Andy Taylor says, “There are plenty of options for particular metrics to drive paid search programs toward, but not every KPI is created equal. Here, we’ll dive into what your preferred KPI says about you and provide recommendations to help you assess whether your KPI reflects the goals you care about. All insights are at least slightly hyperbolic and assume you have a one-track mind for your KPI of choice. I bet some of you out there can keep two, three, maybe even more KPIs in mind when managing accounts, as you should. You’ll just have to meld the descriptions to uncover those deep... [...]

Nicholas Chowdrey says, “When we hear about the Internet of Things (IoT) we often think of consumer products like wireless thermostats and multiroom speakers, meaning business uses are often overlooked. Indeed, in a recent study by Dresner Advisory services, most industries rated IoT as not important. However, advocates of IoT say there’s huge potential for the technology to transform business intelligence, especially when coupled with big data. They see IoT as a core justification for businesses to implement big data analytics, ranking it in the top three use cases, alongside customer... [...]

Jacob Baadsgaard says, “Ever feel like AdWords is one giant juggling act? You cut your cost per click, only to watch your conversion rate drop. You increase lead volume, but those leads don’t turn into sales. You finally boost sales, but now your cost per click is unprofitably high… When does the madness stop? With all of these apparently conflicting priorities, it can be easy to drop the ball a few times. Or, worse still, you might feel like AdWords isn’t worth the effort, throw your hands in the air and quit. However, there is a way to juggle all of your marketing goals —... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) this week released its numbers for ad spend in the US in 2016, and for the first time since the organization began tracking digital ad spend in 2004, spend on digital ads has surprassed spend on television ads. The milestone is one that industry analysts and observers have been waiting for and 2016 also brought with it another milestone: for the first time, mobile ads produced more revenue than desktop ads. All told, digital ad revenue in the US hit a record $72.5bn last year, up from $59.6bn in 2015. Mobile ads were responsible... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than a stylish trend. It goes beyond rules, providing the ability to understand content or language, find patterns that can be applied to the future, digest all kinds of information and make reasoned decisions. One by one, B2B vendors are rolling out their AI chops — targeting platform Demandbase, CRM and marketing platform Salesforce, account engagement platform YesPath, conversational platform Conversica, and B2B predictive marketer CaliberMind, among a growing list of others. To get some insight into what this means for businesses... [...]

John E Lincoln says, “Do you have an app that you’d like to rank in mobile search engine results? If so, you’re going to need to make room in your SEO strategy for app optimization. For apps, there are distinct ranking factors. Although they are similar to ranking factors for a standard web page, there are differences that you need to know about. Here’s how you can optimize your app to get the best possible rank. Yes, you need to optimize According to a recent Google report, 27 percent of users find apps through a search engine. That’s up from 2 percent to 3 percent in 2014. That... [...]

Patricio Robles says, “Amazon’s effort to take over the world continues unabated. This week, the online retail giant announced a big push into a new market with the launch of Subscribe with Amazon, a new marketplace that will allow third parties to sell subscriptions through Amazon. The marketplace, which is said to have been in development for the past year, was born out of Amazon’s homegrown subscription initiatives. “Over the years, Amazon has gained extensive experience in the memberships and subscriptions space, innovating across programs like Prime and Kindle Unlimited,”... [...]

Sean Zinsmeister says, “Most marketing (and sales) teams have seemingly simple goals: identify your best customers, target prospects who look like them, facilitate a positive buying experience, and bring these prospects into your customer community. The challenge with this is that companies are faced with an onslaught of data, making it impossible to economically throw humans at each of the aforementioned objectives. Much business learning and many routine tasks can be done faster and better with automation and AI. People simply will never be able to sift through all that data at the same... [...]

Jason Abbruzzese says, “Google is fighting fake news with its biggest tool: Search. Google announced on Tuesday that it’s tweaking its search engine to scuttle misleading or false content, a major move for the company and the world considering Google’s dominance in search. The changes will include alterations to the search engine’s algorithms that choose which pages to surface in response to queries. “We’ve adjusted our signals to help surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content, so that issues similar to the Holocaust denial results that we... [...]

Julie Joyce says, “I’m one of those people who thinks I can usually handle things by myself — I don’t need or want anyone’s help. It’s been tough for me to let go of that attitude when it comes to link building, but I’ve been doing much better lately after realizing that it really is beneficial to have more involvement from various people. Sometimes that extra involvement has been kind of forced on me. Sometimes I’ve had to beg for it. But all in all, I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that the best links we get these days come from working together with the client, their... [...]