Today in Digital Marketing - Are Marketing Pop-Ups Hurting Your SEO? (Spoiler: Probably)

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Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, that pop-up on your website is probably hurting your SEO. Be protected. Be Zen. you feel that? Was that another Google update? It's Thursday, May 13th, 2021. Happy Father's Day, Germany. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. I don't think there's a digital marketer on the planet who hasn't experimented with web pop-ups. You know, those plugins that will pop up an interstitial window over the main page, ask you for your email address or click something. There are a million plugins for this. OptinMonster, Bloom, Ninja Pop-ups.

Starting point is 00:01:10 For most of us, the decision about whether or not to put these on our sites comes down to a balance between higher conversions and pissing off our users. One thing that isn't usually part of the discussion, how those interstitials are affecting your ranking in Google. That's something Google search engineer John Mueller talked about in a recent Webmasters Hangout. The thing that we would try to exclude from the intrusive interstitials guideline part

Starting point is 00:01:37 is if something is a legal interstitial, which means maybe a confirmation for cookies or a confirmation of your age, that kind of thing. That's something we would consider a normal kind of part of a website, and that wouldn't be problematic. But if you have a full-page pop-up that essentially is providing extra functionality, like a sign-up to a newsletter or saying, like, you're on the wrong version of the website, that kind of thing. That would be something that we would consider probably as an intrusive interstitial. And at the very least, we would try to index that content because we think, oh, this is the primary content of the page. Therefore, we should index that and show it visibly.

Starting point is 00:02:21 And that's probably not what you want. He went on to say this penalty also applies to pop-ups that don't consume the full screen. They don't have a specific percentage of what's good and bad, but if it seems intrusive to a real user, Google will probably also consider it intrusive and rank you a little bit lower as a result. You are probably not using long enough captions on your Instagram posts. That's one of the key findings of a study out today that analyzed more than 100 million Instagram posts from a million users. The top line findings. The caption length that saw the most engagement came in between 1,000 and 2,000 characters.

Starting point is 00:03:03 And carousel posts have overtaken both single image and video updates as the most engaging type of posts, and the average engagement rate of an Instagram post of any kind in 2020 was 2.26%. But, quoting the study, keep in mind that this number takes into account the posts of super influential users and public figures, which skews the average heavily. When we consider the median engagement rate, which allows us to adjust for highly influential accounts, this went down to around 0.84%. This suggests that 50% of Instagram users have an engagement rate per post of less than 1%, unquote.

Starting point is 00:03:45 Remember my usual advice. These are very broad global averages, and you should always study your own community. But perhaps this gives you a starting point. The study was done by Mention and HubSpot, and you can download it for yourself at b.link slash igstudy. First, we got modeled conversions. Then we got flock. And soon, Google says they'll be rolling out another attempt at filling the gap of third-party data. And I'll be completely honest

Starting point is 00:04:14 here. I've read their blog posts like three times now. I don't really understand what they're talking about. But that might be by design, since they only teased it this morning, saying they'll be discussing it more in a live stream announcement later in the month. They are calling it enhanced conversions. Here's how they describe it. Quote, enhanced conversions allows tags to use consented first party data to give you a more accurate view of how users convert after engaging with your ads. You'll also be able to get the data you need to unlock performance insights like conversion lift and improve measurement in cases when your ad is shown on one device and the user converts on another.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Your first party data is hashed to protect user privacy and ensure security, and you'll receive aggregated and anonymized conversion reporting. Advertisers currently testing enhanced conversions are already seeing positive reports, unquote. So there you go. This sounds a little suspiciously like modeled conversions again, but I guess we'll just have to wait. Their live stream is on May 27th, and hopefully we'll have more details about it then. You've heard the advice. Live streaming is the next big thing. If you're not live streaming your brand, you are losing out.

Starting point is 00:05:28 And you may have thought, what the hell do I actually live stream? Here's one example. I'll be a peculiar one. From the American firm David's Bridal, they've launched a YouTube live channel. Company says it'll stream around-the-clock wedding planning content and inspiration. In practice, at least from the 15 minutes I watched this morning, it was a series of stock video clips of wedding and wedding receptions set to music that I'm sure was in a stock music library under a category called,

Starting point is 00:05:55 I don't know, bliss and inspiration or something like that. The company says they did a market study that found that women are looking for inspiration all the time, including in the middle of the night. And wedding videos are their favorite channels for that inspiration. So presumably by having a live stream, they'll be there for, you know, whenever someone wants to. They're also accepting UGC.

Starting point is 00:06:14 So if you want your wedding to be on that channel too, you can send them footage. And look, when I checked out the stream this morning, it was me and one other person watching. But still, kudos for trying something in the live space. Experimentation, after all, is marketing's middle name. 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

Starting point is 00:06:45 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. Reddit this morning launched Karma Lab, its first in-house creative agency for advertisers. The idea is that rather than struggling on your own or hoping your existing agency for advertisers. The idea is that rather than struggling on your own, or hoping your existing agency understands the unique community that is Reddit, they'll set their own agency up, offering listening and trend reports, step-by-step community management, creative workshops, right through to campaign development. It's going to be run by the site's former head of creative strategy.

Starting point is 00:07:23 Perhaps like any other platform, Reddit probably needed something like this. While the ad products they offer seem pretty average, a little anemic even, what many digital marketers fail to understand going in is the very, very unique culture of that site. Reddit's audience is highly media savvy, extremely attuned to when they are being sold to.

Starting point is 00:07:46 That's why when Samsung set out to explain the benefits of 5G, they worked with Karma Lab in its pre-launch state. They asked Redditors in the always entertaining explain like I'm five community to try to explain 5G in a simple, relatable and compelling way. Hundreds of responses later, Samsung and Karma Lab turned the responses into ads and promoted them across Reddit. TikTok is adding a couple of new features that brands may want to take advantage of. First, a new green screen duet feature. Duetting is when one person reacts to another person's video

Starting point is 00:08:23 or comments on it as it plays. Until now, you've only really been able to show up in a split panel. Now you can simulate a green screen and position yourself wherever you like on the original video. If you haven't been on TikTok, it's hard to state how big a deal these duets are. They're hugely popular and a great way to jump onto a trend that's accelerating. With this new green screen format, though, it could give marketers more creative freedom in how they riff off of those videos. And second, they're testing a new discovery page in the app

Starting point is 00:08:52 where instead of only featuring the current trends, it also organizes videos into broad categories like food, beauty, comedy, sports, family, and so on. TikTok's kind of had this for a while now, but only for one topic. Their Learn topic, which is a collection of loosely affiliated educational videos. The new topic screen is being tested in the U.S. for now. And finally, some people are reporting signs of a possible Google search ranking algorithm update happening.

Starting point is 00:09:24 Lots of volatility in rankings being seen by the standard SEO tools. If SEO is a huge concern for you, you might want to double check your own position. Remember, though, Google updates its algorithm all the time, like two to three times a day. This one, if it's actually real, might be a bit bigger than the others. Either way, Google has not confirmed any change. Almost 400 digital marketers just like you are in our Slack community. Inside, you'll find deep dive episodes, jobs get posted there, people use it to get advice, all sorts of stuff.

Starting point is 00:09:59 It's free to join. Just tap the link in this episode's notes or go to todayindigital.com slash slack. I'll be back at Overwatch again today, finally after a break. Not for my mental health, although God knows I probably should do that. But, you know, had the first vaccine shot, had the usual kind of sick, kind of feverish feeling.

Starting point is 00:10:18 But I'll be back. Probably going to fall to gold again or silver. But, you know, talk to you tomorrow. I'm thinking about you, yeah, talking in my sleep. I'm dreaming about love, falling way too deep. I'm thinking about you, yeah, talking in my sleep. I'm dreaming about love Falling way too deep Falling way too deep

Today in Digital Marketing - Are Marketing Pop-Ups Hurting Your SEO? (Spoiler: Probably)

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