Marketing Google

I just spent a lovely weekend on Catalina Island off the Pacific coast near Los Angeles. When I flew home, a miracle happened. My drive from DFW to my house takes 45 minutes in good traffic. This time, at peak Dallas nightmare rush-hour time, it took …. 45 minutes. Did the traffic gods part the lanes for me?More likely, lots of people were gone on vacation.This is the time of year when every work shift feels like the graveyard shift. Your micromanaging bosses and executives are somewhere deep in the land without cell service (I hope). The frantic pace has slowed down, and the folks who just got from time off aren’t in a work frame of mind yet.I have three ways to spend this down time will help you run a more effective email marketing program and set yourself up for the last four months of the year.Why now? Because you have the time, and nobody’s looking.1. Check your program, check your metrics, check yourselfYou have six months of email performance data now. Like every other marketer…

As regular users of the Internet, we all want what we’re searching for to appear instantly. Therefore, in 2010, Google released the PageRank algorithm, which made website and page speed a high ranking factor for crawlers to assess and rank in search engine results pages.53% of mobile site visits leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load.Throughout the digital years, a distinct correlation has become evident between page speed and visitor retention and bounce rate. And with visitor retention becoming increasingly important in terms of meeting revenue goals and other annual targets, page speed is one of the most vital focus areas for customer experience today.Performing page speed tests should be a high priority (if it isn’t already) for your website. Looking at it from Google’s perspective, if your pages take an age to load, the search engine is not able to crawl as many pages, which results in Google using its crawl budget ineffectively, potentially negatively impactin…

With Microsoft Powerpoint, you can easily convert your presentation decks into high-resolution video files for uploading to YouTube and other video sites. The exported video files can also include all the voice narrations and background audio that you may have included in the presentation.Google Slides doesn’t offer an option to save presentations as videos but there’s a new add-on in town – Creator Studio – that brings new export capabilities to your Google Slides. With Creator Studio, you’ll be able to save your decks as animated GIFs, image sequences and HD video (with audio). Watch the video tutorialfor a quick introduction.To get started, go to creatorstudio.dev and install the Google Slides add-on. It requests certain permissions as it has to read the presentation images for converting them into movies. It also requires access to creating files in your Google Drive since the exported files are automatically uploaded to your Google Drive.Once the add-on is installed, open any deck…

Last week, I shared with you the brand new SMX East agenda… a firehose of 70+ sessions covering all aspects of integrated search marketing: SEO, SEM, agency operations and management, local search marketing for multi-location brands, CRO, analytics, attribution, content, video, mobile, tools, and beyond.But I know that for some of you… 70+ sessions (in two days?!) isn’t enough.SMX Workshops were designed for over-achievers like you. These immersive training seminars, hosted by recognized industry experts, are the perfect way to kick off your week in NYC.Join us on Tuesday, November 12 from 9:00am – 5:00pm for your choice of full-day, in-depth workshops including:Advanced SEO TrainingSpend a day with a master SEO and come away with cutting-edge SEO techniques – tackling RankBrain, voice search, AMP, featured snippets, and more – that can help raise your rankings and visibility in search engines. Learn more here.Workshop Presenter: Bruce ClayAdvanced Google Ads TrainingEven with all of …

Email analytics and deliverability platform 250ok released a new addition to its email optimization toolset: email validation capabilities. 250ok Validation and help marketers identify active, valid email addresses on their lists.Related:This is why marketers must take email deliverability seriouslyIn testing 250ok Validation, against competing validations tools, 250ok discovered data suggesting other vendors are underreporting valid addresses, leading marketers to misclassify them as undeliverable. This leaves marketers at risk of suppressing misidentified subscribers from their campaigns. The outcomes of this could range from a decrease in open rates and engagements to a gradual decrease in marketing ROI.Why we should careThe email marketing process doesn’t end once an email is sent; we need to track and analyze performance in order to improve future campaigns or practices. One of the most frustrating things about email metrics, however, is that most email service providers (ESPs) p…

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Google revealed a number of Pixel 4 features Monday, including facial recognition and hands-free controls thanks to Google’s Soli project. In a blog post, Google detailed how Pixel 4 owners will be able to use Motion Sense to execute commands like skipping songs and snoozing alarms by waving their hand. The blog post implied that this is only the beginning of Motion Sense, and that we can expect to see updates to new Pixel releases in the future. It also described its new approach to facial recognition technology, data privacy and security.Why we should careWe’ve all witnessed and experienced how new and emerging technologies influence consumer behavior; from liking posts on social networks to how we interact with brands across digital properties, the past decade has seen a tremendous shift in how technology drives consumers.The Pixel 4’s Motion Sense feature uses a miniature radar located on the phone that will sense when its owner is nearby and be able to recognize hand gestures. If…

The proliferation of digital channels and devices can make it difficult for B2B marketers to accurately target prospects with the right messages, on the right devices, at the right times. Faced with these challenging market dynamics and increasing ROI pressure, B2B marketers at companies of all sizes can gain benefits from a marketing automation platform.MarTech Today’s “B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide” examines the market for B2B marketing automation software platforms and the considerations involved in implementing this software in your business. This 48-page report is your source for the latest trends, opportunities and challenges facing the market for B2B marketing automation software tools as seen by industry leaders, vendors and their customers.Also included in the report are profiles of the 14 leading marketing automation vendors, pricing information, capabilities comparisons and recommended steps for evaluating and purchasing.If you are a marketer lookin…

I contemplated the theme for this mid-summer article while I was prepping my beach reading list, looking for easy, engaging and entertaining material to replenish my brain while my body rests waterside. This is important work for me as research has proven that we need to take mental-breaks to avoid the pitfalls of over-thinking. Thinking too much, it seems, makes us dumber and less productive.Over-thinking advertising can also make brands dumber and their communications less effective. We know from behavioral science that people appreciate stimuli that are easily processed by the brain, yet we too often ask consumers to decode complex messages. Top-of-mind awareness (which drives salience) is arguably the most important role of advertising, yet we too often distract audiences by packing in too much information; breaking-through the ad-clutter to even get noticed is harder than ever, yet we too often fail to offer consumers anything worth paying attention to.In the spirit of summer rea…

Link building is hard. Anyone who says otherwise has either not done much of it, or they’re trying to sell you a course.To make it even harder, there are a million supposed link building hacks and tactics on the web – and most of them are pretty bad. A quick Google search will net you a treasure trove of stale email templates and tactics like link reclamation that either trick you into believing them because they rank well in search, or make you wonder why articles like that don’t have an expiration date.When it comes down to brass tacks, there are really only two broad strategies for increasing your link building effectiveness, both of which come from a framework using BJ Fogg’s behavior model:Increase motivation (make them want to link to you more) orDecrease friction (make it easier for them to link to you)Link building is a critical part of SEO, whether your website is small or large.Here’s how you can use BJ Fogg’s framework to really improve your link building strategies – despi…

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Third party data is increasingly under threat. As one case-in-point, a bill introduced this week would amend the New York City administrative code to prohibit the transfer or sharing of consumer location data with third parties within city limits.In other words, the party that collects or captures the data, even with opt-in consent or not, could not share it with another entity. It appears to be a very bright line.Would not impact first parties. The proposed law would not eliminate use of location for ad targeting and offline attribution; first party platforms and publishers could still do these things. But it would impact data brokers, MarTech platforms, agencies and the programmatic ecosystem, which relies on the free flow of third party data.The bill is explicitly directed at telecom companies and mobile apps that capture or have access to user location. It’s designed to protect consumers who may not be aware their location data is being shared. But this law would appear to not mak…

Invoca, an AI-powered call tracking platform, published their Call Tracking Study Guide in March of this year. The in-depth guide demystifies call tracking technology and reviews how call tracking tools help marketers connect digital campaign data to inbound customer phone calls.Call tracking is a powerful way for marketers to understand exactly where phone calls are coming from with granularity that, for the most robust tools, can extend down to the keyword level. This data helps reveal what platforms, publishers, keywords, and channels drive high-intent customers to call and can help marketers create a more informed media allocation strategy. Content produced in collaboration withInvoca.Call tracking 101: A brief introductionInvoca uses a snippet of JavaScript code placed on your website to track calls. After the code snippet is placed on the landing page, it swaps out your standard business phone number with a trackable, dynamic phone number which is unique to each website visitor.…

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Fraudulent emails account for a growing number of cybercrimes each year, and email technology companies are joining together to fight the unwavering risk to their customers. Next year, Google will join the growing Brand Indicators for Messaging Identification (BIMI) initiative, an industry-wide effort to combat email security issues by enabling email inboxes to display sender-designated logos for authenticated messages.Why we should careFor marketers, in particular, email is all about trust. BIMI provides a standard for a more secure global framework that will enable inboxes to display sender-designated logos.Marketers will be able to ensure that our subscribers know that an email is coming from our brand. The multi-step verification process will help end-users recognize emails from verified brands — and well as identify phishing attempts from bad actors.BIMI relies on authentication processes to verify senders. A brand’s email must be authenticated through the Domain-based Message Au…

While there are many extensions that can supplement your online presence and improve your on-page SEO performance, some happen to be very underrated but offer a lot more than others.On-page SEO is an integral part of online marketing. Over time, on-page SEO has been hammered and defined into several key instruments of the digital marketing toolbox that helps brands achieve their business goals on search engines. Without practicing on-page SEO, your brand may not rank on search engines effectively and fail to achieve the competitive edge it needs to get online exposure, generate leads, and earn revenue.In this article, we will share five extensions to boost on-page SEO. These would directly complement your on-page SEO strategy, help you rack-up rankings, track your website’s performance and measure the core metrics of your online progress.By using these five extensions you can build a stronger digital footprint on Google and significantly increase the efficiency in your marketing opera…

The SMX East agenda is live and ready for you to explore!This year’s show is a content firehose … 70+ tactic-rich sessions covering the topics serious search marketers like you and me need to know:SEOSEMAnalyticsContentVideoSocialLocal Search Marketing for Multi-Location Brands (new!)Agency Operations & Management (new!)Check out the complete agenda and meet me in NYC this November 13-14 for an unrivaled training experience. You’ll access all sessions, keynotes with Google, Microsoft Advertising, and Rand Fishkin, exclusive networking events, dozens of market-defining exhibitors, the event mobile app, tasty meals and refreshments, plus complimentary WiFi throughout the venue.Bonus! The Hudson Yards neighborhood surrounding the Javits Convention Center has undergone a major makeover and is now cooler — and more convenient — than ever. The official SMX hotel (a brand new, just-opened Marriott), fabulous restaurants, local attractions, and subway access are just steps away. Bye-bye, …

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When you have a smaller digital marketing budget, you might think that testing should take a backseat to efficiency and driving conversions – but that would be short-sighted.In order to stay competitive, continue to take up more market share, and keep up with the changing digital space it’s important to always be testing.That said, you can test almost anything, but don’t get bogged down with your options. With a small budget, it’s important to focus on one or two tests at a time to make sure that you can reach statistical significance relatively quickly.In this post, we’ll focus on some of the most important tests you can run:1. Ad copy testing2. Landing page testing3. Testing new engines and ad formatsAd copy testing Ad copy testing can do more than lead to more efficient ads. It can be a very effective tool for testing messaging that you can apply to other marketing efforts like your website, emails, and other digital marketing collaterals. Testing different messages can also help t…