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Good morning, Marketers, and are you thinking about 2022 yet?
As we’re inching closer to Q4, it only makes me realize how close we are to next year. Gulp. I saw a post on StreetFight about how digital advertising has seen a robust recovery from the dips of the initial pandemic panic.
Most industries, including gaming, e-commerce, health and wellness, fintech, travel, and more, are seeing growth (though some slower than others). “Much of this recovery can be attributed to a general shift from the physical to the digital world as a result of global shutdowns,” wrote Jane Handel.
But it makes me wonder what sort of fluctuations we’ll see in 2022. More people are venturing back out into public places, though often warily, and some have decided to remain mostly digital until pandemic outlooks are less dangerous to them.
How are you prepping for 2022? What predictions do you have? I’d love to know your thoughts, search marketers. Email me at [email protected].
Carolyn Lyden,
Director of Search Content
Facebook is testing a new marketing tool called Ad Strategies
“Ad Strategies uses automation to help you build complete customer pipelines,” according to an email to advertisers. We first saw this in a tweet from Matt Navarra. The idea is to provide an easier-to-use advertising setup that doesn’t require as much effort for advertisers.
In the thread, Navarra shows screenshots of the step-by-step that social media managers would go through to set up Ad Strategies. It’s a five-step process that includes answering questions about your chosen ad strategy including what you’re selling, your sales cycle, whether you want to prioritize sales or leads, and what your budget is. From there, you can set locations, add creative and review the campaign before launch.
Why we care. Facebook has been saying it cares about small businesses for a while now, and this seems to be a step toward demonstrating that. Ad Strategies would make it a lot easier for SMBs to set up social media campaigns. But just like with Google and Microsoft Advertising’s automated tools, there’s potential for humans to lose the control that many advertisers like to maintain. The most common complaint about automation in ad tools is that it prioritizes impressions over conversions, and we’re interested to see if the Facebook Ad Strategies tool follows the same pattern.
Nominate a search marketer for the Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search Marketing
Search marketing has a diversity problem. Older data from the American Marketing Association shows that most marketing leadership is still majority white and male. It’s a topic we’ve covered multiple times at Search Engine Land:
- The onus of diversity should not fall to Black marketers
- What does commitment to diversity look like in an organization?
- How inclusion can lead to diversity in marketing and communications
- The business imperative behind inclusion and diversity
But it’s not one and done. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are ongoing efforts and something we need to commit to every day. This is why we’re excited to announce the second annual Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search Marketing to celebrate those individuals or organizations who are affecting real change. This year’s awards will include a guest judge, last year’s winner Areej AbuAli, a pillar in the SEO community and the founder of Women in Tech SEO.
You may nominate as many organizations or individuals as you feel deserve the recognition. We ask that you highlight specific initiatives conducted by the nominee and that in the nomination form you include the contact of someone who can “second” that nomination.
Nominate a person or organization now.
Consumers think brands should be responsible for removing fake goods from marketplaces
New data from brand protection company Red Points finds that holiday shoppers plan to start early (think now) and these same consumers believe online retailers should “fix it” if they mistakenly buy fake goods. “With a larger pool of online shoppers to prey on, scammers have even more reasons to take advantage of online shoppers and fool them into believing their discounts on fake items are part of legitimate sellers’ sale events,” said the report.
“In fact, 56% of U.S. consumers acknowledge having been victims of purchasing a fake or counterfeit item online during previous holiday shopping seasons. It takes only minutes for a scammer to set up an illegitimate site, but the ramifications can be long-lasting for the brand they steal from.”
So who should fix it when consumers are tricked into buying fake stuff? 40% say the brand should be primarily responsible for removing fake items from online channels.
Why we care. With supply chain issues still a problem for many retailers, there’s a high chance that fake goods could infiltrate the e-commerce market. This can be a problem or an opportunity for advertisers. If your brand falls prey to scammers taking advantage of an online marketplace, your customers will feel like it’s your fault and your responsibility to fix it. However, if you’re advertising genuine and authentic products, there’s an opportunity to include that in your ad copy to ensure that customers know what they’re getting is real.
On the hunt for something new? Check out the latest jobs in search marketing
Senior Paid Search Specialist @ d50 Media (Boston or USA remote)
- Salary: $95k-105k/year
- Perform daily account management of pay per click accounts on Google Ads and Microsoft Ads
- Manage and optimize display platforms like Verizon Media, GDN, and MSAN
Paid Search Account Manager @ Croud (New York City)
- Salary: $70k-80k/year
- Focus on Google Ads with Search and Shopping, with some focus on YouTube, Discovery and Display
- Own paid campaign processes from start to finish, including researching, planning, trafficking, troubleshooting, optimizing and reporting
Senior Manager, Content Strategy @ Cox Communications (Atlanta, GA)
- Salary: $125k-140k/yr
- Collaborate on the creative and optimization process for content and website pages working with our product, legal and web production teams to build messaging and imagery that resonate with our customers and drive our digital and company KPI’s
- Lead the strategy and execution for SEO digital content across digital platforms
Organic Search Manager @ GroupM (USA remote)
- Salary: $90k/yr
- Review and analyze competitor sites and understand their organic search approach
- Optimize campaigns accordingly to maximize client investment and to resolve performance issues
What We’re Reading: How to drive the funnel through content marketing and link building
Businesses turn to content marketing because it can be an effective method for building brand awareness and guiding customers through their sales funnel. Yet, many have been unable to capitalize on their content marketing initiatives because they haven’t covered all aspects of the customer journey, didn’t keep track of their assets and wasted resources on duplicate content, failed to create unique content or were simply unsuccessful with their outreach efforts.
In her session at SMX Convert, Eve Sangenito, director at Perficient, shared her comprehensive content strategy to engage potential customers at every point in their journey and generate backlinks for greater discoverability and higher rankings.
Your content should exist to serve your brand by serving your audience — that should always be at the center of your planning and execution. “It isn’t so much about what you want to tell your audience; it’s what you understand they want to learn and what’s going to be helpful for them to learn more about your solutions and/or about your industry as a whole,” Sangenito said, adding “Just knowing where they’re coming from is one of the key elements you should be focused on.” Check out the full session coverage here.
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