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Many nonprofit organizations and charities use online donation systems to streamline their fundraising efforts. Platforms such as iDonate, GivingFuel and Fundraise Up can bring significant efficiencies for the donation flow. They can also help your organization better understand the donation funnel and the performance of donation campaigns. Ecommerce reports in Google Analytics can be very helpful to get the maximum benefit from these platforms. In this guide, we’ll take one of these platforms (Fundraise Up) as an example, and we’ll show you how to integrate it to your Google Analytics property.

As you are probably aware, Google Analytics 4 will replace Universal Analytics (UA) very soon (on July 1, 2023). For this reason, we’ll focus on the Google Analytics 4 implementation.

Step 1: Import the Google Tag Manager (GTM) tags and triggers

Fundraise Up provides a handy guide and a GTM container that you can import for sending the key donation events to Google Analytics 4. If you’re still using UA ecommerce tracking, you may consider switching to GA4 ecommerce tracking soon. However, this transition was not very easy for us: Fundraise Up is still pushing the ecommerce dataLayer events following the UA schema, which is quite different from GA4 format. You can see the differences in the side-by-side comparison below.

But don’t worry, we can still do the switch by creating a custom HTML tag in Google Tag Manager.

Step 2: Preparing our donation data

For this step, let’s use the purchase event as an example. First, create a trigger using the event in the imported container called “FundraiseUp.checkoutClose”. We chose this event as our trigger since it fires after the purchase completes, so that we can get the purchase amount and currency value.

Then we need to create a Custom HTML tag to prepare the ecommerce data for GA4. We named it “GA4 – E-commerce Tracking Purchase1”, but of course you can use any other name you’d like in GTM. What the code below does is collect the values we need from the “donationComplete” event, clear the existing UA format “purchase” event, then send a new “purchase” event following the GA4 schema. Here’s the HTML code for this custom tag:

<script>var transaction_id =”;var value =0;var currency =”;var item_name =”;for(var i =0; i < dataLayer.length; i++){if(dataLayer[i][‘event’]==’FundraiseUp.donationComplete’){ p = dataLayer[i].FundraiseUp; transaction_id = p.donation.id; value = p.donation.amount; currency = p.donation.currency; item_name = p.campaign.name;}}(function(){ window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer ||[]; window.dataLayer.push({ ecommerce:null});// Clear the previous ecommerce object. window.dataLayer.push({ event:”purchase”, ecommerce:{ transaction_id: transaction_id, value: value, currency: currency, items:[{ item_name: item_name, price: value, quantity:1}]}});})();</script>

This new tag should use “Fundraise Up Checkout Close” as its trigger.

Step3: Sending the ecommerce data to GA4

Now the first tag has pushed the GA4 purchase event, we need a second tag to send this ecommerce event to the GA4 container.

The second tag will use the same trigger as the first one. We set the tag type to “GA4 Event”, choose the Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration tag for your GA4 property, and the event name should be “purchase”.

Step 4: Testing the GTM setup

Now comes the fun part: testing. Using Fundraise Up’s test environment, you can make donations and see if the tags are working as expected.

Unfortunately, it takes up to 24-48 hours for the transactions to appear in GA4’s “Ecommerce purchase” report. However, you can use the real-time preview and make sure that the purchase event is sending the required parameter values such as currency to GA4. If you see these in the real-time preview, you are very close to finishing the implementation.

There are other ecommerce events such as select an item from a list, add/remove product from shopping cart, etc. Those all can be tracked in GA4 using a similar method above.

It’s quite likely that Fundraise Up will update their code to send proper GA4 ecommerce tracking events sooner or later. But in the meantime, we hope this article will help you with your GA4 migration.

At Plumfind, we love solving measurement challenges using Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. If you have another problem that you are facing, please get in touch and let us know. If you have a better solution for the implementation we shared above, please let us know as well. We’re always happy to learn from our community.

About the author(s):

 Jingfei Gao

Jingfei is our software engineer. She can magically convert our craziest ideas into well-optimized chunks of code. Her unbounded energy and can-do attitude keep our technical teams running like a well-oiled machine. We suspect that the source of her energy is the classics: she loves opera, her favorite composer is Mozart and in another life, she could have easily been an archeologist. She lives in Montreal, Canada.

We love Shopify: it’s a versatile ecommerce platform that enables users to build impressive online stores with its point and click interface. However, sooner or later, you may realize that you need finer control and some customization. These changes could be some visual enhancements to your store or some functional elements to add new features. This is where most merchants get stuck: when they open the liquid theme files, they feel overwhelmed and decide not to touch anything for the fear of breaking their store. Have no fear! Pumfind is here to help. Let’s take a look at some examples together.

How to experiment safely in the Shopify environment

Before you make any changes to your store, let’s make sure that you can try any change you would like to test without worrying about the stability of your store. The best practice for this is to “backup early and backup often”.

Shopify doesn’t include a default feature to roll back the changes made to a template in the dashboard panel. Therefore, we recommend creating a copy of the current version every time before making any changes. You can easily do that by going to “Online Store”->”Themes”->click “…” beside the theme that you want to copy, then choose “Duplicate”.

Don’t forget to rename the new copy with the changes you are going to make. For example, “update theme color”, “add new product”, etc. Once you finish editing the template or the code, you can preview the changes then publish the new copy, the updates will be immediately shown in your store.

Two other best practices to give you peace of mind:

• Test incrementally: make sure that you test your changes in a systematic way. Quickly test your changes before you finalize them.
• Document all the changes you have made in a store configuration document. You may quickly forget how or why you made some changes. This document can help you review or reuse some settings or code snippets months or years later.

How to quickly create scrolling text in your Shopify store

It is very simple to add a scrolling heading or banner by using the html element <marquee>, which is used to insert a piece of scrolling text. For example, if you want the text scroll from right to left, the html code would be: &lt;marquee width=\”100%\” direction=\”left\”&gt; TEXT &lt;/marquee&gt;

In Shopify, this scrolling effect is commonly used to create a promo banner or a shipping bar on top of the website store page (e.g., “Free shipping on all orders over $50!”). Whenever we want a certain text to have a scrolling effect, we just need to add the code above to the corresponding liquid file.

Suppose we want to make the announcement bar on top scrolling from right to left, we start with finding the liquid file we need.

First we access the code: go to the Shopify dashboard -> online store -> click “…” of the current template -> edit code. Since we want to change the announcement bar section, we go to “announcement-bar.liquid” under “Sections” file.

Next, we find the code that contains announcement text.

In this example, line 37 contains the code for announcement input text. We can replace this line with:&lt;marquee width=”100%” direction=”left”&gt;{{ block.settings.text }}&lt;/marquee&gt;

Now whatever we put in the announcement bar will be scrolling as we wanted.

Experimentation is the key here. Don’t hesitate to try different settings, for example for the “direction” attribute, you can try using “right” instead of “left” and see if you prefer that version.

How to implement the typewriter effect to a heading in Shopify store

Themes compatible with Shopify 2.0 allow us to add html code directly in the theme customization page. Thanks to this feature, we can easily create headings with different animation effects. In this example, we’ll also show you how to edit a CSS file to achieve the perfect look and feel for your store.

Here is an example of adding a typewriter effect to the heading:

Click the “Customize” button of the theme you want to edit.

If you have ever edited store pages, you may see the “Add section” option before. Click it and select “Custom Liquid”.

Then copy and paste html code below to the custom liquid input box (Replace “TEXT” with your own heading):&lt;div class=”align-center”&gt; &lt;span class=”typewriter”&gt;TEXT&lt;/span&gt; &lt;/div&gt;

If your heading has multiple lines, then you can use the <br> element to separate them.

For example:&lt;div class=”align-center”&gt; &lt;span class=”typewriter”&gt;LINE1 &lt;br&gt; LINE2 &lt;/span&gt; &lt;/div&gt;

After creating the new section, you can drag and move it to the place you want.

You may notice there is an element class attribute called “typewriter”. The last step is adding the CSS code of that “typewriter” class.

Go to the Shopify dashboard -> online store -> click “…” beside the template -> edit code.

Under folder “Assets”, open the “styles.css.liquid” file and paste the code below.

.typewriter {
color:#0000;
background:
linear-gradient(-90deg,#deefec 5px,#0000 0) 10px 0,
linear-gradient(#444463 0 0) 0 0;
background-size:calc(var(–n)*1ch) 200%;
-webkit-background-clip:padding-box,text;
background-clip:padding-box,text;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
animation:
b .7s infinite steps(1),
t calc(var(–n)*.2s) steps(var(–n)) forwards;
}
@keyframes t{
from {background-size:0 200%}
}
@keyframes b{
50% {background-position:0 -100%,0 0}
}

The highlighted “#deefec” is the background color HEX number, and the “#444463” is the text color code. You can adjust them based on your needs.

Time to get creative!

When it comes to Shopify development, it’s perfectly normal to feel a bit confused at the beginning. We hope that the practical examples we gave above will be useful in your learning journey. Once you implement a couple changes you will feel a lot more confident in your abilities and you’ll feel more motivated to try new changes.

The team at Plumfind is here to help if you have any specific questions or requests. Feel free to get in touch with us. We’d love to hear from you.

About the author(s):

 Jingfei Gao

Jingfei is our software engineer. She can magically convert our craziest ideas into well-optimized chunks of code. Her unbounded energy and can-do attitude keep our technical teams running like a well-oiled machine. We suspect that the source of her energy is the classics: she loves opera, her favorite composer is Mozart and in another life, she could have easily been an archeologist. She lives in Montreal, Canada.

What is Lead Generation?

Creating leads is a key step in the sales pipeline that involves attracting potential buyers. Many businesses would collapse without this step in the sales process. Any potential customer who has expressed an interest in, but has not yet demonstrated, the ability to purchase the company’s goods or services is considered a lead.

You have to generate new leads to expand your business and increase your income. Businesses often face difficulties in generating revenue, especially in highly competitive markets.

How is lead generation important for your business?

With the explosion of interest in ad platforms and social media channels, getting your message across to your intended audience is getting more challenging every year. Companies need to take a more targeted approach to marketing in order to get noticed by their customers in today’s market because traditional methods, such as mass advertising and email blast campaigns, no longer work.

Lead generation specialists carry out these tasks, and they are crucial to the success of your business. While it’s common knowledge that lead generation is crucial, many CEOs are still not taking full advantage of the opportunities it presents.

This seems tough, but important!

Is there any way I can automate this process?

Yes.

What are the benefits of automating your lead generation process?

When routine tasks are automated, your team can spend more time talking to potential customers about what they require from your business. Automating certain aspects of your sales and marketing procedures allows you to maintain a full pipeline without engaging in mindless routines.

Rather than wasting time on mundane tasks, your team can focus on growth-driving activities like making sales and trying out new approaches.

Here are some of our favorite tools that can save you tons of time and increase your lead generation efficiency.

List of Tools:

• Lead Productivity Tools

1. Leadquizzes.com: Create a test to find out more about potential customers and gather contact information. Through the use of LeadQuizzes, customers have increased their lead capture rates by as much as 500%. Furthermore, the responses you gather can aid in audience segmentation and comprehension.
2. LinkedIn Sales Navigator: It should come as no surprise that the business networking website LinkedIn stores a plethora of information about various companies in its databases. The LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides access to this rich dataset. You’ll be able to find and connect with the right people with the help of this lead generation and sales tool.
3. Pipedrive: It markets itself as user-friendly due in large part to its intuitive interface. Keeping tabs on your interactions with prospects is a breeze with this automated lead generation software. When you log in, you’ll be able to view everything in a single consolidated dashboard.
4. ProProfs Survey Maker is a conversion rate optimization (CRO) tool and lead generation program made to get the most out of your users by getting them to fill out surveys. Scorecards, skip logic, over 15 different question types, visual questions, and many more features are available to help you create engaging, interactive, and unique surveys for your visitors.
5. D7 Lead Finder is a cloud-based lead scraper that can be used to create leads. Finding lead data across different social media channels and websites only requires some basic search information. In a matter of minutes, the service can return hundreds of leads for use in the sales process. Please note that conversion rates from these \“cold\” leads will be much lower than leads that you generate through your inbound efforts.
6. Flowlu: The free version of Flowlu’s lead capture software is exceptional. Create highly effective lead capture forms for your web app, leading to more signups and sales. Securely record new leads in a database that also includes a calendar, task management, and lead tracking features. Detailed metrics covering performance reviews, financials, and sales funnels are available. The efficiency of even the busiest sales teams can be maintained by processing multiple deals, tasks, and projects simultaneously.

• Email Marketing Automation Tools

1. Snov.io is a powerful application that can do a wide variety of tasks, including gathering emails from a company’s website, obtaining emails based on personal and domain names, searching for emails on Google and LinkedIn, and more.
2. Mailchimp is a one-stop-shop marketing platform that facilitates communication with and management of your clientele. They take an in-depth look at your data, implement best-in-class methods for contact management, and craft eye-catching marketing campaigns.
3. Boomerang for Gmail: An email productivity app and scheduling calendar for Gmail. In addition to the usual features of an email client, Gmail now lets you schedule meetings, send emails at a later time, keep tabs on replies, create automated messages, and even use artificial intelligence to improve your correspondence.
4. GetProspect: You can easily and quickly find the email addresses of your LinkedIn connections and virtually anyone else for no cost at all using this method. You can quickly find anyone’s email address and generate LinkedIn leads with the click of a button using the GetProspect Chrome extension.
5. Yamm For those who are not familiar with HTML, YAMM provides a simple Mail Merge tool. To begin, pick a Gmail draft you’ve already started. Just replace the names and other details from the spreadsheet with the variables/markers in your email template. Utilize a spreadsheet to instantly communicate with your contact list via personalized emails.
6. Hunter is a helpful app to have if you need to search through your inbox rapidly. Simply enter the domain and it will locate the corresponding email format. Hunter also provides a confidence rating to let you know how likely it is that the email is accurate. Because of this, Hunter is among the most effective email search engines available.

• Proposals and Invoicing Tools

1. Invoiceto: This service provides a blank, clickable, cloud-based invoice template at no cost. It is a straightforward and easy-to-use free invoice maker. After creating your invoice, you can download it as a PDF.
2. HelloSign: Users can upload a document that needs signatures into HelloSign, and with the drag-and-drop feature, the areas that need to be signed are automatically highlighted. Afterwards, the user enters the signatory’s email address and submits the document for electronic signature.
3. Slimvoice: It is a local program, meaning it runs on your machine and reads text files. Make, edit, export, and send as many invoices as you like without spending a dime. Slimvoice eliminates extraneous steps and provides an easy way to send PDF invoices and receive payments.
4. Wave: Billing that can be tailored to each individual customer’s needs. In addition to accepting payments, Wave also lets you follow up with clients via email and send invoices, receipts, and payment reminders. Moreover, it provides a specialized invoicing mobile app for submitting invoices and monitoring payments.

• Inbound and Outbound lead gen tools

1. Snov.io is an all-in-one solution that can be used to do everything from harvesting emails from a company’s website to locating emails using search engines like Google and LinkedIn to obtain emails based on personal and domain names.
2. Global Database: Through a user-friendly online interface and sophisticated filtering options, Global Database provides reliable and current company data. You can obtain the contact information of businesses that fit your ideal lead profile based on their financial health, credit risk, market standing, or online presence. You can tailor the process to meet your needs by selecting appropriate criteria as well.
3. ConvertPlus: Another option for integrating pop-up forms into your website is ConvertPlus. This software is not a software as a service (SaaS) product, but rather a WordPress plugin. Timed pop-ups, scroll-percentage pop-ups, exit pop-ups, and so on are all available. The tool can be useful for WordPress-based businesses and provide a cost-effective alternative to similar SaaS products.
4. Hellobar: With the aid of Hello Bar’s visually appealing banners, bars, sliders, and pop-ups, their clients are able to significantly increase a wide variety of KPIs.
5. Flowlu‘s free lead capture software is top-notch, allowing you to easily create effective lead capture forms for your web apps, which will result in more signups and conversions.

• Marketing management tools

1. ActiveCampaign is a customer relationship management, electronic mail advertising, and marketing automation system. ActiveCampaign is a solid choice for marketers who need this three-in-one solution. We also like its automation features.
2. Hull gathers all of your campaign information in one place so you can see the big picture of how everything is performing as a whole. The same is true for customer information, meaning your sales team will always have access to the most up-to-date details about each customer.
3. Hoovers claims to have more business data than any other company. This means that Hoovers is a great resource for finding the qualified leads your business needs.
4. Marketo is yet another comprehensive service that includes lead management, lead scoring, email marketing, email automation, and analytics. Once more, pricing will be heavily dependent on the features you require, so be sure to get in touch with their sales team to learn more.
5. Pardot: In order to manage and qualify sales leads, Pardot is a popular tool. Having confidence that you are only talking to the best leads is made possible through lead qualification. Pardot’s marketing automation features and granular segmentation help you connect with potential customers more effectively.
6. Overloop is a customer relationship management tool that specializes in email-based sales and marketing activities like prospecting, conversations, pipelines, and workflows. You can get a bird’s-eye view of your business with the help of a drag-and-drop dashboard that displays all of your lead pipelines. So that you can put your sales prospecting on autopilot, Overloop’s automation is based on a graphical dashboard.

• CRO Tools

1. LeadFormly is a tool that helps you optimize your web forms to increase conversions. There are many different options for creating forms, but only a select few include form analytics features for tracking results and making improvements.
2. LeadForensics: Even if you use a tool like LeadFormly to greatly increase the number of visitors who fill out your forms, some leads will still be missed. LeadForensics helps with this problem by identifying the companies that visit your site (even if they don’t submit an enquiry form) based on their IP address.
3. Pingdom: Pingdom is a web-based service that monitors the uptime and responsiveness of your servers, applications, and websites anywhere in the world. In terms of monitoring web performance and digital experience, it is a solid choice. Pingdom is simple to set up, use, and grasp.
4. VWO (or Visual Website Optimizer, as it used to be known) is our go-to tool for split-testing. You can use it across all of your active ventures to ensure that all key pages in your user journeys are continually improving their conversion rates.

• Communication Tools

1. Drift enables you to have meaningful conversations with customers, allowing you to provide them with helpful and individualized service. This system is based on the principles of conversational marketing and sales. Instead of having site visitors fill out forms and wait for follow-ups, Drift lets you have conversations with them immediately.
2. Intercom: Want to fully engage site visitors? A cutting-edge messaging service is what you need. The solution may lie in the Intercom system. Having direct communication with your customers via a messaging app can increase both customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Your leads and customers can always reach you through Intercom’s chatbots, live chat, and other communication-based apps.
3. CallPage: Increase your business’s phone-based leads with the help of CallPage. Visitors to your website can submit their contact information by dialing a button on the page. When they do, they’ll get a callback within 28 seconds no matter where they are. Obviously, you can restrict calls to specific times of day, such as when you’re open for business. The ability to communicate quickly is especially important when qualifying leads and making sales. CallPage serves as a bridge in this respect.

These are some of the powerful tools you can use today, but remember that there are many other tools out there! Please share your experience with your favorite tools with us. We hope you\’ve found this resource useful for your lead generation efforts. If there’s anything we’ve missed, let us know!

About Plumfind

Surrounded by marketing data, but feeling more confused than ever? You\’ve come to the right place! At Plumfind, our mission is to do the heavy lifting for you so that you can focus on what matters the most: growing your business by identifying the most promising opportunities.

About the author(s):

 Natasha Joshi

Natasha is our Social Media Manager, a law student, and marketing enthusiast. She loves strategizing different methods to get results. A big fan of startups and their psychological aspects. She loves to travel and interact with locals to know the history of those places. She lives in Jaipur, India.

Marketers often use social media platforms to reach out to new customers. On social media, you can find customers for many different types of businesses.

But with so many social media platforms out there, it can be hard to choose the right one for your business.

You might be wondering about the most-used social media sites. Which social media sites are the best for paid marketing and how can you use them? Which ones are worth your time and money?

Even though you might want to use them all, some social media sites are better for marketing than others. The key here is the core audience you are trying to reach with your paid and organic social media campaigns.

The more people you reach, the more conversions you get, and the more money you make for your business, the better. However, if you keep your target audience too broad, you will realize how easy it is to spend a lot of money with little to no results.

In this article, we will be highlighting the top 5 ways in which you can find the right social media platform for your business without the help of experts.

1. Know your audience.

Targeting everyone will cost you a lot of money. Even when you are primarily interested in branding (and not direct sales), finding your target audience is essential. By narrowing down who you want to reach, you can invest your money much more wisely.

Every product or service has an ideal customer. Advertisers often create very detailed “personas” of their ideal customers and study them to learn more about who they should target and how.

You can make a persona as detailed as you want and have as many as you need.

Create your customer personas by asking these questions:- What are they interested in?- What is their age?- What gender do they identify with?- Do they have any children?- What is their marital status?- Where do they live?- What is their education level?

For every kind of business, there is at least one optimal persona. You can learn more about finding the right social media platform for your target audience here:

2. What kind of content would you like to post?

Effective ads need a lot of thought and preparation. Your campaign’s wording (also called ad copy), pictures, and videos need to be finalized based on the ad formats you are interested in.

If possible, you should implement retargeting into your advertising plan. What this means is that you can create multiple touch points with the same prospect. You can achieve this using a single channel or you can spread your advertising channels and try to reach the same prospect using several different ads. You can use paid promotion, unpaid social media (such as user-generated content, recommendations, and word-of-mouth),and a wide variety of other social media features to spread your message.

Advertisements can be shown to audiences to generate awareness, and the outcomes can be monitored on both a micro and macro scale.

Once the advertisements are up, you may use A/B testing to determine which creative, headline, etc., is doing the best.

Check out this graphic below to understand what types of content people interact with:

3. Social media strategies

Using social media channels to support pay per click (PPC) advertising, paid social media strategies can also leverage other marketing activities.

This involves creating, scheduling, and posting targeted ads using the ad tools native to those social media channels.

Awareness, consideration, and conversion are some of the objectives of paid social media strategies.

An effective paid social media strategy can optimise a marketing budget that might not be sufficient for promoting a large brand through traditional media channels.

When it comes to reaching high ROI goals on a limited budget, look no further. Social media ads can be very cost effective if you invest in audience targeting and your ad creatives.

4. Analyze your competitors’ marketing channels

Keeping an eye on the competition will give you a sense of where you stand in the market and how you can better position your company to thrive.

Examine the content they share, the frequency with which they do so, the amount of interaction it generates (Likes, Shares, and Remarks), their level of social media activity, and the networks on which they can be found.

Additionally, you can discover which brands have the most influence in your industry.

You can use them to see which content formats are most popular with their audience, which social media channels get the most shares in your field, whether or not the companies are being mentioned, and much more.

The advertising options offered by social media platforms are unrestricted in terms of scale. Keep exploring!

5. Use Plumfind’s social media comparison calculator

It is not easy to run a small business. As a marketer, you have to wear a lot of hats and determine which social media platform is right for your ad campaign.

To help you in your journey, we at Plumfind designed a Social Media Comparison Calculator.

You can find your ideal social media platform in just 3 easy steps:

1. Based on your business standing and needs, answer the questions on a scale of 1 to 5.
2. Compare your alternatives based on their score.
3. Choose a platform based on the score and suggestions and begin advertising.

But remember, rather than trying to have a presence on every social media site, you should focus on a few that are most widely used by your target audience. Matching the target audience with the optimal set of ad creatives can do wonders.

Still confused? Connect with us at support@plumfind.com and we will help you take your business to the next level.

About the author(s):

 Natasha Joshi

Natasha is our Social Media Manager, a law student, and marketing enthusiast. She loves strategizing different methods to get results. A big fan of startups and their psychological aspects. She loves to travel and interact with locals to know the history of those places. She lives in Jaipur, India.

Can you spend all of your time on social media? I don’t think so.

For many years, social media has been an important part of digital marketing. Of course, just being on social media here and there isn’t enough for your business to benefit. If you want to get the most out of your social media content, you should post often and consistently.

The process of planning ideas, writing/recording content, uploading and interacting with your audience takes a lot of time and energy. With the right tools, you can save time, create better content, and schedule posts.

To help you with your campaigns, we put together this list of our favorite free tools for scheduling social media posts.

1. Loomly

Loomly is a cloud-based marketing tool that helps freelancers, social media influencers, and social media managers organize their social media content. Among the most important features are marketing analytics, automated publishing, keyword filtering, managing multiple accounts, and scheduling posts.

Pros: Loomly works with Google My Business, YouTube, and Snapchat, so it’s open to everyone.

This tool lets users handle all of their social media accounts in one place. This makes scheduling between channels easy. No matter what plan you choose, you can create and schedule as many posts as you want with Loomly.

Cons: Users of Loomly are often disappointed that the software doesn’t let them post directly to Instagram or create Instagram stories.

2. AgoraPulse

Agorapulse is a customer relationship management and scheduling tool for social media. It works with sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Agorapulse also lets you schedule posts in bulk, have a single inbox, and get RSS feeds.

Pro: Agorapulse lets you tag your content so that it is easy to find and analyze it later. Using the Social Inbox, you can send messages to your clients with customized notes or comments. The built-in CRM feature helps you learn more about your audience.

Cons: Agorapulse doesn’t have as many features as other social media sharing tools at a similar price point. It doesn’t work with some storage and integration apps such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or Zapier. The user interface for Agorapulse is not very intuitive and needs a major makeover.

3. SocialPilot

Teams and agencies frequently use the affordable social media scheduling tool SocialPilot.

Increasing community engagement and simplifying daily social media tasks are both possible with SocialPilot.

It offers a range of other powerful features that make it great for multiple types of businesses, from small businesses to marketing agencies to large corporations, and it covers basic social media functionality needs such as bulk post scheduling.

Pros: Clients can easily understand their reports thanks to the analytics feature. During the drafting process, you can tweak individual social platform posts without affecting the rest. Using this method saves a lot of time. Contributors can create drafts that must be approved by a manager, which is a fantastic feature.

Cons: There is a lack of analytics on Instagram. The free plan lacks some of the key functionality. The interface is a little outdated, but it is easy to use. The scheduling tool does not support drag-and-drop. Packages that cost a lot deserve more features.

4. ContentCal

ContentCal is a social media management platform designed to help advertising agencies plan, create, and publish content across multiple networking platforms.

It enables businesses to quickly respond to customer queries by storing customer interactions in a centralized repository. And it works great for agencies and in-house teams.

Pros: The platform does an excellent job of scheduling your social media posts, making it a solid choice for content marketers. Due to its intuitive interface, you’ll be able to create a productive workflow with ContentCal. Using ContentCal, you can create content drafts and approve them. Collaborating with other teams is also easy.

Cons: There is no option for monthly billing on the lowest plan. In order to get better customer support, you need to pay more. It would be useful if additional social platforms were supported.

5. Buffers

Buffer is one of the more popular social media scheduling tools.

You can publish, analyze data, engage your audience, and collaborate with your team using the platform.

It has a free version and a streamlined dashboard that makes it easy to schedule and view your social media posts.

Pros: One of the main advantages of Buffer is that it will be easy for you to use if you have experience with social media management tools. From one dashboard, you can create and schedule images using Buffer’s photo editor, Pablo. Since Publish and Analyze are separate features, and there are many plans within each category, pricing is very flexible.

Cons: The buffer tool isn’t a complete solution. Posts can be scheduled and analytics can be viewed, but you cannot respond to comments and messages, engage with other people’s posts, etc. This was possible previously using a feature called Buffer Reply, but it has been removed.

Our Verdict

The market is flooded with social media scheduling tools, but only a handful are considered useful. In some cases, the platform’s price is too high or the platform doesn’t offer what you need, while in others, the platform’s performance is not satisfactory. We hope our analysis will give you a better idea about which tool can best meet your needs.

Are you interested in finding more about marketing tools? Plumfind Academy has guides and tutorials you can check out. If you have any comments or questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Let us know what you think!

About the author(s):

 Natasha Joshi

Natasha is our Social Media Manager, a law student, and marketing enthusiast. She loves strategizing different methods to get results. A big fan of startups and their psychological aspects. She loves to travel and interact with locals to know the history of those places. She lives in Jaipur, India.