Happy Friday! If you are reading this, you did, indeed, survive the week. Congratulations! Before you leave the office for the weekend, check out this week’s Five on Friday.

In today’s edition, we share initial standards released by the Coalition for Better Ads, Search Engine Watch’s 6 (or is it 7?) tips for capturing readers’ attention spans, info. on why millennials love subscriptions but Gen Xers and Baby Boomers don’t, 5 common subscription commerce hurdles and overcoming them, and how to choose which social media platform to use and when.

Coalition for Better Ads Releases Standards

Last year a number of organizations, including the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Facebook, Google, News Corp, News Media Alliance, Proctor & Gamble, The Washington Post, IAB, Thomson Reuters and others, formed the Coalition for Better Ads. The group has been busy, doing consumer research to identify ads that do not provide an acceptable user experience, reports News and Tech.

Based on research involving more than 25,000 consumers, the coalition identified six desktop and 12 mobile ad types that “fell beneath a threshold of consumer acceptability.” Those ad types include:

• Desktop: pop-up ads, auto-play video ads with sound, prestitial ads with countdown and large sticky ads
• Mobile: pop-up ads, prestitial ads, ad density higher than 30%, flashing animated ads, auto-play video ads with sound, postitial ads with countdown, full-screen scrollover ads, and large sticky ads.

“Consumers in North America and Europe have similar views on online ad experiences they find annoying and disruptive,” said Bob Liodice, CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, a coalition member. “All online ad industry constituents should take a hard look at the findings.”

To help improve the ad experience for consumers, the coalition developed an initial set of Better Ads Standards based on their research. Learn more about the new standards here.

6 Tips for Creating Content to Capture Short Attention Spans

There are so many ways for brands, including subscription companies, to reach out to prospects and customers that it is difficult to keep anyone’s attention for long – TV, radio, streaming video, satellite radio, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, magazines, newspapers, text messages, instant messages, phone calls (do people still do that?)… The list goes on and on.

Ooohhh, shiny! See what I mean? I could barely finish my sentence before I was distracted. Actually, Search Engine Watch says the average human attention span is 8 seconds! Yikes.

This can be challenging, particularly for those who use content to capture their customers’ attention. In a recent article, Search Engine Watch shared six tried-and-true methods for capturing short attention spans.

1. Know your audience. Examine your existing content to see what they’re reading and look at your metrics – time on site, bounce rates, keyword analysis, etc. to see where you can make improvements.
2. Offer well-structured content. Headings, subheadings, bulleted lists, short sentences and paragraphs will make your content more readable.
3. Use images. Many of us are visual, and images draw us to interesting content.
4. Consider long-form content. Last year the average blog post was 1,054 words, according to Orbit Media Studios. Sometimes long pieces are OK, if the subject matter warrants it. So how do you know? One of my first editors wouldn’t give me a word count. She said, “Make the article as long as it needs to be to fit in all the relevant information.” Use your best judgment and don’t be afraid to experiment with different lengths. Be sure to keep an eye on your metrics too. They will show if your readers are responding to longer content.
5. Mix it up. Give your content some variety by adding different types of media – text, images, video, slideshows, etc. This will make your content more interesting to your readers while also giving you a chance to test what works best for your readers.
6. Use social proof. Search Engine Watch suggests building relationships with trusted influencers who might be willing to share your content, and vice versa.
7. Eliminate distractions. Did you see we are on 7? We said only 6. We wanted to see if you were paying attention! Ha – no, actually Search Engine Watch listed 7 tips, so we didn’t want to stop at 6.

Read the full article, written by Tereza Litsa for Search Engine Watch, here. And a big thank you to Search Engine Watch for sharing these great tips. We even made it to the end of the article!

Millennials Love Subscriptions, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, Not So Much

In a recent article, PYMNTS.com quotes Vantiv and its recent study that shows that more than 70 percent of millennials have product subscriptions and 89 percent have service subscriptions, but Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are moving at a much slower pace.

According to Vantiv’s research, conducted by Socratic Technologies, fewer than half of Gen X consumers and less than 20 percent of Baby Boomers and retirees buy subscription-based products. Service subscriptions are more popular though, with 78 percent of Gen Xers using service subscriptions and Baby Boomers at 67 percent.

PYMTS.com quotes Bill Cohn, senior product leader for eCommerce at Vantiv, who says the subscription business model has three primary advantages for merchants:

1. Customer lifetime value grows with subscription-based products and services.
2. Products and services that are billed monthly can be more affordable than those paid in one lump sum, making them more accessible to a broader audience.
3. Adding or growing recurring revenue is a good way to increase value of a company.

That’s solid advice. Read more on PYMNTS.com here.

5 Common Subscription Commerce Hurdles and How to Overcome Them

Cratejoy, a subscription marketplace that’s home to hundreds of subscription sellers, offers advice on these 5 common subscription commerce hurdles and how to overcome them.

1. Procurement is critical to the success of any subscription box company, and it includes identifying and purchasing products, and shipping and fulfilling orders. Cratejoy calls this the “special sauce that drives customer experience, retention and growth.” To ensure that procurement goes smoothly, Cratejoy recommends good CRM software, keeping a “business invitation” in hand, having a plan B ready, being transparent with subscribers and offering good value.
2. Fraud is an ugly word, and fortunately, fraudulent orders are somewhat rare. But they do occur. If you suspect fraud, don’t fulfill the order, contact the subscriber and check with your payment processor to see what type of anti-fraud procedures and solutions they can offer.
3. Churn is common in the subscription world, but the lower the churn the better. Cratejoy says you can reduce churn by analyzing and understanding your customer’s journey, offering a good customer service experience, good product development and engaging subscribers. Want to learn how to reduce subscriber churn in 14 days? Tune in to our free webinar on Wed., April 19.
4. Growth is the goal of every subscription company. To plan your trajectory, do a SWOT analysis, reconsider your target market, identify ways to reach a broadened market and do research.
5. Profitability won’t happen right away, which is to be expected, but if profitability continues to elude you, there may be a bigger problem, one that extends beyond price. Cratejoy suggests that you first identify the specific problems, prioritize those problems and then tackle the top priorities first.

Read the full article by Arvind Bala for Cratejoy here.

Influencer and Marketing Campaigns on Social Media: Which Platforms to Use and When

Every subscription company should have social media elements as part of its overall marketing strategy. There are many tools commonly used – Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. – how do you know what to use and when? Marketing Profs suggests that choosing the right social media network for a specific campaign boils down to knowing your company, your goals and what makes each social media network unique.

Here are a couple of quick tips from Marketing Profs. Click here to read the full list.

• Facebook owns Instagram, so running concurrent campaigns is not only prudent but easy.
• To track app downloads or purchases, Facebook is the best network, says Marketing Profs.
• Instagram’s strength is its influencer network who grows followers based on the quality of their content. Subscription companies can learn from these influencers, but they can also leverage their audiences by engaging with them in an authentic way.
• Pinterest’s audience is 68% female with an average household income over $100,000, so this is a great tool for beauty, fashion, home and food-focused subscription companies to reach prospective customers.
• Want a young, hip audience? Then you need to be on Snapchat. Marketing Profs says that Snapchat is not ideal for startups or for those with small staffs who might not be able to keep up with the fast pace of Snapchat, but if you have a young target market, you’ll want to explore this tool.
• YouTube is another great option for reaching influencers. Send those influencers samples they might feature in a video tutorial. Marketing Profs cautions that while YouTube can help companies build large audiences quickly, the commenting forum can get out of control – fast – so proceed with caution.

Get more great tips from Marketing Profs here.