Technology News and Industry Knowledge

Competitive analysis is a critical, regular initiative for PPC managers. You need to monitor which offers other brands are promoting, which keywords they’re focusing on and where their ads overlap with your ads in search results.  Auction Insights in Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising offers a ready-made solution for viewing key data about competitor ads where they’re bidding against the same queries as you. This article covers how to look at this report in the ad platforms and practical ways to use it for your ad management and reporting. Accessing auction insights Depending on the amount of data available, you can look at auction insights at the account level by campaign, ad group or keyword. You can also filter by sets of any of the above. Segmenting insights at a lower level can show you what topics specific competitors care about based on which ones appear on the radar for each campaign. Google Ads To access Auction Insights in Google Ads, go to the Campaigns view an...

The world of PPC management is changing faster now than in years past. New automation, economic shifts and developments in reporting capabilities are changing the role of a PPC agency.  When I started out in PPC in 2012, I spent much of my time making manual bid changes. The work of a PPC agency was skewed more toward execution than strategy. Today, businesses seek different support: strategic guidance, proactive recommendations and cutting-edge tool/technology integration and targeting.  Not delivering on these will result in poor client retention. There are plenty of other causes for client churn , such as: Budget changes. Poor campaign performance (not meeting client goals/expectations). Misaligned communication styles. Change in client contact or agency team. Change in CMO or primary decision-makers. Changes to company goals. Businesses are rethinking how they work with agencies today. Some are looking for new agency support for the reasons above, others are ...

Starting a business can be daunting. Only about half of businesses make it past the crucial five-year mark, per the U.S. Small Business Administration. As an accidental entrepreneur who started a digital marketing agency seven years ago, I’ve learned first-hand what it takes to achieve longevity while navigating periods of rapid growth and economic uncertainty.  Over the years, I’ve seen many agencies struggle and even shut down – including long-time players and heavily funded startups. Between an impending recession, sluggish sales cycles and clients looking to cut budgets, 2024 poses fresh challenges for agencies looking to thrive. Let’s explore key strategies I’ve learned about how to future-proof your digital agency, adapt to changing conditions, and foster resilience regardless of external factors.  Differentiation and diversification Although many consultants advise you to focus on agency specialization to drive higher efficiency and valuations, I think it can creat...

A patent granted to Google may describe how Google’s new Search Generative Experience works. Google applied for the patent, “Generative summaries for search results”, on March 20, 2023. It was issued on September 26. The full version can be read here . Abstract. The patent’s abstract reads: “At least selectively utilizing a large language model (LLM) in generating a natural language (NL) based summary to be rendered in response to a query. In some implementations, in generating the NL based summary additional content is processed using the LLM. The additional content is in addition to query content of the query itself and, in generating the NL based summary, can be processed using the LLM and along with the query content—or even independent of the query content. Processing the additional content can, for example, mitigate occurrences of the NL based summary including inaccuracies and/or can mitigate occurrences of the NL based summary being over-specified and/or under-specified.”...

LinkedIn has introduced new tools and upgrades to assist marketers in measuring their ad campaigns more effectively: New Conversions API (CAPI). Website Actions. Document ads upgrades. Why we care . Accurate measurement of campaign performance enables advertisers to make informed decisions, allocate resources efficiently and demonstrate the value of their efforts to clients. CAPI . LinkedIn’s new campaign performance measurement promises “more precision and clarity” as there is no need for cookie tracking. This allows LinkedIn to provide better insights into how users respond to ads on the platform. You can choose how to connect your online and offline data from two options: API integration Partner integration. The ability to connect both online and offline data enables you to track the impact of your campaigns on website actions, phone sales, and in-person event leads. LinkedIn asserts that its new Conversions API is designed to be “privacy-compliant and future-proof.” Th...

Google is no longer just a search engine. It is adopting social signals that increasingly impact content visibility across Google surfaces like Search, News and YouTube. This shift requires brands to rethink what it means to do SEO today and beyond. The article explores how Google is expanding into a surface ecosystem, why followership matters for visibility, and some initial ideas for brands looking to increase followers on Google. Google’s shifting focus: From search to discovery In the past four years, Google has undergone fundamental shifts:  From answers to journeys. From search queries to queryless search. From text to visuals.  Google has transformed itself from a search engine to a surface ecosystem that focuses on anticipating and satisfying users’ needs, enabling it to reach and influence people before they need to search. Think of the number of influential surfaces beyond the traditional SERPs. Google is now a: Ecommerce player with Google Lens, Sho...

Most Americans have spent November watching Black Friday ads. But on the other side of the pond, most of their British cousins have been watching Christmas ads (a.k.a., “adverts”). Yes, Black Friday sales have become common in the U.K. over the past decade, but Brits don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. So, right after Halloween, most digital marketers in Old Blighty launch their Christmas ad campaigns. If digital marketers in the U.S. want a sneak preview of creative effectiveness in December, then they should find a quiet moment during the current shopping frenzy on this side of the pond to analyze and evaluate what are the most effective Christmas ads for 2023 over in the U.K. Measuring advertising effectiveness In this article, I utilized DAIVID, an AI-driven creative effectiveness platform, to analyze and evaluate advertising effectiveness. DAIVID has created a Creative Effectiveness Score (CES), a composite metric that combines the three main drivers of effectiveness: attention, em...

Google Search’s Orgranization markup now supports name, address, contact information, and various business identifiers; in addition to the original support for logo and URL structured data fields. “Today we’re expanding our support for organizational information by extracting additional administrative data,” Irina Tuduce and Alex Jansen, Google Shopping software engineers announced . What’s new. Google updated its developer documentation for Organization structured data to now support new fields including name, address, contact information and other business identifiers. The fields include name, alternate name, legal name, description, sameas, address fields, phone, email, number of employees, founding date, DUNS, NAICS, tax ID and other ID numbers. The old and existing fields were logo and URL and are still available. The logo documentation was merged into the new organization documentation. How it is used. Google said it can make use of this markup in Google Search knowledge pa...

Google Bard can now answer questions about the content of YouTube videos. Bard now summarizes video footage when users enter a YouTube URL. Why we care . Expanding Bard’s capabilities could lead to greater engagement for content creators. Summaries of video content may also enhance users’ experiences. This functionality makes content more accessible, whether users are subscribing to a YouTube channel or making a purchase. Getting started . To integrate Bard with YouTube, turn on the YouTube extension toggle on the Bard website, as demonstrated in the screenshot below, shared by Skill Leap AI : Once the YouTube extension option is enabled, users can start a conversation with Bard by asking it a question relating to a video, such as: “Give me a recipe for Thanksgiving turkey. Show me a video.” Bard will then answer the prompt by serving a collection of approximately five videos from YouTube. Users can then ask for details about a video’s content, such as: “Give me the recipe fo...

The pressure is on for marketing leaders as we round out the year. The directive is to end 2023 strong and prepare for 2024 long before it’s started. Although the new year is still weeks away, budget planning shouldn’t be a last minute shot in the dark.  Budgets are created from company goals, historical data and forward-looking considerations. To make budgeting more difficult, CMOs face challenges going into 2024, including: Higher inflation rates than in the recent past and economic uncertainty. Pressure to do more with less budget and headcount. Urgency to realize the productivity gains promised by AI and other new technologies. Messy data and lack of measurement made worse by third-party cookie deprecation . “Global advertising spend is set to grow […] 8.2% in 2024, a boost that will see the market top $1 trillion for the first time ever,” according to WARC’s Global Ad Spend Outlook 2023/24 . Despite this prediction, budget cuts are common. Competition for ad inventory...