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Conversion measurement is complicated. More devices, channels and touch points mean that data is exploding, and yet cross-device behavior and the use of different identifiers, like cookies across browsers, can muddy measurement on the web.With all of that imprecision comes a thought that might keep you up at night: You might not see all of the conversions driven by your marketing. They’re still happening, but you just might not capture them in your reporting.As a performance marketer at heart, I’m frustrated any time my measurement is incomplete. Lost conversions are just about the saddest thing I can think of, but Google (my employer) has measurement tools designed to help you make the most of your conversion tracking.Tracking every possible conversion in AdWordsBack in the desktop era, advertisers simply installed a conversion pixel on their checkout page, and the combination of redirects and third-party cookie reading at conversion-time accurately captured performance.[Read the fu…

On Monday, Google’s YouTube introduced a new skippable format for short-form branding ads called TrueView for reach.The format is sold on a CPM basis, and just as with TrueView in-stream ads, users can skip them after five seconds. In-stream ads must be a minimum of 30 seconds long, but the new TrueView for reach ads can run anywhere from six to under 30 seconds. The short ads are then “optimized for efficient reach,” said YouTube video ad Product Managers Ali Miller and Khushbu Rathi in the announcement. “TrueView for reach brings our popular in-stream format built on user choice together with the simplicity of CPM buying.”YouTube paved the way for shorter branding ads with the launch of its unskippable six-second bumper ads, which have proved popular with advertisers. Google says a 2017 global study showed bumper ads drove an average Ad Recall of more than 20 percent. Now, advertisers with those six-second assets can opt to run them as bumper ads or as TrueView for reach ads.Beta te…

Artificial intelligence is being employed by many chatbots, but Helpshift is now out with what it says is the first AI specifically built and optimized for digital customer service.The San Francisco-based firm’s new SensAI is being used to power three new offerings for its conversational platform, which is centered around a knowledge base of brand info plus text-based messaging communications with customers.Founded in 2011, Helpshift provides B2C customer support for mobile web, apps and website chat. Although the platform has previously used AI on a limited basis, this is its first widespread use.[Read the full article on MarTech Today.]The post Helpshift unveils AI designed for customer service appeared first on Marketing Land.

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eBay has found a way to take advantage of the UK’s fickle springtime weather.Last week, the giant online marketplace launched a Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) campaign there, featuring advertising messages that change according to weather conditions.Three types of weather conditions spark different kinds of creative variations. If it’s sunny, for instance, visual ads for gardening products might be shown. Rainy might result in messages about rain gear, and general/cloudy conditions can prompt ads for indoor do-it-yourself projects.[Read the full article on MarTech Today.]The post In eBay’s DOOH campaign, the weather plays a starring role appeared first on Marketing Land.

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I have a growing concern about fake online content.Last year, I wrote an article about eight different types of fake content and how the epidemic would hurt local search. It seems the problem is continuing to get worse, much worse.Perhaps the most outrageous example of fake online content in the past year is the story of the Shed at Dulwich (the Shed). While this specific example itself doesn’t have much long-term impact on the industry, it does aptly illustrate how deeply both consumers and online sources can be so easily conned.The Shed was an experiment dreamt up by Oobah Butler, who had previously been making ends meet as a “reviews-for-hire” writer. Based on his experience, he wanted to test how far he could fake it online by posting made-up reviews of a completely imaginary venue — a restaurant called the Shed at Dulwich.The name came from the disarray in his backyard and the pictures on his website were of dishes thrown together from common household items and his own body par…

In my previous column, I took a look at the options, intricacies and best practices for international SEO. In this article, I want to build on those lessons and detail how to tackle multilingual websites.As with international search engine optimization (SEO), there are many scenarios, and the right solution depends very much on the specific situation. Do you target one country where users speak multiple languages? Do you target specific languages around the world? Do you want a specific language for a specific country? In many cases, the solution will be a combination of all of these.Combining international and multilingual SEO can get complicated. Mistakes can cost time and money while slowing your progress towards your SEO objectives. But knowledge is power, and ensuring you understand the options is key to success.Creating content in multiple languagesThere are a few common scenarios when creating content in multiple languages. Determining which of these matches your situation is k…

Search volume is the foundation of most successful AdWords campaigns. After all, if you’re bidding on a keyword that gets 10,000 searches per month and you have a 5 percent click-through rate, a 10 percent conversion rate and a 20 percent close rate, you can expect to close 10 sales a month from that keyword.Better ad copy, landing pages or sales tactics can improve those numbers, but at the end of the day, you only have 10,000 searches per month to work with.Now, if your keyword happens to get thousands of searches per month, that’s not a problem, but what if the keywords you want (or need) to target only get 100 searches per month?All of a sudden, a 5 percent click-through rate, 10 percent conversion rate and 20 percent close rate means you get one sale from that keyword… a year.And that’s if you’re running an effective campaign on a keyword that gets a hundred searches a month. In many low-search volume campaigns, you could be running an unproven campaign on keywords with fewer tha…

If there’s one thing that bugs me about link-building work, it’s the idea that only one type of link is going to work, and anything else is going to cripple the site. Or…The client won’t accept a nofollow or an image link or the anchor text isn’t what they specified.Guest posts will get you penalized.Directory links are useless.It goes on and on.Most of the time, I go along with it after explaining risks and rewards, but I need to be a better educator and advocate for a broad link profile.Why?When I look at healthy link profiles for sites ranking well, the first thing I notice is the wide array of link types there. Link variety is good!Every webmaster has a different opinion how links should be built:[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]The post Stop being a link snob and saying no to certain links appeared first on Marketing Land.

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If you’re in the digital marketing industry, you know podcasts are HOT. Whether you’ve started your own or are a regular podcast listener, podcasting is a medium all digital marketers should pay attention to.According to Edison Research, 58 percent of listeners spend one to five hours each week listening to podcasts.Surprised at the high number? You shouldn’t be. We live in a very busy and hectic world. People are using every minute they can to multitask and learn so they stay competitive.Listening to podcasts allows people to learn and catch up on things they’re interested in while sitting on the couch, working out, driving or on the go.Here are some other podcast statistics from Edison Research that deserve your attention.[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]The post The power of podcasting: How to boost your reputation and search engine rankings appeared first on Marketing Land.

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When you are advertising and ready to hire top talent, it’s important to have a strong, consistent and well-optimized presence on job posting sites, high-traffic job boards and LinkedIn.If a job candidate is interested in your company, he or she will immediately go into research mode and scour the Internet for more information. You should expect job seekers to visit your company website to learn more about leadership, culture, and other available jobs in their field.For employers and site owners, you can improve the job seeking experience as well as your company’s recruitment pipeline by building out and optimizing a careers section on your site.Google for JobsWith Google for Jobs, Google prioritized helping both job seekers and employers by enhancing the search engine results page (SERP) user experience (UX) for job postings.Now, job postings will have more prominent placement in SERPs for job-related search queries. You will see SERP features like a company logo, reviews, ratings, j…

Want to know a secret?If you are making money from Amazon associate program (Amazon affiliate), this article is gold for you.But let me give you the background first.In my earlier blog post, I talked about a not so well known feature of the Amazon affiliate program which is that the Amazon Associates program is country-specific.Amazon doesn’t pay you for a sale which is made in stores in a different country other than the one you have signed up for.Well, after learning about this in 2016, I started testing two solutions for this:Easy Azongeni.usAfter testing both the above, I decided to use geni.us given the pricing was simple and the technology robust. In my last blog post, I talked about geni.us service in detail. Now it’s time to share some stats with you.Update: Recently Amazon launched Onelink program which offers all the features of geni.us and its free. However, you can use this article to understand the benefit of this concept and use Onelink moving forward. I will do a detail…