Technology News and Industry Knowledge

Should marketers be investing in top-of-funnel campaigns or performance advertising right now? That question is being hotly debated in a lot of places, including major earnings reports where performance seems to be winning. (We’ll be debating top vs. bottom of the funnel marketing on tomorrow’s Live with Search Engine Land .) Making the case for brand. New consumer data from Survata makes a strong case for brand marketing and argues that trusted brands are winning during the pandemic. The survey also contains interesting findings about messaging and what consumers want to hear from brands right now. Survata polled 1,016 U.S. adults on shopping behavior and brand expectations. The company found a strong preference for established brands over private labels or generics in a number of product categories. This seems at least partly at odds with another of the survey’s findings: almost two-thirds (64%) of consumers are cutting back on spending in a significant way. Brand preference de...

“We experienced a significant reduction in the demand for advertising, as well as a related decline in the pricing of our ads, over the last three weeks of the first quarter of 2020.” — Facebook (Advertising revenues increased by 17% year-over-year to $17.4 billion.) “. . . but then in March we experienced a significant slowdown in ad revenues” — Google/Alphabet (Advertising revenues increased by 10% year-over-year to $33.8 billion for the quarter.) “. . . a strong start to the quarter that was impacted by widespread economic disruption related to COVID-19 in March.” — Twitter (Ad revenue was flat year-over-year at $682 million.) “While many advertising budgets declined due to COVID-19, we experienced high revenue growth rates in the first two months of the quarter which offset our lower growth in March.” — Snap (Revenue increased by 44% year-over-year to $462 million.) “. . . a significant reduction in advertising spend, which impacted our Search and LinkedIn businesses.” — Mi...

“One thing I can say is a true trend when we look across clients who are doing really well versus [those that are] struggling right now, is how well organized they were beforehand,” said Brad Geddes, co-founder of AdAlysis, during our PPC for B2B session of Live with Search Engine Land , adding, “Companies who had good CRM systems that talked to their stuff [and] their data flowed well, are managing this much better than people who are cobbling together systems with everyone now distributed.” The opposite is also true for businesses that have worse data governance, Geddes told Search Engine Land: those companies may have witnessed changes to their bottom lines or the number of lead forms being submitted, but are struggling to determine what they need to change to turn those figures around because they lack insight into customer behavior. Additionally, businesses with poor data management and organizational practices often focus on more basic metrics, so when conversion rates decl...

While Microsoft said the coronavirus pandemic had minimal net impact on total net revenue in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020, its ad businesses saw significant declines. Overall, Microsoft reported a 15% increase in revenues year-over-year to $35 billion Wednesday. Search advertising hit. Microsoft’s Search advertising revenues (ex-TAC or traffic acquisition costs) grew by just 1% year-over-year for the quarter, well below company expectations due to “significantly reduced advertising spend” in March amid the coronavirus outbreak. Microsoft also noted that “the effects of COVID-19 may not be fully reflected in the financial results until future periods. Looking to the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said the company expects Search ad revenues “to decline in the mid 20% range, similar to March.” LinkedIn sessions up, revenue down. LinkedIn, too, experienced “COVID-related reduction in advertising spend” last quarter, despite continued record levels ...

Usage grew during the pandemic, masking a drop in sales that saw the average purchase price of ads down 16% in the quarter. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/facebooks-q1-ad-revenue-rose-17-even-as-ad-prices-slumped/577112/

One is leaning into an influencer-led TikTok activation, while the other is translating its experiential expertise to an at-home environment. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/taco-bell-chipotle-adjust-marketing-around-cinco-de-mayo-amid-coronavirus/577106/

The news comes as viewership trends suggest the coronavirus health crisis could accelerate the already growing shift from cable to streaming platforms. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/nfl-expands-streaming-partnership-with-amazon/577088/

Homemade Cinco includes a digital site with interactive recipes and connects users to e-commerce grocery platform Chicory for easy ingredient pickup. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/avocados-from-mexico-campaign-celebrates-at-home-cinco-de-mayo/577077/

Apparel, airline, bank and hotel brands may lose 20% of their value, while e-commerce, media and telecom brands have a chance to make gains. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/top-brands-may-lose-400b-in-value-during-pandemic/577055/

Many online entrepreneurs and content marketers find it very tough to improve their search engine ranking and drive organic traffic. That’s because industries are constantly changing and many businesses are turning to SEO co

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Last year, Google says it took down 2.7 billion so-called bad ads for violating the company’s ad policies, according to its annual report released Thursday. That’s up from the 2.3 billion bad ads Google reported taking down in 2018 . The number of ad accounts Google terminated remained relatively flat from the previous year at nearly one million. Publisher network. Google also noted that it terminated the accounts of more than 1.2 million publishers and removed ads from over 21 million web pages across its publisher network for policy violations. Targeted areas. Google typically highlights areas of particular focus in its annual bad ads reports. In 2019, the company says it saw an increase in phishing attempts targeting people looking to renew their passports. “These ads mimicked real ads for renewal sites but their actual intent was to get users to provide sensitive information such as their social security or credit card number.” It also cracked down on the kinds of “trick-to...

Just like Google’s earnings yesterday, Facebook reported a pretty decent quarter marred by “a steep decrease in advertising revenue in March.” However April has reportedly brought nascent “signs of stability,” which is enough to drive the company’s stock up 10% in after-hours trading. Beating diminished expectations. To say that Wall Street expectations have been lowered by the economic fallout from the pandemic might be the understatement of the quarter. Any positive news now is being greeted with enthusiasm by the market in the hope that the recovery will come quickly after the lockdowns end, although there’s considerable debate among economists about how long it will take to recover. Facebook reported $17.7 billion in revenue, which was up approximately 17% from a year ago. Analysts had expected $17.4 billion in topline revenue for Q1. However earnings-per-share fell somewhat short of expectations, as with Google’s results yesterday. Facebook Q1 2020 revenue Source: Facebook...

The COVID-19 crisis has cast a shadow over all interactions, including communications between businesses and their customers. While business goals should always be kept in mind, brands need to adapt their messaging and their offerings to turn this economic downturn into an opportunity to serve their audiences. During our PPC for B2B session of Live with Search Engine Land , Brad Geddes of AdAlysis and Michelle Morgan of Clix Marketing shared a few trends they’ve witnessed and why adjusting for our new reality is the most effective marketing strategy right now. High time to reevaluate the hard sell. “The smart [businesses] have really looked at the ads carefully to say, ‘What message are we putting out there? What needs to change? How are we more sensitive in an industry where we want someone to do something?’” said Geddes, explaining that he’s seen much softer calls-to-action now than before the pandemic. “Before, it was buy, buy, buy, do this now, etc. — you see a lot more so...

Facebook is expanding its test of in-stream ads in Facebook Live to more verticals, including “pre-vetted entertainment, news and sports partners,” the company announced this week. The test is designed to help evaluate whether or not the ad format is effective before rolling it out more broadly. For now, Facebook is piloting in-stream ads with only a select number of publishers. The limited test will help determine if pre-vetted content creators are able to successfully monetize their live video streams with in-stream ads. How it works. When watching Live content from a creator included in the test, viewers might see a range of ad formats, including: A pre-roll ad that runs before the live stream An image ad that appears below the live stream A mid-roll ad that plays in the main video player during the live stream while the broadcast continues playing in a shrunken window Ads play in the main video player during the live stream. Source: Facebook Brand safety controls for ad...

Microsoft Advertising (formally Bing Ads ) has come a long way in the last year as they rebrand the advertising platform and look to let everyone know they are still an option. Plus a refresh of the Advertising Editor was a welcome change last year as well. What has been the biggest change since last year is updating the new UI within the ad manager itself. This UI update does not include the Microsoft Merchant Center platform, which is still only accessible through the old UI. However, you can still import from Google into Microsoft and that should not change when the Merchant Center gets an update. Bulk operations are also not available in the new UI but hopefully that change will come sooner rather than later. Changing any ad manager, let alone one that has stood the test of time is not an easy feat. Shout out to the Microsoft PM working on this because I can only imagine how hard this change is and all the code and backend fixes that need updating. So what has changed is what ...

“Use proper link markup, do not use fragment URLs for links you want crawlers to discover and follow, and you should be building websites that work well with JavaScript and the links will be found,” Martin Splitt, developer advocate at Google, summed up on Google’s Webmaster Conference Lightning Talk Wednesday. The right way to create links. Using the HTML <a> tag with the destination URL in the href attribute is the most straightforward way to create a link. For example, <a href=”https://ift.tt/2Wdzkiv>. You can also add JavaScript to a link, allowing you to upgrade its functionality. One example of this might be when a user clicks on a pop-out hamburger menu on one of your pages — the JavaScript could be used to intercept the href and display the hidden hamburger menu. Don’t leave out the href attribute. It may be tempting to eliminate the href attribute and “clean up” your code, but doing so means that the link will only work if your JavaScript is also functio...

A boost in grocery sales is helping some of the company's brands, but gas station and restaurant closures are causing some pain. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/pepsico-trims-nonessential-marketing-spend-while-focusing-on-growth-areas/576984/

A new campaign ties into an ongoing "Made to Chill" platform that's positioned the Molson Coors brand as refreshing to fans' spirits. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/coors-light-boosts-morale-with-new-ads-free-beer-in-sucky-times/576975/

Describing Q1 as a "tale of two quarters," CFO Ruth Porat said advertising sales were strong in January and February before falling in March. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/google-ad-revenue-rises-10-masking-slowdown-from-pandemic/576965/

Retailers are quickly pivoting to emphasize mobile tech and virtual appointments to keep their businesses operational. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-is-pushing-brands-to-connect-digitally/576930/

Voice search is becoming increasingly popular in the digital world. Although it has been around for almost a decade now, it has gained tremendous popularity in the last few years. According to an estimate by comScore, nearly 50 percent of online searches wi

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Google reported Q1 earnings this afternoon, beating analysts’ revenue expectations that were partly moderated by the COVID crisis. The company announced $41.16 billion in revenue compared with $40.3 billion expected. Significant slowdown in March. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said, “Performance was strong during the first two months of the quarter, but then in March we experienced a significant slowdown in ad revenues.” Based on strong performance during the first two months, revenue was up 13% year over year, while earnings per share were down. Here’s the revenue breakdown for key segments: Search and other ad revenue: $33.76 billion YouTube ad revenue: $4.04 billion Cloud-based revenues: $2.78 billion Traffic acquisition costs: $7.45 billion Ad revenue on YouTube was up more than 33% year over year but down 14% sequentially. Advertising still constitutes 82% of Google’s total revenue. Positive spin. There are different ways to react to Google’s earnings report: a) it could hav...

On Friday, I will moderate our next Live with Search Engine Land discussion on brand vs. performance marketing during COVID-19. We’ll discuss whether marketers should be focusing on top-of-funnel awareness campaigns and less on the bottom-of-the-funnel during this tumultuous period. With reduced budgets and pressure to justify spend and hit sales targets, marketers often default to “more measurable,” performance-based campaigns. Brand campaigns are seen as softer, longer term and less measurable than bottom-of-the-funnel tactics. The panel will discuss why that thinking could result in missed opportunities. The panel will feature: Dana Tan , Senior Manager, Global SEO, Under Armour Amy Bishop , Owner Cultivative Michelle Morgan , Director of Client Services, Clix Marketing Our experts will share their current experiences and what they’re seeing in the market in real time. We’ll discuss B2B, B2C, content, commerce and which channels are best performing right now. The panelists ...

Google reigns over organic search, we knew that. According to Merkle, in Q3 2019, Google produced 92% of total U.S. organic search visits (95% on mobile). With a dominant presence, it comes as no surprise that Google continues to move the needle in SEO. The search titan is driving innovation, and they aren’t slowing down any time soon – BERT , anyone? This SEO trend is one of many trends you’ll uncover in MarTech Today’s  Enterprise SEO Tools for Content Marketing, Search Intelligence, UX and More .  Our free, downloadable guide looks at the trends SEOs and vendors are adapting to. It also features 20 in-depth SEO platform company profiles and the software they offer, including a discussion of the latest functionality that distinguishes the leaders from the stragglers. Download the report today ! The post Did you know that 92% of U.S. organic visits are produced by Google? appeared first on Search Engine Land . Via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/1BDlNnc

The ability to work from home is helping businesses stay in operation as the world continues to find ways to overcome COVID-19. For some businesses, this is a mixed blessing as their now decentralized staff has to make sense of data that may not be as reliable due to the unexpected shift in work environments. “One thing we’ve noticed a lot in B2B, almost more than B2C, is analytics data being terrible right now, because all of a sudden your B2B companies who are 10, 20, 30,000 employees are at home, logging into your corporate website and all your IP filters are gone,” said Brad Geddes of AdAlysis during our PPC for B2B session of Live with Search Engine Land . Since the devices that employees use at home may not be filtered like in-office computers generally are, analytics for company websites may report increased traffic from their internal staff, indiscernible from prospective customers. Consequently, conversion rates may decline even if the volume of conversions remains inta...

With the rise of OTT and CTV advertising, it's crucial to build reliable partnerships, raise awareness of fraud and take steps to prevent it, writes Fiksu COO Anna Kuzmenko. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/how-to-withstand-ad-fraud-in-the-ctv-environment/576834/

Consumers can listen to music and a podcast and win prizes by scanning codes on its iconic blue banana stickers. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/chiquita-lets-spotify-users-unlock-playlists-branded-prizes/576908/

After stocking up on essentials, consumers have begun targeted discretionary spending. What have they deemed worth buying during a quarantine? source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/soul-of-discretion-whats-selling-in-the-covid-19-pandemic/576912/

While the pandemic's impact dings every channel, online ad spend largely driven by SMBs is particularly hard hit as local shops close their doors. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/local-ad-revenue-forecast-contracts-106-due-to-coronavirus-study-says/576881/

Hilton is tapping Lysol's parent company in bid to woo guests with extra-clean rooms while building consumer trust. source https://www.marketingdive.com/news/hilton-marriott-ramp-up-cleaning-measures-as-quarantine-mandates-relax/576878/

I have run into an interesting robots.txt situation several times over the years that can be tricky for site owners to figure out. After surfacing the problem, and discussing how to tackle the issue with clients, I find many people aren’t even aware it can happen at all. And since it involves a site’s robots.txt file, it can potentially have a big impact SEO-wise. I’m referring to robots.txt files being handled by subdomain and protocol. In other words, a site could have multiple robots.txt files running at the same time located at www and non-www, or by protocol at https www and http www. And since Google handles each of those separately, you can be sending very different instructions about how the site should be crawled (or not crawled). In this post, I’ll cover two real-world examples of sites that ran into the problem, I’ll cover Google’s robots.txt documentation, explain how to detect this is happening, and provide several tips along the way based on helping clients with this s...