Ginny Marvin says, “If you’re running video campaigns on Google properties and have set ad rotations to Optimize for conversions or to Rotate evenly, you’ll want to take note that Google will be switching your rotation setting to Optimize for views — if it hasn’t already. Advertisers are seeing a notice in AdWords that Optimize for views is now the only ad rotation setting available for video campaigns and that all campaigns will be automatically changed to that setting in January. Under campaign settings for video campaigns, Optimize for conversions and Rotate evenly options are... [...]

Jeffrey Vocell says, “We’re living in a mobile-first world. For most of us, that means from the moment you wake up in the morning, your phone becomes a part of your daily routine — from silencing your alarm, to reviewing the daily news, to checking email, and so on. And search engines are seeing the result of this trend: search queries on mobile have now surpassed desktop-based queries. Now you may be thinking, my website is already mobile-friendly … so I’m set, right? Sure, you are ready for mobile visitors, but your content may not be optimized for the new realities of search.... [...]

Jenny Knizner says, “If you are considering a marketing automation tool, you may be pondering: “If we’re paying for a robust marketing automation tool, why do we need a separate web analytics tracking tool? Doesn’t the marketing automation tool provide all that I need?” While you’re asking the marketing automation vs. analytics question, don’t forget your sales or executive team. They probably want to know how all that marketing data works with the data in their CRM. Connecting and analyzing data in this multi-device, multi-channel world can leave you feeling like there is simultaneously... [...]

Steve Young says, “In recent years, influencer marketing has exploded. In fact, an estimated 56 percent of brands increased their influencer marketing budgets in 2016. Truth be told, you may find it increasingly difficult to meet your business goals if you don’t relate with influencers, and choose to do it all alone. The concept of building relationships with industry experts — who have a loyal community, authority and the personality to influence other people — is what drives growth. Once you establish strong relationships with influencers, you can almost bet you will... [...]

Sean Jackson says, “Setting up Google Analytics for your membership site can be tricky … unless you know the right way to start. Data analysis is at the core of all online marketing. But how do you get the right data, and more importantly, how do you make sense of it all? On today’s show, we have the queen of data analysis for Rainmaker Digital as our guest to help you set up Google Analytics for your membership site. In this 27-minute episode, Jessica Frick, Sean Jackson, and Loryn Thompson discuss the best way to set up Google Analytics, including: The most important steps you need... [...]

Michael G. Keating says, “It’s safe to assume you’ve heard the buzz around Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and you’re thinking about incorporating them into your site. You may also have noticed a lightning bolt symbol and the word AMP next to all of the Google results that show up when you Google search on your mobile device. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, AMP is an open-source technology that Google has developed that will allow you to make pages on your site load faster when users access them on a mobile device. This is made possible by leveraging... [...]

Ian Bowden says, “Fact-checking and preventing fake news from appearing in search results will remain a big priority for search engines in 2017. Following the US election and Brexit, increased focus is being placed on how social networks and search engines can avoid showing “fake news” to users. However, this is a battle that search engines cannot — and more fundamentally, should not — fight alone. With search engines providing a key way people consume information, it is obviously problematic if they can both decide what the truth is and label content as the truth. This power might... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Google has just removed another feature from the Google Search Console: the content keywords report, one of the earliest features found in the Google Search Console when it was first built. Google said when the tool first launched, this report was the “only way to see what Googlebot found when it crawled a website.” Now, you have features like Search Analytics and Fetch, and others. Google also said “users were often confused about the keywords listed in content keywords.” So Google decided to remove the feature for those reasons. This is not a surprising move;... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “From YouTube to Snapchat, the biggest social influencers usually have a presence across all social media channels. But what are the most effective? As the below tweet from high-profile influencer, Tanya Burr, shows – it’s no longer a case of the more the better. Here are a few key takeaways from Econsultancy’s Voice of the Influencer report, in association with Fashion and Beauty Monitor, highlighting where influencers are choosing to focus and why. Instagram is key for fashion and beauty influencers Now reaching the 500m user milestone, Instagram has... [...]

Zak Stambor says, “Google adds distance and location reports to AdWords reporting tools to help retailers understand where their store visitors come from. Google is bolstering its AdWords reporting tools with an eye toward helping omnichannel retailers better understand which shoppers search online and then visit their stores. That information is important, Google says, because 76% of consumers who search for something nearby on their smartphone visit a related merchant within a day, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase. That’s why the search giant today added distance and location... [...]