Rethinking today’s attribution problem in digital marketing

Proper attribution modeling is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers today. Columnist Christi Olson discusses the common gaps in attribution and some ideas for thinking more holistically about your digital marketing campaigns.

Attribution is the science behind assigning values to individual touch points throughout a customer’s decision journey. It’s not only a key driver in how we currently optimize marketing campaigns, but attribution is also used for media mix modeling and developing media budgets.

Herein lies the problem: marketers tend to look at attribution within our own channel silo, so it’s not easy to understand the full picture of a multi-channel environment.

As search continues to evolve in form and function, it’s raising some important questions around how we think about and use attribution models — and is putting some of our long-held practices to the test.

Do you have an attribution problem?

Attribution modeling has seen incredible progress over the years, offering increasingly better solutions to track touch points throughout a conversion. While progress has been made, the attribution models that most companies are using today offer a partial solution that tracks only online conversions and channels.

Most companies are just beginning to scratch the surface of multi-channel and cross-device attribution. Technology companies are still piecing together the components needed to provide a full solution to fill in the gaps in current attribution models. It leaves us to question, do we have an attribution problem that we might not be aware of?

The simple way to answer the question is to look at your analytics data and see if a significant portion of overall conversions have a long, multi-step path. Or in other words, are your customers engaging across multiple channels? If the answer is yes, a significant portion of your conversions come from paths that contain 2+ steps, then you most likely have an attribution problem.

Here is how you can see this for yourself: In Google Analytics, navigate to Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels Report, and then look at the Path Length report. This report will provide you with a simple breakdown of the quantity of paths. You should also view the Top Conversion Paths report to understand which channels play a role at each step of the consumer’s digital journey.

I do want to acknowledge that this report is limited to just your digital channels, unless you’re pulling in additional conversion data from offline channels into analytics.

Mind the attribution gap

In June, Aaron Levy wrote an excellent post on the best attribution model for search. In it, he describes the top rules-based attribution models, along with the high-level pros and cons of each model.

I’m going to dig a little deeper into the topic, and I’m going to start by discussing the two major attribution gaps you need to be aware of when it comes to attribution models.

Online-to-offline attribution

The first gap in attribution is in understanding the impact of online channels’ ability to drive offline revenue. Most analytics platforms and their attribution models are only providing a partial solution by looking at the digital conversions and revenue, not including the online impact to offline sales/leads/in-store visits.

Of the two major gaps in attribution, this is one of the easiest gaps to solve with moderate accuracy based on extrapolating information from available data sources to link online activity to offline user behavior.

The easy solution that many businesses take is to use some sort of unique promotion code by channel to tie attribution together. This gives consumers a choice in where they can convert and allows you to track the conversion.

Google is working on solving this attribution problem with their “In-Store Visits” metric, which uses a number of signals to gauge online-to-offline impact, including Google Maps data, GPS, WiFi, visitor queries and data from over a million opted-in users, which is then used to create store visit estimates.

Analytics and advertising platforms are leveraging data from cell phones such as WiFi, GPS and beacons tied to in-app networks. Even mobile forms of payment like mobile wallets will help to answer the online-to-offline attribution question. While these methods aren’t a perfect solution because they don’t track a specific user’s behavior, they are a start in the right direction to solving the online-to-offline gap.

Cross-device attribution

The second and most difficult gap in attribution is in measuring consumer behaviors and interactions across screens and devices. Are we tracking consumers across devices and across channels? Canwe?

This is an attempt to answer the questions, “How do consumers engage with a brand across devices?,” “Which channels are they engaging with on each device?” and “On which device do they finally convert?”

This is one of the biggest attribution challenges because consumers use a multitude of screens (TV, desktop, tablets, smartphone and more) throughout their journey. As consumers switch across devices, it’s difficult — nay, almost impossible — to maintain the unique IDs to track the customer journey both offline (through TV viewing) and online. This is going to be the most difficult gap to close due to the complexity needed to track unique users across multiple screens.

Today, advertisers attempt to bridge the gap by looking at data and finding correlations between interactions across screens. There are a few large companies who can close this gap through logged-in states across multiple screens and devices (think Apple, Facebook, Comcast), though potentially not across all of the screens and devices we use regularly.

The cross-screen, multi-channel attribution will only get more difficult as search powers experiences away from the search box, such as voice search through personal digital assistants and Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality technology.

Regardless of the attribution model chosen and the gaps that exist across all attribution models today, the purpose is still the same: to understand the value each channel brings to the marketing mix in moving customers along their decision journey.

The goal we should be focusing on as marketers is understanding how to integrate search into the journey and create more holistic campaigns that focus on the consumer. Tallying touch points from a rules-based model may be detracting from the higher goal of creating deeper, lasting customer relationships.

First- & last-click see their last days

In my own experience, many companies employ either first-click or last-click attribution models. First-click (or first-touch) attribution models give 100 percent of the credit for a conversion to the consumer’s first touch point, whereas last-click attribution models assign conversion credit to the last touch point leading up to a conversion.

It’s easy to scrutinize either of these popular models because they focus solely on either the top of the funnel (first-click) or the bottom of the funnel (last-click). Indeed, as a result of their disregard for all other marketing activities, both first-click and last-click attribution models are heading toward their last days.

Using the last-click model means mean that you are either ignoring early, top-of-funnel activity and instead focusing on bottom-of-funnel elements like branded search and remarketing (which tend to drive the final conversion). Without giving value to the top-of-funnel channels, sooner or later, your remarketing efforts will dry up.

First-click attribution comes with similar problems — by giving all the credit to the first touch point, you obscure the true value of critical middle- and bottom-of-funnel efforts in moving the customer through the buyer journey and closing the sale.

Other attribution models, such as time-decay and metric-driven, offer more sophisticated modeling but still end up assigning arbitrary values and leaving gaps when customers switch between channels, especially when going from online to offline.

Even within our own channel, search is no longer about singular conversions. Keywords are now being evaluated in a much larger context, not just for immediate conversions but how they assist throughout the consumer decision journey. They are helping consumers explore, research, compare, locate, purchase and follow up.

Search has seen rapid growth in both form and function since its inception less than 30 years ago. In form, it’s broken out of the text box, appearing on our phones, in our cars, at home on our speakers, in our TV remotes and gaming systems. It’s in bed on our tablets and phones. Wherever we go, search is with us across devices.

In function, we’ve started relying on search as inter-communicative partners. Search has gone beyond simple voice input and is evolving to understand user intent and behaviors through available data to help consumers take action. Through search, we can order a pizza, rent a car, buy movie tickets and compare insurance quotes — all within the results pages.

How could search, or any digital channel for that matter, possibly still be graded on one click prior to a conversion? It simply can’t.

The future of campaigns

Rather than being a siloed line item in the marketing mix, search has proven itself to be an integrated component of a much larger machine focused on lasting relationships or CLVs (customer lifetime values).

Today’s marketers are adopting a new approach that tears down the siloed walls of search, social, display and offline channels to create one holistic brand experience. Holistic campaigns support deeper, more meaningful customer relationships and distinguish themselves.

Getting personal with digital fingerprints

Creating highly personalized campaigns is an extremely effective way to strengthen your customer relationships.  There are many new tools in search that allow you to personalize the search experience, such as remarketing or customer match. But before you launch individual campaigns, you should first think holistically about how a campaign will integrate with other campaigns.

Each consumer has a unique digital fingerprint, which is an evolved concept from the traditional “digital footprint” that centers around following a user’s online trail. A digital fingerprint signifies much more: a user’s unique online preferences as they embark on highly individualized journeys, “depending on cost of failure, frequency, cost and complexity of the task, and the type of shopper.” (Bing Ads Customer Decision Journey report).

Each consumer displays highly personal patterns and preferences throughout the relationship-building process. They may rely more heavily on email, spend more time on social, prefer tablets and so forth.

Your challenge will be to create a holistic brand experience that consumers can tap into based on their unique digital fingerprints. Although the three consumers below have unique digital fingerprints, they should all experience a unified, holistic brand.

Rethinking your future campaigns

As you rethink your future search campaigns with a new, holistic approach, we recommend the following:

• Carefully select an attribution model that will support — and not work against — holistic marketing efforts. Refrain from using oversimplified models, such as either first or last click, which will not sustain long-term multi-channel campaigns.
• Evaluate your keywords based on more than the final conversion metric. Look at assists to make sure that you’re supporting customers throughout the entire consumer decision journey. Look at other metrics based on where the keyword fits within the journey, such as time on site, page views, product page views and other customer loyalty indicators.
• Include keywords that support customers throughout each stage of the consumer decision journey as they engage with search as an inter-communicative partner
• Include campaign-specific keywords within your search campaigns so that consumers can easily find you after seeing a TV ad, remembering a billboard, hearing your jingle or seeing your logo.
• In the case of tracking online to offline or vice versa, include unique promotional codes to tie purchases back to a unique marketing channel.
• Be aware of your consumers’ unique digital fingerprints and how your customers will experience your brand across different channels at different times with different connectivity points.

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How should your ad budget impact campaign building?

Wondering how to make the most of your AdWords budget? Columnist Brett Middleton shares his formula for calculating search impression share so that you can make ROAS projections based on budget reallocation.

Everyone running a PPC account typically has a budgeting question they are trying to figure out. For those with a tighter ad budget, the question becomes, “How do I get the most leads for this limited amount of spend I have?”

Larger accounts run into their own problems; finding points of diminishing returns and making small gains in efficiency while maintaining spend levels at a point that generates the growth you need can be a headache.

If you take away one point from this, it’s that search impression share may be the most ignored primary metric for most PPC managers who are up against a budget. Search impression share is the number of impressions your ads actually received, compared to the potential number they could have received. For example, if there were 100 searches for keyword X, and you received 75 impressions, that would mean you have 75 percent search impression share.

This is important to think about because you may be leaving valuable conversions on the table. In this article, I’ll show you a way to look at impression share and do your own calculation for how many potential conversions you are missing out on with your current campaign structure and budget. Those of you who don’t trust Keyword Planner, this is for you.

As someone who has managed accounts across a wide range of budgets, I’ve learned a few things along the way, and my search for efficiency with higher spends has led to some observations about mistakes I made managing smaller budgets. Get ready for PPC budget management talking points!

Build your PPC campaigns “deep” or “wide?”

Deep PPC campaign building: Identifying your best performing campaigns and funneling the majority (or entirety) of your ad spend through them. This often requires not advertising for other products or services your company/client may offer that have lower ROAS (return on ad spend).

Wide PPC campaign building: After creating your initial campaigns, optimize in an attempt to elevate your underperforming campaigns to the level of your top-performing campaigns. Advertise for all of your products or services, even if they are slightly lower on ROAS.

If you have a budget that is smaller than the max ad spend possible for your keywords, you have decisions to make regarding budget allocation. This is a common problem for advertisers with many different products and services, especially when they don’t have much keyword overlap.

For example, let’s say you run the AdWords account for a recruiting firm that specializes in marketing, creative and IT hiring. The keywords for these three services are drastically different, so you have separate campaigns built that run at $100/day each (Your monthly budget was set at $9,000/month). Every campaign is limited by budget. The steps you’ve taken so far are:

1. Utilize the Search Terms report to find exact/phrase match keywords to increase relevance and make your budget go farther.
2. A/B test ad copy.
3. Test sending visitors to different landing pages (e.g., the home page vs. the job listings page).

Performance is trending up slowly. The IT campaign has the lowest cost per conversion by roughly $50/conversion, but you’re working on improving the others. Although the value of a lead to your business is certainly more than $50, does it make sense to continue spending more for these other leads and limiting IT to the same budget?

As advertisers, we need to consider the impact something like this has on our ability to grow revenue (and subsequently our ad budget), as opposed to any benefits that come from uniformity in the sales pipeline. There are potential negative effects if we lower ad spend in creative and marketing, and therefore limit our acquisition of new talent for these positions, but this is when we need to see this as an opportunity for creativity and optimization.

By either a) reallocating spend to IT to increase overall ROAS, or b) Taking steps to project increased revenue from upping IT spend and getting additional budget to reach these goals, we are moving from management to optimization. Although Google Keyword Planner can be a good reference point, there is a relatively quick way that we can do the work ourselves and know exactly how the math is done.

How deep can your campaign be?

What you’re about to look at isn’t brain surgery, and may in fact be less accurate for you than Google’s Keyword Planner; but what it will do for you is provide a way to make your own estimates of how many possible clicks, conversions and impressions you are missing out on due to limited budgets or poor ad rank.

By understanding your search impression share, we can project what may have happened if you were to increase budgets in one campaign vs. another; if you are currently running several campaigns that are limited by budget, you can take important first steps to increasing efficiency and ROAS.

1. Open your highest-performing campaign.
2. Make sure Cost, CTR, Cost/Conv, Conversions, Conv Rate, Impressions and Impression Share are selected as Columns. (For a generally useful spreadsheet beyond this experiment, also export Quality Score, Avg Position, CPC, Search Lost IS [rank].)
3. Export data to a CSV.
4. Open in Excel/Sheets/Numbers.
5. Create a “Missed Conversions” column with the following formula:
   • =(((Impressions/Impression Share)*CTR)*Conv %)-Conversions
   • Example: =(((G1/Q1)*P1)*M1)–K1
6. Copy this formula for all keywords.
7. (Optional) Show estimated difference in spend per keyword with =Missed Conversions*Cost/Conv. This would obviously assume a static Cost/Conversion with scaling ad spend, but if you are concerned about this, it can be adjusted to =(Missed Conversions*Cost/Conv)*1.1 which would assume a 10-percent increase in cost per conversion with increased traffic.

What do you do with this data? First, take it with a grain of salt — it’s a projection. It doesn’t take into account shifts in CTR or CPC with increased budgets. But as you do this over time, you can start to compare your projections to actual data after you’ve made your budget adjustments and see how close you were.

You should also understand the average value of a lead or conversion, to tie results to dollars. This should allow you to get a better understanding of what will actually happen when you do this in the future; if you’re typically overshooting your conversion projections by 10 percent, you can make this a really valuable exercise by bringing that knowledge to each calculation. Being able to go into a meeting and say you’ll generate 50 more leads with an additional $2,000 in ad spend and have it actually happen is how you become a superstar.

Once we reach the point in our PPC management careers where learning the basics of bid management, A/B testing ad copy and other management tasks starts to feel easy, it becomes important to push ourselves and find new ways to push our campaigns. Every exercise like this that you put yourself through will be useful in some fashion.

The absolute worst-case scenario is that you do nothing with this information (or your proposal for budget reallocation or increases is turned down); but thinking about optimization in a way you haven’t before is absolutely crucial to your development as a PPC specialist. There will come a point where your work places far less importance on daily management tasks and requires innovative thinking/ financial analysis. Use this as a starting point.

(BONUS) I’ve narrowed focus, ad position is good. Now what?

When we consider Avg. Position to be a metric of importance, we’ve made a serious miscalculation. This isn’t to say that there’s no place for statements like, “We should increase bids on all keywords with less than x impressions and y average position.” The argument that average position often dictates opportunity isn’t what I’m arguing against. The problem comes when we don’t have an optimization strategy in place after this, beyond A/B testing ad copy or other techniques that often come into play.

When you’ve been managing PPC campaigns, or even if you’ve just researched AdWords’ ranking system, you are aware that the bid is only one component of your positioning. This can feel like the only thing we have control over, though — which is the wrong assumption to make.

When our keywords are in the position that gives us the best ROAS, the next step should be to focus on improving Quality Score. We need to fully understand how Quality Score is calculated and make this our immediate step two after bidding optimization.

A/B testing of ad copy should be done for a long enough time that differences in CTR are statistically significant, and Quality Score should be monitored while testing. Your landing page should carefully match ad messaging and needs to get the same attention as your ad copy. This can feel like the most daunting part of all. Enlist your developer to help with landing page edits, or use a builder/optimizer that gives you more flexibility in achieving message match.

The reason this needs to be an immediate next step after bid optimization is that without making Quality Score improvement part of our strategy at the onset of a campaign, it can all too easily fall by the wayside. Every PPC marketer wants their Quality Score to improve, but it’s important to take action and make this part of our routine.

To know more latest update or tips about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - Fill ContactUs Form or call at +44 2032892236 or Email us at - adviser.illusiongroups@gmail.com 

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Google Penguin looks mostly at your link source, says Google

When we asked Google's Gary Illyes about Penguin, he said SEOs should focus on where their links come from for the most part, but they have less to worry about now that Penguin devalues those links, as opposed to demoting the site.

Here’s another nugget of information learned from the A conversation with Google’s Gary Illyes (part 1) podcast at Marketing Land, our sister site: Penguin is coined a “web spam” algorithm, but it indeed focuses mostly on “link spam.” Google has continually told webmasters that this is a web spam algorithm, but every webmaster and SEO focuses mostly around links. Google’s Gary Illyes said their focus is right, that they should be mostly concerned with the links when tackling Penguin issues.

Gary Illyes made a point to clarify that it isn’t just the link, but rather the “source site” the link is coming from. Google said Penguin is based on “the source site, not on the target site.” You want your links to come from quality sources, as opposed to a low-quality source.

One example Gary revealed was his looking at a negative SEO case submitted to him, and he said the majority of the links were on “empty profile pages, forum profile pages.” When he looked at those links, the new Penguin algorithm was already “discounting” those links, devaluing those links.

“The good thing is that it is discounting the links, basically ignoring the links instead of the demoting,” Gary Illyes added.

Here is the transcript:

Barry Schwartz: You also talked about web spam versus link spam and Penguin. I know John Mueller specifically called it out again, in the original Penguin blog post that you had posted, that you said this is specifically a web spam algorithm. But every SEO that I know focuses just on link spam regarding Penguin. And I know when you initially started talking about this on our podcast just now, you said it’s mostly around really really bad links. Is that accurate to say when you talk about Penguin, [that] typically it’s around really, really bad links and not other types of web spam?

Gary Illyes: It’s not just links. It looks at a bunch of different things related to the source site. Links is just the most visible thing and the one that we decided to talk most about because we already talked about about links in general.

But it looks at different things on the source site, not on the target site, and then makes decisions based on those special signals.

I don’t actually want to reveal more of those spam signals because I think they would be pretty, I wouldn’t say easy to spam, but they would easy to mess with. And I really don’t want that.

But there are quite a few hints in the original, the old Penguin article.

Barry Schwartz: Can you mention one of those hints that is in the article?

Gary Illyes: I would rather not. I know that you can make pretty good assumptions. So I would just let you make assumptions.

Danny Sullivan: If you were making assumptions, how would you make those assumptions?

Gary Illyes: I try not to make assumptions. I try to to make decisions based on data.

Barry Schwartz: Should we be focusing on a link spam aspect of it for Penguin? Obviously, focus on all the “make best quality sites,” yada-yada-yada, but we talk about Penguin as reporters, and we’re telling people that SEOs are like Penguin specialists or something like that — they only focus on link spam — Is that wrong? I mean should they?

Gary Illyes: I think that’s the the main thing that they should focus on.

See where it is coming from, and then make a decision based on the source site — whether they want that link or not.

Well, for example, like I was looking at the negative SEO case just the yesterday or two days ago. And basically, the content owner played hundreds of links on empty profile pages, forum profile pages. Those links with the new Penguin were discounted. But like if you looked at the page, it was pretty obvious that the links were placed there for a very specific reason, and that’s to game the ranking algorithms. But not just Google’s but any other ranking algorithm that uses links. Like if you look at a page, you can make a pretty easy decision on whether to disavow or remove that link or not. And that’s what Penguin is doing. It’s looking at signals on the source page. Basically, what kind of page it is, what could be the purpose of that link ,and then make a decision based on that whether to discount those things or not.

The good thing is that it is discounting the links, basically ignoring the links instead of the demoting.

So in general, unless people are overdoing it, it’s unlikely that they will actually feel any sort of effect by placing those. But again, if they are overdoing it, then the manual actions team might take a deeper look.

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Google labels your links, such as ‘footer’ or Penguin-impacted

Google's manual action team has access to look at a page's link labels and may use that to dig deeper into the site's activities.

In the A conversation with Google’s Gary Illyes (part 1) podcast at Marketing Land, our sister site, we learned that Google adds labels to your links. These labels can add classifications or attributes to the link, including whether the link is a footer link, whether it’s impacted by the latest Penguin update, whether it’s disavowed or other categorizations. A link can have multiple labels that make up the value and meaning of that link, which ultimately helps Google determine how to rank the related documents on the web.

Google’s manual actions team may look at these labels to determine if they should dig deeper into the site’s links and add a manual action penalty to the site or not. Although, Illyes added, he doesn’t do much work with that specific team, so he isn’t too aware of their daily processes.

In addition, Illyes listed three types of labels one might find on a link: “Penguin real time,” which would be the new Penguin algorithm; “footer” links, which would help Google determine how important the link is — i.e., it being in the footer versus the main content; and “disavow” — so if a link is in the disavow file, it will also be labeled as such for that site. There are many more link labels, but he only shared these three.

Here is the transcript:

Barry Schwartz: Is there some sort of flag that happens automatically. So that the manual action team is notified that, hey, there is a devalue going on here by Penguin?

Gary Illyes: I don’t work much with the manual actions team, but to the best of my knowledge, there is no flag that said that they have; they can look at the labels on the on the links or a site gets. Basically, we have tons of link labels; for example, it’s a footer link, basically, that has a lot lower value than an in-content link. Then another label would be a Penguin real-time label. If they see that most of the links are Penguin real-time labeled, then they might actually take a deeper look and see what the content owner is trying to do.

Danny Sullivan: You were talking about how Penguin is looking and identifying things and to think of it as part of like a link label. So, like Google is looking at things like, OK, I know this is a footer link or this is a content link or this is a Penguin link. So tell us more about that.

Gary Illyes: So, if you think about it, there are tons of different kinds of links on the internet. There are footer links, for example. There are Penguinized links, and all of these kinds of links have certain labels internally attached to them, basically for our own information. And if the manual actions team is reviewing a site for whatever reason, and they see that most of links are labeled as Penguin real-time affected, then they might decide to take a much deeper look on the site and see what’s up with those links and what could be the reason those links exist — and then maybe apply a manual action on the site because of the links.

Barry Schwartz: Which is why Google still recommends you disavow links, because I guess if a manual action team sees all these labels on it, and they look at the disavow file, and they say, hey this SEO or this webmaster [is] aware of these links and they’re going ahead and trying to take no responsibility… Would these labels show up if the links are disavowed, or they probably wouldn’t?

Gary Illyes: So disavow is again, basically, just a label internally. It’s applied on the links and anchors. And then you can see that, as well. Basically, you could have like a link from, I don’t know, WhiteHouse.gov, and it has labels Penguin RT, footer and disavow. And then they would see that — they would know that someone or the webmaster or content owner is actively tackling those links.

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Forget about unique content. Try actually BEING local!

Columnist Greg Gifford notes that when all your competitors have unique content, then that alone won't be enough to help you stand out from the crowd.

Is it just me, or does it really seem lately like every marketer is looking for a silver bullet when it comes to SEO? Even though nothing even close to a silver bullet exists, the search is always on for the “one big thing” that can really jump a site up in the rankings.

It’s time for another installment of Greg’s Soapbox. Stop trying to look for silver content bullets! Stop trying to be lazy or look for shortcuts! If you put in the time and do things correctly, you’ll win in the long run.

It’s fall conference season, and I’ve sat in on countless sessions that preach the same thing over and over again: you’ve got to create unique content if you want to succeed.

Technically, that’s true. But in the real world, I’m just gonna say it: it’s a load of BS.

The myth of unique content as a differentiator

Let’s look at the majority of businesses out there. Unless you’re the only underwater basket-weaving supply company in the state, there are going to be competitors in your market. Depending on your vertical and your city, you could have anywhere from a handful of competitors to hundreds, all fighting for the top few spots on page one.

Unique content is important, but there are only so many ways you can write unique content about whatever you sell. There might be 50 plumbers in your market, and they could all have unique content on their sites, but their sites are all still about plumbing. The actual copy might be unique, but the overall content is pretty much the same.

Citations used to be a big game-changer in Local SEO, but they’ve become more of a basic building block. I typically explain to businesses that citations are like your ante in a poker game. You’ve got to have a clean citation profile to be able to sit at the big boy Local SEO poker table.

Unique content is becoming the same thing. As more marketers and business owners become SEO-savvy, more and more websites feature unique content. Does that really make a difference any more? Once everyone has unique content, that factor is no longer a differentiator.

So here’s my push for the rest of the year: If you’re doing Local SEO, worry less about uniquecontent and put more effort into local content. Don’t simply include city and state info in different on-page elements — actually write local content!

Local is the new unique. It’s totally fetch!

I wrote a post here a year and a half ago about making your blog a local destination. Go back and read it. Go old-school Wil Reynolds and do RCS. Don’t pretend — actually BE local.

Share useful information about your area. Interview local figures. Share local news. But don’t just limit your new local focus to your blog — put a local spin on your standard website pages as well.

I’m talking about a fundamental change in the way you write your content, and the way you run your business. If you’re not involved in the community, get involved. Donate your time to local groups, participate in the neighborhood community, support local charities and so on. You can’t fake being a part of the local community. If you’re truly involved, writing local content will be incredibly simple.

Yes, that’s technically still writing unique content — but unique content for its own sake won’t matter if all of your competitors are doing the same thing.

Truly local content will help you stand out. Google will love the legitimate local signals of relevancy, and your customers will flock to your site because those local signals are genuine.

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AdWords Editor now supports more ad formats, device bidding

Advertisers can create and edit Gmail ads and more in version 11.6.

The latest version of AdWords Editor includes support for various ad formats, as well as the new device bid adjustments for desktop, tablet and mobile.

App marketers can create and edit universal app campaigns in Editor to show app install ads across Google Search, Play and YouTube, and in apps and mobile sites on the Google Display Network (GDN).

For Gmail, Editor supports single promotion and image templates. Advertisers can create and edit Gmail ads within Editor.

Finaly, advertisers can create and edit the relatively new responsive ads that can show across the GDN, including the native ad placements, in Editor 11.6.

Google has also continued to improve advanced search in Editor.

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PPC + SEO = match made in marketing heaven

Are your SEO and PPC teams working in silos? Columnist Julian Connors discusses several ways SEO and PPC can combine efforts to improve their strategies and drive more conversions.

It has been quite a year for the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

We’ve seen numerous algorithm updates, including a final Penguin update and the introduction of Possum. We also saw major changes to the way ads are displayed on desktop SERPs. Google continues to tweak how online consumers receive content through organic and paid listings.

In order to meet the demands of today’s search landscape and connect with more qualified consumers, strategists need to create campaigns that treat SEO and PPC as a unified silo, as opposed to separate disciplines.

Google’s never-ending quest for SERP perfection

The ongoing adjustments to the SERP layout are meant to help Google better align with consumer objectives by improving the content quality and relevance of listings.

While this certainly allows Google to become a better service provider for online consumers, it also presents new challenges for SEO strategists. Each adjustment requires strategists to develop new methods for ranking within prime search listings.

Integrating SEO with PPC

Developing digital marketing campaigns that combine SEO with PPC is not only necessary for achieving prime listing positions, it’s now the only way to maximize traffic and conversion opportunities.

As the former Organic Search Manager for Procter & Gamble’s Home Care division, I was responsible for developing comprehensive, complex digital campaigns that focused on consumer behavior alignment and conversion optimization.

When our team made the effort to combine both SEO and PPC strategies/data, we were able to identify a multitude of critical data points dedicated to consumer behavior, intentions and location/geography.

This level of precision allowed us to:

• modify our organic keyword strategy so that we could create and optimize new content to rank within specific geographic locations, applying exact phrases used by our target audience to align with their intentions;
• adjust our PPC budgets so that we were only running ads within the most popular markets and effective time frames; and
• align our PPC ads with P&G’s offline marketing schedule to maximize awareness and conversions.

Overall, these actions resulted in:

• 30-percent increase in organic traffic
• 25-percent increase in paid clicks
• 35-percent savings in ad spend
• 20-percent increase in quarterly profits

Sharing information to create one rockstar team

Most digital marketing agencies are built with SEO and PPC sitting on opposite sides of the building.

Both teams work tirelessly, developing keyword strategies, creating unique content and employing a number of tactics that focus on attracting online consumers. Even though each team uses different systems and tactics to drive conversions, there is a tremendous amount of critical data that can be used to create a synergistic and harmonious relationship, bolstering results for everyone.

Check out the following ways that SEO and PPC can combine efforts to improve their strategies, as well as to drive conversions like never before.

Share keyword data to increase the intelligence of your campaigns

Keywords are the foundation for any successful SEO or PPC campaign.

For PPC strategists, keywords are used to facilitate creative relationships with consumers who are located further down the conversion funnel.

In the world of SEO, keywords are used to dictate the information architecture of a website, as well as its content strategy.

Both teams conduct keyword research in order to identify terms that align with their target audience’s online behavior, project traffic growth and drive qualified conversions.

Because more consumers are using long-tail phrases and complete sentences when searching than ever before, keyword data must be shared across both teams in order to offer coordinated messages that keep brands top-of-mind and solicit qualified conversions.

Set shared goals and combine metrics

Using the information both teams collect doesn’t just offer more accuracy around consumer behavior; it can also be used to support your brand’s inbound marketing campaigns.

Teams that combine their PPC data with organic user engagement metrics (e.g., average session duration, bounce rate, pages per session) are able to gain unique insight around how consumers are interacting with certain digital properties, as well as how they behave once they leave your site.

The metrics your SEO and PPC teams review in order to establish their key performance indicators (KPIs) should be almost identical. When this happens, you are able to apply this information to other marketing channels like PR, social media or email marketing.

Remove silos to improve production

Approaching SEO and PPC as two separate silos isolates critical information and diminishes the productivity level of even the most well-executed online campaigns.

It almost never makes sense to keep these two disciplines apart, as the teams can offer each other particular points of information that are vital for identifying and fulfilling conversion opportunities.

Use data that informs cross-channel decisions and justifies action

When it comes to gathering enough actionable data to develop robust, intelligent strategies, extracting information from one specific field, like SEO or PPC, is not enough.

Although the quality of your organic data may provide insight on how to create functional plans, the amount of verified information organic search can capture may not be sufficient to justify real action.

Conversely, information that’s gathered from the search engines themselves as a result of paid search activity is both valuable and based on a substantial sample size that allows you to move forward confidently.

If your organization treats SEO and PPC as two distinct entities, try to make sure that your efforts are aligned through shared:

• reporting;
• objectives; and
• communication portals.

The goal of merging both disciplines together is not to have the same people performing the same type of work. Instead, it is meant to increase internal awareness of key conversion opportunities.

Action & impact: how to maximize SERP visibility

Now that we have covered the principles that allow your SEO and PPC teams to work together efficiently, use the following tactics to own as much real estate within Google SERPs as possible.

Landing page optimization

Optimizing your landing pages to drive qualified traffic and conversions is a fundamental component of any digital marketing campaign. SEO strategists can provide their PPC counterparts with critical information around consumer intentions, objectives and demands to reduce bounce rate andincrease click-through-rates (CTR).

PPC strategists can then use their insights around consumer online activity to perpetuate paid ads that only appear in front of the most qualified consumers possible. By doing this, both teams are able to support each other in ways that improve user experience, maximize relevant traffic and reduce wasted ad spend.

Approach SEO & PPC holistically

Running paid ad campaigns that 1) offer precise messages and 2) are located next to your organic listings on Google can increase overall CTR and lead to a higher return on your investment.

While managing the online campaign of Sonos in 2015, our team ran paid ads alongside keywords that the electronics company already ranked for organically. This type of positioning was extremely effective for creating the sense that we were more prominent than our competitors and thus, more credible.

Because of this, total revenue through organic and paid channels increased by 37 percent year over year.

Understand seasonality

Share seasonal data and information relating to other offline variables to learn how to approach and optimize for specific times throughout the year when consumer activity peaks.

Use this information to create a calendar of events that guides you on how to:

• create organic content that aligns with specific consumers within specific locations;
• run paid ads that contain unique messaging based on location and intention;
• maximize brand awareness during peak activity points like the holiday shopping season; and
• increase consumer reaction and conversions during seasonal low points.

Get in front of the competition

SEO and PPC strategists should work together as a cohesive unit to share key points of information that highlight how and what the competition is doing from a digital perspective.

Create monitoring systems that identify your competitors in terms of:

• positioning within SERPs;
• pricing;
• key message points/branding initiatives; and
• primary and secondary keyword terms.

Use this information to adjust your ad spend, to improve CTR and to outrank your opponents by taking up more real estate within SERPs.

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Number of Google organic blue links results drops from 10 to 8.5

Searchmetrics released their 2016 study on universal and extended search results showing some surprising changes in the Google user interface and results.

Searchmetrics has released a new study today showing the impact of the ever-changing user interface of the Google search results. The study says that now, Google is less likely to show 10 organic blue links. Instead, Google shows only 8.5 blue links on average but supplements those links with featured snippets, app packs, knowledge panels, images, videos and more.

You can download the full report over here, but here are some highlights:

Organic blue links drop from 10 to 8.5 per search query:

Searchmetrics says you are less likely to see 10 links on a Google search results page for your query.

Universal search results change from 2015 to 2016:

Look at how integration of images, videos, product listing ads, news and maps have changed from 2015 to 2016 in the Google search results:

Knowledge panels, direct answers and app packs

Google has been showing rich results both on desktop on mobile, but how often they show those results depends on the query and category of the search. Around one out of every 10 mobile queries return mobile app packs, and you are twice as likely to see direct answers or featured snippets on desktop as you are on mobile, according to this study.

Finally, here is a chart showing the percentage of time you will see a rich result, by type, by desktop versus mobile:

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