Archives for March 2019

While the Xbox One has fallen behind the PlayStation 4 when it comes to lifetime sales, that doesn’t mean we can’t applaud its pristine selection of exclusive games. Microsoft and third-party publishers have handpicked a collection of must-play games only available on the Xbox One with a few titles getting a release on PC because duh, it’s Microsoft!

Whether you’re interested in competitive online multiplayer like Halo 5: Guardians, top-tier racing game like Forza Horizon 4, or a surreal indie shooter like Cuphead — there’s a game tailored to suit your specific gaming needs. Here’s our list of the best Xbox One exclusives.

Action

Ashen

Microsoft didn’t have its own Souls-like exclusive game before 2018, but Ashen is more than just an imitator of From Software’s action games. More direct storytelling and a cast of allied characters make it feel like a less immediately hostile environment than something like Bloodborne, but it still has the reaction-and-stamina-based combat that rewards patience and strategy.

One can’t discuss Ashen without mentioning its gorgeous and minimalist visual design, either. The game’s lack of tiny details on characters and environments creates a surreal, dreamlike effect, and sets it apart from the hyper-realistic tendencies the industry has adopted recently — particularly in the action genre.

Sunset Overdrive

Insomniac Games has been mostly associated with the PlayStation family because of games like Ratchet & Clank and Spider-Man, but the studio was at its absolute best when it created Sunset Overdrive. Set in the titular Sunset City during an apocalypse brought on by tainted energy drinks, it’s up to you to defeat the grotesque mutants roaming the streets, all while grinding and bounding between buildings like you’re a professional skateboarder without a skateboard.

Sunset Overdrive is bright, colorful, and often hilarious, poking fun at established video game tropes and never taking itself remotely seriously. Given the number of dark and gritty games released this general, it’s more than welcome.

Read our full Sunset Overdrive review

Quantum Break (also on PC)

One of the most experimental games released for Xbox One, Remedy Entertainment’s Quantum Break takes the developer’s famed third-person shooting expertise and puts a science-fiction twist on it. Following a failed experiment that resulted in multiple researchers gaining time travel abilities, it’s a race against the ever-shifting clock in order to protect the world from the ambitions of an unhinged villain.

Along with your wits, you’re given a gun and the ability to momentarily manipulate time, resulting in some very effective powers during shootouts. In between these sections, the game makes use of live-action scenes to give more insight into the story, with acclaimed actors like Lance Reddick, Aiden Gillen, and Shawn Ashmore.

Read our full Quantum Break review

Rare Replay

One of the most prolific game developers to ever come from the United Kingdom, Rare has been putting out quirky, entertaining, and unique games for decades. Some of its greatest titles were bundled together in the Rare Replay, a compilation that begins with games from the early ‘80s right up to the Xbox 360.

These include classic beat-‘em-ups like Battletoads, cult fighter Killer Instinct, and the whimsical Viva Piñata, all fully playable on Xbox One. With older arcade and NES titles, there’s even a rewind feature that makes the games far more forgiving, so younger players will still be able to enjoy them.

Action-adventure

Sea of Thieves (also on PC)

Sea of Thieves is the quintessential Rare game, featuring plenty of the developer’s lighthearted humor with a gorgeous and cartoony art style. Loosely structured and largely player-driven, Sea of Thieves tasks you with becoming the ultimate pirate as you explore its enormous open world, always with the threat of other players looming over you.

To defend yourself, you can bring a few friends on board your ship, and since the game supports cross-play with PC users, you won’t have a problem finding someone willing to lend a hand. Of course, this won’t always stop you from seeing your treasure stolen and your ship sunk.

Read our full Sea of Thieves review

State of Decay 2

The most dangerous thing in a zombie apocalypse isn’t always the zombies – it can also be your dwindling supply of food, disease, or infighting … but the zombies don’t help matters. In State of Decay 2, you must transform a group of inexperienced survivors into a stable community capable of sustaining and defending itself against zombie attacks, all while you venture out into the largely overrun surrounding areas in search of information on a cure for the plague. Part action and part strategy, your group’s supply levels are almost always your prime concern, but they decrease at a slow enough pace to avoid making State of Decay 2 feel too stressful.

Read our full State of Decay 2 review

Platforming

Ori and the Blind Forest (also on PC)

Many games have emulated the open-ended exploration of Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night over the years, even earning the genre its Metroidvania name, but few have managed to do it as successfully as Ori and the Blind Forest.

With a quickly-expanding list of special abilities and several beautiful locations to explore, the sense of discovery you feel while playing can make you downright emotional, but it has nothing on the simple and tear-inducing story. On a mission to revive her adopted mother, small creature Ori faces nearly insurmountable odds, and she learns a little bit about her enemies along the way.

Sports and racing

#IDARB (also on PC)

It’s hard to describe #IDARB to someone without actually showing them the game in action, and even at that point, you still might not be sure what you’re looking at. What began as a simple drawing (the name means I Drew a Red Box), it quickly turned into a crowd-influenced action-sports game that mixes elements of basketball with over-the-top power-ups that can completely change the rules at a moment’s notice. It’s also the only game that lets you enter the infamous Lang Zone. Best played with a friend by your side to slap whenever they win, #IDARB is weird, nonsensical, and a whole lot of fun.

Forza Horizon 4 (also on PC)

Playground Games has proven itself as one of the best racing game developers on the planet, and the studio has outdone itself with Forza Horizon 4. Taking the action to Britain this time around, Forza Horizon 4 is packed full of racing challenges and open-world fun to partake in, and running on an Xbox One X at 4K or 60 frames per second, it’s an absolutely stunning display of power.

A new seasons system changes the environments, as well, freezing over lakes or turning easy roads into muddy deathtraps, and with real players always racing around you in the world, you’re just a few moments away from a race at any time.

Read our full Forza Horizon 4 review

Forza Motorsport 7 (also on PC)

For the most dedicated gearheads on Xbox One, you’ll want to choose Forza Motorsport 7, a love letter really fast cars from Turn 10. The game contains more than 700 drivable cars, as well as 30 separate locations to speed around as you attempt to beat your friends’ Drivatars to the finish line.

Unlike the games in the Horizon series, Forza Motorsport 7 hits 60 frames per second on Xbox One X, all while maintaining a 4K HDR resolution. If you drool whenever you see a supercar speeding across a track or bask in the reflection of its paint, there is no better place to do it than Forza Motorsport 7.

Read our full Forza Motorsport 7 review

Fighting

Killer Instinct (also on PC)

Rare’s Killer Instinct fighting series had been dormant for years before the launch of the Xbox One in 2013, but the studio revived it to tremendous success. The fast-paced and difficult-to-master fighter includes all of the best characters from the franchise’s history, including Cinder, Jago, Glacius, and Sabrewulf, alongside Microsoft favorites like the Arbiter and General RAAM.

Killer Instinct offers a fantastic training system to show newcomers the ropes, and the game’s free-to-play structure lets you jump in and start fighting without spending a dime. If you do plan on spending money, the characters are available in separate season packs, so you can choose the ones you want the most.

Shooter

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

The original three Halo games are among the best first-person shooters of all time, delivering an exhilarating and emotional story that slams on the gas and never holds up. Halo 4 ushered in a new age for the series as developer 343 Industries took over and delivered its own successful vision, set against an entirely new kind of enemy.

For those who haven’t played these games before, Halo: The Master Chief Collection bundles them all together with visual enhancements, including a complete overhaul of Halo 2. All of the games’ multiplayer maps are available, as well, so you can reminisce about the joy of hours-long Blood Gulch matches with your friends, eating pizza and chugging soda the whole time.

Read our full Halo: The Master Chief Collection review

Halo 5: Guardians

343 Industries further shook up the Halo formula with 2015’s Halo 5: Guardians, a game that turned one of the series’ most beloved characters into a villain while splitting the perspective between longtime hero Master Chief and newcomer Spartan Locke. The campaign sets the stage for nearly endless possibilities in the upcoming Halo Infinite, but it’s the multiplayer mode that really shines in Halo 5.

For the first time, players can use an aim-down-sight ability to better locate their shots with several different weapons, and new powerful special moves allow you to quickly change the momentum in a close match. The large-scale Warzone mode – which sees Spartans battling alongside vehicles in player-versus-player and player-versus environment scenarios is just a bonus.

Gears of War 4

The first Gears of War game created by Microsoft’s in-house studio The Coalition instead of Epic Games, Gears of War 4 builds on what made the series great, including its dark, horror-inspired campaign locations, intense set-pieces, creative and destructive weapons, and aggressive enemies.

Though it doesn’t stray too far from the formula and its story includes several longtime characters, it manages to offer just enough surprises to keep us on our toes. The competitive multiplayer is excellent, as well, with a variety of modes testing your team’s experience and reflexes as you work to outflank opponents and deliver a few nasty headshots.

Read our full Gears of War 4 review

Titanfall (also on 360, PC)

The original Titanfall manages to blend the perfect first-person shooting mechanics of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games with powerful mech vehicles to create a multiplayer experience so engaging and addictive, it’s easy to sit down and blast away at other players for hours at a time. Multiplayer maps are built for verticality, allowing the human pilots to run alongside them in order to get the drop on the titular Titans.

When your Titan falls from the sky and you take aim at other players with powerful cannons, however, you feel unstoppable, and you can even punch them out of the air to really let them know who’s boss. A sequel, Titanfall 2, is also available on Xbox One and includes an excellent campaign mode alongside the multiplayer.

Read our full Titanfall review

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (also on PC)

One of the biggest games not available on either the PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds helped kick off the recent battle royale craze with its deliberate and slow-moving last-man-standing multiplayer matches. With a team of four, a pair, or in solo mode, you must travel across an enormous map filled with nearly 100 other players looking to put you in the ground, all while a force field gradually shrinks in size and threatens to kill you before another player can.

Initially launching with just a single map, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on Xbox One has since been updated to include several, and the developers have continued to improve the game with updates to add more weapons, vehicles, and modes.

Strategy

Halo Wars 2 (also on PC)

The first Halo Wars proved that a console could handle a real-time strategy game if given the proper care and attention, and Halo Wars 2 continues its story with connections to the mainline games that help to make it feel like essential. Armed with your wits, marines, and highly advanced vehicles, you must battle against a rogue Brute and his followers, most of whom are capable of annihilating you immediately if you make a few wrong moves.

Though the control scheme still feels limited compared to what’s offered on a traditional mouse-and-keyboard setup, Halo Wars 2 is a thrilling, cerebral strategy game, and its cinematic cutscenes are among the best we’ve seen in the Halo series to date.

Read our full Halo Wars 2 review

Adventure

D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die (also on PC)

There are weird games, and then there’s D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die. The mystery story surrounding a detective investigating his wife’s murder might seem cliché and overdone at first glance, but give creator Swery65 a few more minutes to show you its bizarre core.

Largely taking place on board an airplane, your interactions with other characters are among the strangest and most entertaining we’ve ever seen in any media, and D4’s mini-games and Kinect integration make it an experience unlike anything else on the Xbox One. Unfortunately, the game was never finished, but you owe it to yourself to jump in and see what’s possible when an auteur is given free rein to do whatever he wants.

Music

Dance Central Spotlight

Kinect on Xbox One was largely a failure – you can’t even find the peripheral anymore, as it has been discontinued – but Harmonix’ Dance Central Spotlight is an exception. The kings of dancing games created a highly personalized version of the series for Xbox One, offering the base game at a low price in order to see extra songs on their own, so you can pay for as many or as few songs as you’re interested in actually dancing to. A wide variety of tunes are available, including Sia’s Chandelier and Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk, making it the perfect choice for when you have a few friends visiting.

Fantasia: Music Evolved (also on Xbox 360)

Disney’s Fantasia is a whimsical and gorgeous musical adventure, and it has been reinterpreted to tremendous effect in Harmonix’ other Xbox exclusive, Fantasia: Music Evolved. Using Kinect, you do a sort of free-form dance along to hit songs – both classical and more recent – and the remixes included completely change the tunes.

It feels like a game built from the ground up for Kinect, rather than having the peripheral shoehorned into it, and it makes us sad that more games like Fantasia weren’t released during the attachment’s short lifespan.

Read our full Fantasia: Music Evolved review

• Check out the best Xbox One deals and bundles available now
• The best Xbox One games you can get right now
• The best PlayStation 4 exclusives you can get right now

Nearly 2,000 marketers of businesses of all sizes responded to create the State of Social report by Buffer and Social Chain. The report itself is worth a read, but I was most interested in are the charts shared towards the end – the data points Buffer didn’t analyze. There are 4 social media trends that deserve a second look, plus some context to understand their meaning for your consideration in 2019.

Social Media Trend #1: More businesses use Twitter than every other social channel not named Facebook. 

Let’s interpret this response through the lens of a marketer:  

The social media channels that executives know about (and therefore want to see business accounts for) are Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

A second tier of channels is specialty platforms, which are LinkedIn & YouTube (and Pinterest, maybe). These are not useful to everyone, but could be impactful with a correct approach.

You might have an account, or think it would be worthwhile to have one, on IGTV, Snapchat and WhatsApp (if you had any idea what content work or audiences to reach). 

And then there are Twitch and TikTok, which you’re keeping an eye on, mostly because your teenager is on them non stop.

Old habits die hard, which can be used to explain why businesses are still omnipresent on Facebook and Twitter. These are the legacy platforms of social media marketing. The claims of Twitter’s demise started to ring as Instagram’s popularity took off, but the end of the tweet is not in our sights. 

That’s not to say that Twitter hasn’t had trouble along the way. Yet underneath the trolls and bots, there remains an active, vibrant community. Twitter users in the US are more likely to be urban, educated, and higher-income. 

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Twitter users in the US are more likely to be urban, educated, and higher-income. #socialmedia
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We go to Twitter when something is happening – breaking news, live sports, events, TV premieres and political debates. It’s the top online source for real-time content. We also go to Twitter to share our experience with a brand or service – often to complain or to ask for assistance from the very brand or service itself.

Twitter works exceptionally well for these personalized interactions, so I struggle to understand how most of our Twitter feeds are still RSS feeds in disguise.  Marketers could – and should – use Twitter to connect directly with key audiences. 

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Marketers could – and should – use Twitter to connect directly with key audiences
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Social Media Trend #2: Half of business marketers are still making up social media plans on the fly.

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Over half of marketers admitted they do not have a documented social media strategy.
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Over half of marketers admitted they do not have a documented social media strategy. They are caught in the cycle of publish and pray. Reactionary social media marketing is not a strategy. Neither is creating an editorial calendar two weeks in advance, and echoing the same content across every branded account, without regard to the audiences there. 

What’s worse: 100% of businesses that are doing on-the-fly social media are at risk for losing any semblance of their plan, not to mention their institutional knowledge and decision makers if key social contributors leave the company, or can’t get to work. 

In our view as consultants to the world’s most interesting brands, more and more companies are coming to us asking for a documented social media strategy with a roadmap they can implement. Even though these companies have established social accounts with a decent audience size, and are sharing and boosting content regularly, they are embarking on their very first strategic plan for using social media marketing. 

The transformations that can happen when you start thinking about social media with purpose and desired outcomes are worthwhile. Unsure of how to start? Try auditing your recent social media posts, and those of 2-3 competitors. 

Social Media Trend #3: Engagement metrics are most meaningful for content performance.

Don’t take this chart at face value. The question is worded in a way that marketers cannot indicate a preference in which engagements are most meaningful. Case in point: 2/3 of marketers say that likes, comments and shares are the engagement metrics they value the most. 

Not only are these answers vague, but they are meaningless. Not all interactions in social media are created equal. Pizza eaters will understand – pepperoni is the most popular pizza topping, yet it also appears on lists of least-favorite toppings. We all assign different values to things, even when we share appreciation for them. A Facebook comment could be more (or less) valuable for a marketer than a share on LinkedIn. It depends on the goals anchoring a social media strategy and what outcomes are being worked towards. 

What marketers define as meaningful engagement in this response seems to emphasize the vanity metrics (i.e.: likes, shares, comments) that appear on a weekly or monthly social media report. But you can’t use engagements to fund payroll. Social media has to do more than make your reporting look good.  

The second most popular answer, “an interaction with the brand”, is meaningful. Bingo. Get your audience interested, intrigued, or inspired enough to have an interaction – which can become a conversation if your brand is equally active and willing to engage.  

Social Media Trend #4: Over half of marketers are not planning to increase the use of social features to drive direct purchases.

Marketers have to get better at social commerce.

Social media has tremendous influence over the research and interaction stages of any customer journey. We discover new products because the people we follow are posting about them. My local Facebook group is full of posts asking for recommendations on landscapers and handymen. 30% of consumers say they would make purchases through Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat. 

Yet over half of marketers say they are not planning to increase the use of social features to drive direct purchases this year. 

Let’s look at why a plan for social commerce is important. Consider that younger generations are more prone to impulse buys. Buy buttons and shoppable tags decrease customer friction. Shoppable posts increase marketers’ ability to attribute social media touchpoints in the customer journey. 

Forget swipe left and right; audiences are getting in the habit of swiping up to purchase in Snapchat and Instagram. In Messenger, WhatsApp and WeChat, brands are turning to chatbots to personalize an automated checkout experience for customers. Multi-level funnels are being reduced to two steps: discovery and purchase. It’s time to understand the options each social network offers to drive sales, and to start experimenting with features like shoppable tags and AI-powered checkout. 

These are the four charts that caught my attention when reading the State of Social 2019 report. Be sure to read Buffer’s analysis of the key trends they identified. Check it out here.

The post Your 2019 Social Media Strategy: 4 Trends You Can’t Ignore appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.

The web has made it incredibly easy for anyone to sell digital products directly to customers through websites, social media, and email newsletters. You can sell PDF ebooks, MP3 music, photos, software apps, gift cards, license keys, coupon codes, website templates, fonts, graphics, video courses, and many more downloadable files.

While there are quite a few e-commerce platforms that help you sell digital products – Gumroad, E-junkie, Paddle, FastSpring, Shopify, Instamojo and WooCommerce, to name a few,  here’s a do-it-yourself solution that will help you build your own digital store in under 5 minutes using PayPal and your Google account.

How the workflow works?

Before we get into the implementation, here’s a big-picture view of how the payment and digital delivery workflow works.

1. Embed the “Buy Now” buttons into your website or blog. Buyers can pay with all major credit cards using 1-step checkout.
2. Buyer clicks the button, enters the card details and completes the payment. The customer stays on your site and isn’t redirected anywhere to complete the purchase.
3. The order is delivered to the customer in a personalized email message. You can also attach a tax invoice in the confirmation emails.

You can head over to the live demo page and experience the 1-step checkout experience on your desktop or mobile phone.

Sell Digital Downloads with PayPal and Google Drive

The workflow uses Google Drive for securely hosting files, PayPal for processing payments, Google Sheets for generating professional PDF invoices and Gmail for delivering the order to the buyer as file attachments.

There are no limitations on the size of files or the number of products that you can sell. There are no bandwidth or storage restrictions. There’s no transaction fee except for the payment processing fees that are charged by PayPal and Stripe.

Get Started Selling Digital Goods

Here’s a step-by-step video tutorial that explains how you can easily sell digital products with PayPal and Google Drive.

Step 1: Create a PayPal App

Go to developer.paypal.com and sign-in with your PayPal account. If you don’t have one, sign-up here for a new Business account.

Inside your PayPal dashboard, go to My Apps & Credentials > Rest API Apps and create a new app. You can give your app any name as it is for internal use only. PayPal will now create client credentials for testing and live transactions that we’ll need in the next step.

Step 2: Create a PayPal Webhook

When a buyer completes the purchase and makes the payment, PayPal will send your app a notification by calling a specific URL and this is known as a webhook.

To create a webhook, go to digitalgoods.dev/copy and copy the Google Sheet to your Google Drive. Inside the sheet, go to Tools > Script Editor, the choose Publish > Deploy As Web App and click the Update button to create your PayPal webhook. Copy the URL to the clipboard.

You will have to authorize the script once since it has to do all the operation – send emails, attach Drive files, generate PDF invoices – on your behalf.

Step 3: Configure App inside Google Sheet

Switch to the “Configuration” sheet inside the Google Spreadsheet and paste the webhook URL inside the “webhook” field. Next, copy-paste the Client ID and Secret generated in step 1 inside the corresponding fields of the Google Sheet.

There are few other mandatory fields in the sheet. Choose your default currency, the shipping preference (whether you want to capture the address on the buyer), specify your brand name and the soft descriptor (this will show in the credit card statement of the buyer).

Go to the Digital Goods menu in the sheet (it is near the Help menu) and choose Test PayPal Configuration to verify the PayPal-Google Sheets connection.

Step 4: Add your Digital Products

Switch to the “Items” sheet and enter the default tax rate in the cell E1. Next, add one or more products in the sheet. You only need to specify the price of the item in column D, the Tax and Total Amount is automatically calculated based on the tax rate set in E1.

To attach files to your digital product, highlight the Files column, then go to the Digital Goods menu and choose Attach Drive Files. It opens the Google File picker and you can select one or more files from your Google Drive that will be sent to the buyer after they purchase the corresponding product.

Step 4: Create the Tax Invoice Template

Switch to the “Invoice” sheet and customize the invoice template. You can use formulas, add your logos, apply styles to match your brand and the template would be converted to a PDF file and sent as a file attachment in the order confirmation emails.

The invoice template can include placemarkers, similar to the ones you have used inside Document Studio. For instance, the Name variable will be replaced with the full name of the customer as found in the PayPal order. The Email variable is replaced with the buyer’s email address while the Invoice Id adds a unique invoice number to your invoice.

Step 5: Create the Order Confirmation Email

Switch to the “Email” sheet and create the HTML template that will be sent to customers after they complete the payment. The email will automatically include the files and invoice as attachments but you can customize the email message and subject.

The first row in the sheet is the subject and everything else will go in the message body. The emails, like Mail Merge, can be personalized and you can also use HTML tags to add images, links and rich content in the emails.

Step 6: Test your PayPal buttons

Now that you have added the products to the Google Sheet, it is time to test the integration in sandbox mode before you embed the buttons on your live website.

Go back to your PayPal dashboard, and choose Credit Card Generator in the right sidebar. Here you can generate random credit card numbers with expiration date and CVV for testing your buttons in sandbox mode.

Inside the Google Sheet, choose Digital Tools > Embed PayPal Buttons to generate the HTML embed code for your digital products. The screen offers embed codes in both the live mode and the sandbox mode.

Click the Try button next to the Sandbox mode and you’ll be able to test the buttons right inside the Google Sheet. Click the credit card icon, enter the mock credit card number and click “Pay Now” to complete the test transaction.

PayPal invokes the Webhook and it triggers the order workflow. Switch to the “Logs” sheet and you’ll soon find a new entry for the transaction that you just completed. Open your Gmail Sent items folder and you’ll find a copy othe f email that was sent the buyer’s email.

If your integration is working as expected, go to the Embed PayPal menu in the sheet and this time copy the embed code for the “Live” mode and paste it in your website. Your product is now live and anyone in the world can buy your product with a single-step checkout.

Here’s a sample email that will go out to customers after the purchase.

All the incoming orders can be tracked in real-time inside the “Sales” tab of the Google Sheet. The sheet includes the customer’s name, email address, the order summary and the buyer’s postal address. The address is only available if you have set the shipping preference in the configuration sheet to “GET_FROM_FILE”.

You can directly run Mail Merge with Gmail inside this sheet to easily send product updates to existing customers. If you have been using PayPal prior to switching to Digital Goods, put all the PayPal emails under a new Gmail label, extract the email addresses inside the sheet and use that list for your merge.

How to Sell Unique License Keys & Codes

In some businesses, you may want to send unique codes to the customer. These may include license numbers to unlock software apps (like we do at Digital Inspiration),  passwords to access streaming video courses, discount coupons, gift cards, event registration numbers and more.

This is easy with Digital Goods. Open the “Codes” sheet in the spreadsheet and the pregenerated list of codes in one of the columns. Give this column a title as shown in the screenshot above. Next, include the column title in your email mesage and a unique code will be added in place of the marker.

Internally, the app looks at the last row of the Sale sheet (the current order), fetches the codes from that same row in the Codes sheet and adds them to your email / invoice.

Troubleshooting Tips

The video tutorial explains the entire workflow in great detail but if you are still facing any issues, here are some tips:

1. Go to the configuration sheet and set “yes” for the debug setting. Next, do a test transaction inside sandbox mode and check the Logs sheet for any errors.
2. Go the Digital Goods menu and run Test Configuration again to ensure that your PayPal sandbox and live credentials are correct.
3. PayPal, in rare cases, may delay the delivery of webhooks. Go to the PayPal dashboard and choose Webhooks (link) to get a list of recently-processed webhook events and their status. You can open a case at paypal-techsupport.com for help.
4. Make sure that you have not renamed or deleted any of the original sheets in your copied Google Spreadsheet.
5. Open your Chrome Dev Tools, switch to the network tab and make sure that your adblockers are not blocking the PayPal script.

If you are unable to resolve the issue, write to me at amit@labnol.org or tweet @labnol.

The post How to Sell Digital Products Online with Google Drive and PayPal appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

Email marketing may not be a new marketing tactic. In fact, the first electronic mail was sent in 1971, the first email marketing blast was sent in 1978, and in 2018, it was estimated that 124.5 billion emails were sent out. 

Yes, email marketing is an established tool in your toolbox. But should not assume that what worked a few years ago will work today. 

A new research study I worked on, Email Marketing Survey Summary Report, finds that email marketing professionals are learning new techniques to improve their email marketing results. 

The Email Marketing Survey Summary Report provides insight into difficult questions like:

• What are the primary objectives of an email strategy? 
• How many companies are best-in-class? 
• What are the most critical challenges to success (know the challenges in advance to prepare how you will handle your challenges)?
• How much are budgets changing for email marketing? NOTE: this information will help you make the argument to get more budget. 
• How do I prioritize objectives versus challenges as I build my email strategy?
• What are the most effective types of email?
• How is effectiveness changing for the types of emails used? 
• What are the most difficult types of emails deploy?
• What combination of resources (in-house, outsourced to a specialist) are other companies using?

Here are 4 key findings from our 2019 email marketing research that will give you insight on how to adjust your email marketing strategy and improve your results.

Research Finding #1: Focus on Increasing Engagement Metrics

Increasing engagement and improving brand awareness are primary objectives for 67% and 59% majority of marketing influencers, respectively. Engagement is now a frequent topic of conversation as companies strive to increase waning email open and click rates.

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Increasing engagement and improving brand awareness are primary objectives for 67% and 59% of marketing influencers.
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Engagement continues to be a strategic objective for marketing professionals, whether it is email, social media, content marketing, customer experience, personalization, etc. 

Here is a strategy to help you increase engagement:

• Become laser-focused on the needs of your target audience
• Create high-quality content that will be of interest to your audience (research, how-tos, tools etc.)
• Gather data on your audience (demographics, firmographic, behavioral)
• Organize your data so that you have a one-view profile of each individual in your database
• Use technology to help you effectively and efficiently run your marketing programs 

Increasing engagement requires a commitment by you to invest the time to outline your strategy and allocate the financial resources (start small) implement your strategy. 

Through years of testing and experimentation, we’ve found that research is an excellent way to increase engagement with our audience. Everyone is interested in research because it helps them do their job better by giving them ideas on what to do based on results from their peers. Because the research helps our audience, they engage with us by downloading reports, sharing the research, commenting on research findings, asking questions, etc. 

Do you have a similar strategy on how you are going to increase engagement? Now is the time to outline your strategy and start engaging your audience!

Research Finding #2: Test Personalized, Single-Topic Dedicated Emails

What are the most effective types of email used for marketing purposes? A majority of marketing professionals believe that a combination of personalized messaging and single-topic/dedicated email creates the most effective type of email used for marketing purposes. Meanwhile, only 17% consider plain-text email effective.

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A majority of marketing professionals believe that personalized, single-topic/dedicated emails are the most effective type of email.
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Do you see how knowing your audience, great content, and data are critical to creating a personalized message for your email marketing? So by creating your strategy to increase engagement, you will also have the tools necessary to deliver effective personalized email campaigns. 

Research Finding #3: Effectiveness is Improving

The good news is that while email marketing has been around for a long time, marketing professionals are finding ways to increase effectiveness. While nearly two-thirds (64%) of marketing professionals say email effectiveness is improving moderately, only 21% consider email effectiveness to be worsening to some extent.

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Good news! 64% of marketing professionals say #email effectiveness is improving moderately.
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Research Finding #4: Deployment Resources Used

While difficult types of email (like personalized messaging driven by artificial intelligence) are driving the need for outsourced specialists, 39% of marketing professionals say they still only use in-house resources to deploy the types of email used. 

Get more research insights by downloading the entire study, Email Marketing Survey Summary Report, and put it to work in your own email marketing strategy. 

The post 2019 Email Marketing Research: 4 Key Findings to Improve Your Results appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.

With File Upload Forms (demo) for Google Sheets, you can receive large files from anyone directly in your Google Drive. You can automatically send email confirmations to the notify the form respondent. The forms can be created inside Google Sheets using the built-in drag-n-drop form builder and the forms can CAPTCHAs, e-signature and more.

A school teacher may want to build forms for students to upload assignments and the files are automatically saved to her Google Drive but in separate student folders. The HR team may want an online form where job applicants can upload their resumes in PDF or Word format. Business can build forms with eSignatures that respondents can sign on their desktops and mobile phones.

Google Forms do allow file uploads but the respondents need to be signed into their Google accounts before they can upload files. File Upload Forms impose no such limitations – anyone can upload files to your Google Drive. They may not have a Google account and they’ll still be able to use your Drive uploader forms.

File Upload Forms – Getting Started

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can build your own File Upload Forms in a few minutes. Or watch the YouTube video to get started.

Step 1. Copy the Google Sheet for File Upload Forms

The File Upload Form is written in Google Scripts and the code needs to be attached to your Google Sheet for it to work.

To get started, go to forms.studio/copy and click the “Copy” button to create a copy of the Google Sheet template to your Google Drive. This sheet includes the form builder, email designer and it will also be storing your form responses just like Google Forms responses are stored inside Google Sheets.

Step 2. Deploy the Uploader form as Web App

Inside your Google Spreadsheet, go to Tools -> Script Editor to open the Google Script editor. Don’t worry, you don’t have to write a single line of code, you only have to deploy this script as a web app so anyone can access your form via a simple web URL.

Go to Publish -> Deploy as Web App, choose Me under Execute the app as, choose Anyone, even Anonymous under Who has access to the web app and click the Deploy button.

You may have to authorize the script once since it has to do all the operations – like sending emails, uploading files – on your behalf.

Also, if you get the “App Not Verified” screen, just click on the Advanced link and choose “Go to File Upload Forms” to continue. While this step is optional, you can submit your app to Google for verification and they’ll drop the ‘not verified’ warning.

Step 3. Design the File Uploader Form

Switch to the Google Sheet, expand the File Upload Forms menu (near Help) and choose Edit Form. It will launch a simple but powerful drag-n-drop form builder right inside your Google Sheets.

Your forms can have multiple file upload fields, eSignatures, date, time picker, and all the standard form fields. Use the Rich HTML field to embed YouTube videos, Google Maps, SoundCloud MP3s, Google Slide presentations, Images or any HTML content.

You can also add data validation rules to various form fields using simple regular expressions. The file upload fields can be configured to accept single or multiple files. You can also limit uploads to specific types like images, videos, zip, and more.

Step 4. Customize the Form’s Settings

After your form is designed, go back to the File Upload Forms menu and choose Configure Form. It will open a sidebar in your Google Sheet where you can customize the form and Google Drive settings.

The confirmation message can include place-markers – form fields enclosed inside double curly braces like name – for personalized messages. You can also place a URL inside the Redirect option and respondents would be redirected to that website after submitting the form.

In the advanced settings section, click the Select Folder button to choose the parent folder in your Google Drive where all the files would be saved. You can also specify a sub-folder path for storing files and this path can be dynamic – CountryCity – based on form answers.

You can also change color schemes, track visits to your form with Google Analytics and protect your forms with Google CAPTCHA and passwords.

Step 5. Send Confirmation Emails

With File Upload Forms, you can send email notifications when people submit the form. The emails can be personalized by including the form fields in the email subject and message body.

Use the special All Answers place marker in the message body to include a summary of the form response in a neat table. The TO, CC or BCC field can include the question title where you ask for the email address and it will be replaced with the actual value in the form response.

That’s it.

Your form is now ready for the world. Expand the Share section and you’ll be given the URL to directly access the form and also the embed code for adding that form to any website.

You can use Gmail Mail Merge to send the form link to all your contacts in a personalized email. The  Document Studio add-on can help you create beautiful, pixel-perfect PDFs from the form response and they are auto-saved in Google Drive.

Things to Know – File Upload Forms

• To stop accepting new responses, go to Publish -> Deploy as web app menu and click the Disable link.
• If you wish to restrict the forms to users inside your GSuite organization, choose your domain under Who has access to the app in place of Anonymous.

File Upload Forms – Compare Plans

File Upload Forms for Google Drive require a license for extended use. The basic version is free, however.

	Personal	Business	Enterprise
Form Responses	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Number of Forms	1	5	Unlimited
Drag & Drop Form Builder
Customized Confirmations
Email Notifications
Redirect on Form Submit
Multiple Color Schemes
Google CAPTCHA
Save Files in Custom Folders
RegEx Input Validation
Upload Multiple Files
E-Signature Fields
Capture Browser’s User Agent
Technical Support	Email	Email	Phone
Price per year	$29 (Buy)	$49 (Buy)	$199 (Buy)

The post How to Create Forms that allow File Uploads to Google Drive appeared first on Digital Inspiration.