Search marketers plan to attend SMX East to become martech trailblazers

We get it. Marketing is now a software-powered discipline that blends the art of creative and science of data. New technologies are deeply interwoven into marketing operations and strategy. Effectively harnessing them demands new capabilities, talent and management.

Scott will offer insights and tactics in his keynote at SMX East including:

• the evolution of marketing from the “arts and crafts department” to a results-producing, software-driven dynamo,
• how organizations are reinventing their operations and institutional metabolism to cope with the always-on and multichannel world,
• and why search marketers are uniquely qualified to lead in the new “martech era.”

Meet Scott at SMX East

Register for SMX East to meet Scott and other expert SEOs and SEMs making an impact in the search marketing community. For only $1,795, you’ll learn fresh tactics to improve your search marketing campaigns, have unlimited expo hall access, networking, WiFi, meals, snacks and more! Register today and save $400 compared to on-site rates.

P.S. Add a full day pre-conference workshop for a deep dive into advanced SEO, AdWords, Social Media Advertising, e-Commerce or hardcore SEO tactics.

The post Search marketers plan to attend SMX East to become martech trailblazers appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Getting Started with Automated Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of those pivotal, game-changing facets of online marketing that nearly every serious marketer needs to not only know how to do — but do successfully. As you’ve learned to grow your business, you no doubt have come across email marketing jargon such as segments and drip feeds.

But what does it all mean, and how does it all come together to deliver the kind of results that matter to your bottom line? Better yet, how can you automate it so that every email practically sells itself? Let’s take a closer look:

What Is Automated Email Marketing?

Just as the name implies, automated email marketing is sending out emails to your customers and prospects automatically, based on a schedule, or triggers, you define.

It sounds simple, right? And for the most part, it is. But just like with any other online marketing skill, the more time you spend learning and testing and improving your email marketing campaigns, the more you learn. And the more you learn, the better you can apply those skills to further improve and grow your campaigns. If the idea of consistent, impactful marketing growth sets your heart aflutter – you’re going to love automated email marketing.

But before we delve into that, it’s worth noting what automated email marketing is not:

Despite the fact that they have a lot in common, automated email marketing does not refer to the emails your customers get when they place an order. These are mainly transactional emails that are sent out automatically, like “thank you for your order” and “your product has shipped”. And while these can be used to market your business further — as in, “now take 20% off on your next order”, their primary goal is to notify, not engage, subscribers.

Why Bother with Email At All?

Believe it or not, this is a common question I receive when helping people set up their automated email marketing campaigns. Compared to newer technologies like mobile text alerts, Facebook ads, retargeting and native advertising, email just seems…well, old.

But despite the fact that email has been around for over 40 years (feeling old yet?), it’s still one of the best lead generation channels available:

Image Source

So with that in mind, how can you get started with a system like this that not only sends relevant, engaging emails to your customers but also does it automatically? First, it’s worth knowing what types of automated emails you can send. These emails generally fall into two camps:

1. Event-based trigger emails and
2. Drip-feed email content

They can be used independently or together depending on your end goals. For example, you could start with an event-based trigger email that then enrolls the customer in a drip feed – delivering content to them by email at set intervals you define.

Setting Up Trigger Emails

Trigger emails are just what they sound like — emails that are triggered based on your subscribers’ behavior (or lack of it). These are the most common types of automated emails, since they remove a lot of the tedious creation and sending of everyday messages. Trigger emails generally include:

• Welcome emails / onboarding / getting started with your product or service
• Abandoned cart emails
• Refer-a-friend (you bought something, now tell others for a coupon or other special)
• Milestone emails (birthdays, join dates, specific milestones)

Modcloth sends out an automated 6 month anniversary email with a coupon code (Image Source)

You can also set up automated emails to be triggered based on actions that the customer takes. This is known as behavioral email marketing and can encompass all the points above and many more, including rewards emails, bonus emails (like free trial extensions) and much more.

Setting Up Drip-Feed Emails

Drip-feed emails — which deliver sequential messages based on a timeframe you specify, can also be a great source of extra revenue and leads if you do them right. Drip-feed emails are most commonly used to deliver things to subscribers that have signed up for a free report — to get them to take the next step in your funnel.

But that only scratches the surface of the potential that drip-feed emails have. Here’s an example from InsightSquared which was sent to a somewhat cold lead prospect list, inviting them to book a meeting with the company:

Image Source

InsightSquared Account executive Dylan Rushe clarifies the drip-feed email set-up above:

“We were working through this huge list from a sales-specific event. It wasn’t a great list; everyone on it was pretty cold,” says Rushe. “So I created a 3-email drip […]. The initial email asked if the person was free for lunch Wednesday, with a GIF of the InsightSquared dashboard. This email was sent on a Sunday. The second email was automated to send on Tuesday to anyone who did not reply; it asked “are we still on for tomorrow?” If they didn’t respond, they received a third email on Thursday, saying “sorry that yesterday didn’t work out, happy to reschedule.”

This unusual type of approach – especially the “Are we still on for tomorrow?” creates a heightened interest (or even panic!) – especially if the recipient doesn’t have anything marked on their calendar. And then, they click — so you’d better have something click-worthy waiting for them.

Taking the Next Steps with Automated Email Marketing

It’s not enough just to know the types of emails you can send, or even brainstorm ideas about possible campaigns. What matters is getting the basics down so that you can have a solid foundation to build upon. With that in mind, you can create your first automated email marketing campaign by following these tips:

Segment Your Subscribers

Oftentimes, marketers start their email marketing campaigns by blasting every subscriber on their list with the same message. But just because you can do this, doesn’t mean you should. Fortunately, every serious email marketing platform offers segmentation options that let you divide your subscribers based on specific criteria which make them more likely to act on your personalized emails, including:

• Location
• Industry
• Product or service purchased / not purchased
• How they learned about you (for example, if they signed up through a Facebook contest or from your website)

By segmenting your subscribers based on actions they took or other identifying elements, you’ll greatly increase the odds that they’ll click through and take the action you want them to take.

Personalize Your Messages

It should go without saying, but blasting a message out to anyone and everyone with no real personalization is a sure-fire way to end up in your subscriber’s circular file (or get tons of unsubscribe notifications).

Personalizing your messages, even with simple things such as their name, location or the product(s) they were looking at or have bought, can go a long way toward establishing rapport and fostering a relationship.

Connect Your Emails to Customized Landing Pages

Too often, many marketers concentrate on getting the perfect email ready, only to send readers to a lackluster landing page. Make sure to tailor your landing page to your email campaign and create as much of a seamless transition between them as possible (so your email looks like it would match your landing page in terms of design, content, and call-to-action). This helps your readers feel much more comfortable about clicking, and helps create greater familiarity between your brand and products.

Split Test Your Emails

Many times, marketers reserve split testing for things like their landing pages or calls to action. But what about emails? Any platform you choose should give you the ability to A/B test your emails to determine which one generates the greatest number of clicks and conversions from your target audience.

Analyze Your Results

When split testing your email messages, you’ll want to take the time to properly analyze and look for certain KPIs (key performance indicators) that let you know if the email was successful, or what you can do better next time. These include:

• Email delivery rate – What percentage of the messages you sent actually arrived at your users’ inbox? A low delivery rate means that your server could be blacklisted and you’ll need to contact your web host or ISP to determine why.
• View rate – Of the emails that were successfully delivered, how many of them were viewed by recipients? Most email programs have a “preview pane” that allows their users to filter out and delete unwanted messages. Did yours pass the “view” test?
• Open rate – Of the users who received and previewed your email, how many actually opened it? This is one of the more important indicators, where your subject line typically does all the heavy lifting.
• Click-through rate – Of the users who received, previewed and opened your emails, how many of them clicked your call-to-action? A high click-through rate means that your users found your email enticing and interesting enough to click. This is where the email part of your marketing steps back and puts your landing page squarely in the spotlight.
• Conversion rate – Of the users who received, previewed, opened and clicked your email’s call-to-action, how many of them ultimately took the action you wanted? This can be a sale, but it doesn’t have to be. It could be signing up for a webinar, requesting a free estimate, or any other measurable action that you want your subscribers to take.

Choosing the Right Platform

Now that you have a better handle on not only how to get started with email marketing automation and what to look for, how do you choose a solid, reliable platform to help you do it all? There are a wide range of email automation services out there, each with their own pros and cons.

Kissmetrics Campaigns takes the behavior-based analytics that Kissmetrics is famous for, and lets you build gorgeous, automated emails with it, letting you segment, trigger, split test and analyze your marketing messages to see what’s working, and improve what isn’t. Check out the video below to learn more about Kissmetrics campaigns and start making your emails work harder for you:

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!

3 ways to use search query data from Google Search Console

In my last column, I covered how you can use Google’s Search Console to learn about the health of your website.

Search Console has another helpful report, called Search Analytics, which gives you an overview of how your website is performing in Google’s organic (non-paid) search results — namely, it shows some of the search queries people used to click through to your website.

In this column, I’ll explain how to read the report. I’ll also share a few simple strategies on how small business owners can use it to improve a website’s non-paid Google search results and website marketing in general.

How to read the Search Analytics report

To access the report, log into Search Console, and then click “Search Traffic” in the left-hand navigation. Search Analytics is the first report listed within this menu option. If you’re not able to access Search Console, it may be because you have to verify your website first.

The Search Analytics report enables you to see search data from various perspectives. As you can see in Figure 1, you can filter by Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices and Search Type (Web, Image or Video). Within each of these, you can filter more granularly: Click the radio button for Devices, for example, and you can filter by Desktop, Mobile or Tablet.

Figure 1: Search Analytics report filters

You can also customize the date range. Unlike Google Analytics, which archives data for years, Search Console only shows the last 90 days of search query data.

At the top of the report, you can check four boxes: Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Position. Once you check these, the data then appears in the rows below. (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Search Analytics report showing Clicks, Impressions and more.

Search Console data differs from what you see in Google Analytics, and if you’re a new user, it can be a little confusing, as the terms aren’t the same. In Google Analytics, for example, visits to a website are called “Sessions” — and one person can have multiple sessions.

Analytics also shows Sessions data by Channel, meaning the source of the searcher: Organic (non-paid search, including non-Google properties), Paid, Referrals, Direct and Social.

Search Console, on the other hand, provides click data, which refers only to the people who clicked through from the Google search engine to your website.

What I like about Search Console is that it lets you see the actual search queries people used when clicking through to a website. Before you get too excited, however, you should note that Google gives you only a small percentage of these queries — and the way it presents this data can be a little confusing at first.

If you use AdWords, the terms Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Position should look familiar to you, but if you don’t, here’s what they mean:

Clicks

This is the number of clicks to your website per search query. Caution: Google does not provide search query data for each of the clicks to your website for the selected time range.

In Figure 2 (above), you can see that this particular website had 177 clicks for the last 28 days. The actual search query data, however, only shows 49 of those clicks (i.e., 28%).

Impressions

This is the number of times your website listing appeared in the Google search results for various searches. In Figure 2 (above), you can see Search Console shows 12,061 impressions. Caution: Google counts impressions any time your website (including images) appears for a search result — even if your listing is on page 8 (where no one sees it).

Google also counts impressions for search queries that may not be relevant to your business. For example, if you have client names listed on your website, your client list page could show up for a search result for one of the companies listed. Google counts this as an impression.

For the Search Analytics report, Google tracks impressions for hundreds of search queries, whether or not they resulted in clicks. For the report in Figure 2, Google provided impression data for 500 queries, but Google will provide more. The amount of impression data provided generally depends on how much traffic you get.

CTR

CTR stands for click-through rate. To calculate the CTR, take the number of impressions and divide it by the number of clicks.

For the report in Figure 2, the CTR is 1.47% — which can look a little disheartening at first. But, since we already know the impressions data includes hundreds of search queries (many of which may not be relevant), you have to do your own number crunching to determine the CTR for the actual queries showing in the report.

To do this, you can download the Queries report into Excel or Sheets — see Figure 3 (below). Note: I created sums for the Clicks and Impressions columns for the 16 queries that had clicks, which is all the data Google provided. So, 16 queries resulted in 49 clicks and 1,464 impressions: 1,464/49 = 30% CTR.

Remember, the 49 clicks represent 28% of the 177 total clicks, so the 30% CTR is simply a glimpse into how your website might be performing.

Figure 3: Search Analytics data in Excel

Position

Looking again at Figure 2 above, Position refers to where your website listing appeared on the search engine results page (SERP). Generally, Google shows 10 organic listings per page, and these listings include Shopping, images, video, Answer Boxes and Map Packs — and don’t include the up to four AdWords listings at the top (and sometimes bottom) of the SERP.

A Position of 9.4 means page 1; a Position of 17 means page 2.

Now that you know how to read the Search Analytics report, you can use the data to help improve your SEO and content marketing efforts. Since the report lets you filter data any number of different ways, I’ve listed a few simple strategies on how you can put it to use.

Strategy #1: Analyze search query data once per quarter

Although Google doesn’t give you 100 percent of the your website’s query data, the Search Query report is still is a goldmine of information — if you take the time to sift through it.

What our agency, Huff Industrial Marketing, does is go through the full report for clients every quarter. We delete non-relevant queries, highlight relevant queries, and then group them by theme: e.g., by individual products and services.

Using this information, we then do a number of different things, depending on the client.

For example, you could use search query information to determine which types of content pages to create that might be missing from your website. For our manufacturing clients, this content includes FAQs, tech tips, app notes, case studies, resources, FAQs, glossary additions, blog posts and so on.

TIP: To easily handle the data, download it into Excel or Sheets (look for the Download button at the bottom of the report — Figure 4). To prevent overwhelm, it pays to delete the non-relevant queries before you begin your in-depth analysis.

You can also filter query data by keyword without having to download the full report: click the Query radio button, then type in the keyword.

Figure 4: Search Analytics report download button

Strategy #2: Improve SEO/CTR

Once you’ve downloaded the query data, you can skim through it to determine which queries had a relatively high CTR and which had low CTR — and why.

It could be that a search query is highly specific and thus has a low number of impressions but a high CTR.

Or the search query can be more generic in nature, so it had a high number of impressions and low CTR — which could mean the query is competitive, your page needs SEO work (or both), or any number of other factors.

We like to run searches for the more high-value queries to see how the client website listing appears on the Google SERP. What we’re looking for:

• How does the listing read?
• Any typos in the title/meta description tags? Do they need tweaking?
• What other listings appear on the page?
• Does the client have other items that appear, such as images? (You can filter the Search Analytics report to home in on Images search results data, too.)

What we’re really trying to determine is if a search query is appropriate for the client, because as smart as the Google search engine is these days, it doesn’t necessarily think the same way we or our clients do when it comes to their products and services. It also means we’re more efficient with regard to SEO tasks — important when budget is limited.

When you’re analyzing a SERP, pay attention to the listings on the page:

• What does Google think is the intent of the searcher based on the information you see?
• If your listing appears for a particular SERP, is it the right one?
• Put yourself in your prospects’ shoes: Once they arrive at a SERP, would they look at the first few listings and think, “I’m in the wrong place,” and then refine their search?

Tip: When doing this kind of keyword/SERP analysis, use Search Incognito so that Google doesn’t use your own search history when displaying results. To open an Incognito tab in Chrome, click the three little vertical dots to the the right of the browser bar. You can also use the Search Incognito search engine.

Strategy #3: Determine search queries for specific pages

At the top of the Search Analytics report, click the radio button for Pages. This brings up a report that shows data by landing page. Click on one of the pages listed in the rows data. This opens a new view with nothing on it. Then click Queries (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Search Analytics — queries filtered by page

You now have filtered query data for this specific page. For the page I chose in Figure 5, I can see 60 search queries.

Again, you can download this query data to Excel or Sheets to see if the queries are relevant to the page content — or if you’re getting too many non-relevant queries (which may indicate you’re targeting the wrong keywords). Or you can sift through the data to determine if query data is showing you need to create a new page to capture additional searches.

In addition, If you’re a small business owner managing your own AdWords campaign, you can use this data to help improve campaign CTR. When you sort your query data into themes, as I suggested in Strategy #1, you’re basically creating your Ad Groups with associated keywords.

For small manufacturers and their sometimes esoteric, low-search-volume keywords, this data is a lifesaver because it’s highly relevant and based on your website and its content — which helps eliminate some of the trial and error.

In conclusion

Although Google doesn’t pass along 100 percent of query data in Search Console, the data you do get is quite helpful. It just takes some time and thoughtful analysis to use it.

I’ve listed three things you can do with the data, but depending on your business and search marketing goals, and your website and the traffic it generates, you can do a whole lot more. For example, I didn’t cover image search or mobile. To get started, begin by asking yourself a few questions you want answered — then play around with the report to see the data in different ways.

The post 3 ways to use search query data from Google Search Console appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Google releases details on new beta Search Console reports

Last month, we uncovered screen shots of the beta Search Console interface being tested by Google. Today, Google announced a “sneak peek” at two of the new features or reports coming to the new beta Google Search Console.

The new reports include an Index Coverage report and AMP fixing flow report.

The Index Coverage report can show you the count of indexed pages, and information about why some pages could not be indexed. This will also show you example pages with problems and tips on how to fix those indexing issues. The report also offers a “simple sitemap submission flow, and the capability to filter all Index Coverage data to any of the submitted sitemaps,” Google said.

Here is a screen shot:

The AMP fixing flow report has the AMP Issues report which shows the current AMP issues impacting the ability of sites to show your AMP content in search, all grouped by the error. You can drill down into an issue, which will include some sample affected pages. You can also click a button to verify your fix, after you fix the issue, and have Google recrawl the pages affected by that issue. “Google will notify you of the progress of the recrawl, and will update the report as your fixes are validated,” Google added.

Here is a screen shot:

Google said they are rolling out these two new reports in the “next few weeks” to a “small set of users.”

Google has confirmed in this post that they are working on a new and improved Search Console interface to:

• provide more actionable insights.
• offer better support of your organizational workflow.
• enable faster feedback loops between you and Google.

The post Google releases details on new beta Search Console reports appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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How to do advanced page-level keyword research

Successful websites are built on popular, useful pages that attract and delight new visitors. These pages capture valuable traffic by serving a specific purpose or need.

However, these pages don’t happen by accident. Building useful pages requires research and strategic planning. You should be thinking about links and search opportunities during the ideation phase, before you start writing and designing new pages.

Page-level research should include:

• analyzing search volume for potential target terms.
• identifying SERPs with bad or weak results.
• examining ranking pages.
• scrutinizing competitor content and strategies.

I’m going to walk through this process of page-level keyword research, using a real site as an example. Follow along and learn how you can leverage this process for your own SEO strategy.

Identify opportunities for improvement

The first step in page ideation should be identifying potential opportunities.

My wife and I recently welcomed our first child — a beautiful baby boy named Liam — to the world.

So in honor of this cute little guy, I’m going to explore the baby products niche with my example.

My example site for this process will be Lucie’s List, and I’ll work through the ideation process of creating a new hypothetical page for them.

Since I don’t have directives or priorities from Lucie’s List to work from, I’ll start by looking for opportunities where Lucie’s List could potentially rank better and capture more relevant traffic.

To do this, I’m going to examine the “Positions” tab in SEMrush and sort by volume to find high-volume terms where Lucie’s List is lacking visibility.

Examining the data in SEMrush reveals some potential opportunities, including:

• [diaper bag] — Position: 68; Volume: 33,100
• [rock n play] — Position: 64; Volume: 27,100
• [nursing tops] — Position: 75; Volume: 18,100
• [toddler rain boots] — Position: 96; Volume: 14,800
• [baby high chair] — Position: 86; Volume: 12,100
• [best diaper bags] — Position: 62; Volume: 12,100
• [baby onesies] — Position: 60; Volume: 12,100
• [rock n play sleeper] — Position: 69; Volume: 12,100

Now I have a solid base of high-volume terms where Lucie’s List has the opportunity for improvement.

Next, I’ll look at the current search results.

Examine top results

I’m searching for specific factors that will indicate I can create a page for Lucie’s List that will be competitive.

These indicators are:

• SERPs with a dearth of strong, recognizable brand names.
• bad exact-match domains ranking.
• listings with low-quality aesthetics and poor on-page content.
• pages with low-level link competition.

Analyzing the SERPs reveals that page 1 for many of these terms is dominated by large brands:

However, [best diaper bags] might be a possibility:

Although Amazon, Consumer Reports and Business Insider (???) are present, the majority of results here are smaller baby-centric sites.

There aren’t any exact-match domains or blatantly poor results, but scrutinizing the content of these pages reveals opportunity. Most are simply lists of diaper bags with little more than images, prices and affiliate links. For example, this page:

Or this slide show:

The Consumer Reports page is more of a resource but lacks any images, design or readability. Useful information is presented via large blocks of text, with no visual elements to break up that text:

Even with such helpful information, this isn’t a good result for someone quickly scanning for the best diaper bag options — it reads more like a novel than an online resource.

These aren’t terrible results, but I believe it would be possible to create a resource that readers (and Google) would prefer.

Scrutinize backlinks and traffic value

Finally, I’ll analyze the link competition for these pages.

The top result, from BabyList, has nine referring domains, according to Majestic:

Plugging the rest of the URLs into Majestic shows more promise for the potential to rank here:

• Amazon: seven referring domains
• Business Insider: five referring domains
• BabyCenter: four referring domains
• Momtastic: eight referring domains
• MomTricks: four referring domains
• Lauren Conrad: 10 referring domains
• The Bump: three referring domains
• POPSUGAR: six referring domains
• Consumer Reports: three referring domains

Of course, these pages are hosted on authoritative domains, which also plays a factor. However, Lucie’s List is also fairly authoritative, and the link numbers here aren’t too large to compete.

Put all this together with the fact that SEMrush shows the first result on this page has a traffic value of $14,000, and it’s worth it for Lucie’s List to build a new page or update their existing page targeting this term.

In fact, the page on Lucie’s List that’s ranking in position 62 for [best diaper bags] is actually a broader page that offers basic ideas for baby registries.

This reinforces the fact that there is an opportunity here for Lucie’s List, as they could likely rank much better if they built a dedicated page focusing only on diaper bags.

Now that I have a solid idea to work with, I’m going to investigate what Lucie’s List’s competitors have done with their pages.

Analyze competitor strategies

I have identified a potential opportunity for Lucie’s List to capture more traffic. But before I start creating content, I’ll want to check in on the competition.

According to SEMrush, Lucie’s List’s top competitors include:

• Babylist
• BabyGearLab
• Parent Guide
• Mommyhood101
• BuyBuy Baby
• MomTricks

I’ve already seen the strategies BabyList and MomTricks are using during my analysis of the SERP. Obviously, these pages shouldn’t be ignored, since they’re ranking on page 1, but I’m looking for more ways to improve on the model they use.

For example, BabyGearLab offers something slightly different on their page (ranking on page 2).

BabyGearLab built a scoring system, based on criteria such as storage space and comfort, and assigned scores to 10 different diaper bags. This is a great idea that could serve the needs of searchers well, but the execution could be improved.

For starters, Lucie’s List could improve on this idea by simply reviewing more bags — only listing 10 diaper bags doesn’t give consumers many options. Also, the tabs underneath the title all have unique URLs.

These tabs include relevant and important information. Rather than separate them into subfolders, it would be more optimal from a user and SEO standpoint to simply include this content on the page.

For Lucie’s List, I could also create comparison charts such as this:

This chart idea could be taken a step further by making the charts interactive, so readers could manipulate what data is shown, making it easier to compare specific bags.

I already have a handful of solid directions I can take with my page for Lucie’s List, and that’s just from one competitor! Examining the other competitor strategies would provide even more insight into how to create something searchers want.

Page creation and execution

Through proper research, I have found an opportunity to build a new page that can drive site traffic — all that’s left is execution.

To review, here is the information I learned during my research, which will empower me to create an important page for Lucie’s List:

• Identify opportunities for improvement. Lucie’s List has multiple opportunities to create pages to rank higher for terms with large search volumes.
• Examine top results. The search results for [best diaper bags] are mediocre and feature few big brands.
• Scrutinize backlinks and traffic value. Link competition for [best diaper bags] is low, and traffic value is decent.
• Analyze competitor strategies. A score-based review system and interactive comparison charts could be differentiators for Lucie’s List’s page.

Using this information, I can build a page for Lucie’s List that is optimized for search to capitalize on the opportunity available to them.

Hopefully, you can leverage this process for your own content creation.

Additional resources

For more information on keyword research, I highly recommend checking out these resources:

• SEO: Keyword Research section on Search Engine Land
• How To Do Keyword Research in 2017
• Keyword Research for SEO: The Definitive Guide
• How To Do Keyword Research in 2017 – Ahrefs’ Guide

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Google Image Search adds badges for recipes, videos, products and animated images

Google announced they now will be showing badges on some images within their image search interface on mobile. Adding badges to images helps searchers understand any data behind the image that Google may have.

Google said, “These badges will help you uncover images where next steps or more in-depth information is available — everything from bags to buy, to recipes to try.” The badges currently available include recipes, videos, products, and animated images (GIFs).

Here is an animated GIF of it in action:

These badges are powered off of rich markup schema that you apply to your images on your web pages. To learn more about how to get badges to show up in Google Image search for your website, read the Google Webmaster blog. The Structured data testing tool has already been updated to help you check your images’ markup.

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Adblock vs. Cost-Per-Action marketing: cooperation works better than conflict

Today, Adblock and other ad blockers are commonplace and indispensable components of the digital advertising industry. Blockers were created as a response to excessive advertisements on websites; they are specifically designed to prevent intrusive ads from displaying. But ad blockers shouldn’t be viewed as being inherently good or evil. In this article, we look at the many aspects of Adblock and its influence on internet advertising overall, particularly on CPA marketing and CPA tracking.

Adblock and CPA marketing

The explosive increase in internet devices, internet users and different ad blocking solutions is driving the adoption of tools that selectively or completely block Internet advertising on users’ screens. At the same time, we also see the continuous development of blockers’ technical features and abilities to filter out intrusive ads, allowing them to selectively exclude unwanted advertisements.

And while user demand for blocking intrusive ads drives adblock software development, there is a counter effect to this trend, too. Publishers are developing new technical solutions to ensure that their ads are impervious to blockers, thus protecting the publishers’ ad revenues.

Successful publishers now optimize traffic processing within the current adblock ecosystem. In this respect, it makes sense to observe and evaluate the competitive advantages of the CPA marketing business model as one of the best solutions for successful interactions with ad blockers. In most cases, along with targeted traffic, suitable offers and built-in promos (primarily, DeepLink), this model is much more profitable in comparison to “traditional” banners.

Ad blocking: origin of the trend

Many web pages today are overloaded with intrusive ads and the quantity of the ads has negatively influenced the quality of the information that is displayed.

The aggressive expansion of pop-unders and click-unders are precisely what has led to an imbalance between ads and free content.

This imbalance has become even more pronounced since the development of mobile technologies. It is indeed an awkward experience when advertisements aren’t optimized for mobile devices.

In 2016, PageFair, a company that monitors ad blocking and looks for solutions to minimize risks from adblock technologies, noted a 30% increase in the use of adblock programs globally, influenced by the popularization of mobile devices among Internet users.

According to PageFair’s December 2016 data, Adblock has a 6% presence in Russia, 13% in Ukraine, 10% in Belarus and 3% in Kazakhstan.

 

PageFair data on US use shows that males are the largest group of ad blocker users, across all age groups.

In January 2017, Adblock’s agenda was updated with statements from established advertisers and brand managers who supported the qualitative improvement of advertisements to increase sales and build a transparent and clear ad ecosystem.

Currently, advertisers want to regain the loyalty of customers all over the world and improve the quality of the advertising infrastructure. Publishers don’t want to lose out on traffic monetization. A solution that meets the needs of the users, the advertisers and the publishers is needed.

Who are the main ad blockers?

There are two types of ad blockers: the first create black lists and only eliminate the unwanted portion of ads. The second type, works according to the “all or none” principle; these block all unknown advertising objects. And the boundary between “all” and “none” is pretty thin.

For example, both types of blockers can block code called from the Google Tag Manager container (GTM). But at the same time, tracking codes that “do no harm” with ads, and ad codes that can cover up your whole page with adult content banners, can be called from the GTM container.

When an ad blocker blocks hit counter codes called from GTM, advertisers receive no analytical data in their statistics. This leads to a difficult and open question: how do we work with traffic and conversions in this scenario? One solution would be to place the codes directly on the web page, not through the GTM container. This requires hours of work for qualified programmers, who are difficult to find and charge exorbitant fees.

There is another scenario regarding GTM and e-commerce stores which is harmful for both online retailers and their users. Periodically, Internet retailers launch promotions and announce these sales using banners on their home pages. Some of these retailers do so using a GTM container. But users with an enabled adblocker will not be able to view the promotional banner because of the ad blockers. The user can’t tell there is a sale; the retailer loses out on a sale.

Ad blockers and publishers

The percentage of blocked content on various websites varies depending on the subject matter and the audience. Online games and websites with lots of tech content are geared towards a sophisticated audience, which often uses adblocking programs. On the other hand, the audience for a fashion blog rarely uses any extensions to block ads. User gender is also a factor, because men install adblocking programs more often than women.

PageFair research shows that 23% of the 200 web users it surveyed use adblocking extensions (on average).

Affiliates earn more than 90% of their revenue through deeplink — their ads are all but secure from ad blockers (at least, in admitad), and publishers rarely encounter problems with adblockers during the placement of ads on their websites.

But in some cases, the target actions on advertiser websites can be omitted, as we discuss this in more detail on our blog.

If a target action is not tracked, both the publisher and the affiliate network will lose money on target traffic. To avoid gains and losses when there is an increasing number of people using adblockers, publishers should facilitate an open and honest dialog with users. If an adblocker is enabled in a browser, publishers should ask to disable it because it “interferes with the site’s proper operation.” But publishers should never block or hide useful content on their sites.

The disabling of an ad blocker should be a request, not a demand. Try to communicate with users, and educate them to properly use the tools created for the existing advertisement market.

Admitad and Adblock

“Using admitad, we regularly perform experiments to test various current banners, ad links on pages and different browser extensions to avoid real content and tracking target actions being blocked,” said Alexander Blokhin, Head of Tracking Department at admitad. “This helps discover and resolve issues our advertisers and publishers encounter even faster.” admitad connects publishers and advertisers globally for secure and profitable CPA marketing activities.

According to a data analysis in May 2017, the default, built-in Opera ad blocker and uBlock Origin with the enabled privacy option both block GTM. If an advertiser is integrated through use of the Google Tag Manager and this still occurs, then a certain set of parameters (Opera or uBlock Origin) is causing the tracking pixel calls to be blocked. In the browser console, it would look like this:

Everything pulled from GTM is blocked.

According to Liveinternet, Opera’s worldwide share is  estimated to be 1.2%. This allows us to estimate how much money publishers and affiliate networks could lose on users with this browser. Of course, the example is much more pronounced, but as a rough estimate, we can use the 3.4% as the monetary amount lost from total profit (providing the advertiser is integrated through GTM). With large volumes, admitad views small numbers in absolute values.

But when testing plugins such as Adblock, AdBlock Plus, Privacy Bagger, Ghostery, FairAdBlock and SimpleAdBlock with default settings, tracking code calls are not blocked.

To give you an idea of percentages detected, here is some sample data on active ad blockers found in the browsers of advertiser website visitors across various segments from the admitad traffic channel:

In lieu of a summary

“I believe it is crucial to create an open ecosystem, adapted for all participants, through the joint efforts of several large players from different sides. We must have an open dialog with ad blocker software representatives who are responsible for setting the blockage rules”, says admitad CEO Alexander Bachmann.

“It is also necessary to block what is referred to as ‘unwanted’ advertising, and help technology players not associated with ‘invasive’ ads, but who are still connected to the advertising industry, we are talking here about CPA networks and tracking scripts.

“Admitad is working tirelessly to solve this issue. We are working to improve tracking in order to capture the most target actions brought in by affiliate channels. We feel this improvement is important, as it would give our publishers a way to concentrate on traffic monetization and a way to forget about the struggle against ad blockers.

“We also recommend our colleagues join us in working on this problem as well. Ad blockers are our partners in the struggle against unwanted, invasive and inappropriate ads. They are best viewed as a positive participant in the advertising market, where we all work together.”

The post Adblock vs. Cost-Per-Action marketing: cooperation works better than conflict appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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