Daily Minute Master Series – July 17, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook Rolled Out a Tool in the U.K. for Users to Report Scam Advertising

Facebook rolled out a special tool exclusive to the U.K. that enables people to report ads that they believe to be scams or misleading. Facebook users in the U.K. who encounter an ad that they believe to be a scam or misleading can click the three dots that appear in the top-right-hand corner of every ad on the social network, clicking Report ad, clicking Misleading or scam ad and, finally, clicking Send a detailed scam report. The social network has a dedicated internal operations team in place to handle reports submitted via the tool, and that team will take down ads that are in violation, as well as investigate trends and suggest improvements to the process. A Facebook spokesperson said in an email, “While the tool is currently available on Facebook in the U.K., we’re certainly not ruling out the possibility of taking something like this to other markets if it works well.”

For the full article click here 

Marketing

DuckDuckGo expands its maps UI with a few familiar features

Privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo announced that it has expanded its local search capabilities with a dedicated maps tab, map re-querying and local autocomplete. Earlier this year, the search engine adopted Apple’s MapKit JS framework to power its map-related searches. In line with its focus on privacy, DuckDuckGo maintains that it does not send any personally identifiable information to Apple or any other third party, nor does it retain location information sent by browsers after a session ends.  Map re-querying, which can be useful to limit generic searches like “vegan” to a desired area, allows users to refine local searches while staying in the expanded map view. Prior to this, each new map-related search required users to return to DuckDuckGo’s regular search page. These latest features are likely to improve its user experience, which may help it maintain growth momentum. Although its share of global search traffic is tiny, it’s worth looking at how referral traffic to your site from DuckDuckGo has been trending. DuckDuckGo is also an ad syndication partner of Microsoft Advertising.

For the full article click here 

Why Google dropped Bing Discover pages from its index

Earlier this month, Google dropped a subset of Bing’s website from its index. The Bing Discover pages were completely dropped out of Google’s search results and resulted in Bing losing millions of pageviews from Google search. Google’s webmaster guidelines say, “Use the robots.txt file on your web server to manage your crawling budget by preventing crawling of infinite spaces such as search result pages.” Google specifically has said for a long time they do not want search results in its search results. And Bing Discover was just that. If you go against Google’s guidelines, no matter how big or small you are, Google may eventually take action against the site. You can lose millions of visitors as a result. Read and understand Google’s webmaster guidelines, stay within those guidelines and do not risk your site from being penalized or removed from Google search.

For the full article click here

Google to Discontinue the AdSense App for iOS and Android

Google is deprecating the AdSense app for iOS and Android in the coming months. By the end of 2019, the apps will be completely removed from all app stores. Google says the decision to sunset the AdSense app was made after the company conducted a review of its mobile strategy. There’s room to grow when it comes to AdSense on mobile. Google says only a third of users access AdSense from mobile devices. Although that’s still a fair amount of people who will be affected by these upcoming changes.That’s all the information available at this point. More details about the improved web interface will be released later this year.

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Daily Minute Master Series – July 16, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook Tests ‘Suggested Moderators’ to Help with Group Administration

Facebook’s continued push to boost groups usage sees another wrinkle added this week, with a new test of ‘Suggested Moderators’ – group members which Facebook’s system has identified as people who may be able to help you manage your online community. The new option will suggest group members as potential moderators based on their frequency of contribution and interactions within the group. In this sense, it’s similar to Facebook’s recent push on ‘Top Fans’, those identified within your group/s as key contributors based on their frequency of interaction.  This new groups initiative may be following a similar line – if you turn your most engaged group members into moderators, that will likely make them feel more connected, and see them engage even more often. In this sense, it may be less about needing help to manage your community as it is to boost activity overall by establishing stronger bonds.

For the full article click here 

Snapchat’s Testing a New, Dedicated Tab for its Exclusive Snap Shows

Snapchat is also testing out a new way to boost exposure for its exclusive content, with a new section, separate from Discover, focused solely on Snap’s owned content. The new ‘Shows’ section would make it easier to binge on Snap’s original content, while also staying on top of new episodes and programs as they launch. Snapchat remains hugely popular with younger users, and the addition of a dedicated Shows tab, along with these new programs, could prove a big lure for advertisers looking to reach those younger markets. In addition to new programs, and the test of its Shows tab, Snapchat has also recently launched two new initiatives to help up and coming creators – its ‘Animated Comedy Creator’ and ‘Scripted Comedy Creator’ programs. The aim of these programs, according to Variety, is to help creators envision to next generation of shows, directed towards an increasingly mobile audience.

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Google may be testing shareable search results snippets

Several people are sharing screenshots on Twitter of a feature in the Google search results that lets you share search results. It has three icons, one to share, one to open the cache page and one to open the result in a new window. You can access this feature if you are in this beta test by clicking on the three dots on the top right of the search results. Google has tried sharing search results through Google+ and other means over the years. Here is Google trying it out again. Any change to the Google search results interface can impact traffic from Google search to your website. Although this seems like just a test and even so, it doesn’t seem like an interface that would impact traffic all that much.

For the full article click here

Google says shortnames bug resolved, local listings restored

The problem that was causing Google My Business (GMB) listings to disappear when shortnames were added has apparently been resolved, according to Google. A spokesperson informed last night that all missing listings have been restored. Google did not specifically comment on the issue of disappearing reviews, which several SEOs said was also happening after adding shortnames. Previously, Google said disappearing reviews was a distinct technical issue unrelated to shortnames.  Shortnames should become a very helpful and potentially effective marketing and branding vehicle for local businesses, as well as a convenient search shortcut for consumers. They could evolve also into an informal analytics tool.

For the full article click here 

Daily Minute Master Series – July 15, 2019

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Social Media

YouTube Amplifies Monetization Options for Creators

YouTube announced new and expanded monetization options for creators at VidCon last Thursday. The platform unveiled Super Stickers that viewers can purchase during livestreams to show support for creators. The animated stickers, which will arrive in the coming months, are available in multiple languages and can be themed around different content categories, such as gaming, beauty and food. They build on the growth that YouTube has established with chat and tools like Super Chats, where followers pay to have their message be pinned to the feed during livestreams. YouTube claims that Super Chats, which rolled out two years ago, are now the biggest revenue source for roughly 20,000 channels, a 65% year-on-year increase over 2018. More than 90,000 channels have received Super Chats from users, according to YouTube, and some streams earn more than $400 per minute from the feature. After debuting channel memberships at VidCon last year, YouTube used the show this week to introduce membership tiers, which the company calls levels. Creators can set price points for five different levels that offer different perks to subscribers based on how much they pay. VidCon, now in its tenth year, has become a crucial showcase for YouTube as creator culture has become a dominant driver of interest in the platform, particularly among valuable young audiences like Gen Z. 

For the full article click here 

Google’s Invitation-Only Test for a New Social Networking Tool

Google started an invitation-only test of a social networking app, called Shoelace, that aims to bring people together in the real world — not just digitally — based on their activities and interests, Gizmodo reported. People who want to bring Shoelace to their communities can request a code to activate the app. Shoelace currently supports the latest versions of Android and Apple’s iOS. Shoelace users also need to have an active Google account to sign into the app. While it’s too early to tell whether Shoelace will be a hit with mobile users, the app already is inviting comparisons with Nextdoor, which focuses on connecting people based on their neighborhoods. By encouraging people to meet face-to-face, Shoelace is part of a broader effort by Google to address growing concerns that modern technologies like smartphones are having a negative effect on mental health. 

For the full article click here

Marketing

New Google Shopping program enables customer photos to show with their product reviews

Google Shopping is bringing customer photos to the product reviews sections of advertisers’ listings. Reviews are accessible from the “View more” option on mobile Shopping ads or by clicking on the star ratings in a listing. Images are eye-catching, and thumbnail images of reviewers can add further social proof to ever-critical product reviews in Google Shopping. Along with the reviews themselves, it’s a step toward including more user-generated content (UGC) to inform users as they’re shopping. UGC can add an element of authenticity and credibility to retailers’ listings that manufacturer-supplied professional shots can’t.

For the full article click here 

New Nielsen service offers podcast audience insights for advertising

Marketing research firm Nielsen has launched a service to provide podcasting networks with insights on their audiences such as genre preferences and purchasing habits. The data comes from Nielsen’s biannual podcast survey of 30,000 respondents. Networks can subscribe to the new Nielsen Podcast Listener Buying Power Service to have their podcasts included in the survey, which includes questions regarding genre preferences, purchasing plans, podcasts and other consumer and listener behaviors. Podcast advertising has been held back by a lack of listener insights, making it hard to target an audience and measure ROI. “Nielsen’s Podcast Listener Buying Power Service makes it easy for advertisers to go deep within a specific genre to target listeners with interests and buying habits that match those of the customers they want to reach,” said Cathy Csukas, co-founder and CEO of Cabana. Although Nielsen’s service does not provide live data and the sample size is relatively small, it does equip podcast networks with more information that they can use to attract advertisers.

For the full article click here 

 

Daily Minute Master Series – July 12, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook Continued Its Efforts to Help People Understand Why Specific Ads Are Served to Them

Facebook added more information when users ask, “Why am I seeing this ad?”. Product manager Sreethu Thulasi revealed in a Newsroom post that people on Facebook who used its tools to investigate why specific ads were being to served to them will now see more detailed information on targeting, including the interests or categories that were used to match them to that ad.The source of that information will be made clearer, as well, such as if that person visited a specific website or liked a page, and people will be directed to controls that they can use to customize their experience on the social network. The Why am I seeing this ad tool already provided information on demographics that were used to match people and ads, as well as website visits that did the same.

For the full article click here 

Twitter Launches “Twitter ArtHouse”

Twitter has announced a new creative team that will help brands to produce video content on their own platform: “Twitter ArtHouse”. Similar to Facebook Automated Ads, “Twitter ArtHouse” will provide marketers with a slew of advertising options and creative assistance. Efforts for Twitter-optimized video are part of a broader strategy to draw advertisers to the social platform while cozying up to content creators. Twitter is not the only social giant to look toward better monetization of creator content in order to draw advertisers to the platform. The growth tools are a particularly attractive offering, providing data insights like daily “follow” and “unfollow” data, which could also be an asset for brands looking to partner with creators.

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Google News rolling out card layout on desktop search results

Google is now rolling out a new design for the Google News search results while on desktop. The new design removes the news clusters of stories and brings you a single featured story in a card-like result. Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land Thursday afternoon that it is rolling out. As you can see, the new design showcases a single news story and does not show alternative sources from other news publishers. This may result in some Google News publishers noticing a decline in Google News traffic, while others may see big increases in Google News traffic. The features and only story shown in the card will get all of the clicks, whereas before, Google would show numerous stories that shared in the click distribution from the news cluster.

For the full article click here 

Bing showing a streamlined recipe carousel in search results

Bing appears to be testing or introducing a new way to show rich results on desktop. For queries that may relate to recipes, Bing is displaying a carousel that features just three recipes initially. It allows users to filter results by total time and other nutrition criteria, but does not immediately show the option to compare recipes. With the new carousel, the comparison option is available after a user selects one or more of the filters. The Bing recipe comparison pages feature elements such as rating, total time, nutrition and yield (servings), which are all properties from recipe schema. Bing’s recipe UX is an area where it stands out from Google. Providing all of the relevant details and adding structured data can increase the chances that search engines display your content as a rich result. It may also enable users to filter through rich results to locate your content.

For the full article click here 

 

 

Daily Minute Master Series – July 11, 2019

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Social Media

New Pinterest features encourage brands and creators to upload more videos

Pinterest has introduced a new and improved video uploader, a video tab on business profiles that allows brands to feature all their videos in one place, an analytics tool to help businesses better understand and analyze their traffic and get insights into performance over time and, finally, Pinterest is allowing creators and businesses to schedule videos ahead of time with a new Pin Scheduler tool. With these new features, the company is encouraging paying users to post actionable and inspirational how-to videos and tutorials tailored to Pinterest users. The brand is hopeful new tools intended to support brands and businesses will increase engagement and ad revenue on the platform.

For the full article click here 

Sponsored Posts From Instagram Influencers Are Driving Less Engagement

A recent study shows that Instagram influencers are getting hit hard by the reported decline in engagement across the platform. According to data shared with Mobile Marketer, from analytics firm InfluencerDB, engagement rates for sponsored and organic posts are nearing all-time lows. The study shows that the engagement rate for sponsored posts was 2.4% in Q1 2019, down from 4% three years earlier. During the same time periods, the engagement rate of organic posts dropped from 4.5% to 1.9%. Engagement is reportedly down across every industry category of influencer including beauty, fashion, food, lifestyle, fitness, and travel. Despite not driving as much engagement, sponsored posts are still driving more engagement than organic posts. The study suggests that marketers may see better engagement with sponsored posts when they’re published by “nano-influencers.” Instagram is working on a new ad unit that will allow brands to expand the reach of sponsored posts, but it’s not ready for a wide rollout at this time.

For the full article click here 

LinkedIn Just Added 3 New Marketing Objectives to Its Campaign Manager

The professional network said the updates now give marketers a full-funnel experience, from initial awareness through to conversion. LinkedIn is also optimizing its click pricing to align with the objectives of its advertisers, saying as an example that when website visits are chosen as the objective, advertisers will only be charged for clicks that go to their landing pages, and pricing will be optimized for all social actions (such as likes, comments and shares) in social engagement campaigns. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions senior product manager Amita Paul said in a blog post, “As a marketer, you’ve shared with us that one of your biggest challenges is ensuring that your campaigns can meet increasingly complex business goals. Whether you’re a new startup trying to increase share of voice or an established business-to-business player looking for leads, you need solutions that are flexible and can adapt to your unique objectives.”

For the full article click here 

Advertising

Ad customizers are now available in all Microsoft Advertising accounts

Ad customizers have been around in Google Ads for several years, and now advertisers can use them in their Microsoft Advertising campaigns, too. With ad customizers, you can dynamically tailor your ad copy based on attributes defined in a feed. Can deliver ads that are more relevant to the query without having to build out hundreds or thousands of variations. Unlike Google, Microsoft Advertising allows you to apply ad customizers by audience, in addition to keyword, ad group, campaign or ad group.

For the full article click here

 

Daily Minute Master Series – July 10, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook makes a play for creators with new tools, features for monetizing content

Facebook announced Tuesday a new slate of updates designed to provide creators with more opportunities to make money — and attract them to the platform, which is competing for creators’ attention with YouTube. Creators who meet Facebook’s Monetization Eligibility Standards will be able to take advantage of a new feature in its Ad Breaks ad unit that gives creators more options for video ad placements. The feature gives creators on the platform the ability to activate un-interruptive ad formats, like pre-roll or image ads, in video content that may not have a natural break for ads. Facebook’s Brand Collabs Manager is designed to facilitate the relationship between brands and content creators. With the new updates, creators will have access to performance insights in the Brand Collabs Manager and able to share audience metrics with advertisers for more efficient and secure ad targeting. The Creators Studio tool now includes a new range of updates to support monetization efforts. Enhancements to the Creator Studio include a dedicated Monetization Overview section, new audience and retention insights, and the ability to now manage Instagram posts and IGTV in the Creator Studio. Facebook has been working to attract creators from other content-driven platforms (ahem, YouTube), and giving them more revenue opportunities could bolster those efforts and entice them to create more content on Facebook.

For the full article click here 

How TikTok is testing in-app e-commerce

To some, TikTok seems like a digital fad. To others, it’s the next wave of social media. Whatever it is, it currently provides a direct line to the younger generation. While it’s undeniable that the social video app would love to make money from online retail, its success in the space remains to be seen. And while advertisers have been dabbling with TikTok in the U.S., the e-commerce part is still very much in its infancy. Some retailers have launched branded content campaigns on the app since last year. The primary issues for TikTok’s e-commerce ambitions in the US have to do with consumer behavior, explained eMarketer principal analyst Andrew Lipsman. Social shopping is much more engrained in Asia and it’s yet to really take off in North America. What could drive TikTok’s success in the social commerce space, however, is competition. As more popular social platforms continue to push e-commerce programs, the behavior could become more commonplace by everyday app users. According to Lipsman, TikTok’s US e-commerce forays are likely a way to simply test the waters, stake a place, and then wait to see if programs like Instagram’s checkout prove successful.

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Bullish forecast predicts 31 million Americans will ‘shop’ on their smart speakers in 2019

EMarketer says that 31 million Americans “will shop via a smart speaker this year, up 31.6% from 2018.” The company defines “shopping” expansively as “browsing, researching products and adding things to a shopping cart.” In two years, eMarketer says the number will climb to 38 million voice shoppers, as smart speaker owners do more product research on the virtual assistant devices. EMarketer also says that 21 million people in the U.S. will make a purchase this year using a smart speaker. The important caveat is that these will almost entirely be digital goods: movies and music. Notwithstanding the sale of millions of smart speakers, and bullish forecasts, voice shopping and commerce have not really materialized. This is not to say that they won’t or that voice search on smartphones isn’t gaining real momentum.

For the full article click here 

Google My Business Listings Getting Suspended After Adding Short Names

A number of SEOs have reported having Google My Business listings suspended after adding a short name to their profile. Short names were introduced in April as a way of allowing businesses to create custom URLs for their Google My Business listings. Now it has become apparent that adding short names is causing legitimate business listings to get suspended and removed from SERPs. Google hasn’t confirmed there’s a bug related to GMB short names, nor has it acknowledged that it’s even aware of this issue. So all this evidence is anecdotal, and the consensus is that removing short names fixes the problem. If you’ve recently had a GMB listing suspended after adding a short name, your best course of action is to remove it.

For the full article click here

How to Identify Influencers in 3 Easy Steps

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Influencer Marketing has taken the consumer market by storm. However, a report by Meltwater finds that 35% of companies admit that their biggest challenge is identifying influencers. 

Influencer is a broad term for anyone who creates audience-centric content that appeals to the average consumer and forms a relationship of genuine trust and relatability. Influencers create high-quality original content that organically attracts targeted visitors, generating new leads for your company. A study conducted in Canada estimated that Millennials and Gen Z consumers are 48% more likely to buy from a brand retailer who collaborated with influencers.

So how do we identify the right influencers to get key messaging for our brand out into the open?

We apply the concept of Search, Vet, Select.

INFLUENCER SEARCH

In order to facilitate your search for valuable content creators, using a combination of search methods is usually crucial to building a quality list. There are many software tools available for use online that often have great filtering abilities, access to a wide range of social channels, as well as complex crawling capabilities to keep their statistics up to date. 

However, these technologies can be expensive, and there is no one single tool that can solve all of your influencer identification and outreach needs. For this reason, software tools are best supplemented by a classic Google search and other forms of good old fashioned manual searching. This does take a commitment of time but there are a number of online resources that provide extensive lists of quality influencers, ready-to-go and free of charge.

Finally, a manual search on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube can often help you discover niche-oriented influencers. Conduct these searches using relevant hashtags and keywords to uncover micro-influencers with highly engaged audiences.

          PRO TIP: Instagram’s ‘similar accounts’ tab will lead you to comparable influencer pages.

Don’t forget, depending on your influencer needs, it is recommended that you switch-up your search methods to suit your requirements. For example, beauty bloggers are typically much more prevalent on YouTube and Instagram, but you won’t necessarily go looking for a corporate HR community there. Your choice of tool(s) should always reflect your goal(s). 

INFLUENCER VETTING

Once you’ve started to locate relevant influencers, the crucial vetting process begins. Finding influencers with high levels of engagement with their audience, regular and up-to-date posting, and reliability as potential business associates are paramount. 

Engagement may include things like total likes, high levels of post comments and quality influencer replies to their audience. Is your influencer engaging their audience? Are they creating genuine, organic conversation? These things encourage an authentic and quality group of followers who are more likely to convert into buyers following product recommendations or reviews. 

Case Study – Instagram Star with 2 Million Followers Can’t Sell 36 T-Shirts

From a business perspective, it’s important to vet the influencer as a person to ensure that they are reliable, loyal to your brand, and professional in the workplace. You will be creating a working relationship with these individuals, and therefore it is essential that you only consider influencers with high levels of professionalism. 

Lastly, it’s important to ensure the influencer’s channel is not completely drowning in sponsored content. Though this isn’t necessarily a negative attribute, this lack of vetting can lead you into a relationship with an influencer who is becoming less and less believable. A quality audience can often see right through sponsored, non-genuine content, and this can hurt the relationship your brand will hold with your future followers.

INFLUENCER SELECTION

After conducting your search process and vetting all influencers of interest, you can make your selection based on a final set of criteria that will ensure a positive relationship moving forward. 

It’s important that you feel a positive connection to the influencer from the start. This helps ensure that any content they create for your brand is already in line with your goals. Verify any previous campaigns and their level of success; this is an influencers resume. Finally, leveraging people who have a pre-existing brand affinity for your product is invaluable. The influencer already knows and admires you and this will help to ensure quality content creation.

You are now ready to start the outreach process and utilize your dynamic collection of influencers to its fullest extent.

          PRO TIP: Ensure that you have reliable data verifying and tracking metrics in place to measure the success of each campaign.

Daily Minute Master Series – July 9, 2019

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Social Media

Instagram Adds New Anti-Bullying Measures, Including Comment Warnings and User Restrictions

Instagram is adding a new automated warning which will prompt users when their comment may be considered offensive, giving them a chance to review before the post creator sees it. The new tool will be triggered by the use of certain words within comments, and will alert the user with a notification that asks if they’re sure that’s what they want to post. In addition to this, Instagram’s also testing a new ‘Restricted’ mode, which will give users a way to lessen the impact of certain users without alerting them to any such limitation. Restricted mode will mean that only you and the person you’re restricting can see their comments. That means, for one, that the user will still be exposed to such. Reducing their reach to others is still significant, but the damage can still be done by getting through to the user his or herself. It is important for Instagram to try new things, and their internal testing has likely highlighted potential benefit. It seems problematic, but it may provide increased capacity for protection, and lessen such impacts.

For the full article click here

Marketing

Amazon Adds Alexa ‘Skill Connections’

Amazon has added to its digital assistant Alexa the ability to enable a skill to use another skill to perform a specific task. The feature, called Skill Connections, is being added to the Alexa Skills Kit in all locations where Alexa is available. Skill Connections are now available for printing, booking a restaurant table or arranging transportation, according to Amazon. Every function previously had to be built within an individual skill.

For the full article click here 

Google announces changes to environment, position targeting settings in DV360

In an effort to provide advertisers with more accurate and granular ad targeting options in Display & Video 360, Google will be launching a revamped experience for environment and position targeting settings on August 26, 2019. The changes will include updated targeting settings when creating or editing items individually or in bulk, updated dimensions in Reporting and a new version of Structured Data Files (SDF) to support the targeting overhaul. While the same targeting options will continue to exist, they will appear with the new targeting controls come August. Google said that the existing options were built to meet the needs of advertisers running display ads on desktop and mobile web. With the changes, advertisers will be able to “target their ads explicitly based on environment (app or web) and position (on screen or in content).” Once the changes are implemented, advertisers will be able to serve ads with a greater level of confidence across these newer contexts.

For the full article click here 

Chrome lets users pay with credit cards saved in their Google accounts

Signed-in Chrome users can now use payment methods that are saved to their Google accounts during the checkout process, Google announced this week via the Chromium Blog. This feature is available on all devices that run the Chrome browser and wherever Google Pay is accepted. Google has been working to reduce friction for users to complete e-commerce transactions for several years, particularly on mobile. Its Shopping Actions already enables users to pay for products directly from Shopping ads using Google’s own checkout cart and the payment information saved in their Google accounts. This feature in Chrome could help increase the number of users who save their payment information with Google — and eventually increase the likelihood they’ll convert on Shopping Actions-enabled ads.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – July 8, 2019

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Marketing

Google’s Algorithm Adjusts Itself When a Real World Crisis is Occurring

A Google engineer tells The Guardian changes have been made to the search algorithm in response to real-life crises. While the said event is taking place, Google will increase the weight of ‘authority’ signals in an effort to surface the most accurate information about the crisis. When Pandu Nayak, a senior search engineer at Google, says  Google increases the weight of authority signals he’s referring to authority as defined in the search quality evaluator guidelines. Google aims to reduce the spread of misinformation, as opposed to outright removing it from search results. Going forward, when searching for information about a crisis that’s unfolding, Google will serve results from the most authoritative sources as determined by its quality raters.

For the full article click here 

Google is Bringing Search Console Data to Third-Party Content Platforms

Google’s Martin Splitt revealed the company is working on ways of bringing Search Console data to third-party platforms. Some of Google’s future plans involve bringing more search engine data to where people already are. Splitt was careful not to get too specific, but he strongly hinted at plans to bring Search Console data to the web’s largest content management systems. Google wants to reduce the need for site owners to go directly into Search Console to retrieve data. The solution is still in the early stages of being worked on, but Splitt confidently states it will roll out eventually.

For the full article click here

Amazon’s Alexa.com Now Offers Free Competitive Insights

Alexa.com, an Amazon-owned competitive analysis company, released several new tools that give small and midsize businesses free competitive tools typically available only to large companies with dedicated analytics teams. This supports search data gathered from Google and Bing. Relevant data about the site, its audience and keyword gaps, as well as the same data about competing sites, are part of the package. These services were not previously available through the 20-year-old platform. Now brands are getting all this keyword and search engine optimization data for free. The company also offers a paid service for SEO and paid search. The insights are collected through a panel of millions of internet users who contribute browsing and clickstream data anonymously, so no one can use the data to determine the contributors to the panel.

For the full article click here 

Advertising

Microsoft Advertising says it’s keeping average position reporting

Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) has added the position-based impression share metrics that Google introduced last fall. Now called prominence metrics, rather than share of voice, in Microsoft Advertising, the set of six new stats are available at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels. Google announced in February that it will be retiring average position later this year. The news came a few months after it introduced the position metrics Microsoft Advertising added this week. Google’s reasoning for removing average position is that it’s no longer a great indicator for where your ads actually appear since position one may actually be at the bottom of the page on some search results. Microsoft is bucking this decision, but we’ll see how long it sticks around if advertisers get comfortable not having it in Google Ads.

For the full article click here 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Minute Master Series – July 5, 2019

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Marketing

Consumers indicate experience, not price, as top conversion factor

A recent report from global performance marketing agency Merkle indicates that delivering excellent digital customer experiences is critical to connecting with consumers to drive revenue. According to the research, 66% of consumers rate experiences over price when it comes to making a purchase decision. Over half of those surveyed (52%) reported having left a website while shopping because of a poor site experience. Delivering optimal customer experiences should be a top priority for marketers, but we also need to determine the right solutions for our martech stack to enable these experiences. We often think of martech in terms of the back-end solutions it provides – how the solution addresses challenges for us as marketers, but not necessarily driven by our customers’ needs. Keeping our customer as the focal point in conversations around how we choose and implement martech goes hand-in-hand with our ability to deliver experiences that will realize conversions and repeat-buyers.

For the full article click here

IBM’s Watson Marketing spinoff launches with agile strategy

Back in April, IBM’s Watson Marketing announced plans to spin off to form a standalone marketing company under the new ownership of New York-based private equity firm Centerbridge Partners. The company aims to deliver marketing automation, marketing analytics and content management solutions. While positioning itself separately from its former parent, the new company also aims to adopt an agile approach to help drive its competition with other marketing cloud vendors – notably Adobe, Oracle and Salesforce. In separating from IBM, the new Watson organization is able to move away from some of the antiquated processes of the legacy organizations, allowing it to adopt an agile growth strategy. As noted by CEO Mark Simpson, it is not a small company, but launching with an agile-first mindset could play a key role in how the company evolves and maintains its competitive edge against other martech goliaths. 

For the full article click here 

Google’s John Mueller on Good Links and How to Get Them

In a Webmaster Hangout, Google’s John Mueller was asked to define what a good link is and how to get them. John Mueller also made reference to “other signals” that can power up your rankings. John Mueller probably understands that a good link doesn’t happen by itself. He said something interesting, he recommended promoting the website. There are many who feel that website promotion tied to link building is not necessary. But John Mueller acknowledged the obvious, that a ball isn’t going to roll until someone gives it a push. John Mueller affirmed the importance of links. His answer wasn’t an end to end link strategy, but it’s good that he affirmed that promotion is important and that it doesn’t need to be spammy. One more insight that bears pointing out. Mueller said that if the content is good, that once it’s found, links aren’t critical.

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Today’s customer decision journey is so complex but AI can help

One thing is for sure – the consumer decision journey is more complex than ever before. The average consumer now owns three to four devices and uses multiple online and offline channels throughout their shopping journeys. The game is changing as marketers turn to artificial intelligence, agencies and data to help them navigate new consumer behavior. Every marketer today needs to be addressing these challenges as the CDJ itself is disrupting the digital landscape. Omnichannel is here to stay as consumers jump between devices and online/offline activity. To make things even more complicated, at any point, consumers could be on the verge of conversion on one device while receiving early-funnel messaging on another. Today’s marketers must embrace omnichannel fundamentals, such as offering in-store pick-up online and optimizing mobile campaigns for a variety of KPIs such as downloads and views. While early marketing efforts and attribution models (first-click/last-click/linear/time decay) tended to oversimplify the CDJ, that is certainly no longer the case. The new CDJ has evolved to look less like a straight line and more like an intergalactic star with more data points than a single person could count. AI is no longer an option, but a requirement for experiencing success with today’s CDJ.

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