There’s a lot of math behind fluid typography. CSS does make the math a lot easier these days, but even if you’re comfortable with that, writing the full declaration can be verbose and tough to remember. I know I often have to look it back up, despite having written it maybe a hundred times.
He says ChatGPT did the initial lifting before he refined it. I can get behind this sort of AI-flavored usage. Start with an idea, find a starting point, look deeper at it, and shape it into something incredibly useful for a small, single purpose.
As a creator, you know that you’ve got to be consistent to make it in the content game. But consistency isn’t enough on its own. In order to stand out from the crowd, your consistently produced content has to be quality. You’ve got to make stuff that your target audience will genuinely enjoy, find helpful, or, ideally, both. To do this on a regular basis, you need your content to work harder. Here are a few tips you should know.
Transform Your Videos
Repurposing content is one of the fundamental ways to make your content work harder. It can also be one of the easiest and most straightforward. Rather than create entirely new content every time, transform work you’ve already done to use it in new ways. This could be as simple as clipping key moments from your YouTube videos and editing them into a Short. You can then repurpose that same Short again by posting it on Instagram and TikTok.
Take it one step further by turning your videos into written content. You can create an article from a video using AI technology that can summarize the info. Include the video in the article itself to give your audience the option to watch your content, read it, or both. With this strategy, you get at least two pieces of content for little more than the work of one.
Go the Extra Mile With SEO
As you expand the written content you have available, it’s crucial to ensure your SEO is up to snuff. Optimizing SEO involves various strategies to enhance your website’s visibility and ranking on search engine results pages. This includes keyword research to identify relevant terms users are searching for, optimizing meta tags to accurately describe content, improving website speed and mobile-friendliness for better user experience, and earning backlinks from authoritative sites to increase your credibility in the eyes of search engines (and your audience).
To go the extra mile with SEO, you can implement more advanced strategies. Make sure you’re creating high-quality, in-depth content that thoroughly addresses user queries and provides unique insights. Conducting competitor analysis to identify gaps in their SEO strategies and capitalize on opportunities they may have missed can also be beneficial. Continuously monitoring and analyzing performance metrics, and adjusting strategies accordingly, ensures improvement over time.
Create Evergreen Content
Speaking of longevity, jumping on the bandwagon of a niche or industry-specific trend can be great for getting short-term exposure. After all, there’s always that chance you ride the crest of that wave and go viral. However, if trend-chasing is all you do, your content isn’t going to be able to stand the test of time. This is true no matter how big one post gets.
For your brand to be useful, informative, and engaging in the long run, the content you produce must be too. So focus on creating helpful content like tutorials and how-tos, or address frequently asked questions on subjects of your expertise. Case studies, spotlights, and product comparisons can also serve as anchors to inform and empower your audience. The bandwagon is great to jump on now and then. But, as a professional creator, keep producing quality content that lasts as your primary focus.
Influence Your Audience
You can create the best content in the world, but no one will care if they can’t see it. Besides quality and consistency, visibility is one of the greatest challenges for any content creator. Now, optimizing your SEO will always help. But you need to be more proactive to truly get your feet off the ground. Try expanding your reach and your audience by piggybacking off someone else’s.
Identify individuals whose expertise or industry aligns with your niche. Then reach out to those influencers to collaborate or otherwise share and repurpose content. This could look like guest posting on an industry expert’s blog for free, for example. They get free, high-quality content to post, and you get more eyes on your work. Or you could do a true collaboration, working together to produce something new. The key thing here is to provide real value to the person you’re reaching out to so you both benefit.
Actually Engage Your Audience
As your content-creation career matures, you may begin to lose sight of your audience. Remember that, like a good conversation, content creation is a two-way street. And producing content without paying attention to your audience’s reaction to it is like lecturing someone during a “conversation.” So be sure to redouble your efforts to engage with your audience.
This can be as simple as including a comments section on your blog and thoughtfully responding as much as possible. It could involve creating and hosting events via a community Discord server or Twitch stream. You could even crowdsource content ideas by conducting polls to see what your audience wants next. As the creator, you’ll always be the one driving the car when it comes to content creation. But, as the driver, find ways to engage your audience to ensure they’re actively enjoying the ride.
Harder and Smarter
Being a content creator can be one of the best jobs in the world. But, at the end of the day, it’s still a job. It’s important to make sure you and your audience are getting the most value out of everything you’re producing.
In this light you want your content to work harder for you. Be smart about what kind of material you’re producing and how your audience receives it. Find social networking opportunities to leverage. And, no matter what, always ensure you’re producing quality content as consistently as possible.
I’m utterly behind in learning about scroll-driven animations apart from the “reading progress bar” experiments all over CodePen. Well, I’m not exactly “green” on the topic; we’ve published a handful of articles on it including this neat-o one by Lee Meyer published the other week.
Our “oldest” article about the feature is by Bramus, dated back to July 2021. We were calling it “scroll-linked” animation back then. I specifically mention Bramus because there’s no one else working as hard as he is to discover practical use cases where scroll-driven animations shine while helping everyone understand the concept. He writes about it exhaustively on his personal blog in addition to writing the Chrome for Developers documentation on it.
But there’s also this free course he calls “Unleash the Power of Scroll-Driven Animations” published on YouTube as a series of 10 short videos. I decided it was high time to sit, watch, and learn from one of the best. These are my notes from it.
Introduction
A scroll-driven animation is an animation that responds to scrolling. There’s a direct link between scrolling progress and the animation’s progress.
Scroll-driven animations are different than scroll-triggered animations, which execute on scroll and run in their entirety. Scroll-driven animations pause, play, and run with the direction of the scroll. It sounds to me like scroll-triggered animations are a lot like the CSS version of the JavaScript intersection observer that fires and plays independently of scroll.
Why learn this? It’s super easy to take an existing CSS animation or a WAAPI animation and link it up to scrolling. The only “new” thing to learn is how to attach an animation to scrolling. Plus, hey, it’s the platform!
There are also performance perks. JavsScript libraries that establish scroll-driven animations typically respond to scroll events on the main thread, which is render-blocking… and JANK! We’re working with hardware-accelerated animations… and NO JANK. Yuriko Hirota has a case study on the performance of scroll-driven animations published on the Chrome blog.
Supported in Chrome 115+. Can use @supports (animation-timeline: scroll()). However, I recently saw Bramus publish an update saying we need to look for animation-range support as well.
@supports ((animation-timeline: scroll()) and (animation-range: 0% 100%)) {
/* Scroll-Driven Animations related styles go here */
/* This check excludes Firefox Nightly which only has a partial implementation at the moment of posting (mid-September 2024). */
}
Remember to use prefers-reduced-motion and be mindful of those who may not want them.
@keyframes grow-progress {
from {
transform: scaleX(0);
}
to {
transform: scaleX(1);
}
}
#progress {
animation: grow-progress 2s linear forwards;
}
Translation: Start with no width and scale it to its full width. When applied, it takes two seconds to complete and moves with linear easing just in the forwards direction.
This just runs when the #progress element is rendered. Let’s attach it to scrolling.
animation-timeline: The timeline that controls the animation’s progress.
scroll(): Creates a new scroll timeline set up to track the nearest ancestor scroller in the block direction.
#progress {
animation: grow-progress 2s linear forwards;
animation-timeline: scroll();
}
That’s it! We’re linked up. Now we can remove the animation-duration value from the mix (or set it to auto):
#progress {
animation: grow-progress linear forwards;
animation-timeline: scroll();
}
Note that we’re unable to plop the animation-timeline property on the animation shorthand, at least for now. Bramus calls it a “reset-only sub-property of the shorthand” which is a new term to me. Its value gets reset when you use the shorthand the same way background-color is reset by background. That means the best practice is to declare animation-timelineafteranimation.
Let’s talk about the scroll() function. It creates an anonymous scroll timeline that “walks up” the ancestor tree from the target element to the nearest ancestor scroll. In this example, the nearest ancestor scroll is the :root element, which is tracked in the block direction.
We can name scroll timelines, but that’s in another video. For now, know that we can adjust which axis to track and which scroller to target in the scroll() function.
animation-timeline: scroll(<axis> <scroller>);
: The axis — be it block (default), inline, y, or x.
: The scroll container element that defines the scroll position that influences the timeline’s progress, which can be nearest (default), root (the document), or self.
If the root element does not have an overflow, then the animation becomes inactive. WAAPI gives us a way to establish scroll timelines in JavaScript with ScrollTimeline.
const $progressbar = document.querySelector(#progress);
$progressbar.style.transformOrigin = '0% 50%';
$progressbar.animate(
{
transform: ['scaleX(0)', 'scaleY()'],
},
{
fill: 'forwards',
timeline: new ScrollTimeline({
source: document.documentElement, // root element
// can control `axis` here as well
}),
}
)
First, we oughta distinguish a scroll container from a scroll port. Overflow can be visible or clipped. Clipped could be scrolling.
Those two bordered boxes show how easy it is to conflate scrollports and scroll containers. The scrollport is the visible part and coincides with the scroll container’s padding-box. When a scrollbar is present, that plus the scroll container is the root scroller, or the scroll container.
A view timeline tracks the relative position of a subject within a scrollport. Now we’re getting into IntersectionObserver territory! So, for example, we can begin an animation on the scroll timeline when an element intersects with another, such as the target element intersecting the viewport, then it progresses with scrolling.
Bramus walks through an example of animating images in long-form content when they intersect with the viewport. First, a CSS animation to reveal an image from zero opacity to full opacity (with some added clipping).
This currently runs on the document’s timeline. In the last video, we used scroll() to register a scroll timeline. Now, let’s use the view() function to register a view timeline instead. This way, we’re responding to when a .revealing-image element is in, well, view.
.revealing-image {
animation: reveal 1s linear both;
/* Rember to declare the timeline after the shorthand */
animation-timeline: view();
}
At this point, however, the animation is nice but only completes when the element fully exits the viewport, meaning we don’t get to see the entire thing. There’s a recommended way to fix this that Bramus will cover in another video. For now, we’re speeding up the keyframes instead by completing the animation at the 50% mark.
We know from the scroll() function — it’s the same deal. The is a way of adjusting the visibility range of the view progress (what a mouthful!) that we can set to auto (default) or a . A positive inset moves in an outward adjustment while a negative value moves in an inward adjustment. And notice that there is no argument — a view timeline always tracks its subject’s nearest ancestor scroll container.
OK, moving on to adjusting things with ViewTimeline in JavaScript instead.
const $images = document.querySelectorAll(.revealing-image);
$images.forEach(($image) => {
$image.animate(
[
{ opacity: 0, clipPath: 'inset(45% 20% 45% 20%)', offset: 0 }
{ opacity: 1; clipPath: 'inset(0% 0% 0% 0%)', offset: 0.5 }
],
{
fill: 'both',
timeline: new ViewTimeline({
subject: $image,
axis: 'block', // Do we have to do this if it's the default?
}),
}
}
)
This has the same effect as the CSS-only approach with animation-timeline.
Last time, we adjusted where the image’s reveal animation ends by tweaking the keyframes to end at 50% rather than 100%. We could have played with the inset(). But there is an easier way: adjust the animation attachment range,
Most scroll animations go from zero scroll to 100% scroll. The animation-range property adjusts that:
animation-range: normal normal;
Those two values: the start scroll and end scroll, default:
The example we’re looking at is a “full-height cover card to fixed header”. Mouthful! But it’s neat, going from an immersive full-page header to a thin, fixed header while scrolling down the page.
Like the revealing images from the last video, we want the animation range a little narrower to prevent the header from animating out of view. Last time, we adjusted the keyframes. This time, we’re going with the property approach:
We had to subtract the full height (100vh) from the header’s eventual height (10vh) to get that 90vh value. I can’t believe this is happening in CSS and not JavaScript! Bramus sagely notes that font-size animation happens on the main thread — it is not hardware-accelerated — and the entire scroll-driven animation runs on the main as a result. Other properties cause this as well, notably custom properties.
Back to the animation range. It can be diagrammed like this:
The animation “cover range”. The dashed area represents the height of the animated target element.
Notice that there are four points in there. We’ve only been chatting about the “start edge” and “end edge” up to this point, but the range covers a larger area in view timelines. So, this:
animation-range: 0% 100%; /* same as 'normal normal' */
So, yeah. That revealing image animation from the last video? We could have done this, rather than fuss with the keyframes or insets:
animation-range: cover 0% cover 50%;
So nice. The demo visualization is hosted at scroll-driven-animations.style. Oh, and we have keyword values available: contain, entry, exit, entry-crossing, and exit-crossing.
containentryexit
The examples so far are based on the scroller being the root element. What about ranges that are taller than the scrollport subject? The ranges become slightly different.
Just have to be aware of the element’s size and how it impacts the scrollport.
This is where the entry-crossing and entry-exit values come into play. This is a little mind-bendy at first, but I’m sure it’ll get easier with use. It’s clear things can get complex really quickly… which is especially true when we start working with multiple scroll-driven animation with their own animation ranges. Yes, that’s all possible. It’s all good as long as the ranges don’t overlap. Bramus uses a contact list demo where contact items animate when they enter and exit the scrollport.
Core Concepts: Timeline Lookup and Named Timelines
This time, we’re learning how to attach an animation to any scroll container on the page without needing to be an ancestor of that element. That’s all about named timelines.
But first, anonymous timelines track their nearest ancestor scroll container.
Hiding overflow means that the element’s content block is clipped to its padding box and does not provide any scrolling interface. However, the content must still be scrollable programmatically meaning this is still a scroll container. That’s an easy gotcha if there ever was one! The better route is to use overflow: clipped rather than hidden because that prevents the element from becoming a scroll container.
Hiding oveflow = scroll container. Clipping overflow = no scroll container. Bramus says he no longer sees any need to use overflow: hidden these days unless you explicitly need to set a scroll container. I might need to change my muscle memory to make that my go-to for hiding clipping overflow.
Another funky thing to watch for: absolute positioning on a scroll animation target in a relatively-positioned container. It will never match an outside scroll container that is scroll(inline-nearest) since it is absolute to its container like it’s unable to see out of it.
We don’t have to rely on the “nearest” scroll container or fuss with different overflow values. We can set which container to track with named timelines.
.gallery {
position: relative;
}
.gallery__scrollcontainer {
overflow-x: scroll;
scroll-timeline-name: --gallery__scrollcontainer;
scroll-timeline-axis: inline; /* container scrolls in the inline direction */
}
.gallery__progress {
position: absolute;
animation: progress linear forwards;
animation-timeline: scroll(inline nearest);
}
We can shorten that up with the scroll-timeline shorthand:
Bramus showed a demo that recreates Apple’s old cover-flow pattern. It runs two animations, one for rotating images and one for setting an image’s z-index. We can attach both animations to the same view timeline. So, we go from tracking the nearest scroll container for each element in the scroll:
.covers li {
view-timeline-name: --li-in-and-out-of-view;
view-timeline-axis: inline;
animation: adjust-z-index linear both;
animation-timeline: view(inline);
}
.cards li > img {
animation: rotate-cover linear both;
animation-timeline: view(inline);
}
…and simply reference the same named timelines:
.covers li {
view-timeline-name: --li-in-and-out-of-view;
view-timeline-axis: inline;
animation: adjust-z-index linear both;
animation-timeline: --li-in-and-out-of-view;;
}
.cards li > img {
animation: rotate-cover linear both;
animation-timeline: --li-in-and-out-of-view;;
}
In this specific demo, the images rotate and scale but the updated sizing does not affect the view timeline: it stays the same size, respecting the original box size rather than flexing with the changes.
Phew, we have another tool for attaching animations to timelines that are not direct ancestors: timeline-scope.
timeline-scope: --example;
This goes on an parent element that is shared by both the animated target and the animated timeline. This way, we can still attach them even if they are not direct ancestors.
In this example, we’re conditionally showing scroll shadows on a scroll container. Chris callsscroll shadows one his favorite CSS-Tricks of all time and we can nail them with scroll animations.
Here is the demo Chris put together a few years ago:
CodePen Embed Fallback
That relies on having a background with multiple CSS gradients that are pinned to the extremes with background-attachment: fixed on a single selector. Let’s modernize this, starting with a different approach using pseudos with sticky positioning:
@keyframes reveal {
0% { opacity: 0; }
100% { opacity: 1; }
}
.container {
overflow:-y auto;
scroll-timeline: --scroll-timeline block; /* do we need `block`? */
&::before,
&::after {
animation: reveal linear both;
animation-timeline: --scroll-timeline;
}
}
This example rocks a named timeline, but Bramus notes that an anonymous one would work here as well. Seems like anonymous timelines are somewhat fragile and named timelines are a good defensive strategy.
The next thing we need is to set the animation’s range so that each pseudo scrolls in where needed. Calculating the range from the top is fairly straightforward:
.container::before {
animation-range: 1em 2em;
}
The bottom is a little tricker. It should start when there are 2em of scrolling and then only travel for 1em. We can simply reverse the animation and add a little calculation to set the range based on it’s bottom edge.
Still one more thing. We only want the shadows to reveal when we’re in a scroll container. If, for example, the box is taller than the content, there is no scrolling, yet we get both shadows.
This is where the conditional part comes in. We can detect whether an element is scrollable and react to it. Bramus is talking about an animation keyword that’s new to me: detect-scroll.
@keyframes detect-scroll {
from,
to {
--can-scroll: ; /* value is a single space and acts as boolean */
}
}
.container {
animation: detect-scroll;
animation-timeline: --scroll-timeline;
animation-fill-mode: none;
}
Gonna have to wrap my head around this… but the general idea is that --can-scroll is a boolean value we can use to set visibility on the pseudos:
The goal is getting the two outer reverse columns to scroll in the opposite direction as the inner column scrolls in the other direction. Classic JavaScript territory!
The columns are set up in a grid container. The columns flex in the column direction.
/* run if the browser supports it */
@supports (animation-timeline: scroll()) {
.column-reverse {
transform: translateY(calc(-100% + 100vh));
flex-direction: column-reverse; /* flows in reverse order */
}
.columns {
overflow-y: clip; /* not a scroll container! */
}
}
First, the outer columns are pushed all the way up so the bottom edges are aligned with the viewport’s top edge. Then, on scroll, the outer columns slide down until their top edges re aligned with the viewport’s bottom edge.
The CSS animation:
@keyframes adjust-position {
from /* the top */ {
transform: translateY(calc(-100% + 100vh));
}
to /* the bottom */ {
transform: translateY(calc(100% - 100vh));
}
}
.column-reverse {
animation: adjust-position linear forwards;
animation-timeline: scroll(root block); /* viewport in block direction */
}
First, the scroll-driven animation. We’re attaching an animation to the component but not defining the keyframes just yet.
@keyframes foo {
}
model-viewer {
animation: foo linear both;
animation-timeline: scroll(block root); /* root scroller in block direction */
}
There’s some JavaScript for the full rotation and orientation:
// Bramus made a little helper for handling the requested animation frames
import { trackProgress } from "https://esm.sh/@bramus/sda-utilities";
// Select the component
const $model = document.QuerySelector("model-viewer");
// Animation begins with the first iteration
const animation = $model.getAnimations()[0];
// Variable to get the animation's timing info
let progress = animation.effect.getComputedTiming().progress * 1;
// If when finished, $progress = 1
if (animation.playState === "finished") progress = 1;
progress = Math.max(0.0, Math.min(1.0, progress)).toFixed(2);
// Convert this to degrees
$model.orientation = `0deg 0deg $(progress * -360)deg`;
We’re using the effect to get the animation’s progress rather than the current timed spot. The current time value is always measured relative to the full range, so we need the effect to get the progress based on the applied animation.
Bramus goes full experimental and uses Scroll-Driven Animations to detect the active scroll speed and the directionality of scroll. Detecting this allows you to style an element based on whether the user is scrolling (or not scrolling), the direction they are scrolling in, and the speed they are scrolling with … and this all using only CSS.
First off, this is a hack. What we’re looking at is expermental and not very performant. We want to detect the animations’s velocity and direction. We start with two custom properties.
@keyframes adjust-pos {
from {
--scroll-position: 0;
--scroll-position-delayed: 0;
}
to {
--scroll-position: 1;
--scroll-position-delayed: 1;
}
}
:root {
animation: adjust-pos linear both;
animation-timeline: scroll(root);
}
Let’s register those custom properties so we can interpolate the values:
As we scroll, those values change. If we add a little delay, then we can stagger things a bit:
:root {
animation: adjust-pos linear both;
animation-timeline: scroll(root);
}
body {
transition: --scroll-position-delayed 0.15s linear;
}
The fact that we’re applying this to the body is part of the trick because it depends on the parent-child relationship between html and body. The parent element updates the values immediately while the child lags behind just a tad. The evaluate to the same value, but one is slower to start.
We can use the difference between the two values as they are staggered to get the velocity.
Clever! If --scroll-velocity is equal to 0, then we know that the user is not scrolling because the two values are in sync. A positive number indicates the scroll direction is down, while a negative number indicates scrolling up,.
There’s a little discrepancy when scrolling abruptly changes direction. We can fix this by tighening the transition delay of --scroll-position-delayed but then we’re increasing the velocity. We might need a multiplier to further correct that… that’s why this is a hack. But now we have a way to sniff the scrolling speed and direction!
This is a little funny because I’m seeing that Chrome does not yet support sign() or abs(), at least at the time I’m watching this. Gotta enable chrome://flags. There’s a polyfill for the math brought to you by Ana Tudor right here on CSS-Tricks.
So, now we could theoretically do something like skew an element by a certain amount or give it a certain level of background color saturation depending on the scroll speed.
In the past few years, AI’s impact has increased daily. No industry that doesn’t involve AI technology in its business is left behind. Artificial intelligence certainly helps to make the job easy. Now, this revolution has also changed the marketing industry.
Nowadays, digital marketers can work smartly and effectively with AI. However, there are tons of AI marketing tools which makes it challenging to choose the right one. But don’t worry. We have done the hard part of the research for you and made a list of the top 5 best AI marketing tools.
Read till the end and find a suitable AI tool for your business.
Top AI Marketing Tools to Elevate Your Strategy in 2024
We have researched different AI marketing tools. After our review, we have made a list of the top 5 marketing tools here. Let’s find out the best from the rest for promoting campaigns.
1. Jasper AI – Best for Content Creation
Jasper AI is a powerful AI tool that helps marketers, business owners, and content creators create high-quality content. This AI tool helps in writing blogs, emails, social media, and website content. It was initially named Jarvis, inspired by Tony Stark’s AI assistant from Marvel.
Additionally, Jarvis was an important character in Iron Man movies, so they sent a cease and desist letter to the. After that, they came up with a new AI assistant called Jasper AI. Let’s find out its key features.
Key Features of Jasper AI:
It helps in emails and marketing campaigns
Helps in copywriting and blog writing
It has an AI image suite feature for editing images for web and media
Write product descriptions
Help in building a brand voice
Generate marketing campaigns
Support 80+ languages
Generate optimized content
Pricing:
It offers a free 7-day trial period.
For Creators – $39/monthly
For Pro – $59/monthly
After that, you need to get a subscription plan.
However, it offers a custom plan as well.
Ratings:
G2: 4.8/5 ?
2. Surfer SEO – Best for SEO Optimization
In the list of five AI marketing tools of AIChief, Surfer SEO comes at the second number. It is a content optimization AI tool that helps you optimize your content on Google’s first page. You can create a content outline and do keyword research before writing an article through Surfer SEO.
Moreover, after writing, this AI tool can check your article on all aspects like keyword density, length, headings formats, readability, and AI detection. So, the article can rank better and be ranked on Google.
However, you can work on its platform directly as it has an editor option. So you can edit your content while writing. It also has a paraphrase feature to humanize your content. Lastly, it is also integrated with other AI marketing tools like Jasper, Google Docs, WordPress, and many more for content creation.
Key Features of Surfer SEO
Helps in content optimization
Checks keyword density & AI detection from content.
Paraphrasing Feature for humanize content
Generate Content Outline
Provides Competitor Analysis Report
Supports multilingual languages
Pricing:
The essential Plan starts at $99/ month.
Scaling Plan starts at $219/month.
It gives a 7-day money-back guarantee.
Ratings:
G2: 4.8/5 ?
3. Optimove – Best for Customer Data Management
It is one of the best tools for managing and building relationships with customers. This AI tool studies customers’ data and predictive analytics in order to promote customized marketing campaigns.
Moreover, Marketers can design customizable customer journeys with Optimove. This will modify each customer’s unique behavior and response, resulting in unique experiences for every consumer and improving engagement and loyalty.
Key Features of Seventh Sense
Offers customer data management.
App Messaging
Mobile Push
Digital Ads
Text Messaging
Web Push & Pop-Ups
CRM understanding.
Personalized Customer Experience.
Pricing:
This Customer-Led Marketing Platform offers a customized pricing model.
It also offers free demos.
Ratings:
G2: 4.6/5 ?
4. Seventh Sense – Best for Email Marketing
Nowadays, hundreds of tools claim to be the best for email marketing. But many of them still don’t crack the code for success. Email marketing is best for lead generation. Moreover, one of the most excellent tools for it is Seventh Sense since it encourages advanced marketing techniques.
Additionally, it studies customers’ behavior and finds the best time to send emails, increasing the CTR and customer interaction rate. However, it’ll also increase the rate of marketing success.
Key Features of Seventh Sense
Studies customer behavior and the most engaging time for interactions.
Sends emails according to customers’ time.
Promotes CTR and customer interaction.
Integrated other platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce.
User-friendly dashboards.
Scheduling Campaigns Automatically
Pricing:
For Hubspot, it offers $80/month
For Marketo, it offers $450/month
It also offers a custom plan
Ratings:
G2: 4.8/5 ?
5. Sprout Social – Best for Social Media Management
Sprout Social is an all-in-one marketing tool that handles everything, from creating content to managing and publishing. This application is user-friendly and supports automated repetitive tasks.
It develops relationships with clients and researches their industry to provide better results. Marketers can improve results by streamlining their operations, effectively engaging with consumers, and analyzing campaign performance using Sprout Social.
Key Features of Sprout Social
Manages social media platforms and publishes content.
Supports engagement through comments and DMs
Provides trendy ideas for content creation
Integrated with different systems like CRM and workflows to improve marketing.
Pricing:
Standard Offer for small businesses – $199 per seat/month
Professional Offer for team handlers – $299 per seat/month
Advanced Offer – $399 per seat/month
Ratings:
G2: 4.4/5 ?
One of the key points of marketing is to keep an eye on competitors, like what they are doing and what strategy they are using for leads. But, for this process, you have to go through a lot of information and research. AI makes that part easy for you with just simple steps.
These AI marketing tools can increase your business marketing and productivity. Now, go give them a try and boost your marketing campaigns.
In the past few years, AI’s impact has increased daily. No industry that doesn’t involve AI technology in its business is left behind. Artificial intelligence certainly helps to make the job easy. Now, this revolution has also changed the marketing industry.
Nowadays, digital marketers can work smartly and effectively with AI. However, there are tons of AI marketing tools which makes it challenging to choose the right one. But don’t worry. We have done the hard part of the research for you and made a list of the top 5 best AI marketing tools.
Read till the end and find a suitable AI tool for your business.
Top AI Marketing Tools to Elevate Your Strategy in 2024
We have researched different AI marketing tools. After our review, we have made a list of the top 5 marketing tools here. Let’s find out the best from the rest for promoting campaigns.
1. Jasper AI – Best for Content Creation
Jasper AI is a powerful AI tool that helps marketers, business owners, and content creators create high-quality content. This AI tool helps in writing blogs, emails, social media, and website content. It was initially named Jarvis, inspired by Tony Stark’s AI assistant from Marvel.
Additionally, Jarvis was an important character in Iron Man movies, so they sent a cease and desist letter to the. After that, they came up with a new AI assistant called Jasper AI. Let’s find out its key features.
Key Features of Jasper AI:
It helps in emails and marketing campaigns
Helps in copywriting and blog writing
It has an AI image suite feature for editing images for web and media
Write product descriptions
Help in building a brand voice
Generate marketing campaigns
Support 80+ languages
Generate optimized content
Pricing:
It offers a free 7-day trial period.
For Creators – $39/monthly
For Pro – $59/monthly
After that, you need to get a subscription plan.
However, it offers a custom plan as well.
Ratings:
G2: 4.8/5 ?
2. Surfer SEO – Best for SEO Optimization
In the list of five AI marketing tools of AIChief, Surfer SEO comes at the second number. It is a content optimization AI tool that helps you optimize your content on Google’s first page. You can create a content outline and do keyword research before writing an article through Surfer SEO.
Moreover, after writing, this AI tool can check your article on all aspects like keyword density, length, headings formats, readability, and AI detection. So, the article can rank better and be ranked on Google.
However, you can work on its platform directly as it has an editor option. So you can edit your content while writing. It also has a paraphrase feature to humanize your content. Lastly, it is also integrated with other AI marketing tools like Jasper, Google Docs, WordPress, and many more for content creation.
Key Features of Surfer SEO
Helps in content optimization
Checks keyword density & AI detection from content.
Paraphrasing Feature for humanize content
Generate Content Outline
Provides Competitor Analysis Report
Supports multilingual languages
Pricing:
The essential Plan starts at $99/ month.
Scaling Plan starts at $219/month.
It gives a 7-day money-back guarantee.
Ratings:
G2: 4.8/5 ?
3. Optimove – Best for Customer Data Management
It is one of the best tools for managing and building relationships with customers. This AI tool studies customers’ data and predictive analytics in order to promote customized marketing campaigns.
Moreover, Marketers can design customizable customer journeys with Optimove. This will modify each customer’s unique behavior and response, resulting in unique experiences for every consumer and improving engagement and loyalty.
Key Features of Seventh Sense
Offers customer data management.
App Messaging
Mobile Push
Digital Ads
Text Messaging
Web Push & Pop-Ups
CRM understanding.
Personalized Customer Experience.
Pricing:
This Customer-Led Marketing Platform offers a customized pricing model.
It also offers free demos.
Ratings:
G2: 4.6/5 ?
4. Seventh Sense – Best for Email Marketing
Nowadays, hundreds of tools claim to be the best for email marketing. But many of them still don’t crack the code for success. Email marketing is best for lead generation. Moreover, one of the most excellent tools for it is Seventh Sense since it encourages advanced marketing techniques.
Additionally, it studies customers’ behavior and finds the best time to send emails, increasing the CTR and customer interaction rate. However, it’ll also increase the rate of marketing success.
Key Features of Seventh Sense
Studies customer behavior and the most engaging time for interactions.
Sends emails according to customers’ time.
Promotes CTR and customer interaction.
Integrated other platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce.
User-friendly dashboards.
Scheduling Campaigns Automatically
Pricing:
For Hubspot, it offers $80/month
For Marketo, it offers $450/month
It also offers a custom plan
Ratings:
G2: 4.8/5 ?
5. Sprout Social – Best for Social Media Management
Sprout Social is an all-in-one marketing tool that handles everything, from creating content to managing and publishing. This application is user-friendly and supports automated repetitive tasks.
It develops relationships with clients and researches their industry to provide better results. Marketers can improve results by streamlining their operations, effectively engaging with consumers, and analyzing campaign performance using Sprout Social.
Key Features of Sprout Social
Manages social media platforms and publishes content.
Supports engagement through comments and DMs
Provides trendy ideas for content creation
Integrated with different systems like CRM and workflows to improve marketing.
Pricing:
Standard Offer for small businesses – $199 per seat/month
Professional Offer for team handlers – $299 per seat/month
Advanced Offer – $399 per seat/month
Ratings:
G2: 4.4/5 ?
One of the key points of marketing is to keep an eye on competitors, like what they are doing and what strategy they are using for leads. But, for this process, you have to go through a lot of information and research. AI makes that part easy for you with just simple steps.
These AI marketing tools can increase your business marketing and productivity. Now, go give them a try and boost your marketing campaigns.
As eCommerce is evolving at an increased pace, staying ahead of the latest trends in the market is very important for Shopify store owners to keep their stores stand out from the competition. Staying updated with the latest eCommerce trends helps merchants sell their products uniquely and convert more customers. As with every industry, the eCommerce industry is also constantly growing now with modern technologies, customer shopping behavior, product marketing strategies, and more.
As every year, new trends arise, similarly in 2024 also we can see some new exciting changes. We can see how Shopify store owners are going to run their online stores by making use of the latest trends and technologies. In this blog, we will introduce the top 5 upcoming Shopify eCommerce trends for merchants. Let’s dive in!
Headless E-commerce
Headless commerce is becoming popular among Shopify store owners. Headless Commerce’s name itself tells that the front end of the store is separated from the back end of the store. This functionality offers Shopify merchants flexibility and scalability to present their brand storefronts freely.
Shopify headless commerce, allows seamless integration with several front-end technologies, while back-end operations will be managed by the Shopify handles. This allows store owners to deliver a fully personalized and responsive shopping experience to the customers. Headless commerce showcases a paradigm shift in how the future of E-commerce will deliver content and functionality to customers.
AR and VR Technologies
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies are booming nowadays not only in the e-commerce industry but also in other industries. AR and VR technologies are revolutionizing the online shopping experience of customers by offering immersive product experiences. AR & VR technologies allow store owners to provide interactive and realistic shopping experiences to the customers.
Now with the arrival of AR and VR, store owners can offer virtual try-ons to their customers with 3D product visualizations, and interactive demos. For example, if a customer is trying to buy a sunglass, he/she can check how it looks on their face. This will improve customer engagement and help them to make better purchasing decisions.
Quick and Free Order Delivery Options
In online shopping, order delivery and shipping is a major concern among store owners. Every customer loves to get their orders delivered as soon as they order it. Fast delivery and free shipping have been considered by the majority of customers while making buying decisions from an online store. Remember providing your customers the fastest delivery can significantly help to grow your business and drive repeat purchases from your store.
One of the best options is giving a click-and-collect option allowing customers to place their order online and pick up their order directly from the physical store or at designated locations. This will help you to save your shipping costs and improve customer satisfaction by giving them quick and on-time order delivery. To make order delivery management easier, there are many Shopify apps available like Stellar Delivery Date & Pickup. These apps can help you give a quick order delivery experience to your customers.
Automation and AI Chatbots
With the emergence of automation and AI-powered chatbots, customer support jobs have become easier now. Chatbots now give quick customer assistance through chatbots as they give personalized suggestions to customer queries. Shopify has integrated advanced AI algorithms to automate repetitive tasks and offer quick customer support with the help of chatbots.
AI also helps merchants to give personalized recommendations based on customers’ preferences or needs and their purchase history. This kind of personalization will help you to give a special feel to your valuable customers by improving their shopping experience from your store.
Incorporating automation and AI chatbots into your Shopify store not only enhances the customer experience but also improves operational efficiency. Giving quick customer support to customers can help you foster client relationships and drive repeat purchases in your store.
Video Marketing for Products
The power of video marketing is increasing nowadays in every industry. Because people are more interested in videos compared to images. Videos can easily engage users and express to customers what how your products will look like. It will give them a clear understanding of your product in detail. Videos can connect emotionally with the audience easily and help merchants to convert them into sales. Because people always motion graphics instead of still images. Videos have more power to convert customers’ minds in making buying decisions.
Video marketing can help to improve product visibility and gain customer interest. With video marketing, merchants can create and promote different types of videos like a demonstration of product features, unboxing videos, how-to videos, etc. If you want to improve customer experience, drive conversions, and promote your brand, video marketing is the best option for you.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is important for Shopify merchants to stay up-to-date with the latest or upcoming eCommerce trends. Because customers are always attracted to unique elements. To satisfy customers and deliver the best based on their needs, it is a must to know the trends in the market. Ultimately, the key to success lies in a customer-centric approach. Take the time to understand your audience’s needs and preferences. Use their feedback to refine your offerings and enhance the shopping experience. This will help to stay ahead of the competition and grow your business easily.
When customers receive their orders quickly and without additional costs, their satisfaction skyrockets, fostering loyalty and repeat business. AI chatbots play a pivotal role in this new era by providing instant support and personalized experiences. Video marketing has emerged as a game changer, allowing you to showcase your products in an engaging and relatable way. By making use of the above-mentioned trends, Shopify merchants can enhance their online presence, drive sales, and foster long-term customer loyalty in a rapidly evolving digital marketplace.
As you move forward, remember that the eCommerce landscape will continue to evolve. Stay curious, keep experimenting, and be willing to adapt. This mindset will not only help you navigate challenges but also uncover new opportunities for growth.
It’s hard to believe the end of the year is right around the corner. That isn’t stopping website designers from trying new things to keep things interesting as we begin to close out 2024, though.
With texture, grids, and two-column designs getting a lot of attention, this month’s website design trends include things you can try before the year ends.
Here’s what’s trending in design this month:
1. Touchable Textures
The term cozy often comes to mind when you think of cooler temperatures and fall or winter. Just the word can make you feel the texture of a great sweater or blanket.
Now take that concept and apply it visually. That’s the idea behind this design trend with a set of images that look like you can touch them. Just seeing these textures makes you understand how they might feel or interact in the real world.
Blurring the lines between digital spaces and reality has been a trending theme all year, and these designs take that concept to a truly visual level. (I could almost feel every one of these examples.)
The challenge with this design trend is you have to really plan it. You need the perfect visual element – sometimes still, sometimes animated. And it has to look so real that website visitors think they can touch it.
These effects can be from photography or videography, but are rooted in the tactile nature of the artwork and how it interacts with other elements on the screen. Each of these examples does this in a very different way.
Sales & More uses motion with texture to create something that you can’t quite identify but that still has a reach-out-and-touch-it feel. You can almost imagine the tiny balls moving in your hands or a slight breeze when they move away from the main & shape. A flat background makes this design more striking, with a complete monotone color scheme and plenty of interactivity.
Every Exquisite Font Factory
uses multiple textured items to highlight letterforms and create visual interest. Because of shadowing, a simple background, and unusual usage (textures for letters), you can “feel” each one easily. This design uses a lot of different texture elements with immense detail in the design.
Moyceram features ceramic artwork with images that have a liquid finish you can almost feel. Even the painted eyelashes and eyebrows on the faces seem light and touchable. But the most distinct element may be that each mast looks wet, so that the emotion of each piece shows through.
2. Distinct Grids
There are few things as nice as an amazing grid for a website design. A grid keeps content organized, balanced, and visually pleasing.
While grids are practically everywhere, this trend incorporates seeing them more distinctly than just using a grid for design purposes.
The feel is quite structured, allowing large amounts of content to have its own place without feeling cluttered. These designs can take a lot of shapes and fit with almost any type of content. The biggest driver is your need to organize.
Love and Money Agency uses a simple square block image grid to showcase their work. Blocks mix and match photos and moving images. Some blocks link to work and also feature hover states; some do not. This grid is clean and easy with a sort of create-your-own-adventure feel thanks to varying content types.
Haydaysss uses a grid that looks and feels like a calendar. This is a visual that most people understand with ease. What’s more interesting here is that is all you get on the homepage. The grid design is for content access and entry and well as navigation. Each block has a simple hover animation to help you understand that it is interactive, and there’s a motion that crosses the screen every few seconds as well to keep visitors interested.
Alec Tear follows our theme of grid boxes with his portfolio site. The monotone look is rather stunning on its own, but it is even more interesting with full-color hover states that lead you into different pieces of work. With an almost brutalist feel, this design aesthetic helps counterbalance some of the elaborateness of the work therein. The mono palette also helps you focus on what’s important here—lettering, which is showcased on this portfolio page.
3. Two Columns
Another take on using grids is the two-column format. It is important to note that two columns does not automatically mean two equal columns. (Asymmetry can be rather nice.)
Each example uses two columns to help organize content and provide easily viewable text sections for the website. Full-width text is generally overwhelming to read on desktop screens, making multiple columns a viable option. Two columns also provide a nice logic for responsive stacking on smaller screens.
Vaersagod uses two columns that are somewhat independent of each other. The right column features visual work and examples for the portfolio site, while the left column scrolls with text. The theme carries to subsequent pages as well, and you almost have to click and scroll around to get the full feel for how it works.
Richard George uses a more traditional split-screen design with two panels – one for text elements and a second for visuals. There’s a reason this design pattern never goes out of style – it works beautifully and is easy for visitors to interact with.
RTRFM uses a great grid overall – you’ll have to click through and scroll to see it completely – but the two-column cards are a beautiful example of how to use two columns and feel super trendy at the same time. With a brutalist feel and plenty of content as well as linkable elements, these cards are highly interactive and handle a lot of information well. Small animated effects add to the overall feel, and this design scheme is perfect for the site’s content.
Conclusion
The trend in this collection that strikes me the most is the use of texture. These almost touchable designs make you want to interact more and inspire me to find video, photography, or three-dimensional illustrations that website visitors think they can feel.
The other trends are similar in their use of grids and distinct patterns to help website content feel organized—something that can be refreshing during a hectic time of the year. These are easier trends to conceptualize and use quickly.
No matter what option you like best, have fun, and make sure to experiment with your designs!
The Internet of Things (IoT) transforms industries, businesses, and daily life by connecting physical devices to the Internet, enabling real-time data exchange and automated operations. From smart homes to industrial automation, the applications of Internet of Things are vast, providing numerous advantages in terms of efficiency, convenience, and cost savings. This article explores the top 9 applications of IoT technology, along with practical examples that illustrate its impact across different sectors.
1. Smart Homes
One of the most popular applications of Internet of Things is in smart homes, where IoT-enabled devices are used to control and automate various home functions. From lighting systems to thermostats, security cameras, and home appliances, IoT makes homes more efficient, secure, and user-friendly. Devices like Amazon Echo and Google Nest are great examples of IoT technology in action. These devices allow homeowners to control their environment through voice commands or smartphone apps, enhancing convenience and energy efficiency.
Example:
Google Nest smart thermostats automatically adjust heating and cooling settings based on user preferences, weather conditions, and occupancy, saving energy and reducing utility bills.
2. Industrial IoT (IIoT)
The use of IoT in manufacturing, often referred to as Industrial IoT (IIoT), is revolutionizing the production process. Sensors and connected devices monitor equipment performance in real time, detect potential issues, and optimize production flows. This helps companies reduce downtime, improve productivity, and enhance safety. IIoT is also used for predictive maintenance, where machines can predict and notify operators when they need service, preventing costly breakdowns.
Example:
General Electric (GE) uses IIoT to monitor its manufacturing machines across multiple factories, improving overall operational efficiency by collecting data on machine performance and automating adjustments.
3. Healthcare and Wearable Devices
In healthcare, IoT is improving patient care through remote monitoring and smart medical devices. IoT-enabled health trackers and wearables can monitor vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels, sending real-time data to healthcare providers. This allows for early detection of potential health issues and timely interventions.
Example:
The Apple Watch is an example of IoT technology that tracks health data like heart rate, activity levels, and ECG readings, providing users and healthcare professionals with valuable health insights.
4. Smart Cities
IoT is playing a pivotal role in building smart cities by improving infrastructure, traffic management, and energy usage. Smart cities utilize IoT sensors and devices to monitor air quality, manage traffic flow, optimize public lighting, and enhance waste management systems. This not only improves the quality of urban living but also reduces resource consumption and costs.
Example:
Barcelona is a leader in IoT services for smart cities, implementing smart parking meters, connected street lighting, and environmental sensors to improve traffic management, reduce energy consumption, and monitor pollution levels.
5. Agriculture and Smart Farming
IoT has significant applications in agriculture, where it is used for precision farming, monitoring soil conditions, and automating irrigation systems. Sensors can collect data on soil moisture, temperature, and crop health, helping farmers make data-driven decisions to optimize crop yields and resource usage.
Example:
John Deere uses IoT-enabled sensors in its farming equipment to collect data on soil quality, moisture levels, and crop conditions, allowing farmers to make more informed decisions and improve productivity.
6. Connected Vehicles and Transportation
In the transportation sector, IoT technology enables connected vehicles that can communicate with each other and with traffic management systems. This helps optimize traffic flow, reduce accidents, and improve fuel efficiency. IoT also facilitates fleet management systems, where companies can track vehicle locations, monitor driver behavior, and ensure timely maintenance.
Example:
Tesla cars are equipped with IoT-enabled sensors that gather data to optimize autonomous driving capabilities and improve vehicle performance through over-the-air software updates.
7. Retail and Inventory Management
Retailers are using IoT technology to enhance customer experiences and streamline inventory management. IoT-enabled devices can track product movement, monitor stock levels, and automate inventory replenishment. Additionally, IoT helps retailers gather valuable customer data, allowing them to offer personalized shopping experiences.
Example:
Amazon Go stores use IoT sensors and cameras to create a cashier-less shopping experience, where customers can pick up items and leave without checking out, with the payment automatically processed through their Amazon account.
8. Energy Management and Smart Grids
IoT is being used in the energy sector to create smart grids that optimize energy distribution and consumption. IoT sensors monitor energy usage in real-time, allowing utilities to balance supply and demand more effectively. Smart grids also enable the integration of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, making energy distribution more efficient and sustainable.
Example:
Siemens is working on smart grid solutions that use IoT to monitor energy consumption, predict energy demands, and optimize energy distribution in real-time, leading to more efficient energy management.
9. Supply Chain Management
IoT technology is enhancing supply chain management by improving tracking, monitoring, and efficiency. IoT devices such as RFID tags and GPS trackers help companies track shipments, monitor inventory levels, and ensure that goods are transported under optimal conditions. This real-time data helps businesses optimize logistics, reduce delays, and improve customer satisfaction.
Example:
DHL uses IoT-enabled sensors to monitor the condition of shipments, such as temperature and humidity, ensuring that products, especially perishables, are delivered in optimal conditions.
Advantages of IoT Technology
The Internet of Things (IoT) offers a wide range of advantages that are transforming industries and everyday life. One of the most significant benefits of IoT technology is the ability to enhance efficiency and automation. By connecting devices and systems, IoT enables real-time data collection, analysis, and communication, allowing organizations to optimize processes, reduce waste, and improve decision-making. In sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, and agriculture, IoT-driven automation has streamlined operations, minimized human error, and enabled predictive maintenance, which reduces downtime and operational costs.
Another key advantage of IoT is the creation of more personalized and convenient experiences for consumers. Smart devices, such as wearables, home automation systems, and connected vehicles, allow users to monitor and control their environments with ease. IoT technology provides valuable insights into user behavior and preferences, enabling businesses to offer tailored services and products. For example, in smart homes, IoT-powered systems can adjust lighting, temperature, and security settings based on individual preferences, making life more comfortable and secure. Overall, the benefits of IoT span from boosting operational efficiency to enhancing user satisfaction in numerous applications.
Conclusion
The Internet of Things and its applications are reshaping industries and improving lives across the globe. IoT technology is unlocking new possibilities for efficiency and innovation from smart homes to healthcare, agriculture, and transportation. As IoT continues to evolve, its potential to revolutionize how we live and work will only grow, making it one of our most exciting technological advancements.
Change can certainly be scary whenever a beloved, independent software library becomes a part of a larger organization. I’m feeling a bit more excitement than concern this time around, though.
If you haven’t heard, GSAP (GreenSock Animation Platform) is teaming up with the visual website builder, Webflow. This mutually beneficial advancement not only brings GSAP’s powerful animation capabilities to Webflow’s graphical user interface but also provides the GSAP team the resources necessary to take development to the next level.
GSAP has been independent software for nearly 15 years (since the Flash and ActionScript days!) primarily supported by Club GSAP memberships, their paid tiers which offer even more tools and plugins to enhance GSAP further. GSAP is currently used on more than 12 million websites.
I chatted with Cassie Evans — GSAP’s Lead Bestower of Animation Superpowers and CSS-Tricks contributor — who confidently expressed that GSAP will remain available for the wider web.
It’s a big change, but we think it’s going to be a good one – more resources for the core library, more people maintaining the GSAP codebase, money for events and merch and community support, a VISUAL GUI in the pipeline.
The Webflow community has cause for celebration as well, as direct integration with GSAP has been a wishlist item for a while.
The webflow community is so lovely and creative and supportive and friendly too. It’s a good fit.
