Archive for the ‘seo news’ Category
Monday, September 30th, 2024
Google Search Console performance report filters will now stick to the last setting you left it at. The “Search Console Performance report filters are now sticky,” Google announced on social. There is also a “reset filters” button to quickly clear any of those filters.
More details. The Search Console performance reports, including the Search performance report, the Discover performance report and the News performance report will keep the filters you set across each, as you navigate from one to the next.
Also, when clicking on a row in a specific tab in the Search Console performance report, the report will automatically switch to the Queries tab. If you’re already in the Queries tab, the report will automatically switch to the Pages tab, Daniel Waisberg from Google explained.
This was supposedly a very highly requested feature.
What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of those filter buttons:
Why we care. When doing your SEO reporting, you will need to change your behavior when using Google Search Console. Now that the filters stick, you need to keep that in mind when viewing and exporting data.
This should speed things up in the long run but like any change to anything you use frequently or routinely, it may require some getting used to.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Thursday, September 26th, 2024
Let’s face it: Turning raw data into actionable insights can be as cryptic as decoding ancient hieroglyphics, especially for the SEO rookies in your crew.
That’s the challenge I addressed in my SMX Advanced 2024 session.
Didn’t catch it? No worries. I’m recapping it all in this article series, one juicy nugget at a time. This is Part 2, so if you missed Part 1, check it out.
Get ready for a quick overview of key technical SEO metrics to track in Google Search Console. Compare your list with mine – you might spot something your SEO team has missed.
Senior SEO managers: This article is for your technical SEO newcomers. It explains how I would introduce Google Search Console metrics to bridge their knowledge gaps quickly.
Top tips for looking at Google Search Console metrics
- Don’t limit comparisons to just two data points: Avoid comparing just two points in time (end of last month vs. prior month). It’s like looking at two photos and missing the whole movie – especially the drama in the middle. This is a common mistake I see when upskilling SEOs to become advanced SEOs. You need to look at the ups and downs all month.
- Focus on one metric at a time: When looking at the stacked bar charts, look at each metric individually. Google likes to stack data in bar charts, often making fluctuations easier to overlook. This means you’ll turn off metrics to focus on each technical SEO metric one at a time.
- Save charts for later: Screenshot the charts and tuck them away for future reference. Google’s data only goes back a few months, but those images may be gold down the line.
- Record data regularly: Capture metrics in a spreadsheet that can be calculated in formulas. Choose a point in time, since getting daily data isn’t realistic unless you’re using the API. Consider a date at the end of each month. It’s not ideal, but it’s something that can be used in comparison charts to look for correlations.
- Check for more metrics: Many reports show just the top 10 metrics by default. Always check the bottom right of your screen. More insights might be hiding on page two. Don’t miss out.
- Investigate changes carefully: Every major shift calls for you to play detective. Pin down what date the metrics changed and determine if it’s something to investigate, correct, overlook or monitor closely. Chances are, you’ll need to loop in product management or the dev team for answers.
- Track tickets in each website release: Knowing what went live and when will be extremely helpful for correlating changes to fluctuations in Google Search Console data. Product managers and developers can’t be bothered explaining possible causes of every little blip in the data. Stay plugged into what dev is doing and when it’s going live. This means you should join the dev standups and read the release notes.
Let’s zero in on the essential technical SEO metrics in Google Search Console.
Page indexing
These reports are the bread and butter of every technical SEO. The Page indexing section of Google Search Console tells you if your content is making it to the SERPs.
But don’t just glance at the numbers. Dig deeper than the end of the month numbers. Look for fluctuations over time, not just a snapshot of one day at the end of the month.
Pages indexed
This one seems easy, right? If your indexed pages go down, you have fewer URLs ranking over time. That’s usually a problem.
Too many SEOs miss fluctuations in these Google Search Console charts by looking at the default view.
This causes the combination of non-indexed and indexed pages in the chart muddy the waters, causing you to miss what is happening. Instead, turn off Pages not indexed to look at indexed pages alone.
Pages not indexed
This count reveals how many URLs Google knows about but hasn’t indexed. Remember to toggle off Pages indexed for a clearer view of what actually happened over time.
Why pages are not indexed
Here’s where the sleuthing kicks in because you can dive into why pages aren’t indexed. This section allows you to dig deeper and uncover why those pages aren’t getting indexed, along with a list of reasons and example URLs.
The most common culprits include:
- 404 errors.
- 5xx errors.
- Redirect errors.
- Noindex tags.
- Duplicate content.
I ignore plenty of the usual suspects – unless that fourth column trend line starts shifting.
For my clients, these metrics rarely budge. So I spend three seconds or less looking at the trend line. If things are trending well and there aren’t any fluctuations, then move on.
The metrics that only get three seconds or less reviewing for major trend line fluctuations:
- Crawled – currently not indexed.
- Discovered – currently not indexed.
- Blocked by robots.txt.
- Soft 404.
- Blocked due to other 4xx issue.
Note: Your Google Search Console might not show every possible reason for pages not being indexed because only the issues your site actually faces make it to your list of reasons why pages aren’t indexed. That said, most enterprise companies will see all (or nearly all) of the reasons above.
Videos indexed
This is where Google breaks down how many videos are indexed.
In the video mode update on Dec. 4, 2023, many videos were booted from the index for various reasons, which you will find in this section.
- Videos indexed: This tally reveals how many of your videos are in the Google index. Remember to isolate this metric in the chart – switch off Pages not indexed.
- Videos not indexed: This count shows how many videos didn’t make it into Google’s index. Remember to check this metric solo in the chart – turn off ‘Pages Not Indexed’.
Tip: If video indexing isn’t in your SEO roadmap, skip these metrics.
Why videos are not indexed
This is another place to figure out why Google has rejected your content (in this case, videos).
Google makes it very clear what must be done to get your videos indexed, and many of the reasons are technical SEO action items.
The most common culprits include:
- Video is not in the main content of the page.
- Cannot determine video position and size.
- Thumbnail is missing or invalid.
- Unsupported thumbnail format.
- Invalid thumbnail size.
- Thumbnail blocked by robots.txt.
(View Google’s complete list of reasons.)
Tip: If video indexing isn’t in your SEO roadmap, you can breeze past these metrics. Unfortunately, many companies’ video SEO efforts have been sidelined by other priorities and if this is you, then you can probably skip this section until you’re ready to take action on video SEO.
Dig deeper: How to use Google Search Console to unlock easy SEO wins
XML sitemap errors
XML sitemaps are search engine fuel, packed with crucial signals. For small sites, issues here typically don’t create problems.
Enterprise SEOs, watch these like a hawk – any glitches can prevent new URLs from being crawled, create hreflang tag confusion for search engines and prevent search engines from catching updates and crawling fresh content.
- Confirm each XML sitemap says “Success.”
- XML sitemaps that index high priority pages, confirm all URLs are indexed.
How to do this:
- Go go the XML sitemaps page.
- Click on the XML sitemap to examine.
- Page refreshes.
- Click on the “Page Indexing” or “Video Page Indexing” link.
- Page refreshes.
- You’ll see the URLs indexed from the XML sitemap you are examining.
Tips:
- For enterprise sites with hundreds of XML sitemaps, identify bellwether XML files to monitor – those replicated across countries, languages or divisions. Since they’re templated, you may be able to skip reviewing hundreds every month.
- If the number of indexed pages drops significantly, you can use these reports to help figure out which part of the site is not indexed. This becomes particularly useful if XML sitemaps are bokeh into URLs for a particular directory, country, template, category, business line, etc.
Mobile Core Web Vitals
Mobile Core Web Vitals are the most important for SEO and deserve the most attention. Google also has much higher expectations for these URLs, so this is where you’ll focus most of your Core Web Vitals attention.
This is a report I like developers to see regularly, because you can see how URLs are flipping between the metrics and on which date. This can help you troubleshoot by coordinating these dates with changes on the site, CMS, DAM, network, etc.
Metrics to monitor:
- Mobile good URLs.
- Mobile poor URLs.
- Mobile needs improvement URLs.
The historical chart is great for quick trends, but it’s limited to a short window. For the bigger picture, drop the data into a spreadsheet and build your own chart.
You’ll often find that things look fine now, but 5 or 6 months ago, the metrics were far better – don’t let that slip past you.
Tip: This is a good report for development to see on a regular basis. Consider a regular metrics readout cadence with development to discuss what’s going on and compare it with what they know is happening in releases, server maintenance, third-party code and more.
Why mobile URLs don’t have a ‘good’ Core Web Vitals score
This data explains why particular URLs aren’t considered good by Google. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you how to address the problem (that requires you to do a Core Web Vitals audit).
In these metrics, you’ll get:
- The count of URLs scoring low in any of the core web vitals audit.
- A handy list of example URLs, thoughtfully grouped by Google based on similar issues. Unfortunately it’s not all URLs with similar issues, bit’s enough to help you spot patterns and identify areas for improvement.
Metrics to monitor in this report:
- LCP issue: longer than 2.5s (mobile)
- LCP issue: longer than 4s (mobile)
- CLS issue: more than 0.1 (mobile)
- CLS issue: more than 0.25 (mobile)
- INP issue: longer than 200ms (mobile)
- INP issue: longer than 500ms (mobile)
Developers usually need more than just metrics. They want the full list of URLs with low scores.
Luckily, Google gives you and your devs sample URLs to evaluate, though it’s not the comprehensive list they crave. To dig deeper for more URL examples, tap into the Google Search Console API for more data.
Tips:
- Include these in your regular metrics readout with development.
- The historical chart is handy for quick trends, but it’s got a short memory. For the full picture, toss the data into a spreadsheet and chart it yourself. Don’t let those historical highs and lows slip into the shadows. Even better if you grap the chart images because your spreadsheet likely won’t have metrics showing day-to-day fluctuations throughout each month.
Desktop Core Web Vitals metrics
This is exactly the same as mobile. Usually, I give this a quick gander, but most of the time is spent on mobile core web vitals metrics.
What is often interesting in the desktop metrics is correlations between metrics improving in desktop, but getting worse on mobile devices. This is a good place for development to figure out why mobile metrics got worse, but desktop improved.
Metrics to monitor:
- Desktop Good URLs.
- Desktop Poor URLs.
- Desktop Needs Improvement URLs.
Why Desktop Core Web Vitals metrics are low
Frankly, this is not a priority for the sites I work on. Not that I never look at them, but in the grand scheme of things we prioritize fixing mobile issues, anticipating that fixing mobile issues will fix desktop issues.
For a few of my B2B enterprise clients, with a primarily desktop-focused audience, we dial up the attention on these metrics to make sure nothing slips through the cracks:
- LCP issue: longer than 2.5s (desktop)
- LCP issue: longer than 2.5s (desktop)
- CLS issue: more than 0.25 (desktop)
- CLS issue: more than 0.1 (desktop)
- INP issue: longer than 200ms (desktop)
- INP issue: longer than 500ms (desktop)
Rich results from Schema
Adding Schema markup to your site unlocks special features that enhance your organic listings, such as breadcrumb links, product information and more.
In Google Search Console, URLs with code intended to trigger these SERP enhancements are tracked in a section called “Enhancements.”
The list of “Enhancements” listed in Google Search Console will vary based, on your site’s setup. Here are the most common enhancements you’ll likely see:
- Breadcrumbs.
- FAQ.
- Review Snippets.
- Videos.
- Unparsable Structured Data.
- Product Snippets.
- Merchant Listings.
- And more.
Each of these enhancements have a report indicating the number of URLs that are valid, invalid and issues to address.
What’s next?
Now that you have the key Google Search Console metrics, make sure you track them regularly (monthly works best).
Remember to drop these metrics into a spreadsheet. Google’s limited historical data might leave you hanging when you need those insights down the road.
In the next article of this series, I’ll show you a few metrics tucked away in the “settings” section of Google Search Console that few SEOs talk about, but I like to keep an eye on.
Dig deeper: 3 underutilized Google Search Console reports for diagnosing traffic drops
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Thursday, September 26th, 2024
Relying solely on content and technical SEO is no longer enough to achieve sustainable success, especially for businesses operating in multiple markets.
While these elements are crucial, they fail to fully account for the diverse factors influencing a website’s global performance.
The complexities of managing SEO across different regions, languages and market conditions add layers of challenges, many of which fall outside the direct control of local SEO teams.
To effectively navigate these hurdles, companies must adopt process changes that promote consistency, reduce friction and enhance performance across all markets.
This article will explore how integrating uniform frameworks, centralized reporting and streamlined processes can help maintain and improve SEO performance on a global scale.
1. Ensure consistent reporting
Performance reporting is the first area that begs for consistency in many global search programs.
Too many companies lack consistent reporting across their markets, making it impossible to roll up data to understand global, regional and market performance.
Finding opportunities that can be leveraged in other markets is even more challenging.
In one of my initial global team meetings with a client, I observed how search teams from various markets presented their reports in completely different formats.
Many reports included similar data points, such as keyword rankings and some Google Search Console metrics. Still, only a few mentioned organic traffic and none provided ROI metrics, such as search-influenced leads or sales.
To address this inconsistency, we created a standardized reporting template that all markets could adopt.
This template could be easily integrated into the global reporting dashboard, enabling management to assess market performance and identify areas that require additional resources.
After establishing a consistent reporting framework, the next step is to expand the data set to include additional search variables.
One of my preferred metrics to monitor is the global performance of “always on” keywords. These keywords represent the business’s core offerings across different markets and must consistently appear in search results.
For example, a global search manager at a company like Lenovo or Dell might want to track how many markets rank in the top positions for a key product category like laptop computers, helping to identify areas of focus and potential keyword cannibalization.
By centralizing data, you can spot market or regional trends to apply in other areas, adding value.
For instance, during a meeting in Japan, a global manager noted significant traffic boosts from blog posts that highlighted how their product outperformed competitors.
This strategy was successfully implemented globally. Additionally, analyzing data on a global scale and encouraging markets to report increases and anomalies can reveal new opportunities.
2. Centralize SEO development tickets
Companies with centralized web development often struggle to manage multiple, conflicting support tickets, particularly when SEO responsibilities are decentralized to local teams or agencies.
This decentralization leads to inefficiencies, as teams spend significant time consolidating and prioritizing tickets, especially when requests conflict or need further clarification.
A centralized review process minimizes ticket redundancy and ensures that changes to key SEO elements do not negatively impact other markets. For instance, there have been cases where a local SEO team or agency has requested changes based on the latest techniques or aggressive strategies, which could lead to penalties affecting all markets.
While advising on a global search project, I examined Jira tickets submitted by local SEO teams and agencies.
I found a dozen tickets, some over six months old, all requesting the same task: correcting links in the header to prevent 404 errors.
The requests varied in detail, from simple fixes like “fix the links in the header” to one that specified exact links needing revision, but only for the local market.
By reviewing these requests centrally, we developed a comprehensive solution that framed the issue as a global concern. This resulted in the ticket’s acceptance and implementation in the next sprint.
Dig deeper: How you can deal with decentralization in international SEO
3. Be consistent in your approach and philosophy
The ticket review highlighted a significant inconsistency with the organization’s SEO philosophy and best practices. Many requests included outdated techniques that could undo existing positive changes.
Companies with a Search Council have a structured process for reviewing and approving market requests.
Even without formal procedures, in-house SEOs should assess the requests for their validity, viability and impact at both local and global levels.
We’ve all encountered situations where Agency A insists on a critical action while Agency B claims it’s not essential and prioritizes other tasks.
Also, there are times when web guidelines or the CMS restrict changes. How is this reconciliation handled?
A major challenge is the lack of SEO expertise in local markets.
Often, these markets do not have a dedicated SEO agency or personnel, as SEO is just one of many responsibilities.
They could greatly benefit from shared experience and documented guidelines to clarify focus areas and CMS capabilities.
All markets can enhance their SEO strategies and maintain a unified approach by collaborating to develop consistent guidelines, processes and templates.
Dig deeper: International SEO: How to avoid common translation and localization pitfalls
Don’t forget your templates
In a centralized development structure, most markets use the same templates, particularly for product pages. When a change is made to one template, it affects all websites, making template-related tickets and optimization actions crucial.
While consistency in webpage templates and SEO presents challenges, it also offers opportunities. Focusing on templates can lead to significant improvements; once fixes are deployed globally, everyone benefits.
It’s surprising to see many multinational websites with identical templates undergoing numerous audits. If all markets share a common template, there’s less need for individual audits, allowing budgets to be allocated to unique market needs instead.
It’s beneficial to share site audits, especially when multiple markets use the same template. Auditing the template infrastructure should yield consistent results.
Agencies can check for any deviations from the template, ensuring a more efficient use of resources. This allows teams to concentrate on content, backlinks and other important areas rather than redundant audits.
4. Use centralized solutions
Many SEO activities, from analytics to tools, could be centralized at a global level or in markets with more resources. However, despite the potential efficiency, I’ve found this is often more challenging in practice.
Centralized funding and management of SEO diagnostic tools can be more effective than having each market fund various tools independently.
For example, I’ve seen mid-sized companies use an old desktop computer with a single Screaming Frog license to crawl all markets and store reports on a shared drive.
After discovering that many of their CMS-generated XML sitemaps had errors, they created validated XML sitemaps for all markets and stored them centrally.
While discussing keywords is often discouraged, collaborative teams can benefit by sharing paid search keyword lists, ad copy and negative lists.
This collaboration is crucial for same-language markets, allowing them to build on existing work and focus their time and resources on adaptation and expansion.
5. Consider global and local
Local markets may see the shift toward consistency and standardized processes as restricting their autonomy and may resist if they believe it could impact their KPIs.
They need web elements and processes unique to their markets. Still, they should recognize that adopting consistent templates, centralized task alignment and best practices can help them focus more on local activities.
Getting SEO initiatives into the development pipeline is a significant challenge at any level, but a consistent workflow and aligned markets enhance effectiveness.
This uniformity facilitates the integration of cross-market analytics and AI solutions, creating further opportunities for scaling.
Dig deeper: The best AI tools for global SEO expansion
Streamlining global SEO: Centralized strategies for sustainable success
Incorporating standardized frameworks and centralized processes into global SEO strategies promotes consistency, efficiency and scalability across markets.
Organizations can more effectively allocate resources and uncover growth opportunities by streamlining reporting, ticket management and template usage.
This holistic approach improves site performance and enables local markets to focus on region-specific initiatives, driving sustainable SEO success on a global scale.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Thursday, September 26th, 2024
The Google Ads landscape continues to evolve, with a growing emphasis on data usage that complies with strict privacy guidelines.
To support advertisers navigating this environment, Google introduced a robust toolset designed to advance their AI-driven marketing strategies.
A key part of this transformation is Ads Data Hub (ADH), a platform built on Google Cloud.
ADH allows advertisers to integrate and analyze data from Google Ads and other sources, offering deeper insights into customer journeys and ad performance while maintaining privacy compliance.
This article explores what Ads Data Hub is, how it works and tips to maximize the tool while improving your Google Ads performance.
What is Ads Data Hub?
The Ads Data Hub is a centralized repository for all your marketing data, integrating information from:
- Your Google Ads account (including search, display, video and shopping campaigns).
- Your Google Analytics account.
- Your CRM system.
- First-party data collected from your websites, apps, physical stores or directly from customers.
Designed with privacy in mind, ADH aggregates all query results to prevent the identification of individual users within the dataset.
Minimum aggregation thresholds are established to avoid accidental exposure of personally identifiable information.
You also cannot download specific user data, ensuring compliance with today’s privacy guidelines and best practices across various industries.
Ads Data Hub: Setup and architecture
The platform’s architecture is specifically designed to securely and efficiently process large-scale advertising datasets. Let’s explore its key components and workflow in detail.
Data ingestion
Advertisers upload their first-party data to ADH, including customer interactions, website analytics and CRM information.
This data is matched with Google’s ad data (e.g., impressions, clicks, conversions) using hashed identifiers.
Cloud-based processing
The core of ADH is powered by Google Cloud’s BigQuery infrastructure.
Advertisers can write SQL queries to analyze data, joining their first-party data with Google’s advertising data.
This system allows businesses to run highly customized analyses without moving the data outside Google’s secure environment.
Querying
Users run SQL queries on aggregated datasets, with results compiled at a user level to protect personally identifiable information (PII).
ADH restricts the types of queries that can be executed to ensure individual user data remains private.
Output
Once the query is complete, ADH provides an aggregated report which can then be exported to BigQuery for further analysis or connected to other reporting tools like Looker Studio.
ADH’s limitations
Despite its robust features, Ads Data Hub has certain limitations that advertisers should be aware of.
- No real-time data access: ADH does not offer real-time data access. There is often a delay in getting campaign data into the platform, which could impact time-sensitive decisions.
- SQL expertise required: Running queries in ADH requires proficiency in SQL, making it necessary for advertisers to have data analysts or skilled marketers to extract meaningful insights.
- Limited access to raw data: Since raw user-level data is inaccessible, you might find limitations in performing deep cohort analysis or certain types of data exploration.
Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.
When to use Ads Data Hub
Ads Data Hub provides valuable insights by integrating data from various sources across customer touchpoints.
It enables advertisers to analyze purchase history across channels, identify shopping cart abandoners and create customer segments and audiences. These insights can then be used to inform ad copy, optimize landing pages and improve ROI models.
Here are some specific examples of how Ads Data Hub can be applied:
Cross-platform measurement
- ADH enables the analysis of user behavior across platforms, such as YouTube and Google Display Network.
- This cross-platform measurement capability lets you understand the complete picture of user engagement and track conversions more effectively.
First-party data enrichment
- Uploading first-party data can enrich your analysis, allowing you to gain insights into customer segments, lifetime value and conversion behaviors.
- Combining first-party data with Google Ads data helps improve targeting and retargeting strategies.
Google provides a good table of use cases to help provide some starting points:
Use case examples
Here are a few examples of how businesses have used the Google Ads Data Hub to improve their Google Ads performance.
Churn prevention through ad interaction analysis
- Identify users at risk of churning by analyzing their prior engagement with ads.
- This helps create a targeted list of potentially churn-prone users who have previously interacted with your ads, indicating some level of engagement.
- By focusing retention efforts on these users, businesses can develop personalized campaigns to re-engage them and reduce churn.
Maximizing lifetime value for high-value users
- Use your CRM data to identify high-value users who are part of your existing customer base and actively engage with your YouTube campaigns.
- By targeting these valuable users with personalized messaging and offers, you can further enhance their lifetime value, encouraging repeat purchases or deeper brand loyalty.
Geo-specific conversion propensity for affinity segments
- Analyze affinity and in-market segments by region to understand user interests and behaviors at a granular level.
- By evaluating the various interest categories users fall into, you can optimize your campaigns geographically, tailoring content to match regional preferences and increasing conversion rates within specific markets.
Optimizing retargeting with message sequencing
- Create exclusion lists for negative retargeting by identifying users who have already converted or heavily interacted with previous campaigns.
- This helps avoid over-targeting and ad fatigue, ensuring that your messaging is more relevant to potential customers who have yet to engage while efficiently managing your ad spend.
Tracking new CRM signups from ad exposure
- Identify incremental users who signed up for your CRM after being exposed to your YouTube or Google Ads campaigns.
- By analyzing the data, you can create a list of these newly enrolled users, allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your ad campaigns in driving CRM growth and optimizing future strategies for customer acquisition.
Ads Data Hub: Bridging data sources for enhanced marketing intelligence
Google’s Ads Data Hub is a powerful tool for advertisers seeking actionable insights while maintaining strict privacy standards.
By leveraging Google Cloud’s infrastructure and combining first-party and Google Ads data, the platform enables advanced analysis without compromising user privacy.
From campaign optimization to custom attribution modeling, ADH helps you succeed in a privacy-focused advertising landscape.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Thursday, September 26th, 2024
From your account reps to the interface itself, Google gives you plenty of recommendations on managing your ad campaigns. But are all of those good?
Should you ignore these recommendations and “hack” Google’s machine learning – or should you follow Google’s advice?
Two Google Ads experts – Ben Kruger and Anthony Higman – had an interesting debate on this topic at SMX Advanced.
Here are the key points from their discussion.
Performance Max (PMax) for non-ecommerce
Kruger, who was on the side of adopting, clearly took the stance that Performance Max is future and that all Google’s tools centers around it:
- “My simple answer is that PMax is clearly the future of Google. It’s where everything is heading as, you know, if you’re talking to your reps, if you’re reading documentation, if you’re watching Gmail, which which happened, recently, everything seems to center around Pmax, and it’s talked about over and over again.”
- “If you’re not learning and mastering the newest thing that Google is clearly pushing, then you’re potentially gonna get left behind when inevitably, whatever you’re used to gets sunsetted, deprecated or you’re forced to migrate over to PMax.”
PMax offers growth opportunities through AI-driven insights across various channels, but Kruger advised against relying solely on it, suggesting it should be part of a broader, strategic approach that includes learning from PMax to enhance dedicated campaigns.
Higman, who was on the side of hacking, said non-ecommerce brands, in particular, should avoid PMax. He sees “a lot of problems” with it:
- “I do understand that Google is aggressively pushing PMax, But just because Google is pushing something doesn’t mean that everybody should jump on board.
- “The more people that adopt PMax because of Google’s push for the new shiny object, the more they make it easier to deprecate certain things.
- “My main beef with PMax is, again, the lack of transparency. They clearly wanna push everybody in automation, which I disagree with because not everybody fits into that box.”
Higman emphasized the importance of maintaining control and visibility over ad spend, especially for those with smaller budgets. He also expressed concern that widespread adoption of PMax could lead to the deprecation of more transparent tools.
Best match type
Kruger said there is a place for exact match, but if he had to choose, it would be broad match:
- “Queries are getting way more, unique, specific and long tail. People are going to be conversing with Google search, asking it different ways, maybe using voice, maybe searching on Google Maps. Queries are evolving, and you’ll never be able to cover that with exact match.
- “Broad match is analyzing past searches that this user has made, their location, thousands of other signals that only Broad Match has.
- “With a growth mindset, it’s gonna find you new keywords. So with an exact match, your search terms are all your keywords, and you’re not gonna be able to move to that next frontier of growth to find new queries for you to acquire.”
Broad match is more effective in capturing the increasingly unique, specific and long-tail queries users are making, according to Kruger. It leverages Google’s AI to understand consumer intent and match ads to relevant searches by analyzing various signals, including the user’s past behavior and the content of landing pages.
Higman’s all-time favorite, of the present and past match types, is broad match modifier. But sticking to what is possible, he said he prefers exact match.
- “This is another one of those control things. As Google removes control, their revenue goes up. Advertisers kinda get a little bit watered down results.”
- “So I am a proponent of exact match, keeping things as tight as possible, and really targeting what you want to target.”
Kruger also noted that while exact match may be more expensive, it offers tighter control and more precise targeting compared to other match types. Despite still using phrase match for specific purposes, exact match is currently his preferred choice for achieving targeted campaign results.
Automation vs. control
When posed the question of automation versus control, Kruger said performance is what matters:
- “That’s a trick question. I think the answer is performance, and I don’t care how I get there. That’s that’s all that matters to me, and I’m gonna use the best tools available to get the performance and the growth”
- “That’s automation because it allows for performance at scale. I’m constantly finding new opportunities, for performance, and I’m able to find new levers of growth, to move my business along.”
While control is important, particularly for agencies focused on hitting specific targets within platforms like Google Ads, relying solely on controlled methods limits growth potential, Kruger said.
Balance is key, Kruger said, where strategic controls are combined with automation to drive significant business growth. In his experience, automation has consistently delivered the best performance outcomes.
Unsurprisingly, Higman’s stance is “1,000% control”:
- “Google is pushing everybody into automation, which, again, it does have its use cases. I’m not saying that it does not, but we need to keep control to keep results.”
- “I think that as privacy legislation meets automation, there’s gonna be a lot of problems down the road as there’s less data that can be fed to the the automation because of privacy legislation, things are gonna get wonky.”
- “I also think from an agency perspective, control is extremely important. Client’s don’t want these weird things that are gonna happen with automation that bring in different kind of things that they’re really not going after.”
Higman is concerned that automation, with its lack of transparency, could lead to undesirable outcomes and urges others to resist the push toward automated systems that reduce control.
RSA (Responsive Search Ads) strategy
Maximizes all the headlines and descriptions that RSA’s have to offer, Kruger said:
- “I completely max them out: 15 headlines, 5 descriptions, 20 images, all extensions, etc.
- “I have seen first-hand that creative is targeting. You could have two different ad groups with the same keywords in it and if you change the assets in one of the RSAs to better match that keyword, the search terms that match to that ad group will move to the one that’s more relevant.
- “Formats are completely gonna change. And by having a diverse set of assets in an RSA, you can increase your chances of landing different placements that those with an ETA definitely could not get into.”
As search engine results pages (SERPs) evolve, having a diverse set of assets in RSAs increases the chances of securing different placements, something expanded text ads (ETAs) cannot achieve, according to Kruger.
But Higman is not a fan of RSAs. He said:
- “I think that the best RSA strategy is not RSAs. We still have accounts that have expanded text ads in them, and they outperform RSAs by miles every time, and they get all of the conversions.
- “My RSA strategy is to keep RSAs as close to ETAs as possible.
- “So we will only provide the minimum required headlines and descriptions, and we will pin those into place exactly where we want them based on past performance on expanded text ads.”
While Higman acknowledged the potential of RSAs to match headlines and descriptions to searches, that hasn’t been his experience. Overall, he has found that ETAs still significantly outperform RSAs.
Both experts agreed that ad strength scores may not be indicative of performance.
Nuanced perspectives
It should be noted that with each point each expert conceded that their “opponent” made valid points:
- Higman conceded that automated solutions could benefit larger advertisers aiming for broad reach.
- Kruger suggested that control-focused strategies might be more suitable for businesses with limited capacity to handle high lead volumes
The debate highlighted the ongoing tension in the PPC community between embracing Google’s automation push and maintaining granular control over campaigns.
The key takeaway is that while Google is clearly moving toward more automated solutions, the best approach depends on an advertiser’s specific goals, budget and capacity for growth.
Watch: The great debate: Should you hack or adopt Google Ads features?
You can watch the full session from SMX Advanced here:
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, September 25th, 2024
Google is explicitly identifying people it understands to be content creators.
This article explains how we know that Google is recognizing content creators, why it’s important and what SEO professionals need to do in response.
Google’s growing recognition of content creator entities
I recently discovered Knowledge Panel subtitles like “Content Creator (Medicine)” and “Content Creator (Travel)” in the SERPs.
This shows Google’s explicit identification of individuals as authoritative content creators within specific fields.
This is a significant E-E-A-T development for content creators as it gives visible and meaningful proof that Google has recognized them as credible sources of information on a specific topic.
It’s also a huge advantage in modern SEO, since the person’s content is more likely to appear in today’s search results and tomorrow’s AI-powered assistants.
Here are some examples from the Kalicube Pro dataset (tracking over 17 million person entities) for content creator topics:
- Agriculture, Animals, Art, Automobiles.
- Baking, Baseball, Beauty, Bodybuilding, Boxing.
- Camping, Cats, Coaching, Cooking, Cosmetics, Cricket, Cryptocurrency.
- Dancing, Dogs.
- Fashion, Fashion, Finances, Fishing, Food.
- Gambling, Games, Geography, Gymnastics.
- Health, Hiking, History, Humor.
- Interior design, Investing, Jazz, Law.
- Magic, Markets, Martial arts, Medicine, Mental health, Music.
- Nutrition, Painting, Parenting, Physical fitness, Politics, Psychology.
- Racing, Real Estate, Religion.
- Science, Shopping, Skincare, Soccer, Stand-up comedy, Surfing.
- Technology, Toys, Travel, Vegetarianism, Video games, Volleyball.
- Weather, Weight loss, Wildlife, Wrestling.
Google is looking for content creators
This focus on identifying content creators is a recurring theme at Google.
Three events in 2023 and 2024 demonstrated that identifying content creators is a major focus for Google:
Our Knowledge Graph monitoring tool shows small updates every 1 to 2 weeks. In 2024, they have mostly affected person entities.
While these updates may seem random and impact around 10% of entities, they are typically minor “recalibrations” rather than strategically significant changes.
The key takeaway is that Google is increasingly focused on identifying trustworthy person entities and connecting them to the content they create.
Why this is important to E-E-A-T in SEO
E-E-A-T takes on real (measurable) meaning when Google identifies people it considers authoritative on a topic and can confidently link them to the content they create.
This places us firmly in the era of what I call modern SEO, where, in addition to optimizing the content (traditional SEO), optimizing the content creator and website publisher entities is necessary.
The logic is simple and irrefutable, given the data and the Google leak.
In order for Google’s algorithms to apply any E-E-A-T credibility signals, they need to understand the entity and the relationship between that entity and the web pages it creates or that provide information about it.
This is a zero-sum game. Without explicit understanding, the entity’s E-E-A-T credibility signals (links, awards, qualifications, reviews, testimonials, media coverage, etc.) will have no effect.
How to optimize content creator/author for SEO
To achieve optimal SEO results, you need to focus on optimizing both the content creator and website publisher entities. However, if you have to prioritize one, choose the content creator.
Google is increasingly focusing on individuals and optimizing content creators will likely provide the most value to your clients right now.
Optimization passes through three phases:
- Understandability.
- Credibility.
- Deliverability.
Understandability
Create clear relationships between the content creator and reference pages that Google can use to verify facts about the person. Ideal reference pages include:
- The creator’s personal website.
- The “About” page on their employer’s website.
- Social profiles.
- Trusted third-party sources like Crunchbase, Wikidata, etc.
Credibility
Establish connections between the content creator and relevant content. This includes:
- Articles they’ve written.
- Videos they’ve produced.
- Podcasts where they’ve appeared as a guest.
- Interviews they’ve participated in.
- Articles written about them.
Deliverability
Expand the content creator’s digital footprint by creating new content, getting content published about them and controlling all information strands. Ensure all content is:
- Clear.
- Consistent.
- Relevant.
- Topical.
- Factually accurate.
Use the creator’s personal website as a central hub in a hub-and-spoke model, linking all content to help Google and other AI systems connect the dots.
A simple, DIY method to check if Google recognizes the author
To see if Google recognizes an author, search for the title of one of their articles. In the SERPs, click the three vertical dots next to the result.
If Google shows the author’s name and a brief description, it means the relationship between the author and the content has been established in Google’s algorithms.
The person entity and URL relationships evolve over time
This strategy is not a “set-it-and-forget-it” approach. Over time, a person’s digital footprint expands, their niche evolves and Google’s dataset and algorithms continuously change.
For example, during the Killer Whale update, the number of person entities tripled in a single day, drastically altering the landscape for most entities overnight.
Even smaller updates can accumulate into significant changes:
- Seven minor updates In August and September led to the deletion of 19.21% of person entities and the creation of 21.26% new ones.
There is a constant risk of losing critical elements such as entity-to-reference relationships, author connections, specific facts about the entity and relationships with other entities.
The daily risk of losing their Knowledge Panel is particularly high for less established person entities.
Tracking these elements is essential, and ongoing maintenance is crucial.
We consider an entity to be established only after two years of presence in Google’s Knowledge Graph, as reflected in its entity home.
Entities that depend on sources like Wikipedia, Wikidata, Google Books, Crunchbase or other third-party resources for their existence in the Knowledge Graph remain vulnerable to changes in those sources.
Is this information integrated into the algorithms?
The simple answer is “yes.”
We can clearly see Person entities in Gemini, AI Overviews, Google Discover and in traditional SERPs through rich features such as Knowledge Panels, People Also Search For, “Best of” lists and much more.
Even when considering a traditional KPI like ranking, you can see the positive impact of building these entity-to-URL relationships.
In collaboration with WordLift, I have been working on this for my personal brand. Below is the position tracking of pages explicitly associated with “Jason Barnard” as reference or author pages on WordLift’s website:
Here are some results from on and off-SERP assistive agents:
This is important to topical authority in SEO
The importance of topical authority is widely recognized in the SEO industry.
Because topics are considered entities, building topical authority involves developing URL-to-entity relationships for both the relevant topics and the content creator.
As you establish topical authority for a content creator, the likelihood of Google assigning a subtitle such as “Content creator (Topic)” increases.
This subtitle serves as a direct indicator of individuals whom Google recognizes as primary content creators with authority in a specific field.
However, this subtitle is not the only measure of topical authority.
If Google views an individual’s primary role differently, an individual can possess topical authority without it being reflected in their subtitle.
For example, while Google acknowledges me as a topical authority in SEO – evident from the topic-to-URL relationship with my entity home – my Knowledge Panel subtitle is “Entrepreneur.”
- On Sept. 14, a Google Knowledge Graph update recalibrated topic entities, leading to a 4.82% reduction in their numbers. Topics relying on Wikipedia pages were particularly affected, underscoring Wikipedia’s diminishing role in Google’s Knowledge Graph.
Other search and assistive engines and the future
In addition to Google Search and Gemini, various AI assistive engines – such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, Alexa, Apple Spotlight and Siri – are adopting similar strategies. Through direct or indirect partnerships, these engines:
- Selectively collect data from the web.
- Optimize this data to train their large language models (LLMs).
- Structure the information to create a Knowledge Graph, helping to reduce hallucinations and errors.
What you must do now as a modern SEO expert
To stay ahead, focus on building an understanding of person-to-page relationships (consider these as linkless links).
Apply this strategy to the content creators on your (or your clients’) websites to enhance rankings, increase SERP visibility and improve knowledge-based results such as Knowledge Panels, entity lists and AI Overviews.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, September 25th, 2024
As PPC professionals, we strive to deliver results, optimize campaigns, foster strong client relationships and grow along with our clients.
However, not all client partnerships are destined for success. Sometimes, the difficult decision to part ways becomes necessary.
Why maintaining a healthy client portfolio matters
A thriving PPC agency or freelance business relies on a client portfolio that aligns with your expertise, values and business goals.
Each client relationship should be mutually beneficial, allowing for:
- Sustainable growth for both parties.
- Professional satisfaction and development.
- Fair compensation for your services.
- A positive working environment.
When these elements are balanced, you can deliver your best work and achieve outstanding results. However, when the scales tip unfavorably, it may be time to reassess the relationship.
Dig deeper: 8 questions to ask your new PPC clients
Challenges of managing difficult PPC clients
Even the most experienced PPC professionals encounter challenging clients from time to time. These difficulties can manifest in various ways:
- Micromanagement: Clients who constantly question your strategies and demand excessive reporting can hinder your ability to implement effective campaigns.
- Scope creep: Some clients may continually request additional services without adjusting compensation, leading to overwork and reduced profitability.
- Unrealistic expectations: Clients who expect immediate, dramatic results without understanding the realities of PPC advertising can create undue stress and strain on the relationship.
- Poor communication: Unresponsive clients or those who fail to provide necessary information can impede campaign progress and optimization efforts.
- Ethical concerns: Occasionally, clients may request actions that conflict with industry best practices or ethical standards.
While facing these challenges is part of the job, there comes a point when the cost of maintaining a difficult client relationship outweighs the benefits.
Recognizing when to draw the line is key to your PPC business’s long-term success.
5 signs it’s time to consider firing a client
1. Consistent late payments
Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business, and consistent late payments can seriously jeopardize your operations:
- Repeated delays: If a client regularly pays invoices weeks or months after the due date, it’s a red flag.
- Excuses and broken promises: Constant explanations for late payments and unfulfilled promises to improve indicate a systemic issue.
- Impact on your business: Late payments can affect your ability to pay for ad spend, staff or other operational costs.
When late payments become the norm, it’s time to reconsider the relationship.
Consistently paying late shows a lack of respect for you and your services, and it’s important to address it.
2. Unrealistic expectations
Clients with unrealistic expectations can create undue stress and strain on your team:
- Demanding immediate results: PPC campaigns often require time for optimization. Clients who expect overnight success may not understand the process.
- Ignoring market realities: If a client refuses to acknowledge competitive landscapes or market conditions that affect campaign performance, it can lead to frustration on both sides.
- Constantly moving goals: Clients who continually change objectives or set unattainable targets without adjusting budgets or timelines may be impossible to satisfy.
When a client’s expectations are consistently unrealistic, it may be a sign the relationship isn’t working.
These expectations often stem from a lack of marketing knowledge or because another agency or freelancer made promises that are now your responsibility.
Dig deeper: How to set and manage PPC expectations for teams and stakeholders
3. Poor communication
Effective communication is the foundation of any successful client relationship:
- Unresponsiveness: Clients who consistently fail to respond to emails, calls or requests for essential information can hinder campaign progress.
- Lack of clarity: Vague or constantly changing instructions can lead to misunderstandings and poor campaign performance.
- Inconsistent availability: Clients who are hard to reach but demand immediate responses from you create an imbalanced relationship.
Before starting, you and your client should agree on communication channels, meeting frequency and when you need feedback versus when you’re just sharing information.
If communication issues persist and affect your ability to deliver results, it may be time to reconsider the partnership.
4. Disregard for expert advice
As PPC professionals, our expertise is what clients pay for. When that expertise is consistently ignored:
- Overriding strategic decisions: Clients who regularly dismiss your recommendations in favor of their own ideas, despite poor results, can be frustrating.
- Refusing to adapt: If a client is unwilling to adjust strategies based on data and performance insights, it limits your ability to improve campaigns.
- Micromanagement: Excessive involvement in day-to-day operations without trusting your judgment can hinder progress and efficiency.
If your advice is regularly ignored, it may signal a lack of trust or respect for your expertise.
5. Unethical requests
Maintaining ethical standards is non-negotiable in PPC management:
- Asking to mislead audiences: Requests to create deceptive ad copy or landing pages that violate advertising policies are major red flags.
- Pressuring for black hat techniques: Clients who insist on using tactics that go against platform guidelines put your account and reputation at risk.
- Ignoring legal requirements: Disregarding industry regulations or data privacy laws can have serious consequences.
Parting ways with a client who continually makes unethical requests is a must to protect your business and integrity.
Dig deeper: 5 tips for handling client and stakeholder requests for PPC projects
What to do before firing a client
Before deciding to fire a client, it’s important to handle the situation thoughtfully and professionally.
Consider these steps to potentially salvage the relationship or ensure you’ve addressed the issues thoroughly.
Open communication about issues
Clear, honest communication is the foundation of any successful professional relationship. When problems arise, it’s essential to address them directly:
- Schedule a formal meeting: Set up a dedicated time to discuss your concerns. This shows the client that you take the issues seriously and are committed to finding a resolution.
- Be specific and factual: Clearly outline the problems you’ve observed, using concrete examples and data where possible. For instance, “Over the past three months, payments have been late by an average of 15 days.”
- Listen actively. Give the client an opportunity to share their perspective. You may be unaware of underlying issues or misunderstandings.
- Document the conversation: After the meeting, send a follow-up email summarizing the key points discussed and any agreed-upon actions. This creates a paper trail and ensures both parties are on the same page.
Document everything. If issues arise, having records will protect you. It’s always safer to have documentation than to be without it.
Setting clear boundaries and expectations
Once you’ve openly discussed the issues, establish or reinforce clear boundaries and expectations:
- Create a formal agreement: Develop a written document that outlines the terms of your working relationship. This could be an addendum to your existing contract or a new service level agreement (SLA).
- Define roles and responsibilities: Clearly specify what the client can expect from you and what you need from them to perform your job effectively.
- Establish communication protocols: Set guidelines for response times, preferred communication channels and regular check-ins.
- Outline consequences: Clearly state what will happen if the agreed-upon terms are not met. This could include late fees for overdue payments or the potential termination of services.
Dig deeper: 5 essential PPC skills every agency pro must have
Offering alternative solutions
Before resorting to terminating the relationship, explore alternative solutions that could address the core issues:
- Adjust the scope of work: If the client’s expectations are unrealistic given their budget, propose a scaled-back version of your services that aligns with their resources.
- Implement new tools or processes: Suggest using project management software or automated reporting tools to improve communication and transparency.
- Offer training or education: If the client’s disregard for expert advice stems from a lack of understanding, propose a training session to help them better grasp PPC concepts and strategies.
- Revise payment terms: For clients struggling with cash flow, consider offering a different payment structure, such as smaller, more frequent payments instead of larger monthly invoices.
Taking these steps shows your commitment to the client and your effort to find solutions.
If the situation doesn’t improve, you can confidently move forward with ending the relationship, knowing you’ve done your best to resolve the issues.
How to fire a PPC client professionally
After exhausting all efforts to salvage the relationship, you may find that terminating the contract is the best course of action.
Handling this process professionally is crucial for maintaining your reputation and minimizing potential negative impacts on your business.
Let’s explore the key steps to firing a PPC client with grace and professionalism.
Timing considerations
Timing is key when ending a client relationship.
- Before proceeding, review your contract for termination clauses and notice periods.
- Ideally, align the termination with the end of a campaign or reporting period for a smoother transition.
- Be mindful of your client’s business cycle. Avoid ending the relationship just before their peak season or major events.
- Ensure you have the capacity to manage the transition and handover of accounts or data. Considering these factors will help minimize disruption and maintain professionalism.
Preparing necessary documentation
Gather all relevant documentation for the termination process.
- Start with performance reports that highlight the work done and results achieved.
- Prepare a document containing account access information, including login credentials and any accounts created for the client.
- Create a transition guide outlining the campaign structure, naming conventions and specific strategies used.
- Don’t forget to prepare a final invoice detailing any remaining billables or refunds.
- Draft a formal termination letter that includes the end date, a clear reason for termination, an overview of the transition process and any final obligations.
Initiating the conversation
When it’s time to inform the client about ending the relationship, approach the conversation with professionalism and empathy.
- Schedule a call to deliver this news verbally rather than by email.
- During the call, be direct and respectful, clearly stating your decision without being emotional or accusatory.
- Offer a brief, honest explanation for the termination without going into too much detail or inviting debate.
- Then, shift to the next steps, outlining the transition process and what the client can expect.
- Be ready for questions or objections by anticipating concerns and preparing calm, professional responses.
By managing this difficult conversation thoughtfully, you can maintain professionalism and preserve a positive relationship, even as you part ways.
Handling the transition
A well-managed transition process can help maintain a positive professional reputation:
- Provide a transition timeline: Outline clear deadlines for each step of the handover process.
- Offer a handover meeting: Propose a meeting with the client or their new agency to walk through your campaigns and strategies.
- Transfer assets and access: Ensure all relevant assets, data and account access are transferred securely and in a timely manner.
- Be available for questions: Offer a reasonable timeframe for addressing any follow-up questions after the transition.
- Maintain professionalism: Even if the client reacts negatively, remain calm and professional throughout the process.
Dig deeper: Client onboarding and offboarding: The PPC agency’s guide
Reflecting on the experience
After you’ve gone through the process of firing a client, take a step back and reflect on the experience.
This isn’t just about closing a chapter; it’s an opportunity for growth and improvement in your PPC business.
Analyze the reasons for termination
Take some time to analyze what led to the termination.
Were there early warning signs you missed? Could you have addressed any issues sooner?
This reflection isn’t about beating yourself up, but about learning and evolving your business practices.
Refine client selection and onboarding
Use these insights to refine your client selection process.
Consider developing a more detailed ideal client profile. What characteristics make for a great long-term partnership?
You might want to create a more comprehensive onboarding questionnaire to help identify potential issues early on.
Setting clear expectations from the start can prevent many problems down the line.
Dig deeper: PPC client kickoff: Strategies for a successful first encounter
Strengthen existing client relationships
Take this opportunity to strengthen relationships with your existing clients during this process.
Conduct a relationship audit with your current clients.
Are there any emerging issues you can proactively address?
Increasing communication and transparency can go a long way in maintaining healthy, long-term partnerships.
Review legal considerations
Always review your service agreement before terminating a client relationship.
Pay close attention to termination clauses, ownership of work and data and any confidentiality agreements.
Adhering to proper notice periods is important. If it’s not specified in your contract, a 30-day notice is typically standard in the PPC industry.
Manage proprietary information
Handling proprietary information is another important consideration.
Be clear about what constitutes proprietary information and outline the process for returning or destroying client data.
Make sure you’re complying with all relevant data protection regulations.
Ending client relationships: Steps for a smooth and professional transition
Healthy business relationships are crucial for long-term success in PPC management.
While retaining clients is important, it shouldn’t hinder your agency’s growth.
Open communication helps prevent issues, and clear contracts benefit both parties. However, sometimes, ending a relationship is the best option for everyone.
You can build a stronger, more sustainable PPC business by managing client relationships strategically and handling terminations professionally.
Focus not just on keeping clients but on finding those who share your values and goals.
Each client relationship, including those that end, offers a chance to learn.
Use these experiences to improve your processes and services, ultimately creating a thriving PPC business.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, September 25th, 2024
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Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Wednesday, September 25th, 2024
TikTok is taking a direct shot at Google with the launch of TikTok Search Ads Campaign in the U.S. Advertisers can now target users on its search results page.
Previously, ads on TikTok’s search page were more generic. But now brands can tailor their ads to align with specific search behaviors.
Why it matters. TikTok has a growing role as a search engine for younger users – 57% of users use the app’s search function, according to internal TikTok data. This new feature lets you capture attention at critical moments of intent. TikTok’s move could threaten Google’s dominance, as younger users are increasingly using social media for search instead of traditional engines.
What can be done. Brands can now tailor ads to match TikTok’s unique search behaviors, which often blend intent-driven and spontaneous discovery.
The numbers. TikTok’s testing shows that combining Search Ads with In-Feed Ads boosts conversions by 20%, with users who don’t engage with an ad initially more likely to interact after seeing a related search ad.
The big picture. TikTok’s search capabilities continue to evolve, positioning the platform as a real contender in the search advertising space, and giving advertisers a new way to reach users who are actively seeking specific content.
But. The impending U.S. TikTok ban, which is expected to occur in January, could severely limit any threat to Google’s search ad dominance.
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Tuesday, September 24th, 2024
Meta Ads provides a solid foundation of basic metrics like ROAS and conversion rate, but savvy marketers know that true optimization lies in the details.
Are your clicks translating into quality visits? Is your audience reach expanding or stagnating? These questions demand more nuanced data.
Below are six advanced key performance indicators (KPIs) that Meta Ads doesn’t readily offer out of the box but which can dramatically elevate your paid social strategy.
1. Awareness KPI: Net new reach
The first missing KPI to add to your Meta Ads strategy should focus on audience reach and saturation.
The key question: Is your top-of-funnel approach attracting people unfamiliar with your brand?
This is crucial for most businesses, especially B2B accounts with longer sales cycles.
Without fresh prospects, you risk depleting your funnel by repeatedly targeting the same audience, leading to diminishing returns.
To answer this question, you will want to tweak how Meta Ads shows your data.
Let’s start with frequency. It’s the average number of times each user saw your ad. The formula is:
- Frequency = Impressions / Reach
Frequency is a powerful KPI for tracking audience saturation, but it comes with two major caveats:
- Frequency is an average. And just like every average metric, it hides discrepancies that can destroy your campaign results. This means you always need to implement frequency caps. Unfortunately, Meta Ads does not always offer such options and you will need to contort your campaign settings to prevent such issues. But that’s a topic for another article.
- It’s bound to a predefined time frame. So you need to break it down to understand its full story:
- Last 3 or 7 days for an immediate snapshot.
- Last 14 or 30 days for your audience’s recent experience.
- Last 90 or 180 days to get a smoothed-out perspective.
- Etc.
This means Meta Ads could easily improve Ads Manager by providing frequency columns with such default time frames. But you have to manually do it. Or do you?
Meta Ads offers an alternate metric called “frequency (cumulative).” However, it’s not available as a column in Ads Manager: you can only get it if you hover over a campaign (ad set or ad) and click on “view charts” and then “customize.”
Here is an example of a retargeting campaign with a budget that’s probably too big for a relatively small audience:
Looking at frequency over time, it looks OK. We’re reaching unique users about once a day.
However, the overall number should trigger some questions: why is it so high (17 impressions in about a month)? If we switch to frequency (cumulative), this is what we see:
You never want to see such a frequency (cumulative) curve in most scenarios because:
- You don’t want to tap into the same audience indefinitely, resulting in a dried-up top-of-funnel.
- You want to anticipate such a scenario and avoid reactive behavior. That way, you avoid seeing performance go up and down and up and down again.
The question is: how?
Unfortunately, Meta Ads does not provide an easy way to do this: frequency (cumulative) sits at the campaign level only, and its sister KPI, reach (cumulative), too.
Also, it can’t be found in the regular data exports (API, Ads Report, etc.).
You’ll need to create a custom KPI called net new reach to accomplish this. Here’s the formula:
Net New Reach = Reach(s→y) – Reach(s→m)
With:
- Reach(s→y) being Reach from your start date (“s”) to yesterday (“y”)
- Reach(s→m) being Reach from your start date to a middle point in time (“m”)
This lets you know how many new users you reached who were not exposed to your ads before “m.” net new reach has two advantages:
- Unlike frequency (cumulative), it adapts to your granularity needs up to the account level. You can export its root component (Reach) relatively easily through the API, the user interface, etc.
- It shows your latest net new reach, which allows for anticipation. If it falls week over week (for example), you know you want to act to avoid saturating your audience
Now, there’s still one caveat with net new reach. You need to make it a recurring exercise (weekly?) and build a nice table out of that to make it digestible. Fortunately, since it’s recurring, it means it’s automateable.
I suggest exporting Reach(s→y) weekly to your database of choice and running a script to subtract Reach(s→y) from the previous week’s Reach (s→y) (that is, Reach(s→m), from the perspective of that new week).
That way, you will end up with a table like the one below, with “s” being your start date and “y” being yesterday, the date of the data pull.
Once that table is ready, you only need to graph net new reach and/or analyze it weekly to know whether you have a top-of-funnel saturation challenge.
In the table above, since the net new reach is much lower than reach (s→y), it indicates that we’re not bringing in enough new users to our top-of-funnel tactics and/or have a disproportionate budget compared to our audience size.
Dig deeper: B2B audience targeting: Meta Ads as an alternative to LinkedIn
2–3. Engagement KPIs: Hook and retention rates
Another area where Meta Ads could do better is the engagement stage of the funnel.
If you ask me, when it comes to engagement, the most important goal is to catch users’ attention in a crowded feed or string of Stories and Reels. What they do next (from leaving a comment to purchasing) is up to the next stages of the funnel.
When your ad is catchy enough, it gives you a chance to:
- Deliver your message.
- Push your audience to complete the action you want them to take.
These two items can be calculated very easily using Meta Ads’ custom metrics:
- Hook rate: Determine if your ad is catchy enough to stop users from scrolling and grab their attention.
- Formula:
- Hook Rate = 3-second video plays / Video plays
- Retention rate: Check if your ad is well-crafted to deliver its message and encourage users to act (though this mainly ties into CTR and conversion rates).
- Formula:
- Retention Rate = ThruPlays / 3-second video plays
Using these two metrics, you can determine whether to improve your ad’s hook or body. This will help you create better-performing assets at a lower cost since you’d only need to adjust one part.
However, Meta Ads doesn’t offer the same depth of raw KPIs for images as for videos, which is unfortunate. Despite using it internally, a metric like dwell time could easily resolve this issue, but Meta Ads has yet to make it available to advertisers.
In the meantime, I don’t see a solution other than using CTR to determine whether an image engages well.
4. Traffic KPI: Quality visit rate
Like the engagement stage, the traffic stage of the funnel could benefit from additional KPIs.
Once your ad grabs users’ attention, the goal is to prompt them to take action. While Meta Ads provides various click-based KPIs to measure this, they tend to be fairly shallow.
Meta Ads doesn’t tell you whether that click was valuable: Did those users bounce? Did they consume your content in-depth?
You will not know unless you have enough typical conversions (purchases, leads, etc.).
In those cases, how do you assess performance? The good news is that you have everything you need to do so, and easily!
Your first goal should be to define what is a quality visit. One way to look at this is to consider users who, once they reached your website, did one or more of the following actions:
- Visited at least two pages.
- Scrolled all the way down to the bottom of your landing page.
- Spent more than 30 seconds on your landing page.
- Played a video on your landing page.
With these simple triggers, you can set up a custom conversion in Meta Ads. This allows you to optimize your campaigns with the new KPI and evaluate your landing page’s performance using the quality visit rate.
Here’s the formula:
- Quality Visit Rate = Quality Visits / Landing Page Views
I recommend using landing page views to filter out clicks that weren’t tracked due to issues like cookie consent or ad blockers. This way, you’ll have a reliable KPI for your analysis.
Dig deeper: 3 powerful micro-conversion strategies for paid social
5-6. Performance KPI: Lifetime value and benefits
While those KPIs may seem like a stretch since you typically need an analytics or CRM solution to access that data, it’s disappointing that Meta Ads doesn’t fully leverage its integrations with tools like GA4, HubSpot and Salesforce to showcase its true business value.
Still, I believe every PPC should periodically review these metrics. Here are the formulas you need to calculate:
- Lifetime Value (LTV) = average order value x total transactions / unique customers
- Lifetime Benefits (LTB) = LTV x profit margin
I wrote an entire article on this exact topic, so feel free to check it out and dive deeper into LTV.
KPIs to elevate your Meta Ads strategy
Meta Ads offers a robust set of KPIs for campaign management, but advancing your measurement and optimization capabilities requires the creation of more sophisticated metrics.
KPIs such as net new reach, hook rate, retention rate, and quality visit rate, along with more complex metrics like lifetime value, provide deeper insights into campaign effectiveness, allowing for more informed decision-making beyond just ROAS or conversion rates.
Hopefully, Meta will recognize the value of integrating these metrics directly into Ads Manager. In the meantime, savvy PPCs can leverage these advanced KPIs to stay ahead of the competition.
Dig deeper: Here’s why PPC now looks more like paid social and what it means
Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
