Marketing Google

As the holidays fade into memory, we can look back at a very successful holiday season. Retail sales from November 1 through Christmas Eve increased by 4.9 percent from last year, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, and online sales beat predictions with an 18.1 percent growth rate. Many analysts attributed the growth to the influx of new strategies and technologies that make online shopping easier and faster than ever before.So, what were the top three retail strategies that dominated the holiday season?Mobile commerceRetail forecasting showed that, more than ever, customers were shopping on mobile. Site visits by device were nearly equal this year, with 45 percent of visits coming from smartphones and 46 percent of visits coming from desktop browsers, according to Adobe Analytics.Mobile-optimized websites and native apps won big by offering push notifications with the latest sales, location and beacon services to let shoppers know about deals close by, along with a personalized, …

Introducing the all-new Voice Dictation v2.0, a speech recognition app that lets you type with your voice. There’s no software to install, there’s no training required and all you need is Google Chrome on your Windows PC, Mac OS or Linux.Dictation can recognize spoken words in English, Hindi, Español, Italiano, Deutsch, Français, and all the other popular languages. Another unique feature of Dictation is support for voice commands that let you do more with your voice. For instance, you can say a command like new line or nueva línea for inserting lines. You can add punctuations, special symbols and even smileys using simple commands in most languages.This YouTubevideo will walk you through the Dictation app.Open DictationHow to use Dictation for Speech RecognitionDictation stores everything in your browser locally and not a byte of your data is uploaded anywhere.  Speech recognition will be more accurate in a quiet environment and the built-in microphone of your computer should be good…

Amazon Echo and its voice assistant, Alexa, might be the current market leaders in voice-activated smart technology, but recent announcements from the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show have shown that Google fully intends to challenge Amazon for that crown.The past few days have seen some big developments – and a couple of even bigger teasers – for the future of Google’s smart assistant, the imaginatively-named Assistant.On Tuesday, the first day of CES 2018, Google published a post to its official blog announcing partnerships with more than a dozen electronics companies to produce Google Assistant smart speakers – some with a very significant upgrade.The blog post also highlighted the breadth and depth of “Actions”, the name given to built-in apps and integrations for the Google Assistant. At the same time, Search Console users began receiving notifications that their podcast, recipe and news content was eligible to be included in a new ‘Actions directory’, which is being rolled out ove…

On a lot of different fronts, 2017 was quite a year. We witnessed a real estate mogul/reality TV host get elected president of the United States. A new form of currency — Bitcoin — rose in price from $1,000 in January to $19,191.50 in mid-December and then back to $15,000 as the year closed out. The #MeToo movement saw a massive housecleaning of leaders in politics, business and Hollywood as allegations of sexual harassment came to light. And on a more germane front, Apple showed us the future of consumer facial recognition with the launch of its new X as it celebrated its 10th year of the iPhone.The penetration of smartphone usage in the US among millennials hit 93.1 percent, according to eMarketer. GenXers were close behind at 85.1 percent, with Baby Boomers still lagging significantly at 64.4 percent. (No wonder they’re still writing checks at the checkout line of the grocery store.) In the shocking/not shocking column, Gartner confirmed that 99.6 percent of all new smartphones shi…

If you’ve ever made the switch from B2C or ecommerce to B2B marketing, you know there’s a world of difference.B2B offerings are generally much more expensive, with a very long lead-to-close time, and marketing needs to be addressed in a different and strategic manner.In B2B marketing, you must reach users at every point of the funnel – and keep educating them in stages along the way.Through a series of blogs, I will discuss strategies for how to generate demand, drive qualified leads, master content delivery, and essentially close the sales loop via paid media. In part 1 of this series, we’ll talk about how to generate new demand and capitalize on the intent that already exists.Let’s jump in.Use both search and social to get in front of the right audiencesYou’ve got more than a few powerful levers to pull to get in front of qualified buyers. I recommend you start with your two biggest: paid social and paid search.Paid social allows you to get in front of relevant audiences and let the…

It is 2018, a new year, and a new beginning for bloggers who have just started out. Not just that, it is also a chance for the established ones to improve and grow by leaps and bounds.In today’s world of blogging, where millions of blogs exist, you need something extraordinary to stand out. That said, you cannot simply achieve it with basic content.You need quality content for your business to grow and be unique in your own way at the same time. When we say unique, it is not just better content but extraordinary content. You need to look for basic trends that you think are going to make an appearance in 2018.The foremost being quality, in-depth content. To add value to your business and make it grow, you need a strong strategy for your blog in place along with content that specifically targets your audience.We here at ShoutMeLoud wanted to understand your thoughts on the blogging trends that are a possibility in 2018. Hence, this week’s #ShoutersChat topic wasBlogging Trends In 2018.I…

Here’s our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.From Marketing Land:Best practices for qualifying your link opportunities
Jan 10, 2018 by Ryan Shelley
So, you’ve got a list of potential linking partners, but how do you qualify them? Columnist Ryan Shelley shares his process.How independent retailers can thrive in a volatile market
Jan 10, 2018 by Evan Magliocca
As traditional retailers continue to struggle, columnist Evan Magliocca explains why it’s a unique opportunity for smaller brands to prosper amid the wreckage.Clash Royale’s ‘Epic Comeback’ was #1 YouTube ad in December, Apple was top brand overall
Jan 10, 2018 by Amy Gesenhues
Apple’s three iPhone X ads owned nearly one-third of the 87.8 million views generated by brands in YouTube’s December ad leaderboard.SteelHouse adds Connected TV
Jan 10, 2018 by Barry Levine
The ad platform is the latest to bring CTV into the digital ad ecosystem.5 content distri…