Despite the participation of more than 1,100 companies, including many household brands, it’s unlikely that the Stop Hate for Profit Facebook ad boycott had a significant impact on the company’s revenues. The social network reports second quarter earnings Thursday but that won’t reflect July’s numbers. Major brands = 6%. According to data from Facebook and an analysis by Pathmatics, the top 100 brands (by spend) account for only about 6% of the company’s total ad revenue. However, a survey by Digiday reported that 56% of agency clients had stopped spending on Facebook in July because of the boycott; 40% continued to spend and 4% were unsure. After an initial stock market decline that wiped out roughly $60 billion in Facebook’s market cap the company’s shares have fully recovered and are poised to make further gains if tomorrow’s results beat Wall Street expectations. COVID-19 spending reductions and the boycott are factored into those earnings estimates. Boycott demands not met. While the boycott brought considerable publicity to the issue of hate speech and disinformation on Facebook, the company made relatively modest concessions to the organizers. Stop Hate for Profit posted 10 “recommendations” or changes it wanted the company to adopt, the majority of which have not been. Facebook has made some changes and public statements that it will do a better job addressing hate speech and “fake news” on its platform. The company also pledged to help register four million voters and made other pro-civil rights commitments, some of which were in the works before the boycott. Facebook has also defiantly and vigorously defended itself against claims that it profits from hate speech and privately bet that it can outlast the boycott. Indeed, data from ad management platform Madgicx suggests that aggregate ad spending on Facebook has actually increased during July. Facebook ad spend grew in July. Madgicx said, in an email, “Average daily ad spend on Facebook and Instagram (via Madgicx’s platform) in June, 2020 was $3.78 million vs. $3.83 million in July thus far. But in the last 10 days of July, we’ve seen a daily average of $3.94 million, higher than the $3.66 million the last 10 days of June.” The company added that it has seen advertiser growth since the end of May. “What we’re seeing from our hundreds of retail/DTC clients is that they’re maintaining their ad spend on Facebook and Instagram because of the scale and conversion rates,” said Madgicx CEO Yahav Hartman. “Given the uncertainty brought on by COVID-19, more marketers are focusing on the platforms and solutions that deliver the best ROAS and are less willing to experiment with their ad budgets which need to perform. That’s why CPM/CPAs on Facebook have returned to pre-boycott levels for most keywords, geographies and demographics.” The company’s data comes from roughly 20,000 advertisers with a heavy concentration in North America (65%). The remaining advertisers are in Europe (25%) and APAC (10%). Madgicx’s Hartman added that he believed the data was representative of the larger Facebook advertiser market. Many SMBs couldn’t quit. The majority of Facebook’s total ad revenue comes from small advertisers, many of whom didn’t feel they could afford to pause campaigns during the COVID crisis. And many large brands that explicitly participated in the boycott or paused social media campaigns in July have said they will resume spending in August. A consumer survey conducted by Search Engine Land in early July found that a majority of consumers (68.2%) were either unaware of the boycott or hadn’t formed an opinion. This lack of awareness among consumers could be seen as a major strategic failure for Stop Hate for Profit. Why we care. It appears that Facebook has sustained little impact from the boycott and that many of the brands that fled will resume campaigns in August despite misgivings about the platform. It also appears Facebook won’t need to make Many of the concessions boycott organizers wanted. Yet Stop Hate for Profit succeeded in generating renewed debate about the presence of hate speech on the platform and did motivate discussions with advertisers and, to some degree, the public — about 20% of survey respondents approved of the boycott. The boycott’s underlying concerns will also factor into ongoing antitrust investigations against the company. Not a win, but not a fail either. The post Did the Facebook Ads boycott actually work? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2CU5ytD
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Bing announced it has completed the migration from the old Bing Webmaster Tools to the new Bing Webmaster Tools. With this launch, Bing also launched a new URL inspection tool, a new Robots.txt tester tool, the site scan tool and a new webmaster guidelines. With this migration Bing was able to consolidate 47 different links in the old version to 17 different links, since most of the links have been consolidated and bundled into fewer tools that do more. Bing said this makes the new Bing Webmaster Tools user experience “more user friendly and intuitive.” How to access Bing Webmaster Tools. You can access Bing Webmaster Tools at two different URLs, depending on if you want the old version or the new version:
Old version is going away. The old version will be going away sometime next month and will not be supporting the old version after that. More to come. Bing said it is not done with tools for Bing Webmaster Tools, Bing said “we are not done. Now that we have migrated to this new improved platform and experience, we will be enhancing tools listening to your feedback and shipping new salient features including a refreshed version Index Explorer this summer.” If you have ideas or concerns, Bing said reach out to them on Twitter @BingWMC or via this support form. New Tools. As we said above, Bing added several new features to Bing Webmaster Tools that are now within the new version. We covered some of them including the new Robots.txt tester tool, the site scan tool and a new webmaster guidelines.
New URL inspection tool. The URL inspection tool we have not covered but it is available over here. This tool allows you to inspect Bing indexed version of your URLs allowing to detect potential indexing issues due to crawl or not following Bing Webmaster guidelines. It is similar to the Google URL inspection tool but gives you a view of what BingBot sees versus what GoogleBot sees. Enhanced or updated tools. Bing also updated several of the tools in the new version of Bing Webmaster Tools. Here is the list:
Bing Webmaster Tools API. Nothing is changing with the API right now. Bing said “continue as-is, so users using them to get their data programmatically do not have to make any changes.” Why we care. Bing has shown it is serious about helping SEOs, developers, webmasters and site owners with this revamped Webmaster Tools. This tool is free, useful and has tons of features to help you debug issues with your Bing indexing, crawling and ranking. It gives you new insights into your site’s performance in Bing Search and more. We highly recommend you verify your sites in Bing Webmaster Tools and walk through the new version. The post Microsoft launched revamped Bing Webmaster Tools appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/30b3fLc On July 1, Facebook automatically opted advertisers into its new Limited Data Use setting for California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) compliance. When Limited Data Use (LDU) is enabled, Facebook restricts the way data from users detected to be from California can be stored and processed. The feature is already having a dramatic impact on advertisers. CCPA gives California residents the right to know how their data is being used, what categories of data are being collected and sold (e.g., name, IP address) and the ability to opt out from allowing companies to do so. It doesn’t just apply to business based in California. Like the EU’s GDPR, CCPA applies to any affected businesses that receive personal information from California residents. If you’re not familiar with Facebook’s Limited Data Use, yet, see contributor Simon Poulton’s thorough overview about how Facebook’s handling of California user data might affect your business. And read this from our sister site MarTech Today if you’re unsure if CCPA applies to your business. As a baseline, one or more of the following conditions must apply for CCPA to apply to a company:
Potential action requiredIn the Events Manager in Facebook Ads Manager, there is an option to extend the transition period and keep Limited Data Use on by default until October 20, 2020. If you need more time to implement Limited Data Use for your Facebook events, you’ll want to check that option. Limited Data Use can be implemented for FB Pixel, Conversions API, App Events API, and Offline Conversions. See the developer documentation for implementing LDU. If you take no action, Facebook will no longer flag users detected to be residing in California. Per Facebook, take no action or end the transition period now if: Advertisers feeling the effects of Limited Data UseMany advertisers are acutely feeling the targeting and attribution limitations as a result of Limited Data Use as it puts many of California’s nearly 40 million people out of reach. “Facebook’s limited data-use policy has blown up performance in California for all brands.” said Joe Yakuel, CEO of ad agency WITHIN, which manages e-commerce advertising budgets for Nike, Hugo Boss and Shake Shack. Yakuel said in the first six days of July, the CPA (cost per acquisition) in California was 500% higher than other states and conversion rates dropped by 84%. As a percentage of overall U.S. ad spend, California fell from 10% to 5.5%. The post Facebook’s default Limited Data Use period ends Aug. 1: How to stay CCPA compliant appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2CZkZAz Competition is constant. No matter what business you’re in, there will always be other people competing with you for customers, subscribers, viewers, partners, etc. Even Google technically has competition — maybe you found this article through Bing? The point is…you have competitors trying to beat you. Do you know who they are? “Of course, I know who my competitors are!” – You (probably) But do you know who your search competitors are? Do you know who you’re really competing with for organic traffic? It may not be who you think… Search is a unique channel, where competition can shift and change as the search results themselves change. Also, the only barrier to entry for new competitors is much lower than in other channels — they just need an optimized website. And finally, search is a zero-sum game where if you’re not ranking on page one, you’re losing. If a new competitor sneaks up and bumps you off the first page for an important keyword, you’re going to feel it in your bottom line. In this post, I’m going to dive into these questions to help you better understand and identify which brands, websites, people, etc. you’re competing with for the attention of your audience so you can position yourself accordingly and win. Start with known competitorsAs you (probably) said to yourself earlier, you know who your competitors are…so they are a good place to start your research. The companies that are traditionally your competitors in other channels are likely competing with you for many keywords as well. To better understand how they are competing with you in search, you’ll likely need to invest in an SEO tool — Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush all offer viable options for analyzing competitor keyword rankings. Using these tools, you can build lists of your competitors top keywords and compare them against your own. As you compare rankings, ask yourself:
You won’t truly know how or where these brands are competing with you in search until you analyze their keyword rankings. But analysis goes beyond simply notating which position they’re in for a given keyword, instead you need to analyze that SERP to understand why they might be ranking there and whether your site should rank there too. Pay attention to other ranking sites as well, because if this SERP is relevant to your audience, you’ve just uncovered more competition. Expand competitive research to ‘SERP competitors’Did you notice some new websites consistently ranking amongst your competitors for the keywords you’re targeting? Are media sites or news publications dominating the top spots on many of your relevant SERPs? Do government websites take up valuable real estate for key head terms? The answer to some or all of these questions will be yes — I call these types of competitors “SERP competitors” and they are the reason you must dig into the actual search results to find out who you’re really competing with for your target keywords. A SERP competitor could have only one page that competes with you, but if that page is ranking above you on an important SERP, they are your competition and you need to understand why they are beating you. For example, if we look at the search results for [link building] an important term for my company, we can see this concept: While we do rank on this page, there are also a few results above us from sites like:
These sites provide consultation, paid search services, and SEO tools — none of these are direct competitors to our service offerings, yet we ARE competing with them for real estate on this SERP, these sites are SERP competitors for us. Like how you would analyze a direct competitor, you need to review SERP competitors in terms of:
Understanding how these pages are designed for the specific SERPs you’re competing for will help you better optimize your pages. Become a ‘SERP competitor’ yourselfWhile the intricacies and ever-changing nature of search means there is more competition for attention from your customers, it also means there is more opportunity. If your website is new to the space and your primary competitors are firmly entrenched at the top of the SERPs for your relevant head terms, you need to become a SERP competitor yourself. While you should still optimize both on and off-page elements for those highly competitive terms, that will be a long-term project and you need to find ways to attract traffic now. Instead of investing all your resources in the long-game, find opportunities where you can compete for specific, long-tail search rankings. Rather than trying to compete with big name brands or domains with thousands more backlinks, you just need to be a better result than the pages in those first ten results. Look for tangentially related topics to your business, where the search volumes might not be as high, but the topic still intersects with your audience and can bring relevant visitors. As you research topics, look for search result pages with the following:
These are opportunities for you to rank a page on your website and earn organic traffic while you build towards better rankings for your head terms. Secure these opportunities again and again, and it will add up to meaningful results for your website. RecapAs a business, you’ll always face competition, and the first step to overcoming these competitors is, obviously, identifying them. However, in search it’s not always obvious who you’re competing with for attention and visibility. Assessing what your traditional competitors are doing in search is critical, but it’s only part of the picture. You need to suss out SERP competitors, or those who compete with you purely through search rankings, as well and analyze how they are winning in search. With a complete picture of who you’re truly competing with, you’ll have the knowledge and understanding necessary to succeed in organic search. The post Search competition: Who are you really competing with? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3gdVUA8 Hopefully I’ve sold you on the benefits of using metaphors when creating compelling content, and you know the differences between... The post 5 Smart Ways to Use Metaphors to Create Irresistible Content appeared first on Copyblogger. via Copyblogger https://ift.tt/3jSOLYf At a time of unprecedent political polarization, there’s a rare bi-partisan consensus in Congress that the major U.S. tech companies have too much power. That proposition and its implications for the economy will be at the heart of a hearing tomorrow before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee. Socially distanced video testimony. The CEOs of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple will all give socially distanced video testimony, starting at noon Eastern, and be questioned by committee members, which should make for a marathon hearing. Originally scheduled for Monday, the hearing was postponed because of the memorial service for Congressman John Lewis. This will be the first time that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s wealthiest individual, will be testifying before Congress. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg have all appeared before. Better prepared this time. The committee has spent more than a year investigating these companies and conducting “field hearings” on digital competition. Members should be well prepared to ask questions – a far cry from the days when Alaska Senator Ted Stevens infamously described the internet as “a series of tubes” in a net neutrality hearing nearly 15 years ago. The potential antitrust issues facing each company are distinct and the questions will be tailored accordingly. Apple will be questioned about its control of the App Store and the 30% commission it takes on sales and in-app purchases. Amazon will face questions about whether it uses its pricing and data to undermine competitors and even some of its own sellers. Facebook will be asked about its content moderation, acquisitions of competitors and privacy policies. Finally, Google will confront queries about its dominance of the search market, digital advertising and favoring its own content and services at the expense of third parties and rivals. Mostly theater. The companies for their part will argue that they’re each in fiercely competitive markets, merely complying with industry norms and aren’t abusing their size or market power to dominate or undermine competitors. To some degree it’s theater. But we’ll also get a preview of the various defenses these companies will raise in response to any legal actions against them. This is some ways will be the most interesting aspect of the hearings, as well as learning exactly how prepared the government is. The findings and testimony coming out of tomorrow’s hearings won’t directly lead to action but could form the basis for new antitrust legislation next year. But this is also happening against the backdrop of ongoing antitrust investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, as well as State Attorneys General. Antitrust actions almost guaranteed. Given the many investigations and their intensity – motivated partly by politics and partly by concern over competition – it’s highly likely that antitrust actions will be brought against some if not all four companies. Google, in particular, but also Facebook are almost certain face the legal wrath of the FTC and DOJ. Why we care. Some critics are calling for Google and Facebook to be broken up or have recent acquisitions “unwound” to promote competition and reduce the concentration of power. However, bringing an antitrust case is not the same as winning. Microsoft was legally found to be a monopoly 20 years ago, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and ordered broken into two companies. Microsoft appealed and partly succeeded in overturning the lower court decision to break the company up. Later the Justice Department under President George W. Bush decided to settle the case. While it’s probable that fines and other punitive measures are in store for some or all of these companies, it’s much less likely that any of them will be carved up. The post Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook set to preview antitrust defenses before Congress appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3f6swdR Local Services Ads (LSAs) have been a success for Google. Originally designed for home services advertisers, Google initiated a test last August with select professional services categories (lawyers, financial planners and realtors) in San Diego and Houston. National rollout. After a successful trial run, Google has decided to formally roll out LSAs for professional services nationally. It will be available initially to lawyers, financial planners, real estate agents and tax preparers, although I’ve seen other categories discussed as well. Currently there are nearly 50 business categories and sub-categories available for LSAs, most of which are home services. LSAs appear at the top of search results and deliver leads to advertisers in the form of calls, messages or, most recently, direct bookings. The latter requires a relationship with one of Google’s authorized booking partners. Differences between Guaranteed and Screened. To participate in the program, LSA advertisers must meet a minimum review score threshold (3.0 stars or higher) and be Google Guaranteed or Google Screened. Both programs involve license and background checks. Google Guaranteed also offers a limited money-back guarantee if consumers aren’t satisfied with the provider’s work. That same guaranteed doesn’t extend to services under Google Screened. From a consumer perspective, one of the major differences between home and professional services LSAs is the use of provider headshots in the ad. Headshots don’t appear in home services LSAs and could make a big difference in CTRs and conversions. Google provided us with the following statement about the rollout, “We are pleased to bring our initial pilot of professional services to a full launch in the United States within our Local Services ad unit. This expansion brings more opportunity for these providers to reach potential customers when they are searching for their services.” Why we care. Google wouldn’t share any data about the performance of LSAs, but they appear to perform well for local advertisers. And Google wouldn’t be expanding the program if they weren’t similarly pleased with performance. Recently Google started making the Google Guaranteed badge available to non-advertisers as part of an upgraded profile for $50 per month. Currently the Google Screened certification is only for advertisers, which creates an incentive to adopt LSAs. Legal and real estate in particular tend to be highly competitive industries and we’re likely to see almost immediate adoption. The post Google rolling out LSAs and ‘Google Screened’ to select professional services nationally appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3hJCuDB Communication skills have always been important for marketers and they only get more important the further you are in your career. Being a “good communicator” takes on different shapes depending on whether you’re communicating within your own team, cross-functionally or with clients, executives or other stakeholders. Remote adds another dimension. “It’s been pretty eye-opening,” Mike Henderson, CMO for SuretyBonds.com, said of the shifting demands for communication since the pandemic sent everyone home during a Live with Search Engine Land session on in-demand marketing skills. “It’s just vastly different how people communicate, or the lack thereof, when they don’t have to be face-to-face with you.” Here are ways Henderson and other marketers are keeping things running smoothly while maintaining trust and accountability. Tips for improving internal communication for remote teamsStandup meetings. These short status meetings can keep people accountable and projects moving forward. For remote teams, they also ensure everyone on the team or project connects once a day. “We started morning standup meetings that have had a major impact on the team’s productivity and my visibility into what’s getting done,” said Henderson. “We’ve been running on an agile framework for a few years now (using Jira and Confluence), but were skimping on the daily huddles. This is something I plan to keep regardless of being remote or in-person.” Simon Poulton of WPromote said they’ve re-instated regular standups as well. “Full adoption of agile (daily stand up meetings, cameras on) – we were doing the planning prior, but would get lazy on stand-up follow through; now it’s a daily 15 min opportunity to see the team and get things done,” Poulton said. At Search Engine Land, we’ve always worked remotely, so when the pandemic hit, little changed in the way we work and communicate. The one exception is that our daily video standup calls became a little less all-business and a bit more conversational. This was particularly true in the early weeks when anxiety levels were high, kids were home and it was just generally harder to concentrate. Having those few minutes to connect and decompress a bit helped while still usually keeping them to 15 minutes max. You may find a daily meeting is overkill and a different schedule works better. The important part is to have something regularly scheduled. “We’ve started having twice-per-week full team standups where all the functions across the team share updates on what they’re working on,” said Natalie Barreda, senior manager of media at T-Mobile. “Additionally, we’ve made better use of Slack by sharing daily updates on pacing, budget changes, etc.” Status updates. Whether you’re using Slack, Teams or another communication platform, letting people know when you’re not available is a key piece of remote communication. An internal Slack channel (ours is called “Where Am I”) to let teammates know when you’re stepping away from your desk to take a walk, a call or whatever else will keep people from feeling like you left them on open, as the kids say. Christine Shepherd Zirnheld from Cypress North said it’s customary for team members to post in Slack when they’re stepping away from their desks “even if it’s only for five minutes.” “Does that feel like babysitting?,” I wondered. “No I never thought about it that way! We’re big on internal Slack calls so it’s nice to know when people aren’t available. That’s the main purpose,” Zirnheld said via Twitter. The flip side of using status updates is to encourage people to take that walk and not feel glued to their desks. “We’ve started a team policy of Slack emojis/status updates to indicate your availability or not. Helps people feel more comfortable with a screen break,” said Aaron Levy of Tinuiti. Want to automate Slack status updates? Holopod is one tool that integrates with Slack and Google calendar to automatically post status updates for calls, coffee breaks, etc. and snooze notifications to keep down the Slack noise during high-concentration periods. Video or no video? How many calls did you have over video versus just voice before the pandemic compared to now? A benefit of video is being able to pick up facial cues in conversation that get missed when you’re just on the phone. Presumably, people are also paying more attention when they’re on video — but that’s far from a guarantee. Sometimes a regular phone call can be better. Many people prefer to pace when they’re on the phone and are going to be more attentive if they can get up and walk around than if they have to stare at a bunch of heads on a screen. Don’t discount the benefit of a walk and talk for one-on-one problem solving or brainstorming sessions. “Be respectful of screen time. We’re all encountering Zoom exhaustion,” said Amy Do, social director for Barkley US. Meeting fundamentals still apply. Notes and documentation are even more important when teams are remote. You can shorten meetings by sending out or updating shared agendas in advance of meetings. “Recaps and meeting agendas. Including pre-reads w/ mtg invites are great too,” added Do. Cloud-based recaps and running meeting notes ensure everyone can stay up-to-date even if they couldn’t attend a meeting. “Always, always recap phone calls. Always,” said digital strategist Amalia Fowler. “Actionables delineated for each team with deadlines. Then make appropriate follow-up task for yourself in [your] project management tool of choice. When things don’t happen / get delayed then it’s easy to figure out the hole.” Fowler says she’s documenting a lot more and making sure the team is routinely using the processes and tools available. An evergreen skillIn talking about the skills they hire for during Live with Search Engine Land, both Barreda and Henderson said communication remained a priority. In this article, we’ve mostly focused on team communication, but if you want to advance your career, start honing your persuasion skills. That includes being able to tell stories with data and be able to effectively communicate to clients and executives. “A huge one that I look for is just people who can communicate in a way that is influential,” said Barreda. “On the agency side, you’re constantly influencing your clients to try out a new tool or spend more money or try a new feature… but when you’re working on the enterprise side of things … a lot of times we are influencing people to showcase the value of what we’re doing. Numbers obviously speak volumes, but if you can’t communicate it in an influential way … it doesn’t land.” Watch the session below. The post How are marketers improving remote team communication? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/2X691ff Bing has added a new feature to the new Bing Webmaster Tools: a robots.txt tester. This is a feature Bing had in the tool prior to 2009 but dropped supporting it for the past ten-years or so. Now it is back and better. Where can I access it? You can access the new robots.txt tester within the new Bing Webmaster tools over here. From there you can enter a URL to see how BingBot will fetch the URL. What does it look like? Below is a screenshot of the tool. Enter a URL, test it with BingBot and Bing’s Ad bot and also see how the robots.txt file differs from HTTP to HTTPS: More details. The Bing help document says that this “Robots.txt Tester helps Webmasters to analyze their robots.txt file and highlight the issues that would prevent them from getting optimally crawled by Bing and other robots.” Fabrice Canal from the Bing team told us, “We resurrected and enhanced our old robots.txt tester.” Canal explained that this was a feature they had many years ago that the company brought back to life and made better. Google also has a similar tool, you can learn more about it over here. Why we care. Now you can see how BingBot sees your content. If you need to troubleshoot an indexing or ranking issue with Bing, this is one of the tools you can add to your toolkit to see how Bing can access your pages. The post Bing Webmaster Tools gets a new robots.txt tester appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://ift.tt/3g8AunX Risk Is Another Way To Say Opportunity 2020 is a minefield of risks for marketing teams, and while it is true that ‘risk’ is often a synonym for ‘opportunity’, it is equally true that a minefield is a strong motivator to choose each step carefully. A solid understanding of the […] The post Maneuvering Marketing Risks in 2020: A Marketer’s Practical Guide appeared first on Lawrence Tam. via Lawrence Tam https://ift.tt/3jHiK5z |
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