Greg Sterling says, “Audience enrichment — combining first-party data from your website with third-party data gathered from other sources to get a more complete picture of your visitors — is a hot topic right now amongst enterprise-level businesses. Evidence of its impact is clear in channels such as programmatic, which continues to rampage through paid marketing budgets, hoovering up the dollars left and right. Being UK-based, the above overview from eMarketer struck a chord on that progress to channel dominance for programmatic within paid channels. But you can also take a look at... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “With Thanksgiving just around the corner, many online retailers are preparing for one of the biggest days of the year – Black Friday. However, with increasing backlash over the ‘Black Friday creep’ – is it still all it’s cracked up to be? Here’s a closer look at the opportunity it presents, as well as how retailers can best capture consumer interest through organic search. What happened last year? Despite murmurings that consumers are becoming fed up of Black Friday madness – and some retailers like Rei even taking a stance against it – last year’s... [...]

Ryan Shelley says, “The only constant in the world of SEO is change. In fact, Google is reported to change its search algorithm around 500 to 600 times each year.  While most of these updates are small and often aren’t even picked up by users and SEO, every once in a while, Google releases major updates. Over the past two years alone, we’ve seen about nine major updates to the algorithm. The two most recent, “Possum” (released on September 1, 2016) and Penguin 4.0 (released on September 23, 2016) caused a lot of stir in the SEO community. Over my years in the SEO community,... [...]

Matt Vazquez says, “I stood up from my office chair, stepped behind it and leaned on its back with both hands so I could stare at the email from a new angle. I was silenced by the response of the blogger: “We’ve had a recent policy change here, and we no longer offer followed links. It’s hurting our reputation and being flagged by Google.” In that moment, the game changed for me. I’ve received some interesting responses from editors and bloggers about links before, but never as adamant and uninformed as this. I realized that I needed to develop a communication strategy for my... [...]

Chris Liversidge says, “Audience enrichment — combining first-party data from your website with third-party data gathered from other sources to get a more complete picture of your visitors — is a hot topic right now amongst enterprise-level businesses. Evidence of its impact is clear in channels such as programmatic, which continues to rampage through paid marketing budgets, hoovering up the dollars left and right. Being UK-based, the above overview from eMarketer struck a chord on that progress to channel dominance for programmatic within paid channels. But you can also take a look... [...]

Stephen Spencer says, “I’m so tired of hearing various pundits say that SEO is dead. Maybe they are merely being provocative. Perhaps they need to fill seats in their event, and so they come up with “bait” session titles like “Why SEO is fundamentally DEAD.” (Yes, that was actually a keynote title at a very popular conference last year.) Or maybe they drank their own Kool-Aid and really believe this nonsense. While SEO is NOT dead, the way that you’re doing it might be. Does the following describe your approach? You’ve optimized your H1s and meta tags and you’ve built a few... [...]

Kerry Jones says, “Are you holding your content marketing to unrealistic standards? No matter how informative your infographic about tax law may be, it’s not going to attract the same amount of attention as a BuzzFeed Tasty video. You shouldn’t expect it to. In order to determine what successful content looks like for your brand, you first need to have realistic expectations for what content can achieve in your particular niche. Our analysis of hundreds of Fractl content marketing campaigns looked at the factors which have worked for our content across all topics. Now we’ve dived... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Advertisers can now get forecasts for their existing keywords, in addition to campaigns, in Keyword Planner. If you haven’t checked out this feature in Keyword Planner, it’s worth taking a look. After clicking on the “Select from account” button shown above, there is an option to select Campaign or Keyword from a drop-down. After making your selections, the tool offers performance forecasting and various looks at search volume trends. In the performance forecast screen, you can see how changes in bids could affect performance for the campaigns or keywords selected.... [...]

Purna Virji says, “My neighbor has the most beautiful garden ever. Season after season, she grows the most exotic, gorgeous plants that I could never find in any local nursery. Slightly green with envy over her green thumb, I discovered a glimmer of hope. There are apps that will identify any plant you take a photo of. Problem solved. Now the rest of the neighborhood is getting prettied up as several houses, including mine, have sprouted exotic new blooms easily ordered online. Take a photo, get an answer. The most basic form of visual search. Visual search addresses both convenience and... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Where you are, what you buy, and your age. These are the kinds of attributes that digital marketers commonly employ for targeting. London-based Cambridge Analytica is adding an additional layer: psychology. With U.S. offices in New York City and Washington, D.C., the company is now redirecting its psychological targeting from national security and political clients — including Donald Trump — to commercial ones. Chief data officer Alex Tayler pointed out to me that most marketing employs demographics, geographics, and psychographics. Demographics include age, gender,... [...]