Matt McGee says, “SMX West was buzzing last week, and much of the conversation was about Google’s recent change to how exact match keywords will work in AdWords campaigns. Although the news just came out last week, the SMX programming team quickly organized a “flash session” that happened Wednesday morning before the scheduled agenda began. Panelists including Marketing Land’s Ginny Marvin and SMX moderators Matt Van Wagner and Brad Geddes took questions for almost an hour from a big crowd of concerned advertisers. They covered topics including impact on negative keywords. whether... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Don’t freak out. That’s what Google’s Gary Illyes repeated this week — at least three times — to SEOs and webmasters who might be concerned about the upcoming switch to a mobile-first index. “The team behind the mobile-first index wants it to launch this year,” Illyes told our SMX West conference on Wednesday. “We’re still experimenting. We don’t have a timeline. It could be a few months or quarters, but it’s definitely not weeks [away]. Don’t freak out, especially if you have a responsive site.” Illyes first revealed plans to create a separate... [...]

Sonia Simone says, “We’ve been telling you there’s no great secret to search optimization, but that’s kind of a lie, isn’t it? There is one not-so-secret ingredient that makes SEO work. It also makes social sharing work. Referrals, too. I won’t be mysterious about it — it’s links. Links make the web go around. They’re why it’s called a web in the first place. When good websites link to you, those links are votes of confidence. Get enough votes and you win. The hard part? Getting enough of the right links, from the right people. To do that, you need two things: Great stuff... [...]

Patrick Kulp says, “Google has apologized repeatedly to outraged British brands and government groups that found their ads surfacing on hateful YouTube videos.better. The company announced a host of changes to its advertising systems on Tuesday meant to give brands more control over where their ads appear. The move comes after the Times of London set off a firestorm with reports that major advertisers were being featured alongside terrorist sympathizers, Nazis and other extremists on YouTube. Several big brands have pulled their ads from the platform in response over the past few days, and... [...]

Pauline Jakober says, “If you’re in the business of marketing, you know how important branding is to your clients. And this is true whether it’s a print campaign, direct mail campaign, email campaign or pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. No matter which marketing channel you use, you and your client want tight control over the look and feel of your marketing collateral. Branding is so important for my PPC clients that my team will spend hours upon hours on images and messaging — and reviewing these with clients — to make sure they’re perfect before launch. Which is why the thought of... [...]

Murray Newlands says, “Influencer marketing has become the talk of the town, with many embracing it as part of their marketing and PR strategies. Slowly, influencer marketing is replacing certain forms of traditional advertising, as marketers realize they can increase their reach by partnering with personalities that have large followings on their websites and social media platforms. Although the popularity of influencer marketing has grown significantly, many are still unsure as to how to use the influence of social media celebrities to create effective influencer marketing campaigns. As... [...]

Ted Ives says, “Welcome to the second installment in my series on SEM account management. If you’re an SEM account manager and you’ve kept yourself from getting fired (see Part 1: How to avoid getting fired), you now have the opportunity and the time to focus on making your campaigns run like a top. Smoothly running and decently performing SEM campaigns require getting three things right: tracking, targeting and a good user experience. If you can master these three areas, your campaigns will “deliver the goods” and get you conversions at a decent cost per acquisition (CPA), or sales... [...]

Nikki Gilliland says, “Do you know a sponsored Instagram post when you see one? According to a recent survey, a surprising proportion of consumers remain in the dark, with 77% unaware what the #sp hashtag stands for (‘sponsored’) and 48% even unsure what the #ad hashtag means. A lack of consumer understanding is not the only problem, of course. Confusion over how brands and influencers should label paid-for content remains a big issue. As a result, CAP (the Committee of Advertising Practice) has recently issued a fresh set of guidelines to help social influencers and brands stick to... [...]

Matt McGee says, “Good morning from day one of SMX West 2017! We’re in San Jose, Calif., where the opening keynote conversation is set to begin at 9 a.m. PT. Jason Douglas, PM Director for Actions on Google, will be talking about Google Assistant with Search Engine Land’s Chris Sherman and Greg Sterling. Douglas will be talking about the developer ecosystem that’s growing around Google Assistant, and specifically about “Actions” — Google’s term for tools and features that let brands, marketers, developers and others interact with users through Google Assistant. Think of Actions... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “A day after Matt Britton, Google’s EMEA head of operations, apologized for advertisers’ ads appearing adjacent to extremist content — after a stream of advertisers announced they were puling ad from Google’s ad networks — the internet giant’s chief business officer announced new brand safety controls. As Marketing Land has reported, the Google Display Network includes many extremist sites propagating right- and left-wing ideologies, hoaxes and misinformation. The company updated its policies to address mirepresentative sites in November but did not address... [...]