPs) are always updating their algorithms, which can impact whether or not your emails make it to a subscriber’s inbox.
One way to improve your email deliverability is to make sure you’re only collecting email addresses from people who have “opted in” to receive email communications from you and haven’t marked you as spam.
This will ensure that your email list is full of people who want to receive your emails, which can improve your chances of making it to their inbox.
ESPs known for their email deliverability include Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and AWeber.
Finally, pay attention to the time of day that you’re sending your emails.
The best time to send B2B emails is during the workweek, while the worst time to send B2B emails is on Sunday. According to MarketingSherpa, Sunday is the least effective day to send B2B emails.
Here’s an example of a clear call to action from Google Workspace.
5 Email Marketing Design Best Practices
With so many active users in the email landscape, competition is fierce.
It’s more important than ever to make sure your email design is on point so you can stand out in subscribers’ inboxes.
To help you get started, we’ve put together a list of five of our best practices for email marketing design.
1. Pay Attention to Your Layout
Email is a visual medium, so it’s important to deliver something visually engaging to your audience.
This means avoiding an unorganized email design or over-stuffing your email with content.
Instead, use negative space and strategic placement of your written and visual content to create a layout that is easy on the eyes and easy to navigate.
Your email should be easy to scan and have a clear hierarchy so subscribers can quickly find the information they’re looking for.
Short paragraphs, headlines, and bulleted lists can help you clearly display your information.
Most reputable email marketing platforms offer custom email templates that you can use to get started with a well-designed layout.
Here’s an example from immersive experience company Meow Wolf‘s welcome email.
One of the biggest design faux-pas is using too many different fonts in an email.
Not only does it make your email look cluttered, but the font you used in your design platform may not transfer to your customer’s inbox. This can result in your email looking completely different than what you intended.
Using a responsive design is one of our email marketing design best practices for a reason.
A responsive design is one that automatically changes format to match the screen on which it’s being viewed, whether it’s on a desktop computer, a laptop, or a smartphone.
Recipients will be able to read your emails effortlessly from anywhere and in any manner.
When choosing an email marketing client, opt for one that allows you to create responsive email templates.
If you’re not sure whether your email design is mobile-friendly, send yourself a test email and view it on your phone. If it’s difficult to read or if the images don’t appear, then you need to make some changes.
Here’s an example from Campaign Monitor. The email on the right is not mobile-optimized. The text is too small to read. On the other hand, the image on the left is clear and keeps users scrolling down the page.
This is the kind of mobile optimization you’re looking for.
Keep in mind that responsive design isn’t just about making your email look good on mobile devices.
It’s also about making sure the email functions properly and is easy to use.
For example, if you have a call-to-action button in your email, make sure it’s large enough to be tapped on a small screen.
If you want people to click through to your website, make sure the link is easy to find and tap.
You can also use responsive design to improve the way your email looks on different screen sizes.
For example, you might want to change the font size or spacing for different devices.
4. Create a Custom Email Signature
Creating a custom email signature is another email marketing design best practice that can help you stand out and build trust with your audience.
An email signature is more than just a name at the end of an email, it’s an opportunity to include information about yourself, your job, contact information, and links to your social media profiles.
A custom email signature can also help promote your brand or product.
Here are some things to include in your email signature:
brand name
contact information
social profile links and website
special offers or promotions
interesting or inspiring quote
customer service contact information
disclaimers or legal requirements
unsubscribe link
Here’s an example from journey mapping software Smaply, which takes a customer-first approach to an email footer.
There are a few different ways you can use video in your email marketing, from showcasing how a product works to sharing customer stories.
Including video in email marketing can be as simple as adding a screenshot of the video with a play button and a link to the full video on your website or YouTube channel.
Or, you can add a snippet of a recent webinar or podcast episode.
You can also use video to create a more personal email, such as sharing your company’s story or sending holiday greetings.
Wherever you choose to use it, don’t ignore video content, and make sure you integrate it into your design in a way that makes sense for your brand.
5 Email Marketing Subject Line Best Practices
Subject lines are often the make-or-break element of email marketing.
A great subject line can mean the difference between an email that gets opened and one that goes straight to the trash.
On the other hand, a bad subject line will ensure that your email doesn’t stand a chance of being seen, no matter how good the rest of your content is.
If you want to craft stellar subject lines and improve your open rates, follow these email marketing subject line best practices.
1. Personalize Your Subject Line
Let’s face it, no one wants to feel like they’re just another number on a list.
We’ve all gotten those generic emails that address us as “Dear Valued Customer” or “Hello, Friend.”
Subject lines like these tell us right away that the email is not personal, and it’s not something we’re interested in.
Or, if you’re in a B2B market, address them by their company name or role.
You can also add details such as:
Special events: If you know it’s your customer’s birthday or anniversary, make sure to email them on that day!
Location: If you know they’re going on a trip, send an email with helpful tips for their destination.
Interests: If you have information about what they like, share content related to those interests.
Purchase history: If your customer just made a purchase, offer them complementary products.
Urgency: If you know they’re interested in a product but haven’t bought it yet, send them an email with a time-sensitive discount.
You can even combine some of these tactics for an email that’s impossible to resist!
Remember, the goal is to make your email feel like it was written just for the recipient. When you do that, you’ll see better results.
Here’s an example from the social media planning platform Planoly, which uses instant personalization in its welcome email.
2. Keep It Short and to the Point
Most email clients have a limit on how many characters they’ll display in an email subject line.
Here’s another email marketing subject line best practice: if your subject line is too long, it will get cut off and your recipients won’t be able to see the full message.
This can be a problem if your email subject lines are usually on the longer side. What can you do about it?
First, try to keep your email subject lines to 50 characters or less. That way, even if they’re cut off, your recipients will still be able to get your point across.
If you’re having trouble shortening your subject lines, consider which words are less important and where you can trim a needless item.
For example, “Your order is on the way” looks better than “Update: Order #4176422331” when sending an order confirmation.
A study by Marketo found that 4-7 words (around 41-50 characters) is the sweet spot for email open rates.
If your email winds up in a spam folder, it’s unlikely anyone will ever see it.
To avoid this, take a look at your email subject line and see if any words could be triggering spam filters. If so, try to find a different way to say the same thing.
For example, “Get your free e-book now!” could be changed to “Download your free e-book now!”
Or, “10 percent off all shoes” can change to “Looking for a new set of sneakers?”
Here is a list of spam trigger words put together by Campaign Monitor.
Just a small change like this can make a big difference in whether or not your email makes it to the inbox.
There are a few other things you can do to avoid spam filters, as well.
Don’t use all capital letters in your subject line. This looks like you’re shouting and can come across as spammy.
Avoid using exclamation points. Again, this can make your email look like spam.
Be careful with symbols. Some symbols, like $ and %, can trigger spam filters.
Use a clean email list. This means that you’re only emailing people who have signed up to receive emails from you.
Segment your lists when sending to large audiences. This will help ensure that your email is relevant to the people who are receiving it.
Test your email before you send it. This way you can identify any potential problems with your email before it goes out to a larger audience.
By following these email marketing best practices, you can avoid the spam folder and make sure your email reaches its intended recipient.
4. Ask a Question
Research from Yesware suggests that using a question in your email subject line can increase open rates by 10 percent or more.
Why wouldn’t they?
Questions tap into our natural curiosity and make us want to know the answer. They’re also a great way to personalize your email and make it seem like you’re speaking directly to the reader.
For example, imagine you run an online store that sells hiking gear.
A subject line like, “Are you prepared for your next hike?” will speak directly to your target customer’s interests.
Asking a question is also a great way to segment your email list.
For example, you could send an email to first-time buyers with the subject line, “Welcome! Do you need help finding the perfect hiking gear?”
Then follow up with another email for repeat customers that says, “Thanks for being a loyal customer. Do you need any new gear for your next hike?”
By segmenting your email list and asking relevant questions, you’ll be able to create email content that is both personal and helpful to your recipients.
That means half of your industry is just sending things out there willy-nilly, with no idea whether or not they’re actually working.
Don’t be that half!
If you want to get the most out of your email marketing campaigns, you need to be A/B testing your subject lines.
Otherwise, how will you know what works best for your audience? Long or short subject lines? Including numbers or not including numbers? Questions or statements?
By testing different variations and then analyzing the results, you can figure out what email subject line language will get your emails opened, and then you can use that knowledge to improve your future email marketing campaigns.
You can A/B test email marketing subject line best practices in the following ways:
audience or segment
email type
email content, copy, and design
Once you have your results, don’t forget to continue A/B testing regularly.
As your audience’s preferences change over time, so too should your email subject lines.
Email Marketing Best Practices Frequently Asked Questions
How often should you send emails according to email marketing best practices?
Most companies see the best results when sending emails twice a month. Consider sending emails two to three times a week if you’ve got excellent content, regular discounts, and recurring deals.
How many touchpoints to conversion should there be according to email marketing best practices?
Five to six touchpoints is generally a good place to start. However, some campaigns may only require three touchpoints, while others might need eight or more.
If I follow email marketing best practices, will my conversions increase?
While we aren’t fortune tellers, the content in this blog is based on industry standards that have been proven to work time and time again. By following these email marketing best practices, you’re increasing the chances of email success.
Do the best practices for email marketing change frequently?
Just like you, your audience is always changing and evolving. As a result, email marketing best practices also change and evolve. However, the basics remain the same. These include segmenting your list, personalizing your email content, and providing value to your subscribers.
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Pica9 | SaaS Full Stack Software Developer | Full Time | Remote
PICA9 is a leader in Local Brand Marketing and has been working with major brands to solve the complex challenges associated with local marketing for more than 20 years. Based on that experience, we developed the CampaignDrive platform to help brands scale their support for local marketing efforts across hundreds or even thousands of locations in a manner that promotes efficiency and ensures brand consistency.
Our Software Developers are our product builders, building the only true SaaS platform for local marketing automation. We practice Agile Development to give developers the best environment to iterate, implement and innovate. The ideal candidate is a strong object-oriented developer with a mastery of modern web-based development and a proven track record of hands-on implementations. They are driven to document, test, optimize and automate, with an eye for processes that scale. They are comfortable working closely with product owners and taking a project from brainstorming to deployment. They will be responsible for delivering roadmap items and customer configurations in our SaaS application, CampaignDrive.
It’s a new year. Whether you have a new business or you have been running your business for a while, these tips will help make sure you have a business setup for success in 2022 and beyond.
Why Does Your Business Setup Matter?
The way you set your business up affects its fundability. It cannot be fundable if it is not built on a foundation of fundability. What is fundability, and what are the building blocks of a fundable foundation?
Fundability is a business’s current ability to get funding. Of course, there are things you cannot control related to fundability. Yet, there are plenty of factors you can control. These are what you need to focus on. They include setting your business up with a fundable foundation, and more.
Business Setup: a Fundable Foundation
Follow these steps to build a fundable foundation for your business.
Step 1: Don’t Neglect Your Business Name
This is more important than you may think. It includes a lot more than just choosing a name. First, check with your Secretary of State to find out if they require that a business name be unique.
Then, keep any indication of a high-risk or restricted industry out of your business name. Your business can be Rachel’s rather than Rachel’s Gas Station. This can help prevent an automatic or nearly automatic denial from a lender just because of the type of business. It can increase the chances that your business actually gets a chance at funding.
If your business is perceived as high risk from the beginning, the application may not even get to the underwriting process.
Step 2: Address Your Business Address
A fundable business setup includes a physical address where you can receive mail. Never use an UPS box or a P.O. Box. In fact, some lenders will not approve and fund unless this is the case. If you don’t want to use your home address, you can use a virtual address. In fact, it’s not a bad idea if you need to hold a meeting or an interview. Regus, Davinci, and Alliance Virtual Offices are all good options. Still, keep in mind that there are credit providers that will not accept virtual addresses.
Step 3: Make the Right Call With Your Business Phone Number
Not surprisingly, toll-free phone numbers are best. Lenders see them as a sign of business credibility. It’s very easy and inexpensive to set up a virtual local phone or a toll free number. If you want to avoid a separate phone, just have your business number forwarded to your personal phone.
Additionally, your business number needs to be listed with 411 for most credit issuers and lenders to approve you. Check for your record to see if you’re listed. While you’re at it, make sure your information is accurate. No record? Then use ListYourself.net to get a listing.
Step 4: Jump in With An EIN
Now, get a free EIN for your business at IRS.gov. This is an identifying number for your business. It’s similar to your personal Social Security Number. You’ll use it on all of your business documents.
Step 5: Set Up an Incorporated Business Entity
Incorporating gives you more credibility in many cases. It sets up your business as separate from you, its owner. Of course, by default incorporating reduces your personal liability. Other entities, like sole proprietorships and partnerships, do neither.
Step 6: Get Licensed
Contact State, County, and City Government offices to see if there are any required licenses and permits to operate your type of business. Licensing requirements differ depending on state, town, and industry. Always make sure you have the proper licensing for your corporation. Often, your Secretary of State will have this information.
Step 7: Open a Business Bank Account in the Business’s Name
You must have a separate, dedicated business bank account. Keep in mind, you have to keep business and personal funds separate for the IRS anyway. Having a separate business account makes that process easier and reduces the risk of audit at tax time.
More than that, many credit issuers require a business bank account before they will approve you for an account. In addition, the date you open your business bank account is the day that lenders consider your business to have started.
As a result, it doesn’t matter if you incorporated your business 10 years ago. If you just opened the business bank account yesterday, then in the eyes of credit issuers your business started yesterday. Since there is a minimum time in business requirement on almost all business credit accounts, the sooner you open your business bank account, the better.
A business bank account is also required for getting a merchant account, so your business can accept credit cards. For years, studies have shown that customers spend more with plastic than with cash.
Step 8: Do Not Underestimate the Importance of a Business Web Domain and Professional Website
It’s highly likely that lenders and credit providers will research your business online. As you can imagine, it is best if they learn everything directly from your business website. Not having a company website can hurt your chances of getting business credit. Keep in mind though, an unprofessional website can do just as much damage.
You need it to be a professional website. That means it’s got to have helpful information for anyone who finds your company online. Additionally, it should be hosted professionally. Buy web hosting from a hosting company like GoDaddy or HostGator. Try to avoid a free version of a hosting service like Weebly or Wix.
Your domain should be your business name, if possible. A free Wix or Weebly domain does not look professional. For example, www.yourbusiness.com appears much more professional than www.yourbusiness.wix.com.
Furthermore, you need a company email address for your business. Guess what? It needs to be on the same domain as your website. It often comes with a website domain provider such as GoDaddy. Do not use Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, or other free email services. Again, owner@yourbusiness.com appears much more professional than yourbusiness@yahoo.com.
Beyond the Foundation
After you set your business up with a fundable foundation, the next business setup consideration is risk. For some businesses this isn’t an issue at all when it comes to funding. Yet, for others, it can be tricky.
Step 9: Choose NAICS Codes Wisely
The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies. You choose your NAICS code on the IRS website.
There are inherent issues in every single industry. However, those listed under certain NAICS codes are considered riskier than others. It doesn’t matter if the business is prospering, they are still considered a risky business. Usually higher risk comes from chances of injury or frequently engaging in cash transactions, or a low barrier to entry.
The IRS, lenders, banks, insurance companies, and business CRAs use NAICS codes. They are trying to determine if your business is in a high-risk industry classification. The NAICS puts out a list of high-risk and high-cash industries. Higher risk industries include casinos, pawn shops, and liquor stores but the NAICS list is old and has not been updated in years.
Why Risk Matters
When it comes to funding, risk matters big time. There are several industries where lending institutions are hesitant to do business. In those particular cases, there are stricter underwriting guidelines. In contrast, some industries are considered so risky they are automatically denied.
Of course you want to be impeccably honest when it comes to selecting your NAICS code. Still, if more than one can apply, you don’t have to choose the one that’s higher risk. It pays to check and be careful when making your selection.
If only high risk codes apply, there’s nothing at all wrong with changing your business to match a related but lower risk code.
Step 10: Be Consistent!
A big reason for many credit and loan denials is inconsistent business information. This makes it hard for the lender to locate a business offline or online. It also sets off fraud alarms in the minds of those making lending decisions.
To avoid this, make certain your business name and other information is the same everywhere. That includes incorporation papers, licenses, utility statements, and bank statements among other things.
If you change your business name, be sure to change it everywhere.
This means you change it in these places, among others:
Your website
411 listing
Your records with the business CRAs (D&B, Experian, and Equifax)
Minor details such as using an ampersand in your name in one place and the word “and” in another can cause a lot of problems. Be careful and consistent with all business information.
First Funding Options
While you are working on setting up your business, you are going to need funding. If your business setup is not yet conducive to fundability, you’ll need to pursue some alternative options. One great possibility is the Credit Suite Credit Line Hybrid.
Credit Line Hybrid
A credit line hybrid is a form of unsecured funding. Our credit line hybrid has an even better interest rate than a secured loan. You can get 0% business credit cards with stated income, and many of these report to business CRAs. That means you can build business credit at the same time.
This will get you access to even more cash with no personal guarantee.
Credit Line Hybrid: Terms and Qualifying
You need a credit score or a guarantor with a credit score of at least 680. There is no requirement for financials, and you can often get up to $150,000. Be aware, some cards may report on your personal credit.
Business Setup for Fundability
Honestly, you cannot build a fundable business without first having a fundable foundation. This is what the business setup is all about. All other aspects of fundability hinge on the foundation, so don’t neglect it. Don’t skip it. If your business is already operating and you need to backtrack to make this happen, do it now. The sooner the better.
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, and business credit is just one of many tools you need along the way. If you’re interested, our business credit guide can help any user ensure their toolbox is well stocked. 
