Sending Next.js Form Data to a Zapier Webhook with JavaScript

<p>After you've built a functioning contact form with Next.js, you need to send that data somewhere. The advantage of sending form data to Zapier is that you have a lot of options for where to send the data next. You can send it to your CRM, a database, Google Sheets, and more.</p><p>While working on this problem we didn't find many good examples of how to do this, and that's the purpose of this article.</p><h2>Our Basic Contact Form</h2><pre><code class="language-javascript">&lt;form onsubmit="{handleSubmit}"&gt;
  &lt;input label="First Name" id="firstName" type="text"&gt;
  &lt;input label="Last Name" id="lastName" type="text"&gt;    
  &lt;!-- more fields here --&gt;
&lt;button mt="8" variant="blue500" type="submit"&gt;Submit&lt;/button&gt;
&lt;/form&gt;</code></pre><p>When the form above is submitted, our handleSubmit function will get executed. Here is what that function looks like for our use case.</p><h2>The handleSubmit Function</h2><pre><code class="language-javascript">const handleSubmit = async (e) =&gt; {
    e.preventDefault();


    const data = {
      firstName: e.target.firstName.value,
      lastName: e.target.lastName.value,
	  // etc..
    }

    // Send the data to the server in JSON format.
    const JSONdata = JSON.stringify(data);

    // API endpoint where we send form data.
    const endpoint = 'YOUR ZAPIER WEBHOOK URL';

    // Form the request for sending data to the server.
    const options = {
      method: 'POST',
      body: JSONdata,
    };

    // Send the form data to our endpoint url
    const response = await fetch(endpoint, options);
 
    // Get the response data from server as JSON.
    // If server returns the name submitted, that means the form works.
    const result = await response.json();
        
  }</code></pre><p>First, we create our data object using the data submitted in the form and assign it to the variable 'data', then convert that to a string using JSON.stringify. Then we define our endpoint and our options.&nbsp;</p><p>This is where I had issues arise. I was adding 'application/json' content-type headers to the options and this was producing 'failed to fetch' errors. I removed the headers from the options and everything worked great after that.</p><p>After all of this, we execute our fetch and post the data to Zapier.</p><h2>Zapier Configuration</h2><p>To configure Zapier to catch the payload from your form, just follow the steps below.</p><ol><li>Create a new zap.</li><li>Add the trigger called Webhooks by Zapier (this is a premium app).</li><li>Select the 'Catch Hook' event and leave the 'Pick off child key' field blank</li></ol><h3>Testing the webhook</h3><p>The test section provides your webhook URL. In the handleSubmit function above, you need to replace the text 'YOUR ZAPIER WEBHOOK URL' with the provided webhook URL.</p><p>Once you've done that, you can submit a test lead on your form. If you don't already see a "We found a request" message, click 'Test Trigger'. If the test results in finding a request with the data you submitted (see screenshot below), you're done.&nbsp;</p><p><img src="https://lovestack.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/zapier_test_eee953f493.jpg" alt="zapier-test.jpg"></p><p>&nbsp;</p>

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Marketing Cheat Sheet for Common KPI Formulas

<p>Our marketing KPI cheat sheet is designed to provide a simple resource that alleviates the need to dig through articles for common formulas. This isn't meant to be a template for a marketing dashboard. There are useful metrics like engagement rate and conversion rate that don't require calculation. This just includes metrics that we find ourselves referencing periodically.</p><p>We plan to update and improve this resource over time and appreciate any ideas or feedback.</p><h2>The Marketing KPI Cheat Sheet</h2><p><a href="https://lovestack.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/demand_stack_marketing_kpi_cheat_sheet_f84fcd4c26.pdf">Marketing KPI Cheat Sheet PDF</a></p><p><img src="https://lovestack.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/demand_stack_marketing_kpi_cheat_sheet_2f5ddc47ab.png" alt="demand-stack-marketing-kpi-cheat-sheet.png"></p><h3>Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)</h3><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">At the most basic level, Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is multiplying a customer’s total revenue by the customer’s lifespan.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"><strong>CLV = Customer Revenue * Customer Lifespan</strong></span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">The formula in the cheat sheet takes this basic formula and breaks customer revenue out into average purchase value and the avg number of transactions.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"><strong>CLV = Average Purchase Value * Avg # of Transactions * Avg Customer Lifespan</strong></span></p><p>The cheat sheet also incorporates Gross Margin, but if you don't know your company's gross margin, you can use the formula above instead.</p><h3><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Incorporating Gross Margin</span></h3><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">If you know the gross margin for your company, it’s a good idea to incorporate this value into your CLV calculation.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Here is the formula for CLV that includes Gross Margin (GM):</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;"><strong>CLV = Average Purchase Value * Avg Number of Transactions * Avg Customer Lifespan * Gross Margin</strong></span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">This is the method we included in the cheat sheet.</span></p><h3><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">Incorporating Your Company’s Capital Costs</span></h3><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;">When we assign a value to a new customer based on CLV, we’re projecting future cash flows. Money received in the future isn’t as valuable as having that same amount of money today. The discount rate helps to account for the diminished value of future cash flows.</span></p><p><span style="background-color:transparent;color:#000000;font-family:Arial;">CLV = GM * (RR / (1+Discount Rate - RR))</span></p><h3>Acquisition Margin</h3><p>Acquisition margin is a metric that incorporates both CLV and CAC. This metric measures the gross profit margin of acquiring new customers and the overall financial performance of marketing's acquisition efforts.&nbsp;</p><p>Acquisition Margin = CLV / CAC</p><p>A higher number suggests that your acquisition efforts are profitable and your company needs to aggressively invest in this area. A lower number is a sign that something needs to be addressed. The cause could be a variety of factors including poor acquisition strategy, unnecessarily high operating costs, bad pricing strategy, and other factors. Some of these factors are out of marketing's control.</p><h3>Net Promoter Score (NPS)</h3><p>This metric is used to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking customers a simple question: "On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?" Based on their responses, customers are categorized into promoters, passives, or detractors. Companies with a high percentage of promoters are more likely to see organic growth through reviews and word-of-mouth referrals. NPS is commonly expressed as a ratio:&nbsp;</p><p>NPS Score = % of Promoters / % of Detractors</p><p>An important part of measuring this is establishing a systematic process of collecting and storing the data. Collecting this information might involve email, surveys, or one-on-one interviews.&nbsp;</p><h3>Retention Rate and Churn Rate</h3><p>Retention rate is a metric used to measure the percentage of customers your company retains over a specified period of time. It is a valuable indicator of customer loyalty and satisfaction. If your company implements a loyalty program or service enhancement, this is the metric that will show the impact of the initiative on customer satisfaction. The churn rate is the inverse of the retention rate. It's measuring the undesirable outcome of the same behavior.</p><p>If these rates start trending in positive or negative directions, this should trigger an initiative to understand why. You can dig into causes using web analytics, reviews, survey data, or feedback from sales and customers.&nbsp;</p><h3>WAU/DAU</h3><p>WAU/DAU stands for Weekly Active Users divided by Daily Active Users. The metric compares the number of unique users who interact with the product within a week (Weekly Active Users or WAU) to the number of unique users who engage with the product on a daily basis (Daily Active Users or DAU). This is used to measure user engagement and retention for websites and mobile apps.</p><p style="margin-left:0px;">A high WAU/DAU suggests that users are returning to the product throughout the week, and a low WAU/DAU ratio indicates that users are not consistently using the product over time.</p><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">MAU/DAU</h3><p style="margin-left:0px;">This is similar to WAU/DAU but uses Monthly Active Users (MAU) in place of WAU. This metric measures user engagement and retention over the course of a month.&nbsp;</p>

Digital Marketing Metric Cheat Sheet

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Analytics

B2B Marketing Platforms: A Better Name for ABM Software

<p>ABM started out as a B2B marketing strategy involving one-to-one targeting where individual accounts are distinct segments. Over time, the idea has mutated into an amorphous concept that can be boiled down to mean modern B2B marketing. I agree with the frequently made claim that "ABM is just good B2B marketing." I would consider 6sense the leader in this space, and <a href="https://6sense.com/resources/home/abm-is-still-just-good-marketing">they support this sentiment</a>. They also hardly mention ABM on the homepage of their website.</p><p>That said, if the term helps individual companies approach key accounts more effectively, more power to them. The problem is that the ambiguity around ABM has negative implications for the positioning and strategy of major software providers in the industry. It makes it more difficult for B2B companies to interpret what these software providers are offering. "B2B Marketing Platforms" is a much better term to categorize software like 6sense, ZoomInfo, and Terminus.</p><h3>A Really Short History of ABM</h3><p>Most people agree that the first person to formally package the concept of ABM was Beverly Burgess in 2003 when she wrote "A Practitioner's Guide to Account-Based Marketing." This book caused an initial blip in interest, but interestingly, the concept died and sputtered until 2015:</p><p><img src="https://lovestack.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/account_based_marketing_Explore_Google_Trends_c362783486.jpg" alt="account-based-marketing-Explore-Google-Trends.jpg"></p><p>In 2015, interest in ABM spiked after VCs got excited about software platforms like Demandbase and Engagio. The number of software vendors and interest in the term has continued to grow from there.</p><h3>ABM's Suspicious Evolution From One-To-One to One-To-Whatever</h3><p>I tried to write a post that would synthesize the various definitions of account-based marketing. Minutes before lodging my keyboard into the drywall on the other side of the room I decided to stop.&nbsp;</p><p>The definitions of ABM are all over the place. It's a mess. It started out as a one-to-one strategy where each key account was treated as a distinct target market. That's where it should have stayed. Over time, both software vendors and practitioners have been expanding the definition to include more one-to-many messaging strategies. <a href="https://www.itsma.com/wp-content/uploads/edd/2017/02/ITSMA_ThreeTypesofABM_TB059.pdf">ITSMA's</a> even added a new kind of ABM called "Programmatic ABM," which is a one-to-many targeting strategy that is functionally the same as modern B2B marketing. Programmatic ABM is what the top software providers in this category are really offering. Let's pray they never adopt that term.</p><h3>Why ABM Mutated Into B2B Frankenstrategy</h3><p>A big driver of this mutation was the introduction of ABM software. Leaders in software categories don't want to be a component. They want to be the platform. One-to-one targeting only makes sense as a component of a marketing strategy. You can't be effective in a B2B market if you limit your strategy to only include one-to-one efforts. However, if you expand ABM to include one-to-many messaging, it loses any distinct features and causes confusion.&nbsp;</p><h3>What Does This Software Actually Do?</h3><p>The term ABM doesn't mean much today, but what about the software in this space? Is there a real software category here? We reviewed a number of "ABM" platforms and found a common group of features that are unique to this category:</p><ul><li><strong>Account Identification:</strong> Most of these platforms deanonymize website traffic to reveal additional firmographic and contact details. These platforms also include various methods of identifying accounts that match your ideal customer profile. This includes filtered views, account scoring, and predictive modeling.</li><li><strong>Personalization: </strong>Using enriched account data, these platforms provide tools to deliver personalized experiences through your website, display ads, email marketing, gifting, and others. A frequently cited example involves showcasing different website content to accounts based on their behavior and status.</li><li><strong>Messaging: </strong>Some of the more advanced software in this space offers the ability to automate message timing based on account behavior. Another messaging feature offered by some vendors is the ability to use AI to generate personalized messaging.&nbsp;</li><li><strong>Analytics: </strong>These platforms also include unique reports that help highlight account-level behavior and performance.</li></ul><p>There is a common set of features here that should be distinguished from CRM, CDP, and general marketing automation platforms. This needs to be called something. The right term is B2B marketing platforms.</p><h3>B2B Marketing Platforms</h3><p>6sense, Terminus, and Rollworks are B2B marketing platforms. ABM features involving one-to-one tools might make sense as components of these leading platforms, but the broad classification should be B2B marketing platforms. This term clearly communicates what's being offered to users - a collection of B2B-focused marketing tools. This classification gives software providers the right scope for positioning and reduces confusion.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><br><br>&nbsp;</p>

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Zoho Bigin CRM for Link Building and SEO

<h3>Why Use a CRM for Linkbuilding</h3><p>If I get a new client in the finance industry, I can pull a view from CRM and have multiple links ready to go and deliver immediate value for the client. I could use Google Sheets for this, but that's an error-prone solution that's missing a lot of functionality.</p><p>There are some existing link-building tools out there that offer CRM functionality. BuzzStream and Pitchbox are two good options, but they're relatively expensive. We wanted a simple, inexpensive CRM that could serve as a permanent repository for proprietary link data.&nbsp;</p><h3>Why We Chose Zoho Bigin</h3><p style="margin-left:0px;">We already use Zoho CRM as our core sales/marketing system, and we didn't want to mix linkbuilding data with our core CRM data. We wanted a separate, simple CRM to manage linkbuilding data. This made Zoho Bigin an obvious candidate. It's a simple, easy-to-use alternative to Zoho CRM with a simple, kanban-style, drag-and-drop interface. After researching the software, here are the reasons we chose Zoho Bigin.</p><ul><li><strong>$7 a month:</strong> I get 90% of the features I need for only $7 a month.</li><li><strong>Minimal Configuration:</strong> The native objects (contacts, companies, and deals) come with very few fields preconfigured and this saves time on customization.</li><li><strong>Integrations:</strong> Since we're already using Zoho CRM and Zoho Campaigns, using Bigin allows us to sync data to our existing campaign software.</li><li><strong>Convenience: </strong>By using Zoho Bigin, we get the minimal CRM experience we're looking for, but it still integrates with the rest of Zoho's products.</li></ul><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Initial Customization</h3><p style="margin-left:0px;">We use the company module for the bulk of our work so we customized the company form to fit our needs. We removed any fields we didn't need and added new fields. Keep in mind, you have a limit on the number of custom fields you can add so reuse native fields when possible.</p><p style="margin-left:0px;">After our customizations, these are the fields we have in the company module:</p><ul><li>Company Name</li><li>Website</li><li>Link URL</li><li>Description (for notes)</li><li>Email Address</li><li>Phone Number</li><li>Industry</li><li>Site Type (blog, aggregator, association, etc..)</li><li>City</li><li>State</li><li>Annual Cost (for links that require payment)</li></ul><p style="margin-left:0px;">This makes Bigin's company module the primary module for my use case. If you're on the least expensive paid tier, you can remove any fields from the company object that you don't need. Once this is done, adding new companies is fast, and easy.&nbsp;</p><figure class="image image-style-side"><img src="https://lovestack.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/zoho_create_company_0d6c5e161f.png" alt="zoho-create-company.png"></figure><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Bigin's Pipeline View</h3><p>Zoho Bigin's pipeline feature enables you to visualize and manage your process using a Kanban-style project board. &nbsp;This allows me to drag and drop prospects around the board with easy without having to worry about the standard CRM data model.&nbsp;</p><p><img src="https://lovestack.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/bigin_homescreen_59b28bcfc9.jpg" alt="bigin-homescreen.jpg"></p><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Email Integration for Outreach</h3><p style="margin-left:0px;">We don't do any bulk emails for links. Our strategy focuses more on high-quality links and individual emails. However, there are bulk email strategies that work so we tested the integration with Zoho Campaigns.</p><p style="margin-left:0px;">The integration only took a few minutes to get up and going. For some campaigns, you may be able to just use a field like Industry or City/State for segmentation, but if you need more nuanced segments, you can use tags. You can tag companies and contacts, and use those tags to create lists in Zoho Campaigns.&nbsp;</p><h3 style="margin-left:0px;">Conclusion</h3><p style="margin-left:0px;">Overall, we're happy with Bigin as a link-building CRM. It has met our expectations as an easy-to-use CRM that ships with minimal configuration and can be customized. It was also easy to integrate with Zoho Campaigns to support outreach campaigns.&nbsp;</p><p style="margin-left:0px;">If I had a bigger budget I would take a close look at apps like Pitchbox, but for smaller operations, Zoho Bigin works well. I would recommend it for small digital agencies, and small to medium-sized in-house digital marketing teams.<br><br>Other simple, kanban-style CRMs like Pipedrive, Monday CRM, or FreshSales might also work well for this.&nbsp;</p>

We've been using Zoho Bigin as our link-building CRM for several months now. Here's how it's going.

Zoho Bigin as CRM for Link Building and SEO

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Link Building

Using First-Party Cookies To Store Campaign Parameters

<p>If you're a marketer focused on lead generation, you're adding parameters to links in campaigns to track campaign performance. If a user clicks one of your links and then completes a form on your site, those campaign parameters need to be passed through to your CRM.</p><p>Because my audience is marketers I've written this as simply as possible. Even if you have a primitive understanding of JavaScript, I think you'll be able to follow along.</p><h3>URL Parameter Examples</h3><p>Below is an example of a URL that might be created to track a specific campaign. This URL contains the standard UTM parameters but you can also use custom parameters.</p><pre><code class="language-html">http://demandstack.io/?utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;
utm_campaign=awareness&amp;utm_id=615690&amp;utm_content=open-source	</code></pre><p>Below is an example of a URL with custom parameters.</p><pre><code class="language-html">http://demandstack.io/?ds_id=849375894&amp;source=reddit&amp;campaign_id=61560980&amp;ad_id=1842038674</code></pre><h3>Capturing Parameters</h3><p>Using vanilla Javascript, we're going to make use of the <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URLSearchParams">URLSearchParams utility</a>. This is a JavaScript constructor that provides a lot of helpful methods for manipulating data.</p><pre><code class="language-javascript">// get query string from url
const paramsString = window.location.search;

// create a new URLSearchParams object 
const params = new URLSearchParams(paramsString);
</code></pre><p>The code above gets the URL query string (the stuff after the '?'). Then we create an object called 'params' using URLSearchParams. This object stores the URL parameters in key/value pairs.&nbsp;</p><h3>Using Cookies to Store Campaign Parameters</h3><p><strong>This is the important part. </strong>We strongly recommend storing campaign parameter data in cookies. This is because when a user clicks your campaign link and visits your landing page, the parameters are there in the URL. However, as soon as that user navigates to another page, all those URL parameters disappear, and that data is gone.</p><p>This is why we store data as cookies. Below is a function for setting a cookie in a user's browser. &nbsp;</p><pre><code class="language-javascript">function setCookie(cookie_name, cookie_value, expiration_in_days) {
  const d = new Date();
  d.setTime(d.getTime() + (expiration_in_days*24*60*60*1000));
  let expires = "expires="+ d.toUTCString();
  document.cookie = cname + "=" + cvalue + ";" + expires + ";path=/";
}</code></pre><p>In this function, we have the cookie name, the cookie value, and the number of days until the cookie expires. Now, we take our key/value pairs and set them as cookies. But, we don't always want all of the parameters. To add some control, I create a variable called targetParams to designate the data I want to collect.</p><pre><code class="language-javascript">// The keys of the parameters we want to capture
targetParams = ['source', 'campaign_id']

// Iterate through key/value pairs of parameters
for (const [key, value] of params.entries()) {

  // Only include targeted parameters
  if (targetParams.includes(`${key}`)) {
        
    // Set cookie for key value pair (cookie_name, cookie_value, expiration_in_days)
    setCookie(`${key}`, `${value}`, 90)
  }
}
</code></pre><p>Once you've tried setting a cookie you can verify it's working by opening Chrome developer tools and going to the Application tab (see screenshot below). On the left sidebar, you'll see a section called Cookies. If there are multiple sites listed, pick your site. &nbsp;In the main window, you'll see the list of cookies on your browser.&nbsp;</p><p><img src="https://lovestack.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/cookies_tab_developer_tools_1fgu8_e6609146d1.jpg" alt="cookies-tab-developer-tools-1fgu8.jpg"></p><p>For my example, I'm looking for cookies with the name 'source' and 'campaign_id' to ensure everything is working.</p><h3>Reading Cookies and Setting Form Values</h3><p>Below is the function for getting the data from a user's stored cookies. If they clicked your campaign link and navigated around the website before going to your form, that's OK. We can still grab the cookie data.</p><pre><code class="language-javascript">// Get Cookie
function getCookie(cname) {
  let name = cname + "=";
  let decodedCookie = decodeURIComponent(document.cookie);
  let ca = decodedCookie.split(';');
  for(let i = 0; i &lt;ca.length; i++) {
    let c = ca[i];
    while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') {
      c = c.substring(1);
    }
    if (c.indexOf(name) == 0) {
      return c.substring(name.length, c.length);
    }
  }
  return "";
}</code></pre><p>Our form might look something like this.</p><pre><code class="language-html">&lt;form action="#"&gt;
  &lt;label for="fname"&gt;First name:&lt;/label&gt;&lt;br&gt;
  &lt;input type="text" id="fname" name="fname" value="John"&gt;&lt;br&gt;
  &lt;label for="lname"&gt;Last name:&lt;/label&gt;&lt;br&gt;
  &lt;input type="text" id="lname" name="lname" value="Doe"&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;

  &lt;input type="hidden" id="source" name="source" value=""&gt;
  &lt;input type="hidden" id="campaign_id" name="campaign_id" value=""&gt;

  &lt;input type="submit" value="Submit"&gt;
&lt;/form&gt; </code></pre><p>We have two hidden input fields that we need to set values for, but you might have five or ten. Something that will save a lot of time and code is <strong>giving your hidden input fields ids that match your campaign parameters</strong>. This makes the code below really simple. We can just iterate through our targeted parameters (from the variable 'targetParams') and set values.&nbsp;</p><pre><code class="language-javascript">targetParams.map((param, index) =&gt; {

  // Run the getCookie function for a parameter 
  let paramValue = getCookie(param)
  
  // Set the input value for the associated parameter

  document.getElementById(param).value = paramValue
  
})</code></pre><p>When the user hits submit, the data in these hidden fields will be sent with the rest of the form data payload.</p><h3>Handling Form Data</h3><p>The least technical way to handle this webform data is to use an automation platform like Zapier or Make. Using these tools, you'll need to create a webhook (catch hook) and use that webhook URL as your form action. Then map the data using the connector for your CRM.</p><p>Some CRMs have form capture tools that provide an endpoint URL and provide field ids that need to be included in your form inputs.</p><p>Cases that involve complex data transformation or sending data to multiple applications might require something more elaborate. One example is to create a form handler service on AWS that can receive payloads and perform ETL.&nbsp;</p>

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Campaign Attribution

Real-time data and transparent performance make paid media an extremely competitive element of marketing. Competitive ad intelligence software provides insights into your competitors' paid media strategy, and information to outplay them. These tools include strategic data showing who your top paid media competitors are, their estimated ad budgets, top-performing keywords, their best ads, and more. The primary focus of many of these tools is Google Ads, but some provide solutions for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other ad platforms.  

Email marketing software automates the process of creating and sending emails, saving time and increasing efficiency. You can set up email campaigns in advance, schedule them to send at specific times, and track their performance. These tools also allow you to segment your email list which enables you to personalize your messages, increase relevance, and improve engagement. Email marketing software also helps ensure you follow email marketing laws and regulations.

Compare ratings for top email software providers including MailChimp, SendGrid, Adobe, Klaviyo, and more.  

The Top Email Marketing Platforms in 2023

SEO is a complex and rapidly evolving field that can consume a lot of time. To streamline the process, SEO software can automate tasks such as keyword research, on-page optimization, local listing management, link building, and review management. Additionally, this software can provide competitive intelligence to give you an understanding of your competitors' top-performing SEO strategies. See where your competitors are getting backlinks, the keywords they rank for, and the titles and metadata they use.

Find the best SEO software and best tools for backlink analysis, rank tracking, site audits, and local listing management.

Find The Best New SEO Software - Ratings & Pricing - Demand Stack

Social media management software provides marketers with three primary capabilities: managing engagement, analytics, and influencer marketing. Social platforms help scale engagement by offering the ability create content and schedule publishing to multiple social media sites. They also offer a number of bots and workflows to automate repetitive tasks. Social media analytics tools provider insight into general consumer trends, insights into your own audience, and information about competitors. 

This new and rapidly growing category of marketing software leverages machine learning to create headlines, articles, social media posts and more. Some of these tools also generate ideas for new content. Using an AI copywriting tool involves selecting a type of content, and then providing a brief overview of the topic you would like to write about. Some companies use these tools extensively, while others may use these tools to simply generate new ideas, and a fresh approach to messaging.

The 10 Best AI Copywriting Tools - Rated by Demand Stack

Content management systems (CMS) allow marketers to publish content to a website database without writing any code. They provide a user interface to write, edit, categorize and publish content to the web. Many content management systems also offer no-code solutions to front-end development and templating. 

Compare ratings on top CMS systems including Drupal, Webflow, Strapi, and more. No ads, no sponsors, and no spammy reviews. 

The Best CMS Platforms in 2023 - Drupal, Strapi, Webflow

Conversion optimization software gives marketers the ability to test changes to the user experience on an app or website. You simply define a goal action you want users to perform, and variations of a feature or page to test. The software serves the different versions to users, and uses statistics to determine if one of the variations improves performance. The status and results of these tests are displayed using easy-to-understand visualizations.

Compare best-in-class content experiment solutions including Optimizely, PostHog, Google Optimize, and VWO. No ads and no spammy reviews. 

Best Content Experiment & Optimization Software in 2023

This category includes software with a general B2B focus. This includes software with account-based marketing (ABM) features, deep integrations to CRM, and platforms with a data model that supports accounts and contacts. We used to have a specific category for ABM, but dropped it in favor of this category [based on this article](https://demandstack.io/articles/abm-software-category). 

No review spam and no ads. We rate software using a proprietary algorithm. Find the best B2B marketing platform in your price range. 

The 10 Best B2B Marketing Platforms in 2023 - Rated by Demand Stack

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems help marketing and sales teams automate activities and deliver personalized communication at scale. These systems store information about leads, customers, companies, and individuals at current or prospective customers.

We rate software using our proprietary algorithm. Compare top CRM solutions in your price range. Filter software based on their features. 

Top CRM Software in 2023 - No Ads, No Spam Reviews

A customer data platform (CDP) is a packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems. CDPs ingest contact data from CRM, data warehouses, other marketing tools, and transform the data to create single, unified profiles for each marketing contact. CDPs also include tools to create segments, and sync those segments to audiences in other marketing tools. 

Proprietary ratings for top CDP software including Segment, Planhat, Insider, Bloomreach, and more. Filter options by feature and price range.

The 12 Best Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) in 2023

Product analytics software helps product owners assess the performance of their digital experiences. As opposed to web analytics, product analytics is more concerned with how authenticated users behave while using your app. Product managers use these tools to understand if certain features are being used, how easily users are able to navigate the app, and what features should be added next. 

Website analytics software collects data about user behavior on a website and provides reports summarizing that data. An important feature of web analytics software is the ability to define and measure objectives. This involves defining metrics that represent the desired actions you want users to take on your website.  Other features offered by these providers are heat maps, session replay, and cohort segment analysis.

Rethink Performance Marketing

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We help companies supercharge their growth and improve their marketing technology stack. Call today for a free consultation.

Digital Marketing Agency in Overland Park, KS - Demand Stack

Personalized Campaigns For High-Value Prospects 

Account Based Marketing Services

We identify your most valuable accounts and prospects and develop personalized marketing plans.

<p>These campaigns utilize highly-targeted account segments that may only include a handful of accounts or can be personalized down to the account level. Our strategy for prioritizing prospects is based on their projected profitability and their likelihood to convert. From there, we identify needs and pain points that are common across target accounts.</p>

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ABM Success Starts with Content Strategy

<p>We kick off our ABM content strategy by finding a common pain point among target accounts. From there, we identify sections of the content that can be personalized in order to make the process more efficient.</p><p>To create successful ABM campaigns, it's crucial to incorporate a mix of engaging content designed to grab attention and educational content that builds your brand's authority and expertise. It's also important to create a variety of content types including case studies, articles, videos, webinars, and promotional items.&nbsp;</p>

Account Based Marketing

Email Campaigns Your Subscribers Will Look Foward To

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We'll help you send unique, valuable resources to the right person, at the right time so your subscribers eagerly await your next email.

Email Marketing Services in Overland Park

Value-Added Resources That Improve Engagement

<p>Email is a powerful marketing channel that provides the opportunity to send personalized messages directly to a subscriber's inbox. Our email marketing strategy is centered on providing useful information to your subscribers and building long-term relationships with your audience.&nbsp;</p><p>We do this by creating innovative content that adds real value for subscribers, and combining that with great design, eye-catching visuals, and compelling copy,</p>

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Dynamic Segments Based on Data, Not Guessing

<p>We have experience with multiple CRM platforms, customer data platforms (CDPs), and data warehouses to support the development of your segmentation strategy. Effective segmentation allows you to send more personal and relevant content to each segment. This will significantly increase your conversion rates at each stage of your pipeline.</p><p>Our approach to segmentation strategy is to first develop a deep understanding of your target market, personas, and existing segments. Then we use data-driven methods to fine-tune your segmentation strategy. As your campaigns run, we continue to analyze the effectiveness of segments in order to continually improve performance.</p>

We have experience with a wide range of email marketing platforms so we can optimize your email marketing processes as if we were a part of the team.

PlatForms We Support

Email Software

Email Marketing

ROI-Focused Paid Search and Paid Social

Since 2010, our experts have helped countless businesses improve performance on Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram, and more.

Google Ads PPC Services Since 2010

Coordinated Campaigns Across Multiple Platforms

<p>We use integrations and automation to sync audiences and targeting across multiple paid media platforms. We can define target audiences in a single system and sync those audiences to Google Ads, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.&nbsp;</p><p>This allows us to deliver a strategic series of messages to different segments at scale.</p>

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Our Approach to Campaign Goals and Measurement

<p>We analyze your business model and conversion rates to determine your average customer value. This gives us the ability to determine what we can pay per conversion. Then we ensure tracking and reporting are set up so everyone trusts the numbers.</p>

Optimization at Scale with Automation and Machine Learning

<p>Our optimization efforts focus on generating qualified leads, not just leads. We optimize our campaigns to purchase clicks with the lowest cost and highest probability of converting to sales-qualified leads. To do this, we analyze CRM data, filter the best-performing leads and feed that data to Google Ads' own machine-learning algorithms. This incentivizes Google to serve ads to users that will not only complete your form, but also move down your pipeline.</p>

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Paid Media

Great Looking Websites with Face-Melting Load Times

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We'll build you a great-looking website that loads extremely fast. Free SEO optimization is included with all website projects

Award Winning Web Design Services, Overland Park, KS

Different Businesses Require Different CMS Platforms

<p>We support a range of platforms in order to offer you a solution that best fits your needs. This flexibility provides opportunities to differentiate your website from your competitors.&nbsp;</p><p>The CMS platforms we support include Strapi, WordPress, Drupal, Webflow, Payload CMS, and more.</p>

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Our Web Development Competitive Advantages

Why Choose Us

The Advantages of a Headless CMS with a Next.js Front-End

<p>Our websites treat the CMS and the front-end user experience as two separate applications. This allows us to use Next.js to build the user experience of your website.</p><h3>Advantages of Using a Next.js Front-End<br>&nbsp;</h3><ul><li>Web pages that load in less than 1 second on 3G connections.&nbsp;</li><li>You can reuse your front-end code for multiple applications. Use the same front-end framework for your website and your technology products.</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p>

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Every Step of Our Development Process Is SEO-Focused

<p>We implement on-page SEO best practices on every website we build. We actually don't know how to build a website that doesn't observe technical SEO best practices.</p><p>During the planning process, we perform light keyword research and develop a site structure that maximizes SEO performance.</p><p>All of our websites include tag management, sitemaps, optimized metadata, SEO tracking, and website analytics to ensure important metrics are collected on day one.</p><p>We're also obsessed with performance and ensure all websites have optimized page load times.</p>

Web Development

Big Gains in SEO Require Big Ideas

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SEO Services in Overland Park | Since 2006

Keyword research is a potent source of customer feedback and the foundation of our SEO strategy

<p>It reveals how often your prospects and customers search for information in your industry. We craft our SEO strategy based on how your prospects and customers use Google.</p><ul><li>How often do people search for your brand name?</li><li>How often do they search for your competitor's brand names?</li><li>What information do prospects search to help make a purchase decision?</li></ul><p>Keyword research can also reveal new opportunities including emerging market trends, potential product extensions, or insights into competing products.&nbsp;</p>

Code & Configuration Best Practices

<p>There are a number of critical web development practices that impact a search engine's ability to comprehend your website's content. We use a range of diagnostic tools to quickly identify these issues, and develop a plan to resolve them. Making these updates is an important step toward improving SEO performance.</p><p>We've helped numerous companies with complex technical solutions involving large domain moves, JavaScript crawling, international SEO, single-page applications, and more.</p>

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Let's Create Resources Your Customers Can't Live Without

<p>We encourage our clients to think beyond the blog. It's better to have one or two amazing resources than 100 mediocre blog posts. <a href="/services/content-marketing">Great content marketing</a> can come in many forms. It might be an informational directory, a well-curated evergreen list, or a niche application. Anything that results in a unique resource that your target market values.</p>

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Link-Worthy Content Using Data Visualization

<p>We create custom visualizations using ETL processes and the d3.js Javascript library. These unique visualizations help differentiate your content from basic articles and blog posts published by your competitors.&nbsp;</p><p>d3.js uses HTML and SVG, which are native web elements - which means Google can crawl and index this data like any other content.&nbsp;</p>

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SEO Services

Why Kansas City Businesses Should Hire Local SEO Firms

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We offer companies in Kansas City, Overland Park, and surrounding areas a number of advantages that outsiders can't.

Every Kansas City Business Should Work With A Local Agency

<p>Hiring locally is a no-brainer if you're a local company that serves customers in Kansas City. It's also important for national brands in Kansas City to hire locally. Here's why. &nbsp;</p><ul><li>We know a lot of tricks to get local backlinks that can boost your SEO performance. Non-KC agencies are less likely to identify all of these opportunities.</li><li>We understand the local public relations landscape better than non-KC agencies.</li><li>National brands need to compete in their own backyard. Kansas City agencies excel at this. We know the city and can lean on intuition to create more precise campaign targeting.</li></ul>

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Kansas City's Marketing Clubs and Associations

<p>Kansas City's marketing potential is supported by the city's marketing associations and clubs. Despite some recent inactivity from some of Kansas City's marketing organizations, we still have some great groups.</p><ul><li><a href="https://amakc.com/">AMA of Kansas City</a></li><li><a href="https://kcadclub.com/">KC Ad Club</a></li><li><a href="https://kansascity-prsa.org/index.php">PRSA of Kansas City</a></li><li><a href="https://smpskc.org/about.php">SMPS of Kansas City</a></li></ul>

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We Rep Kansas City

Innovative Content Strategies That Go Beyond The Blog

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Articles are rapidly becoming commodities and the majority of corporate blog posts receive zero engagement from their target market. It's time to rethink your content strategy.

Content Marketing Services in Kansas City

The Holistic Content Marketing Process

<p>Our content marketing campaigns are designed to generate traffic, leads, and revenue for your company. Achieving these goals requires a holistic process that includes research, data acquisition, creation, promotion, and analysis.&nbsp;</p>

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Diversify Your Content Marketing Strategy

<p>Keyword-targeted articles are a great way to improve marketing performance. We recommend this tactic as part of a comprehensive content strategy, but you can't stop there. There is a <a href="https://demandstack.io/categories/ai-copywriting">growing selection of AI content generation tools</a> that are quickly turning articles into a commodity. This means you need to create innovative content that automated tools can't replicate. Creating more unique resources also improves SEO performance and differentiates your brand. Below are a few examples of this approach to content.&nbsp;</p><ul><li>Curated applications like <a href="https://demandstack.io/pages/categories">our marketing software guide</a></li><li>Interactive <a href="https://observablehq.com/@d3/gallery">visualizations using d3.js</a></li><li>YouTube video marketing</li></ul>

Multi-Channel Content Promotion Campaigns

<p>If you've invested significant time in creating fantastic content, investing in promotion is where you see the returns. We leverage a wide variety of marketing channels to ensure the intended audience gets engaged. Below are some of the channels we use.</p><ul><li>LinkedIn Ads</li><li>Facebook and Instagram Ads</li><li>Twitter Ads</li><li>Email marketing</li><li>Press release</li><li>Direct outreach to journalist</li></ul>

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Content Marketing

Marketing Software and Agency Lead Generation

Agency Lead Generation Services

Lead Generation

Demand Stack Agency Services

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B2B Digital Marketing Agency

Agency Services

Get More Leads From B2B SEO Services

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SEO Services for Manufacturing, Logistics, Construction | Demand Stack

<p>We have more than 15 years of experience helping companies generate more leads with SEO, web development, and paid media services. We understand your industry and have the playbook to produce a big increase in your sales pipeline.</p><p>Our services feature simple, transparent pricing and no long-term contracts. We price our services hourly and document those hours so you always know what you're paying for, and you can cancel at any time.</p><p>Contact us today and let's discuss your goals and current digital marketing strategy.</p><h2>Our Digital Marketing Services</h2><ul><li>Web design and development</li><li>Search engine optimization</li><li>Google Ads and social media advertising</li><li>Marketing automation and email marketing</li><li>Data automation and integration</li></ul>

Simple, Transparent Pricing. No Long-Term Contracts

<p>We don't force companies into contracts or retainers. We charge hourly for our services and document those hours. This means you always know your money is going towards profitable SEO activities designed to generate more leads.&nbsp;</p>

Industrial B2B SEO Services

Expert SEO Services For Better Lead Generation

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B2B SEO Services | Demand Stack

<p>We have more than 15 years of experience helping companies generate more leads with SEO and paid media services. We understand what sales reps are looking for and have the playbook to increase the profitability of your sales pipeline.</p><p>Our services feature simple, transparent pricing and no long-term contracts. We price our services hourly and document those hours so you always know what you're paying for, and you can cancel at any time.</p><p>Contact us today and let's discuss your goals and current digital marketing strategy.</p><h2>Our Digital Marketing Services</h2><ul><li>Web design and development</li><li>Search engine optimization</li><li>Google Ads and social media advertising</li><li>Marketing automation and email marketing</li><li>Data automation and integration</li></ul>

Rethink Performance Marketing

Since 2006, we've been helping businesses execute multi-channel campaigns that get results.

Resources to build a better marketing technology stack.

Marketing strategy and software insights from the Demand Stack blog.

We're proud to be a part of Kansas City's dynamic advertising community.