Pandora now tailors music and ads

I am a long time listener of Pandora Radio, and not the premium account type, I have long enjoyed the free version spliced with ads. As a marketer, I enjoy hearing the ads to learn about the creative and relevant products/services in the market. So it wasn't going to get passed me that Pandora had some of the worst targeted ads in the industry.

Living in NYC, I frequently would get targeted radio advertisements for car dealerships in central New Jersey and mentions of concerts in genres I didn't enjoy. I was puzzled why in the age of programmatic advertising, with tons of information about their target consumers, how their advertising would be so ineffective. To make it worse, the same ads would play on endless loop - did Pandora have a problem selling ad spots or were they not taking advantage of modern programmatic technologies?

Then, earlier this year, in one single day, I noticed a change. Suddenly the ads seemed relevant to my life - targeted for my neighborhood and about products I am interested in. After all these years of listening to their website and mobile app, it was as if they were finally listening to me. But what changed? and why?

For this blog post I decided to look in to Pandora's advertising history and explore if there was an impetus for this change. Sure enough, there was a major change this year and I found an article that summarized what happened:

https://goodwaygroup.com/blog/recent-changes-pandora-advertising

In summary, Pandora had previously outsourced their supply side ad sales to a third party management company. In 2019, they purchased a company called AdsWizz that gives them enhanced geo-targeting capabilities, expanded reach, and holistic reporting for improved analytics. These capabilities make Pandora a more attractive advertising medium for advertisers and will drastically improve the user experience. Yes - improved ads improves the user experience. So not only are the ads now more relevant for me, it seems there are now more advertisers using Pandora as a target service. Just today I heard an ad of a new Target location opening a few blocks away from my house - relevant and timely!

Criteo trying to navigate GDPR, how will marketers respond to cookies

Criteo relies upon cookies and therefore has struggled with the introduction of GDPR due to limited access to cookies potentially. Moving forward we need to think about whether users will "opt-in" to cookies as it is unsure whether people understand these changes fully and what the uptake will be. How users respond to this will completely shape how advertisers approach digital marketing and targeting.

Article:

Earlier this week, the publicly listed ad-tech outfit reported its third consistent slowdown in revenues since the enforcement of GDPR in the E.U. on May 25 last year, with Q4 revenues of $670 million, representing a slowdown of 1 percent year over year.

It would be a natural assumption to lay the blame of Criteo’s decrease—it likewise posted a 0.2 percent annual revenue increase for full-year 2018—entirely at the door of GDPR, but not all are in agreement.

Under repeated questioning from financial analysts, Criteo executives said the financial impact of the data-privacy legislation, which requires consent from consumers before their data can be used to target an ad buy, was in the region of $5 million.

Criteo CEO JB Rudelle said, “As regards [to] GDPR, we don’t see this as anything existential for us … smaller than what we, what we expected … less than 2 percent, to be exact.”

Although the ad-tech company’s traffic acquisition costs increased more sharply in Europe compared to any other part of the world—an increase of 6 percent in the E.U. compared to a decrease of 4 percent in the Americas during Q4— executives expect to return to double-digit growth in late 2019.

The markets have responded positively in the aftermath of Criteo’s latest filing with its share price spiking by as much as 15 percent in early trading. However, Richard Kramer, founder of financial analyst firm Arete Research, believes this is more indicative of bets against the ad-tech company and how low expectations had sunk in the last 12 to 18 months.

“I don’t think you can parse it [Criteo’s performance] to say GDPR is directly impacting them [leaving revenues flat or slightly down for three consecutive quarters],” he said, adding that it could potentially have proven a boon for the French outfit.

“What we’ve seen is that GDPR has raised the value of first-party datasets and to the extent that Criteo is able to ingest the first-party CRM data from its clients—it might be trusted to do that in a way the average retailer wouldn’t hand the same data over to Amazon or Google—it probably puts them in a marginally better position,” he said.

“Where GDPR has been an abject disaster, it’s hit the data brokers and small publishers, many of which must be hoping to avoid regulatory scrutiny.”

Meanwhile, Kramer also went on to note how Criteo’s dip in take rates, the difference between its gross revenues and what it pays publishers on its network, were a “mean reversion” and likely one of the reasons for its flat revenues.

However, Criteo’s take rates are still above what pure-play demand-side platforms charge in the market. Albeit, Kramer added that the lowering of Criteo’s take rate could potentially be a competitive play to compete with pure-play DSPs such as The Trade Desk.

Ad Tech company

I'm sure many of you are familiar with or at least heard of affiliate marketing, pay per click advertising, and selling ad space, as ways to promote or post online advertising.  Have you ever wondered how exactly that works?  In class, we talked a little bit about the bidding process when it comes to key words in search engine marketing.  Did you know that there is also a bidding war for ad spaces online and that there is a company solely dedicated to creating an exchange platform for that bidding process?

Several years ago, I had a client that was looking to go public and needed our help with the process.  When my team and I first got there, we had no idea what this company did nor did we even know that such company existed.  It took us an entire half a day meeting to get a better understanding the whats and the hows of this company's business model.  To this day, I still don't fully understand how it actually happens but here's what it essentially does:

So basically a publisher of the ad space uses this company's products to set up a platform to sell their space and the company auctions this space off to the advertisers and the bidding war begins.  The most fascinating thing about this process was that thousands, if not millions, of bids occur in a manner of seconds, or even milliseconds.  What I never fully understood, or refused to even try to understand, was how the communication occurs among these publishers and advertisers.  How do advertisers know that such auction is taking place and who does the actual bidding?  I can't imagine a person sitting in front of his or her computer and clicking through to win the bids.  I'm not sure if these advertisers are subscribed to this platform and machines do the communicating but regardless, I thought it was the coolest technology and something that never crossed my mind when I saw online advertising.  I'm always blown away by the people who thinks of these kinds of things.

To find out more about this company: https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-appnexus-we-explain-what-the-ad-tech-company-does-1480632208

https://www.appnexus.com/

By the way, this company never went public and instead was acquired by AT&T couple years later.

Avoiding Social Media Crisis in a Globalized Digital Age. “Appreciation or Appropriation?”

On November 17th, Dolce & Gabbana (D&G) released its marketing Campaign for its 2019 Spring runway show on Instagram: a 3-episode short videos called “Eating With Chopsticks”. Setting the tone for the runway show on November 22th in Shanghai, D&G aimed to attract more attention on social media like Instagram and Chinese microblog platform Weibo, where it has millions of followers in total. Once D&G released the videos, it soon faced criticism from the public of conducting racism and cultural appropriation. The leak of designer Gabbana’s offensive language in a chatbox also pushed the PR crisis up to the next level. All of these led to the cancellation of the D&G show in Shanghai and pulling-off of D&G products from the major Chinese e-commerce platforms at the end. 

Hoping to display some elements of cultural inclusion, this whole idea seems to be a good campaign for the coming runway show. What makes this video so insulting to the public? In the video, an Asian model is using chopsticks to eat Italian dishes with difficulties, “First up today is how to use this stick shaped cutlery to eat great traditional Pizza Margherita.” Then in the next cannoli video, the male narrator asked in mandarin, “Is it too huge for you?” Apart from showing stereotypes and demeaning chopsticks culture, the whole social media crisis was pushed up when a model reveals designer Gabbana’s derogatory comments about China using the 💩 emoji.  

D&G used to be very smart utilizing social media. Instead of having professional models, once its runway show featured a large number of cyber celebrities, which attracted a lot of traffic online. This time, the mindless speeches of the designer are more of a social crime coming along with a sense of cultural supremacy. It is one’s freedom to hold onto their belief and express it through artwork, design, or branding, no matter positive or negative towards an issue. Stefano Gabbana has even more freedom than many others due to his power, influence and social status. Freedom of his speech and expressions carries responsibilities to the brand. Many people are tired of Gabbana’s lip service official apologies, from gay couple adoptions to publicly body-shame Selena Gomez. This might be a headache for the PR team, but more irresponsible to the staff at the backstage who worked so hard to make the runway show happen in Shanghai. 

Facing a more global customer market, embracing diverse cultural elements is common and very popular in marketing campaigns. Appreciation can also bring appropriation when it comes to the representation of a culture that is different from the one that the brand represents. Often, the history and the power dynamics of different cultures would influence the feelings of the viewers. Understanding the values and culture codes of another culture is crucial before using it.

As for the market in China, considering its customer base, China is a big market for the luxury fashion as the number of middle-class income population rises, and the consumption upgrade of the Millenials / Z-gens. According to McKinsey’s report in 2017, China comprises a third of global luxury sales. However, China’s digital environment can be harsh, with easily incited nationalism and a large number of patriotic warriors behind the screen. Due to historical reasons, “territory” and “sovereignty” are sensitive topics. When it comes to these topics, breaking the culture code, is the freedom of a brand but comes with a price tag. Short-term pain for D&G such as dropping social media followers from 993,933 to 15,892 within two weeks, it caused shrank of Asia-Pacific market from 25% to 22%, and a declining sales until March 2020 as forecasted. 

This case of D&G is an attention-worth case for marketing campaign creative directors for the careful use of cultural elements. Targeting a globalized market on open platforms, messages can easily be interpreted in different ways, although sometimes unintended. Respecting a different culture seems to be a basic rule, but in reality, people’s unconscious bias (which is normal and we all have biases) can lead the whole campaign/project into a disaster. Just as the retail and buying editor trend forecaster WGSN, Sandy Chu said, “People are navigating across social media channels and languages, so something that happens in one country can easily be amplified across languages and countries in real-time.” 

Diverse leadership in the company would be valuable and necessary, and the voices of the staff of various cultural backgrounds can easily avoid these types of mistakes. Effective internal communications and feedbacks would minimize the negative messages penetrated in marketing campaigns or products. Luca Solca, head of luxury goods at investment company Exane BNP Paribas says, “A multinational, multicultural, diverse leadership organization can perceive and integrate different sensitivities.” If D&G had listened to the viewpoints of several Asian staff and asked their opinion about it, they may have heard about their feelings. Just a change certain language, change the facial expressions and acts of the model, and this video series may turn into a successful campaign. 

Reference: 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2018/11/21/18106473/dolce-gabbana-fashion-show-china-racism-instagram

https://www.drapersonline.com/news/can-dg-recover-from-its-china-crisis/7033285.article 

https://media.thinknum.com/articles/dolce-gabbana-still-hurting-from-china/

https://www.fin24.com/Companies/dolce-gabbana-says-sorry-as-china-debacle-threatens-its-future-20181123 

How to make it VIRAL!

How to make it viral: https://www.lifewire.com/tips-for-going-viral-3486236

AdAge Calls Us to Action to Fight Fake News

In this fascinating AdAge article, the esteemed industry publication called out advertisers to help fight fake news - and instead of urging us to rage-tweet into the void or protest-march in the streets, the article provided some very clear steps that can and should be taken immediately to fight the issue. The writer laid out a pretty sober diagnosis of how online advertisers are creating financial incentives that fuel this crisis, and why supporting fake news is not necessary. To support its case, the article provided facts and figures that show positive economic reasons to advertise on credible news sources. I must say, it is a very good read, and it even gave me some hope.

I will summarize below:

1. The article calls out some trends that are diminishing the struggling professional news business, specifically:
• Audience-buying in programmatic markets ("advertisers favoring the scale of long-tail content networks and major platforms that take no responsibility for what the content they distribute").
• Aggressive brand-safety measures (the article defines this essentially as blocking ads on professional editorial pages or pages where controversial topics are discussed)
2. As I stated earlier, the article cites some pretty interesting metrics to support its case specifically (quoted from the article):
• "In 2016, comScore concluded that ads placed within professional content deliver 300 percent better mid-funnel favorability, consideration and recommendation metrics."
• "Display ads on premium publisher sites experienced 67 percent higher brand lift"
•  "IAS research concluded that consumers consider ads 74 percent more "likeable" when seen on high-quality sites."
• "Consumers are nearly three times less willing to associate with brands that advertise alongside unsavory, offensive content (see Magna’s Brand Safety Effect)"
• "according to Edelman, 48 percent of consumers feel it is a brand’s own fault if their advertising appears near inappropriate social media content."

Long story short - I urge you to read the article and share it. It's the best news I've seen all day.

Optimizing "Retailer" Sponsored Search

This week I had an opportunity to discuss the growth of online retailer capabilities with an employee of Kroger.com. She shared that Kroger is now selling sponsored ad space for search keywords on their website. The customer facing sales team for my manufacturing company suggested that sponsoring search keywods on retailer websites is one of the highest ROI driving tactics in digital marketing because of the opportunity to put your brand directly in front of a customer that is specifically searching for your category and is ready, willing and able to hit purchase at that moment.  The fact that an item is sponsored is less relevant than on a site like Google because the item directly matches the keyword searched and does not seem out of place.

For example, Dove bar soap is sponsored in the below search for "soap" on Target.com. See the small "sponsored" call out on the bottom right:

As retailers work to figure out how they will make online retail profitable, one way they will do it is pass the expense on to the manufacturers through things like "retailer paid search." Kroger.com for example is using their sponsored search as a profit center:
https://www.wcpo.com/news/insider/kroger-co-courts-advertisers-in-its-newest-side-business-precision-marketing

As customers start to adopt online shopping behaviors, they will start to build out their regular order cart. Many websites allow shoppers to save carts so they can simply be placed on auto reorder. Manufacturers who invest in online search capabilities now will have a significant advantage in that their items will be the first to be set in shopper's auto refill baskets.

SEO and Ads

I worked in a clean-tech start-up several years ago. The life in a start-up is a roller coaster. That was an exciting experience that let me do something new and something I had never experienced everyday.

In 2011, I launched a carbon offset service as a new business in that company. The carbon offset was a bit buzzing at that time due to the end of the Kyoto Protocol. Not only regulated companies with massive CO2 emissions but also consumers and individuals started to buy carbon-offset products. We tried to get into that business as a new player, who provides carbon offset credits (emission reduction credits) to help the companies who want to sell carbon offset products.

There was another first-mover in the market, who had a famous advocator as a CEO of the company. Because of its well-established brand image, the first mover always had been featured first in the media. If people googled "carbon offset," then you could see that company coming on the top of the list.

We, as a follower, initially had no presence in the market. That was when we primarily focused on SEO to brought our page ranks higher. We also spent significant investment in Ads.

That eventually made our service coming on top of the google search result.

Interestingly, this web search result impacted our real business. From a certain period, we became known as one of the most successful carbon offset service companies in Japan. The google search results boosted by the SEO and Ads reinforced our brand and created enormous business opportunities in reality. It was a great lesson that taught me the importance of SEO and Ads. Not only for the companies who live in online businesses but also off-line businesses can benefit from search results tremendously, 

As with all things, there is black and white. Within SEO, some providers market themselves as white SEO. This means that they are “clean” and ethical, and do not engage in practices that falsely represent page ranks higher than they deserve.

In the past, you will be surprised to know that paid links were once considered white SEO tactics, until Google outlawed it. White hat SEO includes link building and other activities that does drives traffic by plain vanilla link building, keyword research and using Google’s search engine functions.

Black hat SEO typically entails a cat and mouse strategy with Google, and can generate an enormous amount of benefit if executed right. Both strategies in actually do not conflict with one another, and they co-exist within Google’s guidelines. Many SEO executives uses Black hat SEO tactics, which can be shorter term in nature. This is the Churn and Burn strategy whereby, a website is created, monetized and then penalized. While this practice is sometimes labeled as a failure, it can also be highly effective in creating a short term interest boost.

While the ethical struggle between white and black SEO continues, the actual line is seemingly more blurry than first thought. It should be viewed upon as a moral dilemma, but rather a business strategy approach that can be used for different purposes.

Staying on Page 1 with Keywords, Hashtags

After last week's class, I knew I needed to up my game with keywords and hashtags. I went down a hashtag rabbit hole on Instagram, but it will be worth it. To deepen my understanding of what people are searching for online and what's trending in the cider world, I started to follow more and more hashtags relevant to my business.

https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-us/blog/8-ways-to-get-noticed-on-instagram

I took some of the advice of this site and wanted to understand my target niche. I know the demographic I'm trying to reach, but what are the hashtags they are following? What do they want to stumble upon?

In addition to following all of my direct competitors, which I was already doing, I also started following brands and accounts that are either indirect competitors or are adjacent interests. That way, I can see how they are positioning themselves and what their followers like.

I also took the plunge and posted my first piece of content on my business instagram - a video! While there are so many "to dos" and "what not to dos", standing still is not an option. Content is king and we all have to start somewhere. With enough (popular) posts, Page 1 on search will become a reality!

The California Consumer Privacy Act and its Implications

It will be interesting to see the effects of the CCPA (the California Consumer Privacy Act) on digital privacy here in the United States, and its broader implications for the major tech players it is now hard to imagine life without.

https://www.wired.com/story/california-privacy-law-tech-lobby-bills-weaken/

The legislation, which gives residents the ability to request the data being collected on them and decline to have this personal data sold to third parties is remarkable in that it puts so much power back in the hands of the consumer to control their own digital footprints. Importantly, the CCPA changes the conversation about how we think about ownership of personal data here in the United States and could be a landmark precedent as other states such as New York and Nevada consider enacting similar consumer protections.

Unsurprisingly, tech behemoths such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple have been working hard to carve out exceptions to the law for special business groups, to the dismay of privacy advocates. Consumer protection groups have every right to be concerned about opaque data brokerage practices, with consumers having little control over where their personal data ends up. At the same time, it is almost equally troubling to imagine a world where the likes of Google and Facebook are no longer able to take advantage of their most important assets: their data. If Google or Facebook were no longer able to amass such a detailed and nuanced view of each of their users, given increased transparency as to how this data was collected or souring public opinion, they could lose their edge in being able to deliver highly effective targeted digital ads. Without this effective targeting, digital ads hosted by such publishers could become less lucrative, especially as marketers have a less detailed picture of their own target audiences. With tech giants such as Facebook and Google becoming less lucrative, one wonders how long such businesses would be able to continue offering free services that have become so integral in daily life such as WhatsApp or Gmail.

Ultimately life online requires a bit of give and take, ceding some rights to privacy to enjoy a wealth of free digital services. Unless consumers are really willing to pull out their pocketbooks to pay for these services we take for granted, we should be careful not to push the privacy concerns too far.

The formula for instagram ads

Following up on my former post which was half paranoia and half reality- I've often wondered how Instagram ads or sponsored posts get to me? And how are they so accurate to what I would want to buy! Well it appears that the targeted ads follow similar formulas to the organic ads of google and the demographic data compiled by Facebook...aka...we are all being watched as I thought...but moving on...
According to the platform, over 60% of users have said they discover new products on the platform and 75% actually do something about it after seeing the post. Those numbers make it clear to see the value in the social networking platform as a digital marketing forum. So how does it happen?

Instagram uses the same demographic data as Facebooks to align ads to the right parties. Downside? Instagram ads can be slightly higher in cost than Facebook ads - going as high as $5 a CPM. To touch further on this "Facebook demographic data" - you have the ability to set up your target audience based on age, gender, languages, interests, demographics etc and since Facebook already has formulated that information based on locations - you can accurately target who will see your ad. There are many more inputs that a digital marketer could select - frequency of the ad, the hours which your ad are shown, the mechanism your ad is delivered (via story, via post) and the links between your ad and other attributes of Instagram such as #hashtags.
With all of that said, I was unaware of how shoe brands, jewelers, and subscription based companies like Birchbox reached my feed and getting more educated about how I am targeted is certainly eye opening. As consumers, we naturally think of ourselves as unique not realizing how we could easily be put into boxes by those that are looking to sell to us.

The Weekend Update: Google's Algorithm

I was surprised to learn last week that Google changes it's search algorithm just as often as most Americans shower. I had just assumed the algorithm, in all of its complexity, must have been perfected and maybe tweaked every now and then.

What a coincidence that this week The New York Times published an article about how Google will be updating its algorithm to highlight "original reporting" of new stories. This move will favor larger, more credible journalists and agencies, and also help to against fake, viral news. The downside to all of this is that the mid-tier news outlets might suffer from this change. 

Only time will tell to see what will come of this change.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/business/media/google-algorithm-original-reporting.html

Super Apps in Latin America

I am from the Dominican Republic so I find it fascinating when things are happening across Latin America.  There is so much rapid change happening especially around technology and the overall economies of these countries.   What will be the next big thing?  What is already in progress?  Can I see it coming?  I came across this article on TechCrunch and I found it so interesting.  They spoke about 3 various apps that could potentially change the way Latin America is doing business today.  It would be like a Wechat and Alipay in China.  Technology is moving so fast that it could potentially happen overtime.  A lot of the super apps mentioned in the article were around financial services, food delivery and transportation.  This could dramatically change the overall dynamic of Latin America.  It is something to watch.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/19/the-emergence-of-the-super-apps-in-latin-america/

Glossier, a digital native beauty brand, makes move to TV advertising

Glossier, the darling direct-to-consumer beauty brand that has popularized the "makeup no makeup" trend, has also revolutionized how brands are discovered online. The purpose of search and digital marketing tactics is to create a system of prioritized hierarchy system to how things get found. Glossier leapfrogged this logic by selling directly to consumers on social media channels. Instead of "push," Glossier was successful in building a brand that "pulled" in millennial shoppers who loved the brand ethos and aesthetics.

Thus, it was surprising when Glossier announced last week that it was dipping its millennial-pink colored toes into traditional TV broadcasting. Glossier's 30-second mini-films will debut on ABC and feature real Glossier shoppers. In addition, the visuals from the films will also appear in billboard form throughout New York City.

While the campaign is still being described by the company as a digital-first way to "create an emotional connection at scale," it is a departure from Glossier's digital strategy that made it one of the most successful disruptor beauty brands. Since founding five years ago, Glossier is now a $100 million behemoth, with 70% of its sales still come from its organic channels. Glossier owns the relationship with consumers built not through traditional digital marketing tactics such as banner ads and SEO.  Glossier's form of customer engagement is also not based on repetitive displays but through content and social media touchpoints. One can argue it's the millennial way of doing business targeting millennials, but the reality is that Glossier's way offers flexibility for product launches and close-to-nothing marketing spend.

Many digital brands such a Glossier--Casper and Allbirds comes to mind--have pivoted to traditional advertising mediums as they grow. As companies become bigger, it is inevitable to invest marketing dollars to offline channels? Can we assume that traditional marketing funnels still have value, despite the naysayers? Does social commerce and engagement only take a brand so far? These are questions are my mind as I follow Glossier's journey to upend the beauty industry.

Why does OOH ever?

Just as I was learning about how effective digital marketing is. I wondered today, while paying off most of my outpost outstanding balance for doing a OOH. Does it make sense for me to spend any more money on OOH next year? Execution not alone, strategizing the how-to's cost me $millions. I am not sure if I should invest any more in the OOH.... Attached is something that I have done this week. It makes sense for me to do something like this...……………. ever?

https://youtu.be/0dlJ1Yjr2MY

Who regulates search?

As we learned last Saturday, Google's algorithm can cost (or make) millions to companies. Same as Amazon's but who is regulating them from favoring their own products to fatten their own bottom line?

This week (and it has happened many different times in the past for both companies) allegations that Amazon made changes to their own algorithm to improve revenues were reported by the Wall Street Journal:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-changed-search-algorithm-in-ways-that-boost-its-own-products-11568645345?mod=hp_lead_pos4

It comes to show that with such a large impact in revenue, and no transparency at all, the room for maneuver is pretty ample. This is likely not the last time we hear about this.

Do-it-yourself SEO tips

Now that we've learned about it in class, here's some advice on an effective way to get started on utilizing SEO (Source link: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/10-do-it-yourself-seo-tips-to-save-money):

Search engine optimization is not advertising. But it still costs time and money. If you’re short on time but have the money, an SEO agency or consultant is an option. But if you’re short on money, use these do-it-yourself SEO tips to improve your organic rankings.

1. Master Keyword Research

Always start with keyword research. Don’t assume that you know what consumers want.

You likely understand your industry jargon. But your prospects might use different terms than trade colleagues to refer to your services or goods. Keyword research provides an understanding of the words and phrases that consumers use to find your products. It also helps to gauge the demand for them. It identifies the keyword themes that real searchers use in their search queries.

The best keyword tools offer a quantitative demand score that helps determine the relative value in targeting each keyword theme. Google Keyword Planner is the go-to keyword research tool, though you’ll need an active Google Ads — formerly AdWords — campaign to get the most useful data.

Non-Google keyword research tools include Übersuggest (a free Google Autocomplete scraper) and SEMrush and Wordtracker (two paid alternatives).

2. Understand Your Competition

Search for the most important products and services you offer and note the most prominent websites in the search results, those that share your business model as well as the ones that are dissimilar to yours but compete for the same searches.

• What are they doing well?
• What content themes do they have that you’re lacking?
• Do they structure their site differently to target more valuable keywords?
• Do they have interesting features to better engage their prospects?

Also, study their reviews and benchmark their social media activity to learn what their customers think versus what you hear, or not, from your own.

3. Plan Your Site

With an understanding of what consumers want and the keywords they use to find those products and services, identify pages on your website to address those search queries.

Having a list on paper or a spreadsheet of all top-, mid-, and low-tier web pages and their corresponding keyword focus forms the basis of your website’s architecture. Each high- and medium-priority keyword from your keyword research should have a corresponding page to optimize on your site.

Use long-tail keyword themes that drive fewer searches and are typically much longer and more specific — such as “how to get red wine out of carpet” or “where to buy wooden hangars” — in blog posts and FAQ pages.

4. Optimize Your Site

The next step is to create the pages. This is the hard part. Depending on your ecommerce platform and your access to developers and designers, you may need to outsource some of this work.

Any website today should be mobile responsive to cater to the ever-growing faction of smartphone and tablet users. A mobile-friendly site is important for two reasons. First, according to Google, more than half of searches come from smartphones. Make sure that the experience of those users is seamless and engaging.

Second, Google now ranks all organic search results — for desktop and mobile devices — based on a site’s mobile experience, including page speed.

5. Produce Regular Content

You don’t have to start a blog or turn your business into a publishing company by posting content every day. It’s unrealistic for many ecommerce sites. But publish your own content regularly. Schedule weekly or at least monthly updates. Consistency is key.

Content does not need to be text. For example, an architectural firm could publish photographs of its projects with short textual descriptions. Realtors could publish weekly video bulletins with transcripts. Publishing content that is tailored to the consumption habits of your target audience is the goal.

6. DIY Public Relations

Link authority is a major component of SEO, but purchasing links is forbidden by Google, Bing, and other search engines. That’s where outreach and public relations come into play. If you have PR representatives, coordinate with them so as to not invalidate their efforts. But if you’re doing it yourself, read on.

Google advises site owners to build compelling websites that users want to tell their friends about — sites that users visit over and over. This content-heavy approach to SEO is Google’s answer to the ever-present question of “how do I get more links ethically?”

The content you’re already producing should be targeted to different segments of the media or blogosphere. These pieces then become conversation starters with different sites, as an enticement for them to write about or link to.

The competitive research in step two, above, comes in handy here because you now have an idea of the most influential and best-ranking sites to approach.

7. Build Your Social Media Network

Join Twitter and one or two other social media platforms. You have many options — Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, many more. Social media enables you to connect with your customers and prospects and offers an audience for your content.

Understanding and nurturing these relationships boosts your SEO in the long run. Increasing the exposure of your content also increases the likelihood that some of those viewers will blog about it or link to it.

8. Understand Google Analytics

You can’t optimize what you don’t measure. The importance of analytics in digital marketing is akin to financial reports in business. Both are essential to track performance.

Have a basic understanding of Google Analytics (or whatever web analytics package your business uses). In Google Analytics, study the reports under Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels. By clicking on “Organic Search,” you’ll be able to analyze performance for your SEO program.

9. Read an SEO Blog

Study an SEO guide such as my “SEO How-to” series. Then subscribe to an SEO blog.

• Helpful, free beginner SEO guides include Moz’s “The Beginner’s Guide to SEO,” Search Engine Land’s “Guide to SEO,” and Google’s “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.”

• For quick updates on SEO changes, try two YouTube channels: Moz’s “Whiteboard Friday” and “Google Webmasters.”

• If you have more time and are keen to follow the SEO industry, subscribe to Moz and Search Engine Land.

10. Ask Questions

If you are stuck or need answers, jump into SEO communities to ask questions. Google’s Webmaster Forum offers the largest SEO community on the web. Other good options are the WebmasterWorld Forum, Moz’s Q&A Forum, Search Engine Roundtable, and Search Engine Watch Forum.

Digital Marketing Trends 2019

Digital is having a great impact on every industry and functions. What are the digital marketing trends to look out for in 2019? 

A post published in December 2019 listed 7 trends below? Do you think these are true now that we are in the end of Q3 2019?

1. Featured Snippets: Answer box in google search

2. On-SERP SEO: Goal to dominate position zero

3. Personalized Video: Content specific to the recipient

4. Voice Search Optimization: Use of voice-activated devices

5. Communities: Building community around brand to counter customer's distrust in advertisement

6. Influencer Marketing: Shifting marketing investment to influencer

7. Digital Privacy: Brand take customer privacy seriously

https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/digital-marketing-trends-2019

Will the market pay for premium 10 episodes?

I read a fascinating essay in this weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal: Coming Soon to a Small Screen Near You: Short Cuts by John Jurgensen.

Coming soon - a new venture - Quibi - will offer a streaming service, packed with a library of 10 minute episodes designed for millennials on the go. The streaming service - which has raised $1 billion of funding and boasts already having sold $100 million of advertising - is betting that 

Beauty Influencer Marketing

Beauty Influencer Marketing

The recent trend in digital marketing is swiping the beauty industry. Especially with the influencers. We break down the SNS(Instagram mostly) influencers with influencing power like following:

 - Mega influencers: followers with more than 1 Million
 - Micro influencers: followers with 500,000+
 - Nano influencers: followers with 100,000+

What we pay them to come to our even tis so crazy. We would pay them $1mm to just show up in one of our events and post about it. They would take about 10 hours to make $1mm.

But, why we use them is even more amazing. The influence they build amongst the tremendous. I would see the instant result, ROIs that I have never seen with traditional marketing. This is so addictive, because once you can used to this digital marketing, there is no way going back.

Food & Beverage Digital Marketing

In the Food & Beverage industry, digital marketing and brand strength are key to building a following and not fizzling out. For many businesses, having only an online presence and reaching their customers directly (i.e., no brick and mortar) is a great way to keep overhead costs low and keep margins high.

I found a robust list of digital marketing campaigns that food & beverage brands can embark on. That's helpful from a general perspective, but in the alcohol sector, it gets a bit more complicated. Going direct to consumer isn't necessarily going to cut out the middleman either - depending on the state, online sales to consumers isn't allowed unless it's done through a distributor/third party.

All aspects of alcohol commerce is highly regulated, and advertising is no different. Don't forget - "please drink responsibly".

Search optimization: are we all in together? or are some of us just pawns in a greater game?

When I read about the algorithms, strategic keywords, links, and searches that develop the best and most sought out websites to present to me... half of me is thinking- great! I get the most applicable sites that are vetted from the most knowledgeable sources to produce a product of service for the applicable audience. The other half of me is thinking, I am a consumer of what is a pre-conceived product I have no choice in. Paying attention to the latter is the part of me that thinks I don't have a choice- the choices are made for me.
To elaborate- how much of what I see in digital marketing is because of what I am saying to the 'internet' by choice and how much of it is produced from things out of my control? What are the lines between thoughtful, applicable marketing based on my preferences/searches and how much of it is being produced by things I don't even know I am searching and sharing? More often than not, lately I find myself feeling like I have a big brother listening to my every conversation. I hate that feeling. To be honest- I love having curated sponsored ads on Instagram, catered to my searches or thoughtful to the types of accounts I follow. I get it, I am a demographic, a consumer, a 'type'. But I also feel that I am constantly being listened in on, tracked, and followed without a choice. For example: I recall walking with a friend after dinner discussing the popular drink 'aperol spritz's' which before 2012 was an Italian native drink no-one in the US was following. After discussing the drink, not two minutes later I saw an ad on Instagram. I never searched it in google, I never tried to follow on Instagram, yet there it was! How was my phone intelligent enough to know that every year, moment, second before this conversation was mute but after discussing this BOOM it appeared? I feel as though digital marketing is crossing the boundaries of thoughtful marketing to 'big brother' and I worry for when we become bots of purchasing instead of humans.

How authentic are "independent" online reviews?

This week I started research to purchase a new pair of bed sheets. Over the last few years/months I have been seeing a lot of targeted and OOH advertising for new premium sheet companies claiming to have revolutionary and patented sheet technology. I have not paid the industry much attention, although, it apparently stuck with me as I was able to quickly recall some of the leading new-age brands from memory: Brooklinen, Boll and Branch, Percale, Parachute, etc... I surprised myself with how many I recalled strictly from my subconscious. In that way their advertisements worked.

As I dug in to each company's website I quickly realized it would be impossible to decipher the quality of their offerings and calculate a value equation. Each company had made up their own patented technology with a name that sounded scientific and authoritative but likely with comparable meaning and quality.

So my next step was to look for independent reviews online to get an idea of the differences and the internet favorite. This is a product I would be willing to pay more for if they could demonstrate value. I was in luck as there were many review websites on the first page of Google. As I read through each one, each with more grandiose marketing speak than the next, I started to question the legitimacy of these review websites. Somehow every single sheet/linen manufacturer had a superior product with no issues... So I took my search one step further and started to dig in to these review websites themselves. At the bottom of the page, each of these websites had a disclaimer stating they receive payments for customer acquisition from the sheet companies, and some of them even disclose being financed by the sheet companies themselves!!

While this raised a red flag for me, I think this is a very clever strategy for the sheet companies. If a  consumer is researching one particular company and wants validation to support their decision, it would be very easy for them to go to google, click on a few links, and see several "independent" validations for the quality and value of that product. This seems to be an essential step to convert people to buy a product that is very censorial and historically people wanted to feel in person. However, if you are me, and are naturally suspicious of online marketing tactics, you might just comparable quality sheets without the hip new age name for 25% the price on Macy's.com. Buyer beware!

Digital market will evolve

Digital marketing revenue growth has outpaced other forms of media platform in the last decade. Consensus estimates that growth will remain in the low double digit range for the medium term. In fact, digital marketing has already accounted for more than half the advertising spend. A big reason for this growth is due to the accessibility of the internet.

Mobile phone adoption ushered in the golden age of advertising. Advertisement can be customized to viewing habits, spending frequency etc. Data analytics allowed companies to gain better insights, and allow management teams to optimize shopping experiences, supply chain management and product design.

With the advancement of advertising, the future remains largely untapped. While it is unclear as to what form of customer engagement will change, we can be sure that digital advertising will continue to evolve. Will customer behavior eventually become so predictable that AI can automate advertising for optimal yield? If customers increasingly use voice, how will firms monetize that form factor. As form factors continue to evolve, so will digital marketing.

[Ad] (Sponsored Post)

Social media giants, Instagram and Facebook have been saturating our internet communities with paid advertisements for over a decade. Over the course of the last few years, that these advertising mediums have evolved into eerily accurate at targeting customers and, sometimes mind-numbingly weaved into our newsfeeds and stories. And for these companies that are hoping to find new customers with their marketing budgets? It has become a huge investment expense. 

I recently read an article in The Business of Fashion about the rising costs of Instagram and Facebook have made brands question whether the investment is worth the return. Instead, brands like M.Gemi shoes and Away luggage have allocated marketing resources to "old-school" advertising like Billboards and catalogs.  With rising costs, skeptical customers, it might be only a matter of time that we all go back to thumbing yellow pages and relying only on word-of-mouth endorsements people we trust! 

(link to article)

Fueling brand identity & social commerce--Taobao Makers Festival

I was in Hangzhou, China this past week and visited Taobao Makers Festival, an annual offline event hosted by Alibaba's social commerce arm Taobao to celebrate the maker spirit of China's entrepreneurs. Taobao Makers Festival (TMF) is a celebration of ideas, hobbies and a place for creators who typically gather and interact online to the physical space.

The festival is divided into themes--technology, food, culture, fashion. The technology portion of the festival showcased emerging technologies such as exoskeleton that help workers carry heavy loads,  consumer tech gadget brands and mixed reality technologies. Consumers can try new combinations of flavors in the food section.  Time-honored culinary brands reinvent and cross-collaborate with other brands--anyone cares for a hotpot flavored lollipop? A popular hotpot chain did create a lollipop with three levels of spiciness, and there was even a garlic crawfish flavored ice cream in another TMF store. Traditional culture and heritage institutions, for example, the Forbidden Palace, are creating new brand collaborations and incubating products from stationary to imperial pastries.

All of the brands at the festival have an online presence--they operate Taobao e-commerce stores, maybe also a Wechat platform page for content creation, a TikTok channel to stream short videos, or Red page to seed interest in products and build consumer engagement. The offline stores offer the opportunity to showcase, but beyond the two-week festival, the brand owners can continue to leverage the social and content tools embedded in Taobao and other platforms.

I often think about the difference between China and the U.S. in terms of marketing, social commerce, engagement & fans management and how important the role of content is in driving conversions. In my view, China's digital and the physical worlds collide and converge and will continue as larger segments of society becomes digitalized. In China, interactions between the consumers and brand owners are not unilateral and highly social, engagement is 24/7 and extremely sticky. The Taobao Makers did not come to the festival hoping to just gain a few hundred paying customers, they want their product ideas, however niche, known to a bigger audience and generate a higher brand likability score. No vendor I came across gave out coupons for a few RMB off, they requested visitors to follow their store on Taobao or Wechat. Cultivating interest and building a community is more important for brand building than ever before.