Today in Digital Marketing - H0w You're Site M1ght Get Dropppd from Go0gle

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal.

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. Today, that typo on your website might get you dropped by Google.

Starting point is 00:01:08 Microsoft pumps out a whack of changes to its ads platform. How the pandemic has affected closing B2B deals. And Stripe's clever new one-click payment links. It's Tuesday, June 1st, 2021. Happy Pride Month. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageU Digital. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. If your online store has too many spelling mistakes, Google might drop it from its merchants program. The company announcing a new policy where sites that don't meet what it calls

Starting point is 00:01:37 professional and editorial standards will get their accounts suspended. So what are those standards? Let's go through them. First, content that is unnecessarily difficult or frustrating to navigate. They specifically mention pop-ups or interstitial ads that interfere with the user's ability to see content, or sites that interfere with the browser's back button. This includes websites that aren't fully functional, like, you know, links on your site aren't working and so on.

Starting point is 00:02:05 Also, if your contact information or shipping information or even a frequently asked questions section on your website is incomplete or unclear. Three, as I mentioned, they do call out spelling and grammar, though their examples are pretty egregious. Things like all the vowels dropped from words. They also don't want excessive or gimmicky use of punctuation or emoji. And fourth, you will be at risk if you've got any placeholder text, like add customer reviews here or lorem ipsum text. There are a few other things they're looking for. There's a link to the full list in today's premium newsletter. Either way, Google says it won't just drop you without warning. You will first get a policy status in your Merchant Center account reading Website Needs Improvement.

Starting point is 00:02:51 Microsoft has published its list of enhancements coming to its ads platform this month, so let's pop it into the lightning round. First, that thing where you can import all your Google campaigns is becoming more widely available this month. That's still in beta, so you'll have to reach out to your Microsoft Advertising Account where you can import all your Google campaigns is becoming more widely available this month. That's still in beta, so you'll have to reach out to your Microsoft Advertising account manager or contact support if you want it.

Starting point is 00:03:11 They've also added what they're calling Smart Shopping to their Shopify app. This will let you show your products for free on the Bing Shopping tab. Third, the Microsoft Audience Network is now up and running in France and Germany. That's seven markets now where that's available. Also, new audience segments for both search campaigns and audience campaigns are

Starting point is 00:03:31 available in the UK, France and Germany. You might recall Microsoft plans to replicate the change to phrase match that Google announced. That change will happen this month in the United States and Canada. They're also finally rolling out lookalikes. They call them similar audiences. It's been in beta, but that functionality will start getting out to U.S. ad accounts this month. Your source list needs at least 300 users to generate a lookalike off it. TikTok continues to roll out new advertising options. Most recently, the ability to quickly boost or promote content on the platform. And, sure as the crow flies, once a new platform introduces ad options, they reduce organic reach to, you know, encourage brands to pay instead of to post. An interesting article now on Digiday.com discusses how brands and agencies are adapting

Starting point is 00:04:29 to this new reality. Some, like Pepsi, have all been given up on organic posting and have gone full in on paid. Other big accounts like Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay are dormant. One agency executive they interviewed said they wouldn't really be shocked to see TikTok really juice the ad inventory like Facebook or Instagram does, where every few posts is a paid ad. The word he used was inevitable. Here's another example, quoting from the Digiday piece. New York-based media agency 360i started dabbling with organic posts on TikTok for brands like Oreo, Sour Patch Kids, and Chips Ahoy late last year.

Starting point is 00:05:07 According to Eden Lipke, associate director of social media at 360i, the agency operates in a two-pronged approach, organic community building and paid efforts. We live in the comment section, she said, to make sure we are engaging in the community in real time. There's always going to be an opportunity to have paid there. It's sort of like the gasoline that you put on top of the fire. TikTok's algorithm can be enigmatic, built to surface the things that are most interesting all of the time, but a paid ad guarantees views. That being said, a mysterious algorithm is within TikTok's best interest to ensure brands pay, unquote. And another example from the Analog Folk Agency, they did a British campaign for a coffee client of theirs.

Starting point is 00:05:55 That client's TikTok account had 25,000 followers. It's kind of an interesting strategy. They created 14 different videos, each video aimed at a specific TikTok community, thus hoping that the algorithm would put some virality behind them. They posted it organically. Then they used the new boost feature to extend the reach. Did it work? Yeah, it's hard to know. Yes, each of the 14 videos got an average of 1.7 million views.

Starting point is 00:06:24 But then again, the agency would not say how much they spent. Yes, each of the 14 videos got an average of 1.7 million views. But then again, the agency would not say how much they spent. I mean, with enough media spend, I could probably get a video of a rock 10 million views. Anyway, that said, the strategy of positioning each video to a unique sub-community on the platform almost certainly contributed. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back

Starting point is 00:07:11 sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.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. Moving to B2B digital marketing now, LinkedIn has published its annual State of Sales report. This one in particular was highly anticipated, given the much stronger reliance on virtual selling in the last year. Quoting WeRSM.com, First, buyers don't seem to mind this new remote reality. 50% of them, in fact, say that working remotely has made the purchasing process easier. Just 43% of sales professionals interviewed feel that their sales organization stays actively engaged with clients after the sale.

Starting point is 00:08:19 The report also highlights those behaviors that effectively kill deals. Buyers identified a number of behaviors in which remote sellers do not sufficiently provide accurate information. 48% of buyers interviewed report that information about a product, like its price, was misleading. And almost half of them feel their company's needs, products, or services are not understood. The study surveyed more than 400 buyers and 400 sellers in the U.S. and Canada, included data from the LinkedIn platform, and interviews with dozens of sales leaders. There's a link to the full study in today's premium newsletter. A tiny change at the payment processor Stripe could have a big impact on small and boutique merchants.

Starting point is 00:09:17 Stripe has developed something they call payment links. They're basically kind of like micro landing pages that collect money. As a merchant, you create a single link for one individual buyer with the amount you're requesting preloaded. Your buyer clicks that link, and it's essentially a mini invoice where they can pay with their credit card. You don't need to integrate it with any existing website or embed it as a form. It's a great idea. And one small programming note, we have a busy day at the agency today. All hands on deck to onboard a big new

Starting point is 00:09:52 client. So this episode was written and produced very early in the morning. It's not even 8am as I'm recording this. You may have detected that in my voice. Thus, if there are any big developments that happened today, like Apple buys Facebook or something like that, rest assured, we will catch up tomorrow. Well, my wife and I are indeed now the proud owners of a new car. Like I said yesterday, I've never bought a new car in my life. Our last car was a 2010. I've always bought a driven used car. So being in the driver's seat of a new

Starting point is 00:10:25 car in the year 2021, definitely one of those, oh my God, I'm old moments. Like, you know, when you show your grandparents a phone app and they're like, oh wow, your phone can translate languages. Yeah, that was me in the car. This car steers for you. It's not like fully autonomous. It won't like take you from one place to the other, but it keeps you in the lane. You can literally feel it move the wheel. It also adjusts your speed to keep you a safe distance from the car in front of you. So kind of like a really smart cruise control. The parking brake is just a button. It has a spot to wirelessly charge your phone. You don't even need to put a key in the ignition. You just have your fob nearby and you press a button.

Starting point is 00:11:05 I mean, I don't know. Maybe this is the way it's been for years now, but I'm telling you, starting to feel old these days. Talk to you tomorrow. I wanna say what I gotta say Dark clouds can get out my way I wanna dance in the sun and the moonlight I'll be with you right here when you're ready to go We'll see you next time. Bye.

Today in Digital Marketing - H0w You're Site M1ght Get Dropppd from Go0gle

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.