Today in Digital Marketing - 167: Why Marketers LOVE Programmatic Ads

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Starting point is 00:00:28 Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Instagram's latest test could prove useful for e-commerce brands,

Starting point is 00:01:06 a case for why marketers should use customer data platforms, a new survey finds programmatic advertising usage is rising, and why you shouldn't ignore the role co-citation and co-occurrence play in SEO. It's Friday, June 5th. Happy World Environment Day. I'm McKenna Hadley-Burke from EngageQ Digital, filling in this week for Todd Maffin. And here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Good news might be coming if you handle e-commerce for your brand.

Starting point is 00:01:38 Instagram's latest in-app test is designed to expose users to more recommended accounts and content. Social Media Today reports that some users have noticed that when they've scrolled to the bottom of their feed and reached that all caught up marker, they're now shown a list of suggested posts. This is potentially really useful for brands with an e-commerce component. Quoting Social Media Today, if people start using Instagram to browse and shop more specifically, more recommendation services could connect sellers with interested buyers by highlighting media today, if people start using Instagram to browse and shop more specifically, more recommendation services could connect sellers with interested buyers by highlighting similar items and trends aligned with their past searches, unquote. While this update hasn't rolled out to

Starting point is 00:02:16 all users yet, it serves as a good reminder for marketers to keep an eye on Instagram as it continues to inch its way towards becoming a more e-commerce-focused platform. In a recent presentation, Elizabeth Marshall, Director of Solutions Consulting for the CDP solution Telium, made a case for why more brands should be turning to customer data platforms. Quoting Marketingland, Marshall addressed all the ways a CDP can help brands better engage with their audiences, unquote. Marshall shared three ways that CDPs can help businesses. The first benefit was financial. Quoting Marketingland, Marshall shared how a CDP allows marketers to suppress audience segments from ad campaigns,

Starting point is 00:03:00 eliminating ad dollars from being spent on non-relevant customer groups, unquote. The second benefit aligned with revenue growth. Marketingland shared that, quote, According to Marshall, a CDP allows you to orchestrate customer acquisition campaigns across multiple channels, scaling the value of your customer data and ensuring you are running campaigns based on advanced customer segments, unquote. Finally, the third perk was in relation to how CDPs can improve trust between businesses and their customers. Quoting Marketing Land, using a CDP to create a single source of customer data can help ensure the customer's privacy preferences are maintained, unquote. So for those marketers attempting to

Starting point is 00:03:42 strengthen customer relationships and save on ad spend, CDPs might be the tool to address both problems. According to a recent survey conducted by Ascend2, marketers are really leaning into programmatic ad programs, with 66% of marketers planning on increasing their budgets in the coming months. According to Marketing Dive, of Ascent2's 264 survey respondents, 76% of respondents were using programmatic ads, and of those, 93% said they were seeing success from their programmatic strategy.

Starting point is 00:04:21 Why are marketers turning to programmatic advertising? Marketing Dive contends it could be related to shifts brought on by COVID. Quote, at a time when many consumers are spending less because they're out of work or are being more cautious with their money, marketers are hoping programmatic ads can help them drive sales. Unquote. This is validated by the fact that over half of the survey respondents named sales as their primary objective when launching programmatic ads. This isn't to say that programmatic advertising doesn't have its own challenges. Quoting Marketing Dive, a lack of transparency is a problem for the sector, with the programmatic advertising supply chain between marketers and online publishers seeing about half the money spent by brands going to digital middlemen, unquote.

Starting point is 00:05:01 How are marketers aiming to solve this problem? A Send2 survey pointed to one possibility, with 82% of respondents reporting that they've moved part or all of their programmatic advertising programs in-house. As COVID continues to affect marketing efforts on all fronts, we'll be interested to see whether programmatic ad usage continues to grow over the coming months. If you've never heard of co-citation and co-occurrence, you're likely not alone. But you should know they're both playing a role in the success of your SEO. Search Engine Journal shared a great breakdown on both tactics and what role they should play in your SEO strategy.

Starting point is 00:05:42 Quoting Search Engine Journal, co-citation means that a website is mentioned by two different sources, but not necessarily linked, unquote. Still confused? Search Engine Journal explains it like this. If site B and site C mention the same site, site A, then they are only related to each other based on the co-citation of site A. Now all three sites are related. On the other hand, co-occurrence is less about who you mention on your website and more about what you mention. Quoting Search Engine Journal, think of this like keyword research, except instead of looking at how often a keyword is searched on Google, you're looking at how different key phrases are searched together

Starting point is 00:06:25 and consecutively, unquote. So how would this work in terms of SEO? Quoting Search Engine Journal, let's say someone searches for the phrase vacations to Costa Rica for families, and then looks up the phrase Costa Rica group tours for families. Google will begin associating the two terms together. Co-citation and co-occurrence may not be the be-all, end-all of SEO strategy, but they're definitely an important piece of the puzzle. Content writers need to be aware of how their words affect co-occurrence and co-citation, and as a result, impact your SEO. Quoting Search Engine Journal,

Starting point is 00:07:01 If you think about it, both co-citation and co-occurrence make complete sense when it comes to what Google has been trying to value all along. Authority and real, genuine intermingling between great pieces of content. Unquote. That's it for today. You can find more information and links to the articles we mentioned in our show notes. Well, I really enjoyed hosting today in digital marketing this week. But Todd will be back and up to his usual tricks on Monday. Thanks for hanging out with me this week. I'm McKenna Hadley-Burke. If you want to learn more about me, you can visit my website, www.mckennahadleyburke.com.

Starting point is 00:07:38 Have a great weekend.

Today in Digital Marketing - 167: Why Marketers LOVE Programmatic Ads

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