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Aside from perhaps the most unfortunate acronym in the industry, do single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) have a role in modern paid search?

For many years, single keyword ad groups were the hallmark of good PPC strategy. And aside from a slight feeling of unease when saying the word, SKAGs appeared to offer much.

In simple words, this was the practice of placing single keywords in an ad group, instead of a small group of closely themed keywords. This provided the advertiser with increased control, the ad copy could contain the exact keyword, maximizing relevance and the quality score. Match types and negative keywords could be used to ensure queries were matched to your keyword exactly, providing precise control over visibility. And finally, you could easily understand the true performance of an individual keyword.

Complexity at scale

Arguably, however, the benefits of this approach were incremental when implemented in an otherwise well organized and maintained PPC account structure. In fact, the benefits could be outweighed by the challenges they posed.

The complexity of the SKAG structure, when operated at scale, could jeopardize accuracy. For example, if you were operating a standard structure with 1,500 keywords, averaging three ads and five keywords per ad group, you would be managing 900 individual ads. Convert this to a SKAG structure, maintaining three ads per ad group, and that number jumps to 4,500 individual creatives to be maintained.

Not only that, but the application of cross-matching negatives to stream traffic accurately across this number of ad groups makes it significantly more complex. This is just a simplified example with a modest number of keywords, retailers with a large product range may operate keywords in the tens of thousands.

Operating SKAGs at scale increases the chances of inadvertently blocking traffic to keywords, as well as poor quality or inappropriate ad copy being overlooked. Both of which would have negative impacts on performance. To mitigate against this, increased amounts of “housekeeping” work is required, either detracting from more strategic work to develop and grow the activity or increasing costs to allow for the extra resource required.

So, are the merits of the SKAG structure outweighed by the effort to maintain them? Or even worse, and perhaps ironically, do they increase the risk of inaccuracy?

Are SKAGs still relevant?

Putting this question aside, there is a question over whether SKAG is even appropriate in contemporary PPC accounts.

In a greatly discussed recent article, Emma Franks of Hanapin Marketing makes the case that SKAGs no longer serve as a best practice for paid search. Her argument is centered around the evolution of Google’s match types, which are shifting to better match keywords to the user’s intent, rather than simply matching words to the query.

Source: Unbounce

This means that a single keyword could effectively be matched to many variations, all of which are relevant and have the same intent. The below example of how this works is taken directly from Google Ads Help pages:

Source: Google Inside AdWords

This level of variant matching then implies that to truly achieve the goal of the SKAG structure, which is, complete control over what queries match and the creative that is served, the extent of negative cross-matching required would become too taxing and hard to achieve.

Emma’s summary of the potential issues was

• Multiple ad groups that address the same keyword intent
• Duplicated ad copy that is no longer customizable for each individual search
• Cross-contamination among keyword search terms for multiple ad groups
• The potential for missed impressions/clicks/conversions/revenue due to an overabundance of negative keywords
• Wasted time spent on keyword additions and exclusions, ad copy testing and revisions further topped with stress about new Google updates

Essentially, as Google increasingly takes benefit of machine learning to match ads better with the user’s intent, the SKAG structure offers advertisers an increasingly more difficult way to grab that control back from Google and control it manually. But, in an industry that is being driven by automation, machine learning, and AI, can a manually-controlled account ever keep up?

Is there a middle ground?

So then, SKAGs are a challenge to manage at scale and essentially pull in the opposite direction to the way in which Google is developing the Google Ads offering. In this case, they don’t have a place in a well-managed PPC campaign, right? Well, not entirely.

Where individual keywords command a very high share of the overall search volume, placing those terms in ad groups all of their own can offer greater flexibility. You get the control over the matching landing pages and copy SKAGs provide but at an infinitely more manageable scale. But you can also apply specific audience targeting, demographic and device modifiers and, day-parting at an effective keyword level. This provides a lot more levers for optimization of such high-volume terms. Take things a step further and place each SKAG in its own campaign and you now can apply specific budgets, the ad rotations, and delivery methods for that keyword, as well as its very own bid strategy.

Once again, this comes back to an assessment of “effort vs reward”. To be truly worth it and indeed to make automated features such as bid strategies work, the individual keywords themselves must drive a high volume.

A blended approach

So in the war of opinions on this subject (refer back to the comments section of Emma Franks article!), there is an answer to the entire “mixed feelings scenario” for SKAGs. Yes, SKAGs do have a role in effective PPC activity, but they should be used strategically alongside other strategies to maximize performance.

High-volume hero or brand terms can benefit from the SKAG structure to increase the levels of control and flexibility at a keyword level for the terms that drive the largest proportion of your traffic. Using traditional, tightly themed ad groups for the bulk of your remaining inventory will ensure more manageability while it continues to deliver performance. Finally, tools such as Dynamic Search Ads can offer a “catch-all” strategy to capture new and emerging search terms when deployed correctly.

An approach such as this provides maximum control over the terms that drive the most performance, whilst also allowing advertisers to reap the benefits of machine learning and automation to efficiently and effectively manage the body and long tail terms.

Advertisers are all different, so inevitably, each paid search structure will be unique as a result. The key, as ever, is finding the right balance that works for you.

Jon Crowe is Director of PPC Strategy at a global digital marketing agency, Croud.

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There was a lot of hand wringing leading up to last May’s implementation of GDPR. But since that time there have been few fines or enforcement actions, with the notable exception of a $57 million fine imposed on Google and a new investigation in Ireland. This raises the question: is GDPR is the current digital generation’s “Y2K” moment — a highly anticipated event with little real-world impact.

Limited impact on consumers

From a consumer standpoint, GDPR has had not had a significant effect on people’s daily lives. According to survey data from TrustArc and Ipsos, 66% of more than 2,000 UK consumers said they didn’t know or disagreed with the idea that GDPR been effective. And only a tiny minority had exercised any of their personal data rights under GDPR.

Another UK-based survey from BounceX found that while 71% of UK consumers were familiar with the term GDPR and 56% supported the regulation, most consumers had not changed their online activities in its wake. Further, a global survey from Ogury, of more than 287,000 consumers, found only 8% of consumers had a better understanding of how companies use their data since GDPR.

Source: Ogury (n=287,000 global consumers)

While this was a global sample and one would not expect equal awareness of GDPR across all regions, “In European countries where GDPR has been in effect for more than a year now . . . 39% of European respondents were unaware of what GDPR is at all.”

Marketers more cautious

But what about marketers and their day to day activities; how have those changed? Here there was a more pronounced impact on daily life. However, there was also still a good deal of uncertainty.

According to Darren Abernethy, Senior Counsel, TrustArc, “GDPR forced marketers and brands–including many with no offices or employees in the EU–to evaluate whether their pre-GDPR contacts and leads were still adequate as-is for today’s use.” He added, “Because of GDPR’s potentially global reach, many marketers continue to work through using updated EU vs. non-EU campaign parameters, different flags within databases and their CMS, and potentially different website cookie/tracker load experiences. It has also led to a greater wariness in relying on bought-in lists without strong contractual guarantees and consent audit trails to support them.”

Paul Harrison, CTO at Simpli.fi said, “Many targeting methods that are threatening to PII can no longer be employed. Advertisers, brands, marketers, etc. cannot touch data or media that does not have the appropriate consent strings attached, forcing them to think differently and implement new ways of targeting and connecting with consumers.” He further explained, “User requests that come in can be difficult to manage as people do not want any advertising versus not just tracking. Engineering efforts take much longer to meet compliance, not to mention the additional costs associated with the day to day requests and management of compliance and audits.”

Benoit Grouchko, CEO of Teemo, pointed to “privacy by design” as a significant shift in the wake of GDPR. “Everyone now thinks about potential impacts on privacy for any data-driven product: how users would feel about it, potential risks, how to limit impact on privacy, etc. This is a significant change in mindset and strategy. Whenever data is involved in a marketing plan, marketers make sure they know where this data comes from, how it has been collected and consent has been given, whether it’s compliant, etc.”

Johnny Ryan, Chief Policy and Industry Relations Officer at Brave Software, told us that most of the changes that he anticipated hadn’t happened yet. “Most marketers are not aware of the risk that RTB companies expose them to,” he said. “Change has yet to happen . . . we are at the very start of the application of the GDPR.”

Google, Facebook and unintended consequences

One popular perception is that a GDPR “unintended consequence” is the strengthening of Google and Facebook. This is arguably the opposite of what the EU wanted to accomplish with GDPR.

Teemo’s Grouchko said that it “has strengthened Google and Facebook vs. smaller competitors as a side effect indeed. Google and Facebook have so many touchpoints with their users that they can find ways to have them accept pretty much anything. For smaller publishers or vendors, having much fewer interactions with users makes it harder to gather the same level of consent, and as a consequent to remain competitive from a data standpoint.”

Simpli.fi’s Harrison generally agreed. “The big marketers ended up with more market share and less competition,” he argued. And TrustArc’s Abernethy opined, “The so-called ‘walled-gardens’ have enjoyed the benefits of owning the first-party relationships with consumers and setting the terms of transparency disclosures and consents for processing purposes.”

Market-share data also seem to support the idea that Google and Facebook’s relative competitive positions in Europe are stronger than they were before GDPR. However, Brave’s Ryan disagreed with the others’ assessments.

“Let me dispel this idea that Google and Facebook benefit from the GDPR in the medium term. The GDPR is risk-based. That means Big Tech that creates big risks get big scrutiny and potentially big penalties. Regulators are only starting to enforce the GDPR and it will take years to have full effect. But already, things are looking bleak for our colleagues at Google and Facebook. Their year-over-year growth declined steadily in Europe since the GDPR – despite a buoyant advertising market,” he argued.

It’s three a.m. You’re uneasy, but you don’t really know why. You’ve recently audited your accounts, you’re on top of your routine maintenance, and you’re actively testing ways to increase efficiency and grow your account.

You’ve done your due diligence, so why the nagging feeling that something’s wrong? Since you can’t sleep, you decide to check up on your ads in the wild and run a live search to put yourself at ease. That’s when it hits you. Your ads are showing with extensions you didn’t specify. Even worse, some of them don’t even really make sense.

What are these, and where did they come from?

By default, campaigns on Google and Bing are automatically eligible to show dynamic extensions, ranging from site links, callouts, structured snippets, call extensions, and app extensions. Additionally, Bing offers “Dynamic Ad Enhancements” which are anything from dynamically generated ad description texts to badges highlighting promos and deals.

The content of these extensions is based on your landing pages, ad copy, information from your domain, your Google My Business profile, and third-parties in the case of reviews and seller ratings. The exact logic Google and Bing Ads use to determine when automated extensions show is a closely held secret, as is the content of those extensions themselves. Only performance metrics associated with the type of extension is viewable in each interface.

Depending on how your site is indexed and crawled by each platform, wildly different data is available to populate these extensions. That could lead to showing outdated information or content from irrelevant pages with your ad. Seeing an extension driving particularly strong performance without being able to see what that extension actually is is incredibly frustrating, but seeing an irrelevant or outdated addition to your ads on a live search is even worse. Even more so if your client happens across one before you do.

While each platform is heavily invested in improving overall user experience and improving ad experiences, automated extensions are far from perfect. Further, SEM managers frequently need to maintain control over ad messaging for legal compliance and client needs. Some examples would be adherence to branding guidelines, highlighting specific events and promotions, and using particular approved language. These make automated extensions a non-starter regardless of performance.

Measuring the impact of extensions

Both Google and Bing warn against the potential negative performance impact of opting out of automated extensions. If your account doesn’t have specific branding or compliance requirements, you should gauge automated extension performance against your existing extensions before opting out of anything. There will be clear winners and losers in every account. As automated extensions are frequently changing, their performance is likely to ebb and flow. Hopefully, dynamic extensions that don’t resonate with users get weeded out of the mix by the ad platforms.

When you find something that works, it’s nice to be able to build on it. Similarly, if you find something doesn’t work, it’s a great time to stop doing that. Unfortunately, both ad systems seem determined to make certain extensions work, even when their performance doesn’t merit keeping them around. And, since both the underpinning logic behind automated extensions serving as well as the content of those extensions is a mystery, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to get a good handle on what exactly is driving those decisions.

To quantify the impact extensions have on your account in Google, analyze ad performance segmented by click type to determine which part of an ad unit users are interacting with. To determine how individual extensions perform on the ad level, segment your data with This Extension vs Other. In Bing, there are multiple ad extension reports available within the Reports tab just not directly in the interface.

How do I get rid of these?

To manage your dynamic extensions in the Google Ads interface, click into the “Ads & Extensions” tab, and then click into the “Advanced Options” menu on the far right-hand side of the screen.

In the Bing Ads interface, you’ll need to click into the “Ad Extensions” tab and select the dropdown menu to choose “Automated Extensions Report”. From there, the “Manage Automated Extensions” button is clearly accessible.

As soon as you get to the appropriate section in both platforms, opting out of undesired extension types is as simple as checking a few boxes.

As your settings are updated in the interface, they should roll live in the same amount of time it takes any other change, which is usually within 15 minutes.

As always, performing a periodic live search to verify if ads are serving appropriately is a life saver. Make a note on your calendar to include checking your automated extensions settings periodically when you move through your deeper account health checks.

Now that you’ve regained some control over your account, you can breathe a sigh of relief, and look forward to restful slumbers. But when you wake in the morning, we think that’d be a great time to audit your current extensions. Make sure everything serving is timely and applied to the appropriate campaigns. Ad extensions are key to boosting the success of your campaigns, assuming they’re strategically implemented. While automated extensions show some promising results, they’re far from perfect just yet.

Blake Lucas is an SEM Coordinator at PMG.

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More brands are adopting an experience-driven approach to meet consumer expectations, and martech platforms are prioritizing experience in their development strategies. Companies are also adopting martech to help manage the complexities of privacy regulations. GDPR and the upcoming CCPA are designed to restrict how companies collect and use consumer data. As we come upon the one-year anniversary of GDPR, companies continue to grapple with making the most of their data to customize their customers’ experiences in a compliant manner.

Closing the experience vs. expectation gap

Customer Data Platforms (CDP) such as Lytics, SAP’s Customer Data Cloud and Segment have aggressively entered the martech space over the past two years, offering a variety of solutions for importing customer data from multiple sources to unify customer records.  The data is integrated into the platform, cleaned and organized and gives marketers a better view of their customers. Additionally, CDPs allow marketers to externally activate their data by pushing it out to other martech platforms, enabling the delivery of highly-personalized, seamless, targeted digital experiences.

According to Ben Jackson, general manager of SAP’s Customer Data Cloud, we’re far from creating the seamless experiences that customers expect. Many organizations struggle to keep up with managing the volume of data they have and how to apply it to create meaningful experience-driven campaigns. Add in the intricacies of managing data in compliance with laws like GDPR and CCPA, and digital marketing efforts could be easily disrupted.

In addition to the new laws, Jackson believes a common challenge that organizations face is an unacknowledged disparity between consumer expectations and what a brand actually delivers.

“There is a gap between the experience organizations think they are delivering and what customers and consumers actually feel they are receiving from those organizations,” said Jackson. “When we look at the experience economy, organizations will find it hard to compete on product and pricing – the traditional methods of competing — they will instead have to compete with the experience level.”

Capitalize on regulation to gain competitive advantage

Jackson indicated that organizations should use GDPR and CCPA to their competitive advantage, and incorporate the laws into the framework of best practices. Consent should be a standard for organizations regardless of where they are located — and should allow your customers to control their data. Consent management tools and many CDPs support consent mechanisms for customers to control their data.

“The customer has control to access, delete accounts, or ask to be forgotten,”  Jackson said. Giving customers access to their own data gives them more control over their digital experiences.

CCPA is coming. Are you ready?

Mana Ionescu, founder and chief executive officer of Lightspan Digital, a digital agency that provides strategic guidance to its clients, has noticed the topics of experience-driven marketing and CCPA and GDPR coming into play more frequently. Ionescu points to a knowledge gap around these topics and their effects on US-based businesses.

“A lack of understanding of how vendors have adapted to new regulations, coupled with CCPA going into effect in January 2020 has caused businesses to struggle with these issues,” she said. “For example, a retailer in Chicago with an e-commerce store that doesn’t meet CCPA criteria, may not realize they are affected by CCPA because they operate exclusively in Illinois. However, the CCPA covers California residents who make transactions outside of the state as well.”

With CCPA just around the corner — the law goes into effect in January 2020 —  marketers should be leading conversations at their companies about how the CCPA will impact their data collection processes and how compliance can help deliver better, more seamless digital experiences for their customers.

Are you putting enough thought into your meta description tags? If not, you’re missing out. Yes, your meta description tag should describe your post but many companies and websites will go well beyond that to carefully craft descriptions that can massively increase their click-through rate from search engines.

You can do the same. We’re going to take a look at nine types of meta descriptions that can help you get more clicks.

For each, I’ll walk you through an example, showing you what’s working well with that meta description tag and what it could potentially be doing better.

You don’t have to pick just one of these methods to use. You might want to focus on a particular angle, like writing a meta description tag that’s “call-to-action” focused but add in something else too like power words or a USP.

Here are nine different ways you can approach meta description tags:

1. Clarity focused

Meta description tags should be clear, letting the searcher know what they’re going to get. After all, if you confuse people, they’re not going to click through.

What works well 

This description takes a “what it says on the tin” approach in describing the website. It’s very clear about who the target audience is – “nerds and average Joes” rather than, for instance, hardcore bodybuilders. It also clearly and succinctly explains the benefits the site can provide for the searcher with the description line, “lose weight, get stronger, live better”.

Room for improvement

The title tag and meta description are repetitive. The second part of the title tag (after the colon) is the same as the second sentence in the meta description. It would read better if these were both different, this would also provide room to give more information or benefits.

The title tag also appears to be targeting generic keywords like “lose weight”, so it might be better to focus on more specific keywords here.

2. USP focused

A “USP” is a company’s “unique selling point”. It’s something that distinguishes their product from all the other similar products out there. The USP could be based on added value, quality, service, speed, advanced features, or almost anything else that acts as a differentiator.

Leading with a USP can work particularly work well for site homepages, where the meta description might otherwise seem rather generic.

What works well

Zappos is well known for its outstanding customer support and in the United States, it’s often considered the gold standard for online businesses. Here, Zappos communicates this through several strong USPs like “free shipping and returns”, “1000s of styles”, “365-day return policy”, and “24/7 customer service”.

The word “legendary” helps emphasize how Zappos is famed for its customer service and makes them sound a bit more epic. (See point six for more on using power words in your meta description tag.)

Room for improvement

This is a little picky, but all caps plus an exclamation point for “GET FREE SHIPPING & RETURNS!” comes across as a little shouty. It makes it seem like Zappos is trying a bit too hard, and doesn’t really convey quite the right feel for a large, professional company.

3. Question focused

People tend to turn to search engines because they’ve got a question so why not ask them one to help show that you know what they’re looking for?

This is my go-to type of meta description when I’m struggling with ideas and it works in almost all contexts.

What works well

If someone’s searching for SEO tips, asking if they’re interested in learning more about SEO will almost certainly get a positive response – they’re hardly going to say “nope”! The inclusion of “in 2019” helps suggest that the advice provided will be up-to-date, and “key trends” also ties in with this, indicating that this article will focus on tips that follow the latest thinking in the SEO industry.

Room for improvement

This is very picky, but the URL and the date stamp that appear immediately before this meta description tag both include “2018”. It’s obvious if you think about why this is the case. This post was published at the end of 2018, looking toward trends in 2019 but it could create a brief moment of confusion for a searcher who’s scanning through results quickly.

4. Purpose-focused

In some cases, it might be appropriate to emphasize a greater purpose behind your website, whether that’s a particular corporate value or a very practical way in which you make a difference. This can provide searchers with an additional incentive to check out your site rather than the others.

What works well

TOMS’ purpose is very clear from this short, easy-to-read description. They’re not driven by profit, but instead by helping others. Even if the searcher hasn’t heard of them and their “One for One” policy, it’s clear what it means from the context and the ® icon helps indicate that it’s a recognized and registered policy.

Room for improvement

It isn’t actually clear what TOMS sells. They started as a company selling shoes and matching each pair sold with a new pair given to a child in need. They now sell shoes and sunglasses, but you wouldn’t know that from the meta description tag above.

Note: Since the initial research for this post, TOMS has indeed updated their title tag to include shoes and sunglasses, but their meta description tag still uses the rather generic word “product”.

5. Call-to-action focused

Providing a call-to-action in your meta description tag might sound unusual, but for many products, it makes great sense. A clear call-to-action can prompt searchers not only to click but to also do something once they arrive on your site.

What works well

The call to action is both clear and repeated with statements like “Download the full version” and “Start your free trial today”. Having it at both the start and end of the meta description emphasizes it, especially with the word “free” being used in both places.

Room for improvement

The second sentence of the meta description tag is fairly generic, “photos, images, 3D artwork and more”. Given that Adobe is a huge brand, it might be worth it for them to try a little harder here to add more appeal to creative types, perhaps by using some stronger power words. (See point seven.)

6. Offer focused

This type of description combines a question or a point of curiosity with specific offers to entice readers to click through.

What works well

Starting with a question, as we’ve seen already, can help get an easy “yes”. The offers here sound impressively good, a four-star London hotel for £21 definitely sounds attractive. Including details of “The Savoy” makes it clear that KAYAK isn’t just for bargain hunters, though, and includes prestigious hotels too.

Room for improvement

I’m a bit of a stickler for making sure meta descriptions are within the limits and not truncated with the “…” at the end, but some SEOs feel this approach entices the user to click through. You might want to try using an SEO tool that helps check the meta content preview for length and strength, and see how it works for you.

It’s a small detail, but it seems a little odd that KAYAK has “3 stars from £33” and “4 stars+ from £21” – which is significantly cheaper. Obviously, there are lots of reasons this could be the case (e.g. location, special details) but it might cause a brief moment of confusion or even skepticism for the reader.

7. Power words focused

Focusing on power words like “incredible”, “powerful”, “secret”, “little-known”, and so on can help make your meta description tag stand out. Smart Blogger has an enormous list of power words here if you need some more suggestions. Be careful to not overdo it, though. If you stuff your keyword description with power words, it’ll look over-hyped.

What works well

The words “free” and “expert” both work well to grab attention. “Free” is always a good promise and “expert” implies that this advice will be well worth following and ensures that it will go beyond the basics. In the final sentence, “complete” is also a good power word as it suggests the searcher won’t need to turn to any other resource if they use this one.

Room for improvement

The sentence “Get your complete online career advice service” reads rather oddly. It reads more like it’s been optimized for search engines rather than for the people reading it. I’d suggest something like “We’re your complete online career advice service” or “Use our complete online career advice service” (and even those might sound a little over-optimized).

8. Special characters focused

Including symbols and emojis in your meta description tag can help it visually stand out in a sea of words. Depending on your brand, it could tie in well with your values. For example, if you want to come across as playful, or if you’re a brand aimed at teens you could focus on conveying the “fun” element.

Keep in mind that some searchers may react negatively to symbols and emojis, considering them unprofessional or even spammy.

What works well

The green boxes with check marks catch the searcher’s eye, drawing them to the listing. They help to highlight key points in the listing with “the best deals”, “the lowest prices”, and “great savings”.

Room for improvement

This meta description tag is written in a rather generic way probably because eBay has automatically created it according to a set of rules. The exact same description could be used for many other pages with just the words “Temporary Tattoos” changed, so it lacks relevance.

9. Solution-focused

One final approach to meta description tags is to focus on the solution or win that you’re providing for searchers. This type of meta description will promise something that the searcher will achieve through buying from the website or in some cases, simply from reading the content on a site.

What works well

This meta description tag starts with a question that searchers are very likely to say “yes” to. The question “Want to learn how to snowboard in a day?” offers a clear outcome for the reader and also brings in a USP with “the quickest training method” implying that it’s quicker than other similar companies.

Room for improvement

“Recreational standard” lacks clarity, and sounds rather like in-house lingo. Total beginners may not know what this really means, so it would be better to use language that their target audience will understand.

Meta descriptions can make or break how much SEO traffic you get. A great meta description tag will allow any page (including your homepage) to punch above its weight on Google, getting you more clicks through an increased-click through rate, potentially even a higher ranking.

Joe Williams is founder of Tribe SEO. He can be found on Twitter at @joetheseo.

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Customers know what brands have the capabilities to do, and they want brands to speak to them on a more personal level in their marketing messages. Now, people don’t just like seeing tailored emails – they’re beginning to expect it. That’s why personalization is one of the most effective ways to improve email conversions, but only if executed properly.

So how do you leverage customer data in your emails beyond just including their name in the subject line or sending them a product they’ve already looked at on your site? I spoke with Sterling Crain, Art Director at Yes Marketing, to learn how marketers should get more creative with the use of customer data in their email creative.

The easiest way to impress subscribers with personalization techniques is by using first-party data you already have, like loyalty program information, location and name. Here are three creative ways to use customer data to personalize email messages.

Display loyalty progress with status bars

Your loyalty program should always inform your email marketing strategy, especially since it’s an efficient way to continue gaining information about your customers. One way to excite customers about your loyalty program is to highlight their progress toward new rewards or loyalty tiers with status bar visuals.

Status bars display each member’s current activity and history along with a clear call to action for how to earn more points or rewards. Mixing in the different earning opportunities is a good way to create a rotation and add a little bit of variety. Additionally, make the path to access account information or purchase from email as seamless as possible so customers can easily accrue more points. For the biggest impact, make this the second or third module of each email.

Progress status bars also present opportunities to use data to promote personalized rewards for each customer. Rather than providing generic offers (e.g., a discount or free shipping) for everyone, spice up it up for your most loyal customers and tailor your offerings based on each shopper’s loyalty status. For example, if a customer needs to spend a certain amount to reach the next level, suggest items you know she’ll like (based on her purchase history) within the price range needed.

Integrate location-based data

If you have a brick-and-mortar store, use customer location data to strengthen shoppers’ connections with their local stores. Display the nearest location and hours to each customer based on email open time.

Beyond that, highlight events at your customers’ local stores (like Lululemon’s free yoga classes) to encourage customers actually to walk into your location. Local staff stories, brand partnerships and more can create a better sense of community and encourage purchases – both in stores and online. Sweeten the deal with local offers they can redeem in stores.

Not a brick and mortar? Use the local data to ingest fun or pertinent information in your email. Display brand relevant news, location facts, upcoming events, or weather as a way to speak to the subscriber’s surroundings.

Go beyond basic name personalization

Dale Carnegie once wrote, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language,” and this still rings true today. However, using name personalization in headlines and body copy is table stakes. Use subscribers’ first names within imagery to create a deeper connection to your products.

For example, a brand that offers the ability to monogram or personalize items might include the subscribers’ name within the image of the item promoted in the email. Consider a shoe company like Nike or Allbirds. A shopper who sees an image of shoes embroidered with her name might be more inclined to click through to browse or purchase the product than if she received images that included generic names. Or, a travel or entertainment company could show the subscriber’s name on an image of a ticket.

Looking to add more to your personalization repertoire? Consider new ways to collect data

If you’re in a slump with using basic customer data like name and location, consider going above and beyond to collect even more information about your subscribers. Use preference centers or gamification to get your customers to open up.

Preference centers

Everyone loves to talk about themselves – especially customers. Rather than guess at what your customers want based on activity alone, ask what they are interested in, what they love about your brand and what they want to hear from you. This is especially beneficial at the beginning of the customer relationship since you might know little about the customer other than his or her most recent browse behavior. For example, if a customer bought baby clothes as a gift, he or she probably doesn’t want to be targeted with children’s items all year long, but you might not know that unless you ask.

By driving customers to a preference center early in the relationship, you can provide an opportunity to show you’re listening to fine tune your data points and glean valuable zero-party insights so that you’re targeting them with the most effective content moving forward. Ask them about style preferences, hobbies, relevant product categories and more. The most effective preference centers even ask customers if they have children, spouses or other people they typically shop for.

Incentives and gamification

For inactive subscribers or those who are not as willing to share their interests and other information, encourage them to open up by interacting with them in fun ways. Some brands are finding success with incentives and gamification.

For example, a hospitality brand could incentivize subscribers to take a survey about their next vacation by offering a price for a free flight. Or a clothing retailer could ask subscribers to take a Buzzfeed-like survey about current trends in exchange for a percent off their next purchase. Going above and beyond, an athletic brand could allow customers to track miles ran against others and collect and redeem points. Or maybe a retailer could develop exclusive horoscopes for customers after collecting birthday information (that could be used to personalize email messages later on).

There’s no excuse in 2019 to send generic emails to all of your customers. Your subscriber’s lifestyle, interests and preferences are diverse, and they deserve to be treated as such. Continue to think creatively and use customer data to strengthen your emails and maximize engagement.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Few technologies promise to have an impact on the marketplace as tremendous as the blockchain technology. Though many professionals in the search marketing industry are still entirely unfamiliar with it. Blockchain’s disruptive nature is changing the nature of digital advertising regardless of whether some professionals hear about it or not, however, meaning it’s imperative to catch up on how this technology is changing the industry if you want to remain competitive.

Here are five of the major ways that blockchain will impact search marketing, and how advertising professionals are already beginning to master this interesting technology as it takes over.

1. Blockchain will make ads trustworthy

Consumers hate advertisements for a number of reasons, but by and large the most common is that they simply think advertising technology is untrustworthy. Nobody likes feeling as if they are being surveilled 24/7, and few people trust digital advertisements that appear on their screen enough to click on them, even if its contents are interesting. Blockchain technology promises to help this problem by securing the ad supply chain and making the marketing process more trustworthy to consumers everywhere.

Soon, thanks to blockchain services, ad tech vendors, buyers, and publishers will be more connected than ever before. Transparency, that is sorely needed in the ad supply chain can be brought about by the application of blockchain services, which thanks to their nature as ledgers are accessible to every party involved in a financial transaction. Website owners and ad vendors of the future will thus be able to operate with one another much more securely when making marketing arrangements.

2. Blockchain is delivering ad transparency

Elsewhere, blockchain services will be applied to make ads more transparent in an effort to win over the trust of skeptical consumers. Companies like Unilever are now teaming up with the likes of IBM on blockchain projects that they hope will disclose information about their business footprint and the way they collect and utilize information on customers. As these endeavors become more successful, others will be convinced to enlist the help of blockchain technology when it comes to ensuring a transparent advertising industry.

3. Blockchain is changing ad payments

Blockchain technology will also impact search marketing by disrupting the way that advertisement payments are facilitated. Companies like Amino Payments will soon be springing up left and right as the market for blockchain services grows larger and larger. These businesses will help mainstream blockchain-powered ad buys that make use of interesting smart contracts. While smart contracts are only just beginning to become an accepted part of the business world, they’ll be a mainstream facet of doing business sooner than we think, all thanks to the wonderful power of blockchain.

4. New advertising ecosystems are springing up

Some of the ways that blockchain is impacting search marketing are truly monumental. Blockchain technology is helping new advertising ecosystems get on their feet, for instance, with nascent companies like Adshares that are working hard to create a blockchain-based advertising ecosystem. As cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-powered technologies become more mainstream, we’ll see an increased need for blockchain-friendly payment systems.

Search marketing professionals in the future may have to rely on specialized expertise when navigating these new blockchain-powered advertising ecosystems that use a standard bitcoin wallet, which will become dominated by the IT-savvy. Programmatic advertising has already been upended time and again in recent years as the digital revolution brought about better computers, and the rise of blockchain could very well be the next stage in that cycle of disruption.

5. New blockchain browsers will reshape user experiences

Finally, the digital experience of the average consumer will be fundamentally changed by the introduction of blockchain browsers. Browser options like Brave are becoming more popular and grabbing headlines as they promise a privacy-respecting internet experience that features more honest and safer ad tech. Our current understandings of the marketing world may be entirely useless a few years from now when blockchain powered browsers off secure, personalized search options to users who are sick and tired of modern advertising gurus.

Search marketing is in for more than its fair share of disruptive changes in the forthcoming years, largely because of the advent of blockchain technology. Like any other technological innovation, blockchain will take time and investment to grow into its full potential, but it’s already quite clear that its development is jarring advertising professionals.

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MoPub, the Twitter-owned mobile ad exchange, announced Tuesday it is making impression-level revenue data available to publishers and has partnered with seven third-party attribution platforms to deliver the data. The platforms include Adjust, Appsflyer, Branch, Kochava, Singular, SOOMLA and Tenjin.

The impression-level revenue data will be delivered in real-time once an ad impression is triggered and will include a variety of data fields, such as the demand source, ad placement, currency and country information.

Why we should care

This granular data will give mobile app publishers deeper insight into user acquisition campaign performance. MoPub said publishers will have the flexibility to process the data themselves, or send it through one of the seven third-party platform  partners that has access to the data via an integration with MoPub (versus having to create a new API).

“We are extremely excited about the level of granularity and precision the impression-level revenue data from MoPub provides,” said Scott Koenigsberg, SVP of product for the social game development company Zynga, “With a more accurate and precise view of the ad revenue across each user and campaigns, we are able to spend more effectively and efficiently across different marketing channels and double down on what works.”

MoPub’s impression-level revenue data benefits any app developer aiming to monetize their app with ads and in-app purchases. The added value of the third-party integrations will make it easier for publishers who are already using those platforms to analyze the data — giving them granular details on the campaigns that generate the highest return on in app ads and purchases.

“Publishers could use the data to identify users who are valued higher by advertisers, and could potentially generate higher earnings by more strategically offering ad opportunities,” writes MoPub, “The publisher might also decide not to funnel these users into an IAP model unless the potential for revenue is higher.”

More on the news

• In February, MoPub launched a beta of its analytics solution, MoPub Analytics, and said it plans on leveraging its analytics engine and machine learning algorithms to surface new insights.
• MoPub also recently partnered with Pixalate and DoubleVerify to help fight in-app ad fraud.

• ---

  About The Author

  

  Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.

Do you know the triumph when your content finally hits the first page of Google and attracts significant traffic? Unfortunately, nobody is safe from a sudden drop in rankings. The thing is that the reasons for it may be different and not obvious at all.

In this post, you’ll discover what could cause a sudden drop in traffic and how to fix the issue.

The tip of an iceberg

Unfortunately, there’s no one size fits all decision, when it comes to SEO. When you face the drop in your rankings or traffic, it’s just the tip of an iceberg. So, get ready to check lots of issues, before you identify the problem.

Note: Percentages assigned in the above graph are derived from personal observation.

I’ve illustrated the most common reasons for a plummet. Start from checking these parameters to find out how you can recover your rankings and drive traffic to your website.

Algorithms test

First of all, check the SERP. What if it’s not only your website that changed its positions in search results? These sharp shifts may happen when Google tests its algorithms. In this case, you don’t even have to take any further steps, as the rankings will be restored soon.

If you track your rankings with Serpstat, you can analyze your competitors’ positions as well. It’ll help you understand whether the SERP was changing a lot lately. From the moment you create a new project, the tool starts tracking the history of top-100 search rankings’ changes for the selected keywords. The “Storm” graph illustrates the effect of the changes that have occurred in the search results.

On this chart, you see that for the “cakes for dads” keyword the storm score was pretty high on 21st March. Now, let’s look at how the top-10 positions that were changing on this date.

The graph shows a sharp drop and rise that occurred in most of the positions. In a few days, all the rankings were back to normal again.

This example tells us that whenever you witness a significant drop in your search rankings, you should start with analyzing the whole SERP. If there’s a high storm score, all you need to do is to wait a bit.

In case you checked your competitors’ positions and didn’t see any movements, here’s the next step for you.

Technical issues

Technical SEO affects how search robots crawl and index your site’s content. Even though you have optimized your website technically, every time you add or remove some files or pages, the troubles may occur. So, make sure you’re aware of technical SEO issues on your site. With Google’s URL Inspection tool, you can check the way search engines see your website.

These are the main factors crucial for your rankings:

1. Server overload

If your server isn’t prepared for traffic surges, it can take your site down any minute. To fix this problem, you can add a CDN on your website or cache your content, set up a load balancer, or set up a cloud hosting,

2. Page speed

The more the images, files, and pop-ups you add to your content, the more time it takes for your pages to get loaded. Mind that page speed isn’t only a ranking factor, but it also influences user experience. To quickly check the issue, you can go with Google’s PageSpeed Insights. And to speed up your website, you can:

• Minimize HTTP requests or minify and combine files
• Use asynchronous loading for CSS and JavaScript files
• Defer JavaScript loading
• Minimize time to first byte
• Reduce server response time
• Enable browser caching
• Reduce image sizes
• Use CDN again
• Optimize CSS delivery
• Prioritize above-the-fold content (lazy loading)
• Reduce the number of plugins you use on your site
• Reduce redirects and external scripts
• Monitor mobile page speed

3. Redirections

It’s the most common cause of lost rankings. When you migrate to a new server or change the structure of your site, never forget to set up 301 redirects. Otherwise, search engines will either fail to index your new pages or even penalize your site for duplicate content.

Detecting site errors can be quite difficult especially if it’s located solely on one page. Inspecting every page would be time-consuming. Also, it’d be very costly if you’re running a business. To speed up the process of identifying such errors you can use different SEO tools and site audit tools, like Serpstat, OnCrawl, and other such ones.

Wrong keywords

Are you using the right keywords? If you hadn’t considered user intent when collecting the keywords, it might have caused some problems. Even if your site was ranking high for these queries for some time, Google could have changed the way it understands your site’s intent.

I’ll provide two examples to illustrate the issue.

Case one

There’s a website of an Oxford Summer School named “oxford-royale.co.uk”. The site didn’t contain any long-form descriptions but services pages. Once Google began to rank the website for queries with informational intent, SEO experts noticed the traffic dropped. After they added more texts to the service pages, they succeeded in fixing the problem.

Case two

This case occurred to a flower delivery agency. While the website was ranking for transactional queries, everything was alright. Then Google decided the site better suits informational intent. To restore the site’s rankings, SEOs had to add keywords with high transactional intent, such as “order”, “buy”, and many such keywords.

To collect the keywords that are right for your business goals, you can use KWFinder. With the tool, you can identify relevant keywords that you can easily rank for.

Outdated content

This paragraph doesn’t require long introductions. If your content isn’t fresh and up-to-date anymore, people won’t stay long on your site. Moreover, outdated content doesn’t attract shares and links. All these aspects may become good reasons for search engines to reduce your positions.

There’s an easy way to fix it. Update your content regularly and promote it not to lose traffic. The trends keep changing, and if you provided a comprehensive guide on the specific topic, you don’t want it to become outdated. Instead of creating a new guide every time, update the old one with new data.

Lost links

Everybody knows your link profile is a crucial part of your site’s SEO. Website owners take efforts to build quality links to the new pieces of content. However, when you managed to earn a large number of backlinks, you shouldn’t stop monitoring your link profile.

To discover whether your link profile has undergone any changes for the last weeks, go with Moz or Majestic. The tools will provide you with data on your lost and discovered links for the selected period.

If you find out you’ve lost the links from trustworthy sources, try to identify the reasons why these links were removed. In case they’re broken, you can always fix them. If website owners removed your links by chance (for example, when updating their websites), then ask them to restore links. If they did it intentionally, no one can stop you from building new ones.

Poor user experience

User experience is one more thing crucial for your site’s rankings. If it had started ranking your page high on search results and then noticed it didn’t meet users’ expectations, your rankings could have suffered a lot.

Search engines usually rely on metrics such as the click-through rate, time spent on your page, bounce rate, the number of visits, and more. That’s why you should remember the following rules when optimizing your site:

1. Provide relevant metadata

As metadata is used to form snippets, it should contain relevant descriptions of your content. First of all, if they aren’t engaging enough, users won’t click-through them and land on your site. On the other hand, if your snippets provide false promises, the bounce rate will increase.

2. Create an effective content structure

It should be easy for users to extract the necessary information. Most of your visitors pay attention to your content structure when deciding whether they’ll read the post.

Break the texts into paragraphs and denote the main ideas in the subheadings. This step will help you engage visitors looking for the answer to their very specific questions.

3. Avoid complicated design and pop-ups

The content isn’t the only thing your audience looks at. People may also decide to leave your website because of irritating colors, fonts, or pop-up ads. Provide simple design and minimize the number of annoying windows.

Competition from other websites

What if none of the steps worked? It might mean that your rankings dropped because your competitors were performing better. Monitor changes in their positions and identify the SERP leaders.

You can analyze your competitors’ strategies with Serpstat or Moz. With these tools, you can discover their backlink sources, keywords they rank for, top content, and more. This step will help you come up with ideas of how you could improve your own strategy.

Never stop tracking

You can’t predict whether your rankings will drop one day. It’s much better to notice the problem before you’ve already lost traffic and conversions. So, always keep tracking your positions and be ready to react to any changes quickly.

Inna Yatsyna is a Brand and Community Development Specialist at Serpstat. She can be found on Twitter .

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SEMrush is a popular competitive intelligence platform used by search marketers. The company, recently infused with $40 million in funding to expand beyond Google, Bing and Yahoo insights, has launched a new product called Sellerly specifically for Amazon sellers.

What is Sellerly? Announced Monday, Sellerly designed to give Amazon sellers the ability to split test product detail pages.

“By introducing Sellerly as a seller’s buddy in Amazon marketing, we hope to improve hundreds of existing Amazon sellers’ strategies,” said SEMrush Chief Strategy Officer Eugene Levin in a statement. “Sellerly split testing is only the first step here. We’ve already started to build a community around the new product, which is very important to us. We believe that by combining feedback from users with our leading technology and 10 years of SEO software experience, we will be able to build something truly exceptional for Amazon sellers.”

How does it work? Sellerly is currently free to use. Amazon sellers connect their Amazon accounts to the tool in order to manage their product pages. Sellers can make changes to product detail pages to test against the controls. Sellerly collects data in real time and sellers can then choose winners based on views and conversions.

Sellers can run an unlimited number of tests.

Why we should care. Optimized product detail pages on Amazon is a critical aspect of success on the platform. As Amazon continues to generate an increasing share of e-commerce sales for merchants big and small, and competition only increases, product page optimization becomes even more critical. Amazon does not support AB testing natively. Sellerly is not the first split test product for Amazon product pages to market. Splitly (paid), Listing Dojo (free) are two others that offer similar split testing services.

This story first appeared on Search Engine Land. For more on search marketing and SEO, click here.