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How to use digital PR to drive backlinks and business growth

Wednesday, June 28th, 2023

Trust and credibility are traits everyone strives to earn in life. 

In SEO, backlinks are an essential part of earning those coveted traits.

But many people overcomplicate how easy it is to generate backlinks. 

There’s no need to beg site owners with a digital tin cup asking for favors or shell out thousands of dollars to pay for links. 

Buying links is considered spam, consequently reducing your brand’s trust and credibility, and possibly putting you up as a manual penalty case from Google.

There are simply many more effective ways to generate backlinks and build an effective digital PR strategy. 

What’s more, it’s well known that backlinks are an important part of SEO, but they have just as much impact on other parts of your business, too.

It comes down to one key aspect: third-party social proof.

When backlink efforts are combined with high-quality PR, these tactics drive more traffic to your site, boost quality inbound leads and – ultimately – generate more revenue to grow your business.

What is the difference between digital PR and link building?

Here’s how I’d define them from a basic conceptual perspective:

• PR: Using media coverage to gain attention for your brand.
• Link building: Tactics that encourage other websites to link back to your own.

Both are considered highly effective marketing tactics. While they’re technically different at the root, they should be used interchangeably to support your overarching business goals.

The best successes I’ve seen have come from earned link building. The most effective brands have something unique to say through thought leadership that incentivizes other sites to associate with your brand.

For example, using data and success stories to create compelling content are the best ways to earn trust and credibility.

This is particularly true when you contribute this information through media like a guest article, podcast, or webinar, in which you then get a backlink because the platform owner needs to cite who you are.

So, if you focus link building efforts on complementing what you’re already doing for digital PR, you kill two birds with one stone and reap the benefits from both efforts.

The advantages of using digital PR for link building

If you’re still on the fence about combining digital PR with link building efforts, here are the primary benefits of doing so:

Build brand authority based on thought leadership

When you repeatedly showcase your expertise on third-party platforms relevant to your audience, your audience begins to trust your advice.

This is what turns you into an authoritative brand within your industry.

Third-party social proof generates inbound leads and conversions

Once other sites recognize your brand as a trusted expert, they’ll start sharing your content with their own audiences and followers.

As those people see more of your own content, they’ll feel motivated to contact you and learn more about how you can help them.

Reduces hesitation and speeds up your sales cycle

When you’ve earned that authority, demonstrated your leadership, and boosted your organic inbound traffic flow, over half of your sales cycle is already complete.

Once an inbound lead requests a conversation, they’ve shown active intent and placed their trust in your brand. This is a major step towards closing a new sale for your company.

Creates a digital PR flywheel

Over time, you’ll become known as a go-to expert, so much so that you won’t need to pitch for links anymore.

Other brands will voluntarily contact you to collaborate, in which you automatically get backlinks for this.

This creates “the digital PR flywheel,” i.e., a system that constantly feeds into itself with less required input from your side.

Grow a highly targeted network

As the Digital PR Flywheel gains enough momentum to constantly create new PR link building opportunities, you’ve created an effective mechanism to expand your network and following.

The industry now identifies you as an authority figure in your niche space. Other players in the game will regularly involve you in their own promotional activities.

Generate backlinks without begging or paying

If you’ve followed closely, you’ll notice that none of this process for generating links involves cold outreach or payment – and when put into practice correctly, all backlinks come from authoritative sites.

As the results bear their own fruit, cold outreach and paying for links by your PR or SEO teams becomes a completely inefficient use of time and resources.

The 5 key steps to generate backlinks and grow your business with digital PR

Here are five of the key steps that you can use to fuel your backlink strategy, establish trust and credibility, and successfully grow your business.

Step 1: Identify the primary places your audience uses to learn and get advice

Like any good business strategy, the first step to earning quality PR backlinks is to conduct the proper research.

Look into the places where you know your target audience willfully spends their own time. You can do this by identifying resources like:

• Podcasts
• Webinars
• Communities
• Conferences
• News publications
• Etc.

SparkToro is a great tool for doing audience research. It lists relevant platforms backed by search data and organized by audience types, interests, and other variables. Use a tool like SparkToro as a starting point to do your own research, and then build from there.

As you conduct your research, include a mix of large and niche publications that you can target for your digital PR strategy – both are important to an organic growth strategy.

Smaller publications are relatively easy to get featured on, resulting in more quantitative coverage within that niche.

Larger publications are important as well because everyone recognizes their name authority.

Any links you can earn on these sites translate into instant credibility for your brand – both from Google and your audience.

Step 2: Submit topics that you’re an expert in and are relevant to your audience

Since the best way to earn links is to lean into your strengths, contact the manager of the sites you’re targeting and contribute ideas for topics you’re an absolute expert in.

You’re much more likely to be approved when you have proof, such as bylined content and event recordings.

Topics you submit should be relevant both to the platform and your target audience. Don’t go wild on product promos – instead, focus on being helpful to your target audience.

Here’s an example of how you could pitch for a podcast: 

If your data or expertise tells a compelling story, you’re far more likely to create something that stands out and warrants earned backlinks from highly valuable sources.

Step 3: Start generating inbound leads, conversions, and high-quality backlinks

Repeatedly showcasing your expertise on third-party platforms is how to build those highly valuable traits of trust and credibility with your audience. This turns you into an authoritative brand.

Because your audience deems you a trusted expert, people will voluntarily contact you when they need help solving a core problem. This is precisely how digital PR generates high-quality inbound leads.

Depending on your business and the relative ease of your sales cycle, this approach can even translate into direct purchases that grow your business.

Additionally, events, publications, and anything that gains publicity automatically generate high-quality backlinks. This is the most effective way to do link building to support SEO and grow your business. 

Remember that Google clearly states that buying or selling links can be considered spam.

These tactics are not only unnecessary (especially when you use the tactics I’ve described), but they can actually do more harm than good to the rest of your business.

Step 4: The digital PR flywheel starts to build

Follow the above steps, again and again, to create the digital PR flywheel – other brands willfully contact you to collaborate, so you no longer need to pitch.

In 2021, Google’s John Mueller, one of the greatest authority figures in digital PR, SEO, and organic marketing, gave his own stamp of approval on digital PR link building.

He encouraged brand builders to disregard misinformation that digital PR link building is part of an outdated spammy tactic by doubling down on efforts to build your own digital PR flywheel.

Step 5: Showcase everywhere how trusted you are across multiple highly reputable platforms

Include links within your own content to everything you’ve created in collaboration with other brands, including:

• Events you’ve hosted with another brand.
• Guest articles you’ve contributed.
• Podcasts you’ve participated in. 

Those backlinks become your social proof because you’ve been cited as earning approval from a third-party site.

Think of it as earning a “peer review” for scientific journals.

Once you’ve been cited by a highly authoritative brand in the industry, you’ve earned those traits of trust and credibility for your brand that make all the difference to help grow your business.

This is again how to generate more inbound leads and direct conversions directly. People are coming to you because they trust what you have to say. You’re now selling to a warm audience, not cold.

Publish, rinse and repeat this strategy to generate more backlinks and grow business revenue

Please remember that outreach and/or buying links are not only unnecessary but it’s also an entirely effective use of resources.

You can do more harm than good if you revert to tactics that Google and other search engines have deemed to be spammy. Don’t diminish your efforts to earn trust and credibility by falling into the link buying trap.

Overall, your PR and link building strategies should work in tandem: Link building shouldn’t just be for SEO, and when combined with PR, they bring a deeper impact on the brand authority.

A highly strategic and fully aligned digital PR and link building strategy translates into long-term benefits.

Invest your time and resources into creating highly valuable content that has something valuable to offer to give other sites a quality reason to associate their brands with your own.

Once the digital PR flywheel runs on its own steam, you’re well on your way to scalable growth!

The post How to use digital PR to drive backlinks and business growth appeared first on Search Engine Land.

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Reshape your marketing with GPT by Cynthia Ramsaran

Wednesday, June 28th, 2023

While AI can assist in drafting marketing materials and offering prompt responses to customer inquiries, its capabilities extend far beyond these basic functions.

Join this webinar as experts as they explore how GPT empowers marketers with powerful tools to act upon real-time insights and deliver personalized experiences on a large scale.

Register and attend “Reshape Your Marketing with GPT,” presented by Salesforce.

Click here to view more Search Engine Land webinars.

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YouTube Test & Compare helps you pick the best video thumbnail

Tuesday, June 27th, 2023

YouTube is piloting a new feature to help marketers pick the perfect thumbnail for their videos.

The Test & Compare tool, also known as A/B thumbnail testing, will provide performance data, revealing which designs drive the highest click through rates (CTRs).

Why we care: This new feature will help advertisers better understand the behaviour of their audience, so that they can create a winning thumbnail, potentially resulting in a higher CTR and improved engagement.

How it works: Marketers will be able to upload a maximum of three thumbnails per video using the Test & Compare tool. YouTube bots will then run experiments on these images to identify which one is the strongest performer, allowing advertisers to make an informed decision when selecting which thumbnail they’d like to accompany their video.

What’s new? Currently, the pilot is only being tested on a few hundred creators, however, YouTube is planning to launch a beta version in the coming months to expand the scheme to thousands more. Next year, the video platform is planning to the feature more broadly available next year.

Why now? According to YouTube, the Test & Compare tool has been one of its most top requested features and so it is responding to consumer demand.

What has YouTube said? “The team is working to make the tool available more broadly starting next year, but we wanted to share that testing is officially underway because we know that this is a top requested feature and it will help you make more data driven decisions about your thumbnail strategy,” a YouTube spokesperson said. “We know that you have been anxiously waiting this capability so thank you to our community for your patience and feedback along the way.”

What’s next? According to YouTube, there will be more announcements as testing gets underway later this year with regards to a more general roll out in 2023. A spokesperson added: “If you’d like to help us test features like this in the future, you can sign up to be considered on our Creator Research page.”

Deeper dive: For more information from the YouTube Creator technical team and the wider Creator community, check out Creator Insider’s YouTube channel.

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YouTube Ads: Unlocking high impact at minimal cost

Tuesday, June 27th, 2023

Advertisers were shown how to improve their YouTube marketing strategies with cost-efficient, high-impact, tried and tested methodologies at SMX Advanced.

The secret to creating high-reach, low-cost environments and making campaigns more effective lies within four specific variables, according to digital advertising expert Corey Henke.

Unlocking high-impact, low-cost campaigns

The four variables marketers need to look into as a top priority are:

• Ad type / bid type: Henke advised that these fields are the most important variables and specifically encouraged marketers to take advantage of new ad types, noting that he personally has seen tremendous success with YouTube’s recently-launched in-feed video ads. He also stressed the importance of choosing the right bid type for your campaign for optimal conversions.
• Creative variation: There are many creative variables, so advertisers must test wisely. Length of videos is always a great way to start, but creative variables must also be considered. Henke advised looking at factors such as male versus female, different actors, different intros, different music, product demonstration versus funny, and so on.
• Target with intent: Research and strategize with custom audiences, target with intent and grow your YouTube audiences with optimized detailed demographics. Henke said this approach should help marketers achieve significant performance improvement.
• Data analysis (attribution): To measure the success of your campaign, review multiple areas of importance and make sure that they are the right areas.

Henke added:

• “I think this approach is the best opportunity for high-reach, low-cost campaigns.”

Ad types – how to get the best bang for your buck

Researchers have studied the effectiveness of various ad types. The most scalable solutions:

• Skippable video ads: Play before, during or after videos. Viewers can skip the video after five seconds.
• Non-skippable video ads: These ads are 15 seconds or shorter, and play before, after or during the video. Viewers can’t skip this content.
• Bumper video ads: Six seconds or shorter and play before, during or after another video. Viewers can’t skip this ad type.

YouTube has recently prioritized these ad formats, while longer forced content has been deprioritized. They also have the most inventory, according to Henke, meaning:

• “Marketers can get the best bang for their buck on YouTube.”

Bid types – getting TV-level results from YouTube

Choosing the right bid type can help marketers achieve TV-level volume success within YouTube. However, the bid type that is best for your campaign will depend on your brand’s goals and objectives. The two bid types Henke put forward for comparison were:

• Direct response bid types: Primarily desktop
• Branding bid types: Minimal desktop

The big difference between the two options lie within the CPM (cost per mile), view rate and conversion rate – but not the CPC (cost per click). Henked added:

• “If you want somebody to fill out a form or buy a product, you will definitely use a conversion campaign.
• “There are a variety of ways to reach users at scale for minimal cost inside of CPM and cost per view campaigns. So you have your bumpers, your non-skippables, your in-stream which will be your skippables – and how those compare.
• “Non-skippables don’t come with any views and that’s because nobody’s making it past 30 seconds. It’s either 15 seconds or below. So they really only have the advantage of impressions at a lower CPM. Whereas if you’re doing in stream, which is skippable, you are going to get the app the upside of views and also the amount of people which make it past 30 seconds.
• “I think YouTube has a good understanding of who is going to convert.”

Creative variation for optimal impact

Marketers have multiple ad types to choose from and users consume these various formats in different ways. Henke discussed the advantages of feed ads, skippables, non-skippables, stories, reels and live TV. He noted that skippable and non-skippable ads are great options because of the attention they attain – but skippable is his favorite go-to because of the unlimited link feature.

• “With unlimited link, you have a huge opportunity to engage a user over a long period of time. What we’re seeing is more users want to spend more time within their platforms as opposed to brands’ websites. That’s where we have the biggest advantage with unlimited link and being able to optimize creative for view rate,” Henke said.

To determine whether this is the right option for your campaign, Henke encouraged advertisers to test the different video ad options. Henke noted that 2 minutes 24 ads have more people completing the ads than other options.

• “This is a huge opportunity. It’s close to one minute of time with a user and your ad on average – some spend more, some spend less. But then also being able to have a competitive CPC along with a great view rate really shows that the long form is going to be the best value,” Henke added.

Targeting and retargeting are ‘huge opportunities’

Thorough research to identify user intent will give marketers an important advantage when it comes to understanding consumers who are relevant to your product or service. Retargeting is another necessary and big opportunity for brands wanting to expand their reach.

Reflecting on his own approach to targeting and retargeting, Henke revealed his favorite targeting tool is the detailed demographic combination report, which focuses on age, gender, parental status and household income.

Looking at demographics, in combination with the creative, will help drive maximum success, he said:

• “These variables when combined together give you a unique look at which specific audience might be converting the best and being able to segment this audience. When you can segment immediately you should see results faster. So that’s why this is so important, the targeting, the creative, the bid type and the ad type to create this high reach, low-cost environment,” Henke said.

Success with in-feeds

In-feeds are a new ad product launched by Google Ads and one of the biggest changes to the system since bumpers rolled out five years ago.

In-feed ads appear on YouTube’s personalized feed and allow users to click the ad thumbnail, while the video is simultaneously autoplaying. Some key benefits to in-feed ads as opposed to shorts include:

• More impressions
• Increased views
• Higher spend
• Longer ad length
• Unique call to action
• Authority of face to camera
• Auto-play in the feed
• Premium placement at top of feed

• “I think the value really is that you’re getting more earned views. That’s a clear indicator that that is a quality audience that we have here,” Henke said.

YouTube attribution tips

It’s important to be able to identify the causes of wins and losses in your campaign in order to make informed decisions and necessary adjustments.

Think about the Halo Effect. Henke offered some implementation strategies here:

• Precision targeting: “When I talk about precision targeting, that means really looking at that detailed demographic and dialing in almost immediately because if you’re hitting your target audience, they’re going to make those Halo effect type of user behaviors, meaning they’re going to go and search,” he explained. “They’re going to go to another platform and find your brand on Instagram or LinkedIn. They’re going to make these other things that don’t necessarily involve a direct click. And that’s important. You want your quality audience to be there. Another thing is checking your placement report to make sure your ads aren’t running on kids’ channels and that they’re mostly running in the places that you want them to run.”
• Trend analysis: This will be different for every advertiser. The big question here is what is this experience with creative competitive to a website’s first visit? And secondly, how does your video compare to somebody coming to your website for the first time? Henke added:
  • “I believe that your video should be competitive and it should possibly give a better experience because it’s in platform and it’s long form.”

Getting started

Ready to get started with Henke’s high-reach low-cost approach to YouTube Ads? Here’s what he suggested:

• Targeting: “Dialing into those combination audiences out the gate,” he said.
• Device: For high reach, it’s advised to exclude computers and tablets – but keep these options in if you’re trying to convert a user immediately. “Ultimately, this is a high reach low-cost strategy and we’re going to probably be paying a premium for those devices,” he said.
• Bid type: This should be either CPV or CPM.
• Ad length and variation: As a general rule, the longer the ad length, the better it is for your campaign. However, Henke emphasized that you should do your own research and find out what works best for your brand. “It could potentially unlock some really good cost,” he said.
• Ad type: Keep your ad types to in-feed, skippable, non-skippable or shorts.

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A PPC marketer’s guide to retail media

Friday, June 23rd, 2023

Most people know that Amazon, Walmart and Instacart have paid search placements on their websites. However, you may not know about their involvement in programmatic, display, social media and Google Shopping.

It is crucial for PPC marketers to understand this because retail media (a.k.a. commerce media) is driving customers to retail sites that can transact multiple brands and items in a single transaction.

This is especially true at retailers that hold everyday essential items, providing a path to regular visits, both online and offline.

Elizabeth Marsten, VP of commerce strategic services at marketing firm Tinuiti, shared her insights on the 2023 retail media landscape and all the need-to-know essentials in her session at SMX Advanced.

What is retail media?

Retail media is basically a type of paid search. Every business has some sort of paid search offering in which they are able to harvest existing demand.

However, retail media differs from paid search in the sense that it is split into two categories, onsite and offsite:

• Onsite
  • Sponsored search (product ads)
  • Display banners
  • Browse, category pages
  • Coupons
  • Offers

• Offsite
  • Programmatic display (ideally through a curated network)
  • Social media
  • Email / newsletters
  • SMS / push notifications
  • Google Shopping PLAs
  • OTT

How does retail marketing work?

Retail marketing is rooted in first-party data that’s been collected by companies for the last three decades. This data has been enabling marketers to better understand customers, how they behave and molded the shape of what we know to be retail marketing.

• “Just think about how much, for example, Kroger knows about you if you are someone who buys groceries on a pretty regular basis from a Kroger. Maybe you started your loyalty card program with your phone number, which you still enter every time you check out. Whether or not that’s through an app or a self-checkout stand,” Marsten said.
• “At the checkout stand itself, you have been entering that phone number for probably a good 20 years maybe. So even when you were getting cash back in those early 2000s and you bought a pack of gum or a Twix, you entered that phone number just in case. Well, technically, that data is what has led us to much better-targeted advertising for things you might actually want.”

What do paid search marketers need to know?

Marketers have been collecting data on consumers for 30 years and during that time, the industry has seen three big digital waves.

• The first big wave came in approximately 2002 when Google Ads started rolling out, along with similar products from companies like Microsoft and Yahoo. It took tech giants 14 years to reach $30 billion in advertising revenue.
• The second big wave started gaining traction in 2008 with the rise of social media. Brands like Meta, Twitter and Reddit took 11 years to achieve $30 billion in advertising revenue.
• The third wave began in 2016 with the arrival of retail media. This sector took just five years to hit the $30 billion goal.

Explaining why retail media has evolved so quickly, Marsten said:

• “If you worked for Google or Microsoft in the last 10 years or so, you probably have noticed that there aren’t a lot of big changes – for example, some of you may remember when Google renamed the Content Network to the Display Network. Those are pretty monumental changes that happen over time relative to digital advertising.
• “Now, when it comes to retail media, we are experiencing one of these every six months or so. So that is how fast things are coming up and changing and pivoting as we go on.”

Why in-store still matters

In store is still hugely important to retail media because this sector operates differently to D2C websites.

• “I care about in-store sales, I care about sales at the shelf and I care about sales at the self-checkout because I care about those digital touch points. “They tell us how we’re going to engage with the customer over and over again,” Marsten said

Marsten went on to talk about Walmart, which made $3 billion in advertising revenue last year. The company has huge retail media expansion plans in the future, and one significant advantage it has over competitors like Amazon its stores.

• “That’s 4,700 plus touch points in the United States alone. Think about how often folks go to get the essentials – I will be there every time outside and inside with my digital capabilities,” she said.

Google Shopping PLAs

Retail marketers have the option of purchasing Google Shopping ads via Target Roundel, which appear in Google SERPs. Customers who click through will be taken to the target.com experience – but this is funded by you.

So you can essentially work with Target Roundel to boost in-store sales via Google searches in order to fill out your marketing budget. It’s a popular choice with many major retailers such as Best Buy and Home Depot, but there are details to consider:

• The product you’re selling must be in store.
• Run through Roundel so limited reporting mid-flight (monthly only).
• In store sales included.
• Could be complementary or competitive.

• “It does take a minute in terms of reporting. But you do get in store sales. If someone searches local inventory, then they go in the store and they buy it because they see online that it’s in stock, they just go in the store and buy it. And you will get credit for that. It is pretty cool. It is something that I would say keep an eye on in terms of capabilities and what it could be. I’m pretty excited about what their roadmap looks like for next year.”

How is retail media working with Microsoft?

Retail media has multiple connections to Microsoft, including:

• Hardware: In-store screens and Xbox
• Activation: Promote IQ, Microsoft Ads, Xander and Netflix
• Automation / Research: ChatGBT
• Insights: PowerBI
• Data: Azure / Project Oakes
• CDP: Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

How is retail media working with Google?

Not to be outdone by Microsoft, retail media also works closely with Google in the following ways:

• Hardware: Pixel and Nest.
• Activation: DV360, YouTube, Google Ads and SA360.
• Automation / Research: Bard and Trends.
• Insights: Google Analytics and Looker.
• Data: Google Cloud and Pair.
• CDP: Customer Data Platforms and Google Cloud.

Commenting on retail media’s relationship with Google, Masrten added:

• “Similar to Microsoft, if you were a retailer and perhaps you had a Google stack, working with a whole bunch of different capabilities at Google, you can make it really easy for a brand to come in and activate across multiple channels or multiple platforms. But also, hopefully, eventually, we’ll get to a spot where insights can come forward in a way that is digestible and actionable. I would say we’re still working on that. This is a big wave and we’re still going!”

Key takeaways

Marsten concluded her talk by outlining the four key points she would like marketers to keep in mind when it comes to retail media:

• Lots of similar options: There are a lot of similarities in terms of who’s working with who.
• A bit jumbled: We’re still building out and there are similarities with Google and Microsoft regarding how they built out their capabilities.
• Stores. Stores. Stores: A lot of opportunity left to tie together. Think about how much money transacts through a store and potential capabilities from an in-store experience perspective.
• Watch the intersection of PPC (Google and Microsoft) and retail media for overlap: You better believe that they’re not going to be left out when it comes to retail media.

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Google has removed attribution models in GA4

Friday, June 23rd, 2023

Google Analytics today officially removed first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models. This leaves only last click and data-driven, as Google announced would happen in April.

Charles Farina shared a screenshot on LinkedIn:

Not Google Ads (yet). Google will soon retire the four rules-based attribution models in Ads and starting in mid-July. You can continue using these attribution models until September, when they will be removed completely.

In a followup to their April announcement, Google Ads yesterday announced:

• “We will be removing selectability of these models for all conversions in Google Ads beginning in mid-July. This means that newly created conversions will no longer have first click, linear, time decay, or position-based as an attribution model option. Existing conversions not using these models will also no longer be able to switch to these models. If your account has conversions using these attribution models, these conversions can continue to use them until they’re removed completely in September.”

Why we care: Many marketers are upset about Google limiting us to having only the last click and data-driven attribution models. Removing these attributions means marketers have fewer insights to help make informed, data-based decisions.

How will marketers be impacted? If your Ads account has conversions using these models, you can continue to use them until September. But after that deadline, the models will be removed and data may be lost.

If you are working on conversions not using these models, you will not have the option to switch over after mid-July. In addition, newly created conversions will no longer have the option of even choosing these four models.

Why now? Google has taken the decision to retire the four attribution models because of “increasingly low adoption rates, with fewer than 3% of conversions in Google Ads using these models” according to a Google spokesperson.

• “For these reasons, first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models across Google Ads and Google Analytics 4 will be going away. Data-driven attribution, last click, and external attribution won’t be impacted.”

Dig deeper: Data-driven attribution: How to think about Google’s default attribution model

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GA4 gives marketers choice in Google Ads conversion credit eligibility

Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

Google is rolling out changes that will give advertisers better insights into conversion performance.

For the first time, marketers working with GA4 will be able to choose which of their channels should be eligible to get conversion credit for web conversions shared with Google Ads. This applies to Google paid channels (formerly, Ads-preferred) and Paid and organic channels (formerly, Cross-channel).

Why we care. This new capability will tell you which channels contribute to a conversion, helping you better understand and measure the impact of your campaigns. This data will prove incredibly useful to advertisers as they’ll be able to create new strategies to increase conversions and revenue with more confidence and certainty.

How it works. Advertisers can view which of their channels are eligible for credit for each conversion in Google Ads, under the Conversions summary, Conversions detail, and Campaigns tabs. In Google Analytics, this information can be found in the Attribution settings page.

Which channels are eligible. There are two channels to be considered in this insatnce:

• Google paid channels: Only Google Ads paid channels are eligible to receive conversion credit.
• Paid and organic channels: Paid and organic channels are eligible to receive conversion credit, but only credit assigned to Google Ads channels will appear in your Google Ads accounts.

Advertisers should note the default channel is Google paid channels, however, marketers do have the option to choose PPC and organic channels instead.

How to change the setting. In Google Analytics, this set-up can be edited at any time by going to the Admin > Attribution settings page. Once you have updated your preferences, changes will take effect on conversions moving forward.

What Google has said. The search engine explained in a statement:

• “You can now select which channels are eligible for conversion credit for web conversions shared with Google Ads: Google paid channels (formerly, Ads-preferred) or Paid and organic channels (formerly, Cross-channel).”

Deep dive: Click here for more information about what channels are eligible to receive credit for conversions and how to import conversion into Google Ads.

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Google updates when 4 attribution models will be retired

Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

Google will start to retire four rules-based attribution models in Ads and Analytics from mid-July:

• First-click.
• Linear.
• Time decay.
• Position-based.

Marketers still using these attribution models will be able to continue doing so until September, when they will be removed completely.

Why we care: This update will affect the Google Ads accounts of all marketers still using these attribution models. Moving forward, any model that isn’t last-click will prove more difficult to monitor as every marketer has different data-driven attribution formulas.

• “In the past, you could use linear and give each touch the same credit. You will no longer be able to do so. There will be no impact on last touch, as that is still available. But finding some of the first-touch information will be much muddier because there will no longer be a way to see the formulas that compute the attribution scores.”

How will marketers be impacted? If your account has conversions using these models, you can continue to use them until September, but after that deadline, the models will be removed and data may be lost. If you are working on conversions not using these models, you will not have the option to switch over after mid-July. In addition, newly created conversions will no longer have the option of even choosing these four models.

Why now? Google has taken the decision to retire the four attribution models because of “increasingly low adoption rates, with fewer than 3% of conversions in Google Ads using these models” according to a Google spokesperson.

• “For these reasons, first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models across Google Ads and Google Analytics 4 will be going away. Data-driven attribution, last click, and external attribution won’t be impacted.”

Dig deeper: Data-driven attribution: How to think about Google’s default attribution model

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Master CTV advertising: A guide to launching your best campaigns by Cynthia Ramsaran

Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

When it comes to Connected TV, you don’t need to walk the road less traveled when there is already a bridge to success.

Successful advertisers have already done the hard work of figuring out what a winning performance-focused CTV strategy looks like. MNTN looked at the top 25% of advertisers on its platform and put together a guide—so you don’t have to optimize alone.

Learn more by registering for and attending “Trust the Trail(blazers): Launching Your Best CTV Campaign,” presented by MNTN.

Click here to view more Search Engine Land webinars.

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Microsoft rolls out predictive targeting to all advertisers

Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

The Microsoft Audience Network has moved predictive targeting to general availability.

Following a successful pilot, all advertisers will now be able to use the feature in their campaigns.

Why we care: Predictive targeting can help advertisers easily find new audiences that they may not have previously considered targeting. Not only are the identified audience relevant, but they are viewed by bots are more likely to convert, which could result in a higher ROI for marketers.

Successful trial. Microsoft has been trialing this tool for 10 months and has reported that advertisers on average have seen a 46% increase in conversion rates.

How it works. Microsoft bots examine ads along with the landing pages associated with them, before using its audience intelligence signals to match that content with relevant audiences. The bots have been designed to help marketers deliver the right message at the right time to drive better performance.

How to set it up. In order to integrate predictive targeting into your marketing campaign, you need to toggle on an ad group setting in the audience campaigns. You can do this in two different ways:

• Option A: When setting up an audience campaign, predictive targeting will now be the default targeting option. If you want to use predictive targeting, simply leave the settings as they are.
• Option B: If you want to expand your reach beyond targeted audiences for your campaign, you can choose to apply a marketing list or an in-market audience. To do this, simply toggle on predictive targeting and the Microsoft bot will serve to your targeted audience while simultaneously using predictive targeting to find users outside of that audience who are still relevant.

Is it the same as optimized targeting? It is similar in the sense that this tool can help marketers reach their ideal audience with little to no input. However, this tool was designed specifically to assist marketers using the Microsoft Audience Network using a combination of existing advertiser assets and Microsoft Audience Intelligence.

Microsoft shares best practices. The tech giant has identified best practices to help marketers achieve the best results:

• Microsoft bases its decisions and algorithms on ad content and landing page.
  • Use clear and descriptive ad copy.
  • Make sure your landing page provides a good user experience.

• Use predictive targeting in combination with automated bidding across all campaigns.
  • “In terms of automated bidding strategies, we have a pilot target for CPA and maximum target conversion which are launching in the summertime. So the recommendation for now is to use it with enhanced CPC,” according to Microsoft.

• Apply predictive targeting to all of your campaigns to see how it performs.
  • “You’ll also have a reporting line item in the campaigns grid and the audiences tab – that will show you exactly what predictive targeting is delivering for your campaigns.
  • “Don’t just set audience targeting and forget about it. Report, review and adjust as necessary, keeping an eye on budgets and making sure you’re staying competitive,” Microsoft said.

Deeper dive: For more information on Microsoft’s predictive targeting feature, read its complete guide here.

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