Google has stopped showing indented results in the Google search listings. Google has historically showed an indented search result under the main result when it was from the same domain but over the past few weeks, Google stopped indenting those results.
What changed. Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, posted “We stopped doing “indented results” a few weeks ago.” Google stopped the intended results because “especially with continuous scroll, it wasn’t as helpful as in the past,” Sullivan wrote.
What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the old indented results from a few months ago:
Now I see them listed out, without being indented and not in a specific order:
What didn’t change. Google said its “diversity system still works to generally show only two results from the same site in the top results.” So Google has not changed how often Google Search may show the same domain for a single query on the same search results page. Google just won’t intent the result anymore.
Why we care. This change should not impact how many times your content is shown in Google Search, it just will impact how that second listing appears in those search results.
Will that impact your click-through rate in a positive or negative way is yet to be determined.
It’s no secret that B2B marketers have a challenging task in front of them: a niche audience, an often technical offering and tighter budgets than their B2C counterparts. However, a recent survey has found that over 50% of B2B marketers have plans to increase their marketing budget over the next year – and they are looking to AI to help them succeed.
Join MNTN as they walk through how B2B marketers can utilize the rapidly evolving AI technology.
The concept of randomized generalized second-price (RGSP) auctions sent shockwaves through the PPC community after the subject took center stage at the Google antitrust trial.
While some digital marketers agreed with Google that the practice provides a better user experience, others sided with the Department of Justice (DOJ), arguing that it makes ad auctions unfair and purely helps line Google’s extremely deep pockets.
But what is RGSP, why does the DOJ think it’s problematic for ad auctions and how exactly does it impact Google’s ad revenue? Here’s everything you need to know.
How does Google pick an ad auction winner?
Dr. Adam Juda, Google’s Vice President of Product Management in Search Ads Quality Systems, explained at the federal antitrust trial:
The highest bidder doesn’t automatically win the ad auction.
A campaign’s long-term value (LTV) is instead given more weight.
This means Google sometimes loses out financially in the short term.
When advertisers bid on keywords, instead of determining an ad auction winner purely by bid amount, Google uses a metric called Ad Rank to decide how and if your campaign should rank. This collective score is calculated by examining:
Bid amount
Auction-time ad quality (including expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience)
Ad Rank threshold
Competitiveness of an auction
Context of a search query
Expected impact of assets and other ad formats
Your Ad Rank is recalculated every time time your campaign becomes eligible to compete in an auction, meaning your ad’s ranking may vary each time depending on competition, quality and search context.
Campaigns that don’t meet Google’s minimum Ad Rank threshold are automatically eliminated from the auction.
How does Ad Rank work?
Imagine five advertisers competing against each other in an ad auction with the respective Ad Rank scores of 80, 50, 30, 10 and 5. For this particular auction, Google requires a minimum Ad Rank threshold of 40 to rank above organic search results. This means that only the first two campaigns (with scores of 80 and 50) are eligible to show above organic search results.
In this instance, for an ad to be shown below organic search results, Google requires a minimum Ad Rank of 8. This mean that the campaigns with Ad Rank scores of 30 and 10 would qualify.
However, the campaign with the Ad Rank score of 5 does not meet the minimum criteria to appear above or beneath the search results and so will be eliminated from the auction, as shown in the table below:
Why doesn’t the highest bidder win?
If the highest bidder automatically won every Google ad auction, there is a risk the search engine could be left serving poor-quality ads. Poor-quality ads may not be relevant to a searcher’s query, which would likely result in a poor:
Click-through rate.
Conversion rate.
User experience.
This would decrease the overall value of Google’s product.
“Overall, higher quality ads typically lead to lower costs and more advertising success.”
“The Google Ads system works best for everybody when the ads we show are relevant and closely match what customers are searching for.”
It is also in Google’s best interest to serve high-quality ads that satisfy user intent because advertisers only pay Google when someone clicks on your ad, visits your site or calls your business.
An ad that meets all minimum criteria required by a Google auction can sometimes still rank below an ad that fails some criteria, he wrote. Vallaeys went further by using an example of an ad auction that had a 4% threshold for predicted CTR. The details of the competing bids are listed in the table below:
In the example listed above, Ad 2 meets the threshold because its predicted CTR is 5% – 1% higher than the 4% required by Google. However, because Ad 1 has a higher Ad Rank score (30), Ad 2 would rank further down the page to maintain auction fidelity, and only be displayed when Ad 1 is allowed.
“This is not a great scenario for advertisers or Google, so they address this by allowing ads to be shown in a different order than what ad rank would normally dictate,” Vallaeys wrote.
This “different order” refers to the concept of RGSP.
What is RGSP and how does it affect auctions?
RGSP is a practice leveraged by Google that picks the winner of an ad auction at random from the top bidders as long as their long-term values (LTVs – a Google calculation that is essentially the same as Ad rank) are close enough.
The top bidder then “pays the price of the bid equal to the next-highest bid plus one cent,” according to Big Tech on Trial.
The Department of Justice argued at the federal antitrust trial that this practice creates an unfair competition for bidding advertisers as the winner of an auction should always be the highest bidder.
Why is RGSP unfair?
Advertisers have two options if they want to avoid their potential winning bid from being demoted at random to runner-up:
Improve their campaign’s LTV.
Increase their bid amount.
The issue here is that Google hasn’t specified exactly how advertisers can increase their campaign’s LTV, which leaves them with one option if they wish to avoid RGSP – increase their bid amount.
To avoid RGSP, the bid amount would have to be significantly higher than the runner-up (as mentioned before, winners and runners-up can only be swapped via the RGSP process if the LTV and bid amounts are close enough). This has resulted in advertisers having to raise their bid 3.7 times higher, reports This Week In Google Antitrust.
What are the issues with RGSP?
Jay Friedman, CEO of advertising agency Goodway Group, highlighted the reasons RGSP could prove problematic for advertisers:
“Imagine you want to buy a ticket to a concert. Not everyone who wants a ticket can get a ticket, so there is an auction. You submit your bid and it’s not a first-price auction (highest bidder wins, pays what they bid,) and not even a second-price auction (highest bidder wins, pays a nominal amount [i.e. $1] over the second-highest biddger.) Instead, the concert venue holds an RGSP – a ‘randomized general second-price auction.’”
“Let’s say the the top two bidders submit bids of $100 and $95. In RGSP, the concert venue takes the top two bidders and, ‘as long as the long-term value of each of the bidders to the concert venue is pretty close,’ there is a chance the concert venue randomly swaps the top two bidders and awards the seat to the second highest bidder instead. Sounds like a deal if you randomly get the ticket for $95, and I guess frustrating for the highest bidder.”
“EXCEPT – the concert venue tells you there are two ways to make sure you don’t get randomly swapped out as the highest bidder. One, increase your long-term value to the venue. They don’t tell you how to do this and note it may include your behavior, referrals, your bid amounts, bid frequency, ‘and other bidder quality elements.’ You decide that’s pretty vague. The second is to increase your bid! And, as it turns out, you’d have to increase your $100 bid to $370 to get sufficient confidence you wouldn’t be outbid.”
What has the DOJ said about RGSP?
The DOJ has argued at the federal antitrust trial that rather than resulting in higher-quality ads, RGSP is being used by Google to boost ad revenue. In putting forward its case, the department shared an email Juda sent to his team at Google acknowledging the difficulty the search engine would have in selling this practice to advertisers. It read:
“[I]f I have to say, ‘[W]e randomly disable you if you don’t bid high enough,’ then I’m going to have another bad year at [Google Marketing Next] ;).”
There was debate at the trial as to what was implied by the use of a winking emoji in Juda’s message.
Does RGSP increase Google’s revenue?
Google vice president and general manager of ads Jerry Dischler testified at the federal antitrust trual that while he was unsure if RGSP resulted in advertisers increasing their ad auction bids, he could confirm that the practice increases Google’s ad revenue.
Dischler went on to tell the court that the search engine “frequently” changes the auctions it uses to sell search ads, increasing the cost of ads and reserve pricing by as much as 5% for the average advertiser. For some queries, the tech giant may have even raised prices by as much as 10%. However, Google tends “not to tell advertisers about pricing changes.”
The Department of Justice shared an email sent by Dischler back in 2018 to highlight the pressure his team were under to meet revenue targets given to Wall Street by Ruth Porat, Google’s Chief Financial Officer. In the documents, he claimed his team were “shaking the cushions” to increase revenue. He wrote:
“If we don’t meet quota for the second quarter in a row and we miss the street’s expectations again, which is not what Ruth signalled to the street, so we will get punished pretty bad in the market.”
“I care more about revenue than the average person but think we can all agree that for our teams trying to live in high cost areas another $100,000 in stock price loss will not be great for morale, not to mention the huge impact on our sales team.”
Is RGSP new?
Practices like RGSP are not new. In fact, Yahoo! gave an interview to The Register back in 2010 explaining it had been using “squashing” and second price auctions since 2007 to increase revenue. Yahoo!’s then chief economist, Preston McAfee (who now works for Google as a Distinguished Scientist) told the publication at the time:
“When someone has a really high ad click probability, they’re very hard to beat, so it’s not a really competitive auction. So that they don’t just win [every auction], we do squashing. This makes the auction more competitive.”
“The bidders respond by bidding higher. The one who was destined to lose is now back in the race, so they bid higher trying to displace the number one, and the number one is trying to fend them off so they bid higher too.”
“We can make the competition a bit more fierce using squashing, even on keywords where there’s not much bidding.”
McAfee did not confirm how much squashing Yahoo! does but did say it was constantly changing and “resetting the parameters”.
What has Google said about RGSP?
Google uses RGSP to prevent a bias where one winner takes all, Juda said at the federal antitrust trial. Commenting on the practice, he told the court “we flip [the winners of auctions with runners-up], otherwise Amazon always shows up on top,” Bloomberg reported.
Another reason for selecting winners at random is so that advertisers don’t need to worry that they may be bidding too much in ad auctions, which could result in them constantly feeling the need to adjust their bid amounts, according to Google.
With RGSP, the price advertisers pay is determined by the bid amount put forward by the next highest-ranked bid. Juda described this method as “advertiser-friendly.”
How has the PPC community reacted?
The concept of RGSP appears to have divided the paid search community, with many criticizing the lack of transparency around it.
“So much for giving advertisers transparency, right? What does this mean for advertisers? Does ad rank even matter? I personally hope that Google will get more than a fine and a ‘slap on the wrist’ for this.”
Mike Ryan, Head of Ecommerce Insights at Smarter Ecommerce, commented
“Is this behavior ethical? No. Whatever the initial motivation, this is auction manipulation that appears to harm Google’s competitor set and yield undue revenues by increasing costs for everyone else.”
“All digital marketers need to be aware that Google’s bid auction is no longer an auction. A real auction’s outcomes are dictated by supply and demand, but we just learned from the horse’s mouth there are other factors in play.
“I’m sure Google is working on making its advertising product more effective – at least for retail advertisers, since that was certainly the focus of Dischler’s quotes. What I’m sure of is that continuing to game its own system at the expense of its customers is not a long-term strategy for success. I’ve got plenty of ideas for ways Google can get better for #b2b advertisers if they’re open to a more honest way forward.”
“Google, we genuinely love the product you first introduced. We are the ones who had told clients for years why Search is one of the best marketing channels of all time (what incredible marketing intent there is in a search term!!). Stop the money grab and start rebuilding trust. For the sake of the industry. Please! 🙁 #ppc #googleads #adwords #ecommerce #RGSP.”
However, others have argued that “out-of-order” ranking changes can help improve the user experience, as pointed out by Vallaeys:
“While out-of-order promotion changes the typical auction dynamics, Google believes it ultimately improves the search experience, and I tend to agree with that. For advertisers, it highlights the need to focus both on bidding strategically and optimizing for relevance and Quality Score.”
Content marketer Goutham Veerabathini shared this notion, commenting on LinkedIn:
“The introduction of randomness might help create a more dynamic and unpredictable auction environment to prevent strategic strict deterministic ranking of bids that gives top position always to only one player who bids the highest after mastering all the other factors.”
Why we care. Fair ad bidding is essential for advertisers to achieve their marketing objectives efficiently, maintain trust in the advertising ecosystem, and foster long-term relationships with advertising platforms and publishers. It contributes to a healthy and competitive marketplace where advertisers can optimize their strategies for better outcomes.
It can be difficult attempting to save money. Perhaps you have tried to do so, but unexpected costs continually seem to arise. The need for new tires on the car, braces for the teen, or a new roof for the house can all make saving money seem like a distant priority. Remember that?
The truth is that you may start saving money even if some factors aren’t ideal. Warning: the elusive “right time” will never arrive if you wait for it. It’s ideal to begin saving immediately.
The good news is that there are numerous simple methods available to cut costs and improve your budget. You can quickly and easily begin saving money by implementing the following suggestions.
Methods for Cutting Costs
1. Get Out of Debt First.
The most significant drain on savings is the cost of servicing debt each month. Having debt takes money away from you. It is high time that you pay off your debt. The debt snowball strategy can help you eliminate debt quickly. Here, you’ll settle your bills, beginning with the lowest and working up to the highest.
Don’t worry; changing people’s perspectives is crucial, even when discussing payday loans online. Once you’ve relieved your disposable income of financial strain, you can allocate those funds towards achieving your savings goals.
2. Cut Down on Your Grocery Budget.
After making a monthly budget, most individuals are taken aback by how much money they actually spend at the supermarket. And the typical American household of four spends about $966.1 every month.
Walking up and down the aisles, picking up a package of Oreos here, some bags of chips there, and some fun extras at the checkout is a breeze. Those seemingly insignificant expenditures can build up and cause monthly budget overruns.
You may save money on food by making a weekly menu plan and checking your cupboard and freezer contents before going shopping for the simple reason that there’s no point in buying more of what you already have. Leave the kids at home if you’re serious about not deviating from your to-do list.
3. Spend Extra or Unexpected Income Wisely.
Put that bonus check or inheritance check to good use when money comes your way. And by “good use,” we don’t mean hoarding the proceeds from the sale of your new stamp or storing them in the bank for later use.
Instead of putting that money in the bank, you should use it to pay off your debts, such as your credit card or student loan balances. If you don’t owe anyone money, then you can put that money toward a rainy-day reserve.
4. Get Rid of Recurring Memberships and Subscriptions You Seldom Use.
You may have several subscriptions, such as streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Spotify), a gym membership, trendy box services, and Amazon Prime. Stop paying for services you rarely use and cancel your subscriptions. Remember to turn off auto-renewal prior to any purchases you make.
If you decide you can’t live without it after canceling your subscription, you can start paying again as long as you have enough room in your new and improved budget.
5. Reduce Energy Costs.
By making some simple adjustments around the house, you can cut down on your monthly electricity costs. You can get started right away by doing things like replacing any leaky pipes, washing your clothes in cold water, installing dimmer switches and LED lightbulbs, and taking shorter showers (we didn’t say fewer).
While investing in new energy-efficient appliances will help you save money on your monthly electricity bill, doing so can be quite a financial burden. You may save up and pay cash for those enhancements over time, though, if you factor them into your monthly budget.
6. Check Your Insurance Rates.
Did you know that having an Endorsed Local Provider (ELP) examine your insurance rates can save you an average of $700? You should have them take a look to see if they can find any savings for you.
7. Start an Investment Strategy.
You can still put your hard-earned money to work for you by making even modest contributions to investing accounts.
If your company matches contributions to your 401(k), you could be getting money for nothing. Consider starting a retirement or investing account.
Conclusion
Changing your behavior is the first step toward better financial health. Some of these adjustments will be less challenging than others, but if you stick with the process, you’ll develop excellent money management skills that will benefit you for the rest of your life.
When Bitcoin was launched in 2009, the prospect of digital currency was no longer theoretical and a very real concept. It rapidly gained interest, and businesses started to test how they could make it work for them. Large corporations, governmental bodies, social enterprises and charities began to use it to improve upon their existing processes and expand upon business models. Here we explore how and why businesses can benefit from blockchain, and how to make it part of their overall strategy.
The first thing that you need to remember is that there are so many options in relation to blockchain networks depending on the project that is being worked on with varying levels of sophistication. There are networks with low barriers to entry that could act as a good test case. Check the Kusama price for something that could be a good starting point.
The Trust Factor
Blockchain creates trust between entities if that has not already been established. By this, we mean that people may work with different businesses that they perhaps wouldn’t have done before without the additional security that blockchain offers in terms of transactions and holding data. With the added encryption and automatic paper trail that the blockchain provides every transaction, there is a better foundation for trust between businesses. Additionally, smart contracts will ensure transactions only are processed if an agreed upon act was carried out first. It could be that a business already has an existing relationship with another, but haven’t yet had to facilitate or complete any transactions, which is where the partnership is really put to the test. Blockchain and Bitcoin are widely recognised and trusted which will give you an edge to other competitors who perhaps aren’t using blockchain.
No Security or Privacy Issues
One of the main advantages of Blockchain and a major reason why businesses should explore it, is that it means that there is less to worry about when it comes to security and privacy. The security offered by Blockchain is enhanced, which means you know your transactional data is safe. All transactions are protected by end-to-end encryption which means that there is no risk of fraud or any kind of illegal activity. It is pretty much impossible to hack into.
It Can Cut Organisational Costs
The great thing about Blockchain is that it can cut costs without you even noticing it. It will automatically make the processing of transactions much more efficient, limiting the amount of time you spend on them. There is less manual labour required when it comes to reports, audits and editing of information or data. The streamlining of these processes will save you time, and in fact money. There will be less middle men required in order to function this part of your business.
Everything Is Faster
In the business world, if there is a faster way of doing things, that’s definitely the preferred method. We all want everything done yesterday. Because there aren’t as many 3rd parties, or intermediaries, everything can be completed much quicker than it would if you were using traditional methods. Depending on the specific transaction, it can be handled in less than seconds. This does however depend on the kind of system that is used.
Transactions Can’t Be Changed
Every transaction that is completed over blockchain is completely visible and transparent. Everything is recorded, so you know every detail about what’s occurred. That level of traceability could be huge for your business Once it has been recorded, it means that nothing can then be changed or edited, giving you again some additional security of knowing nobody can tamper with your data. Once you have been using the system for a significant period of time, you will then have a set of auditable records that you can refer to.
You Can Control Your Data
Data is a valuable commodity in the world of business, and most businesses want to retain control of it. By using a blockchain system, this gives you much more control. You, as a company, can choose which pieces of data you’d like to share and with who. It’s all in your hands. You can also limit the amount of time people can have access to the data, should they only require it for a certain period of time.
Can Be Used as Part of Your Innovation Practices
Many businesses have innovation think tanks where they look at how they can solve problem areas within the company or improve processes. It could be simplifying some of the most standard business practices such as verifying information. If you are on a recruitment drive for example with lots of applicants, it could help you identify whether or not any potential candidates are falsifying their information. There are so many processes that blockchain could simplify for you and help you add to your bottom line.
If you are a business wondering if blockchain can help you and improve the way you operate, hopefully you will now have an idea of some of the advantages of it and how it could be used to grow what you already have.
Nine out of 10 ecommerce businesses I’ve come across have run Google Ads at some point, but few have considered Amazon Ads despite the significant opportunities it offers.
I believe that Amazon Ads has the potential to be far more effective than Google Ads for ecommerce PPC as it offers higher quality traffic, higher conversion rates, easier tracking, more long-term value and more lenient policies.
In this article, I unpack these advantages and explain why your ecommerce business should be running Amazon Ads over Google Ads.
Why is Amazon Ads undervalued?
There are several reasons that Amazon Ads has not been as popular as Google Ads, even for ecommerce businesses. Let’s get these out of the way.
While Google commands the majority of global search engine usage, boasting over 90% market share, a 2021 survey by Jumpshot revealed that Amazon’s search volume comprises 54% of all product-related searches in the United States.
Google may have a broader reach, but Amazon provides a more relevant targeting opportunity, a nuance often missed by ecommerce advertisers.
Another blocking factor is that Amazon is a stand-alone ecommerce platform. To list a product on Amazon, advertisers are required to invest in the Amazon ecosystem and build a product listing.
The startup cost and learning curve with Google Ads are lower as traffic can be run directly to your ecommerce website. It’s not widely known that Amazon has a program called Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM), where sellers can fulfill products themselves and not use Amazon’s fulfillment centers.
While there might be hesitation to join the Amazon marketplace, the advantage in building another sales channel and gaining access to Amazon’s network of customers and their ad platform is huge.
Lastly, the costs associated with Amazon Ads on face value appear higher than Google Ads. Amazon Ads, like Google Ads, is a CPC platform, which means advertisers are charged for each click on their ads.
However, Amazon also charges a percentage sale commission for any product sold on their platform. This commission varies depending on the product parameters.
Despite this added commission, Amazon Ads is still likely to be more cost-effective than Google Ads, considering that the CPCs are far lower and the conversion rates far higher on Amazon.
1. Amazon has higher conversion rates
Most U.S. product searches happen on Amazon, resulting in significantly higher conversion rates than Google Ads.
While Google Ads offers effective targeting capabilities, Amazon’s advantage lies in its product-focused intent.
Additionally, Amazon provides advertisers with other tools, like advertising products on competitor product listings.
It’s not uncommon for Amazon listings to have conversion rates of 10 to 15% and beyond. Prime members have even higher conversion rates. Compare this to Google Ads, which usually have conversion rates under 5%.
Even considering the 15% commissions on products, the ROAS from Amazon Ads are usually more cost-effective than Google Ads.
2. Amazon makes attribution and tracking easier
Google Ads tracking has come a long way with Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager. But even with these advancements, it’s still difficult to master attribution and understand the true value of Google Ads all the way down to a keyword or product listing.
This is not the case with Amazon Ads. Amazon’s approach is different because all of the product information is housed within the Amazon platform.
Product information, buyer reviews, influencer videos, long-form content and similar products can all be found on the platform connected to the listing.
Add to that the buyer trust that Amazon provides with its reputation of fast fulfillment and free returns. Most of the research and sale is completed on the platform, and all of this information is retained.
As an advertiser, it becomes very easy to understand the customer journey from keyword to sale and the revenue value behind each ad campaign and down to keyword and product target.
Amazon’s Brand Analytics and Ad platform provide ecommerce businesses with a flywheel to constantly improve products and make great marketing decisions. It also means Amazon Ads become highly effective over time, while you may still be guessing at the true performance of Google Ads.
function getCookie(cname) {
let name = cname + “=”;
let decodedCookie = decodeURIComponent(document.cookie);
let ca = decodedCookie.split(‘;’);
for(let i = 0; i <ca.length; i++) {
let c = ca[i];
while (c.charAt(0) == ' ') {
c = c.substring(1);
}
if (c.indexOf(name) == 0) {
return c.substring(name.length, c.length);
}
}
return "";
}
document.getElementById('munchkinCookieInline').value = getCookie('_mkto_trk');
3. Amazon Ads drive rankings
When it comes to how ads affect organic rankings, Google and Amazon have distinct policies. The difference creates an interesting opportunity for Amazon advertisers.
“Investment in paid search has no impact on your organic search ranking. Google maintains a strict separation between our search business and our advertising business.”
Amazon has the exact opposite policy. While they don’t officially state this, it is common knowledge in the industry that Amazon Sponsored Ads drive organic rankings.
In practice, Amazon Sponsored Ads drive more buyers to listings and increase sales. Subsequently, sell-through-rates increase and Amazon uses this trust factor to rank products organically for those keywords.
I’m not judging which policy is better; both make sense in their own way. However, the outcome is that Amazon’s policy enables newer entrants to rank products quickly and get a foothold in the Amazon Marketplace. With Google, investing in SEO can be a slow process.
Similar to the above point, SEO on Google is time-consuming and resource-intensive. Building links and content and optimizing websites to rank on Google takes time and money.
It’s also unclear exactly what works and what doesn’t. It can sometimes feel like trying to catch a falling knife, with the parameters around SEO constantly in flux.
On the other hand, we know that investment in Amazon Ads has a value-added effect on Amazon SEO. As discussed above, more ads mean more sales, which means higher sell-through rates and better rankings.
But also, more ads = more sales = more reviews. Reviews on Amazon are likened to Links to your website on Google. They are the lifeblood of rankings.
Investing in Ads influences your rankings and is a direct investment in your Amazon presence. These reviews are tangible and real. You don’t get the same effect when you invest in Google Ads, which Google specifically states is a siloed platform.
5. The Amazon marketplace is easier to dominate
Not only do Amazon ads make it easier to compete, but it is also far easier to dominate the entire marketplace with Amazon than it is with Google Ads.
Consider Google’s policy of “Unfair Advantage.” You cannot advertise two listings for the same keyword. There are only four ad spots, and Google does not want any advertiser to control all the real estate.
With Amazon, one advertiser can easily dominate a vast amount of real estate on the search results page.
Check out this search for “Japanese BBQ sauce” on Amazon.com. One advertiser controls the whole page:
This kind of dominance of the SERP could never be achieved with Google Ads today.
While there are ways to game this with Google, such as opening multiple accounts, this violates Google’s policy, and if caught, an advertiser risks having all their accounts closed down.
Whereas with Amazon, this allowed and even encouraged. Your ecommerce brand can own the entire SERP if it wants to.
Amazon presents a better opportunity for ecommerce advertisers
While Google has more search volume and can be an effective platform, for a savvy ecommerce business Amazon Ads presents more opportunities. The key reasons in favor of Amazon Ads are:
As marketing professionals, we frequently feel like we are at war with the financial decision-makers of our organizations.
The CEO, CFO, and CRO seem like the villains keeping us away from the funds needed to do our best work.
We ask for buy-in on exciting initiatives that, we think, will exponentially improve our work’s impact, only to hear a dismissive “no.” We describe the results of our campaigns, just to be questioned about the “actual ROI”.
Worse yet, we might feel like Natalie Marcotullio, head of growth and operations at Navattic.
“Marketing is just often seen as a cost center since we’re not directly bringing in revenue like sales or customer success,” Marcotullio said.
To find out why this happens, and whether that gut feeling is actually true, I spoke to fellow marketing practitioners as well as people who have crossed over to the other side – marketers who turned into CROs and CEOs themselves.
Here are four things I learned from those conversations:
Marketers feel trapped and suffocated by the controlling and overbearing behavior from executives and finance teams.
Executives do indeed doubt whether marketing departments are actually doing useful work.
Both sides have fallen into dysfunctional and toxic communication patterns, giving up on the hope of ever finding common ground.
Despite this lack of understanding, both marketers and executives are actually pursuing the same goals.
Let’s examine how poor communication affects buy-in for our work as SEOs, content professionals, or other marketing specialists. And, who knows, maybe we’ll discover a way to finally break out of that self-perpetuating cycle.
Why we’re afraid of executives and decision-makers
Have you failed to get budget approval for an SEO campaign recently?
If you’re anything like most marketers I talk to, that question might have caused you to shiver with dread. If you’ve been asked to prove the impact of your SEO work, whether you work in-house or as an external consultant, you have probably struggled to do so.
You put together a slide deck with all the new keywords your website recently ranked for, added graphs showing an upward trend of impressions and clicks, and maybe even threw in some competitor analysis for that extra oomph. Then, as you talked through those undeniable results of your hard work – a terrible feeling began to creep into the back of your mind.
Your boss or client stared at you with a skeptical glint in their eyes. They impatiently asked for you to “get to the point.” They didn’t laugh at the clever joke that you placed on Slide 7.
And then, once you finished walking them through the entire slide deck, your boss crossed their arms, sighed, and asked the most terrifying question of all:
“So, how does any of this impact our revenue?”
*Cue the sound of shattering glass and whimpers of broken self-esteem*
Proving impact of marketing work is freaking difficult
Unlike sales or product, marketing can feel like a much more nebulous function. Getting a better SERP ranking, or even improving a website’s CTR, only indirectly connects to revenue.
SEO can be a more difficult channel for demonstrating a clear ROI: user journeys tend to involve search either at the initial exploratory phase or at the final comparison step.
In most cases, the first time someone clicks on our link from a search is very distant from the moment they decide to make a purchase.
“We know today that marketing takes a lot of touchpoints (LinkedIn, email, communities, WOM) to influence prospects. It can be hard to figure out the influenced ROI of channels that had an impact, especially if they were not the first or last place where a prospect found you,” Marcotullio said.
We often can’t point to our activities and correlate them to how much money came into our organization in a particular quarter. And because we aren’t able to clearly connect those dots for decision-makers, they might end up dismissing our work as not relevant to core business functions.
“Marketing can often be an afterthought. In many instances, it’s still seen as a creative support function to sales, not as a function that has bottom-line impacts.” said Brooke Duffy, a fractional CRO for B2B SaaS.
Without a clear ROI, we suffer the consequences of not being trusted.
Not all executives will even give marketers the benefit of the doubt, as Duffy learned the hard way in a previous role.
“The CEO couldn’t get past his old-school mentality of a sales-led organization, which resulted in marketing getting cut. It’s one thing to work for someone who doesn’t understand marketing, but it’s another to work for someone who doesn’t believe in it. I’ll never do that again!” Duffy said.
Key decision-makers don’t see the value in marketing, so the lack of trust spills over into individual functions.
I’ve seen content and SEO programs gutted by an insistence on avoiding any risk, repeating past tactics, and minimizing any chance of creative input.
Ever wonder why so many results on any given SERP sound the same?
An uninspired yet all-too-common search results page.
Many organizations have turned their content operations into an assembly line, pumping out predictable, stable and utterly uninspired algorithm-pleasing content.
And we do that because we have to, for fear of getting punished.
The content we create is so bland because often we are actively discouraged and prevented from expressing any creativity. We can’t take creative risks when those creative risks might come with an order to pack our bags.
Just look at how Kiran Shahid, a freelance B2B content writer, gets assigned work:
“Established brands often give writers minimal room for creativity. Very rarely do I get the chance to create outlines – most of the time I get the keyword and outline and it’s a ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ approach.”
The fill-in-the-blanks strategy is frequently excused away with SEO, as we fixate on what has already ranked for a given keyword.
We turn to AI-powered content planning tools, turning a writer’s unique perspective into “another re-hashed post made to tick off keyword lists and word count goals,” as Paul Woodland once wrote on my agency’s blog.
“This is above and beyond SEO indicators” shouldn’t be the sole standard by which we measure creativity, original thought, or value delivered to our prospective customers. Yet, that’s how we justify our short-sightedness:
Shahid shared this screenshot of a real email that she received from one of her clients.
How well do you think this cookie-cutter approach will actually serve you now that the helpful content update has fully rolled out?
Google is going to incentivize unique, high-quality, and expert pieces. Not garbage that was Frankenstein-ed from competitor articles already ranking on SERPs.
If we want our SEO work to deliver real business impact, we must take risks.
“There is so much noise in every channel, creativity makes sure your brand and product actually get noticed,” Marcotullio said.
Remember: making your site rank well on search is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.
We increase visibility with SEO to help our businesses with overall financial objectives. And acting like everyone else won’t help us stand out from the crowd.
But why are executives making our lives so difficult?
Marketing is an essential business function, so don’t the people leading our organizations want us to do our best work? The actions of CEOs and CFOs who question our judgment and cut our budgets can seem counter-productive, if not downright absurd!
To try and truly understand what drives the other side to act this way, I turned to one of the world’s best experts on the topic.
Mark Stouse, chairman and CEO at ProofAnalytics.ai, has interviewed more than 300 CEOs and CFOs of Fortune 1000 companies about marketing impact. And he graciously agreed to share what they said:
“They’ve been frustrated for decades on this issue of ‘I’m spending, and whatever I’m spending on marketing – how do I know that I’m getting anything of value? How long does it take for things to pay off?’”
And that executive frustration, after brewing for years and decades, has turned into a much more destructive emotion.
“Disgust. That’s probably the truly accurate phrase or word to use, with the way that a lot of marketing teams actually keep their books. That they are perennially over budget, that they don’t really know how much they’re over budget until it’s too late,” Stouse said.
It’s a hard reality to face. Your CEO or CFO might feel literally disgusted with the way that you and your team have been spending your money and time. That isn’t an emotion that can be countered with even 1,000 SERP snippets.
How did executives get so upset with us?
Well, some tension boils down to how most CFOs think, according to Stouse. When faced with someone who doesn’t know how to manage spend, a CFO might take it personally:
“If you’re the kind of person who goes into finance, you’ll find those attributes of anyone to be kind of almost like a personal affront. It’s almost like a character flaw.”
You can be the best SEO in the world. But if your CFO figures out that you can’t put together a P&L, they might not care to give you a chance to say anything else.
So, if you want to be taken seriously, you might need to get involved more directly in the financial processes of your organization.
“Marketing should be in forecasting, budgeting, reporting, and strategy meetings. If that occurs, then marketing needs to build trust by communicating value clearly, for the right audience, through use of data & analytics,” Duffy said.
You might already be resisting the idea. I suspect that some of you are currently thinking: “why should I bother to connect with those decision-makers if they feel disgusted by me?”
And that’s a fair question. Thankfully, one answer to it can be found in a 20-year-old business book.
How ‘crucial conversations’ can help us find a way out
Marketers and executives want the same thing. We are all working toward making our organizations more successful.
And when we can finally show how our marketing efforts contribute to business success, nobody is going to minimize that.
Once a financial model for establishing impact is put in place, everyone is happy:
“When the analytics come back, everyone is sort of nonplussed in different ways. The finance teams are like, ‘dang, that’s better than we thought it was gonna be’. And the marketers are lightning cigars and saying, ‘yeah, we know, we just couldn’t prove it,’” Stouse said.
So how can we get to the point of setting up analytics and explaining impact, so executives are truly satisfied?
“A crucial conversation” is “a discussion between two or more people where (1) stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong.”
Unfortunately, when emotions are high, we are often on our worst behavior. We’re scared, so we try to protect ourselves from harm. But in becoming defensive, we put up walls and forget to listen to other perspectives.
The personal vs. shared pool of meaning in dialogue
Each person participating in a conversation has a “personal pool of meaning” made up of “opinions, feelings, theories, and experiences about the topic at hand.” The information available to any one person informs and influences what actions they’ll take.
Every conversation also has what the book calls a “shared pool of meaning,” or information that is openly and explicitly shared with every participant in that conversation.
And when the reasons behind our desired behavior are allowed to develop from the shared pool of meaning, it’s a lot easier to get buy-in. As explained in the book:
“They understand why the shared solution is the best solution, and they’re committed to act.”
How dialogue breaks down
But why do conversations so frequently become unproductive?
When we argue with executives over the importance of our SEO work, and they respond with disgust, that doesn’t feel like a great way to add to our shared pool of meaning.
Conversations break down into a dysfunctional mess with little notice. Most frequently, this happens because at least some participants no longer feel safe. And when we don’t feel safe, we would rather not be vulnerable or honest.
“Crucial Conversations” states that when people don’t feel safe, they turn to one of two behaviors:
Silence: When participants are withholding meaning from the shared pool.
Violence: When participants decide to compel others, forcing their meaning into the shared pool.
Neither of those options is particularly conducive to healthy dialogue or rebuilding trust.
You can’t discuss your budget or explain why a particular strategy was effective if the other person is already shutting down and feeling attacked!
How to establish safety before jumping into explanations of your work
Alright, so if you notice others turning to either silence or violence during an important conversation, what can you do?
Your priority should be to help re-establish safety with other conversation participants. Make them feel a little less overwhelmed, and start reflecting on what you truly want. And yes, this applies even to decision-makers and executives. No matter how much power they might hold, they are still humans.
To begin establishing trust, you should try what the book calls “starting with the heart”. Essentially, take a moment and reflect on your actions and what you truly want. Here are four questions that they suggest:
Question 1: What do I want to achieve for myself?
Is your goal to prove that your particular backlink strategy was superior, or to actually get the CEO to resonate with the principles that convinced you of that approach?
Or is your goal to prove yourself right and take out your frustration on that CEO for the times they didn’t make your life easy?
When we get emotional, it’s easy to lose sight of what we are actually trying to accomplish and begin defending ourselves at all costs.
Question 2: What do I want others to achieve?
Are you trying to prove the CFO wrong, or are you actually aligned with their goal of spending the marketing budget in the most effective way?
Sometimes, you might think that you disagree with someone when, in reality, you share a common purpose.
Question 3: What kinds of relationships do I want with others?
Might it be worth giving up a portion of your content optimization spend to preserve trust and goodwill?
Long-term, showing that you’re capable of changing your mind and listening to the executives’ concerns might actually help you get buy-in faster.
Question 4: How would I act if I really wanted those results?
Now that you know what you want for yourself, for the executive on the other side, and for your relationship with them – what do you really want out of this particular situation?
It’s easy to bottle your concerns, fuming with coworkers, or even blame the other side directly. But will that help you achieve any of the goals that you set for yourself?
Try to push past your anger and truly reflect on what actions you can take to achieve your desired outcomes. Perhaps you might realize that it’s worth trying to truly listen to your CEO or CFO and empathize with their frustration. As Stouse suggested:
“Have you done anything to connect with your internal customers using their language? To help them understand your value? Or are you going to sit there with your arms crossed?”
Yes, tensions run high. Perhaps you have been treated unfairly. But if you want that decision-maker to change their mind – perhaps try to speak their language first?
By showing that you’re willing to listen to them, you’ll make them more likely to listen to you. And speaking their language would likely include learning to read a P&L statement, as boring as they sound.
It’s tempting to imagine the people who question our skills, interrogate us about ROI, and withhold budgets as villains.
We might picture our CEO sitting in their office, maniacally chuckling while their shadow expands behind them, just like Scar’s does in the original Lion King. But that’s not true, is it?
Deep down, you know that the executives in your organization aren’t simply one-dimensional. They aren’t out to get you because they have a personal vendetta against SEO.
But when you come in and mention domain authority, featured snippets, or the latest core update – those executives might get lost in the sea of specialized concepts. As Duffy described it:
“Throwing a bunch of acronyms and data points at everyone without good reason can actually seem like a smoke screen, decreasing trust.”
Remember, when people seem to get angry and act unreasonably, it’s because your communication has broken down. Stop, pause on talking about your marketing work, and focus on establishing safety.
When both you and your executives feel safe and confident that all perspectives will get heard, getting buy-in can become all that much easier.
Halloween is around the bend! Spookify your home office with Throne Kingdom‘s ghoulishly glam royal throne chairs. Throne Kingdom manufactures phenomenal custom made Throne chairs and wooden works that are delivered right to your home. Based out of Brooklyn, NY, Throne Kingdom offers a top-quality selection of timeless royal furniture pieces that exude exceptional craftsmanship and unparalleled creativity.
Throne Kingdom carefully selects all their resources and caters to upscale clients with a knack and unrelenting desire for contemporary design. Throne Kingdom designs all products with an ultra-focus on high back throne chairs and sofas to give any home a touch of royalty. The company also offers superb customer service.
The thrones are also made with mahogany wood, which is known to be a highly durable and sustainable wood for commercial and residential use furniture. The painting process is also done in a few complex methods to improve appearance and longevity of the finishing. These chairs will help you style up your home office!
Throne Kingdom’s mission is to continue being a dominant leader in custom-made throne chairs and sofas for distributors and service centers around the world. They aim to add value, style, and royalty to their clients lives by providing an established global supply network, enhanced flexibility tailored towards customers’ needs, and more. The long-term vision is to continue establishing a furniture brand that benefits businesses and homes seeking a more unique design that would stand out from your typical furniture. Throne Kingdom’s materials offer the utmost quality and durability. thronekingdom.com
We all know the seasons are changing upon us and it’s always a great time to focus on environmentally smart home improvement projects to enhance our surroundings one step at a time.
Frame it All’s Cap Composite Fence is introducing a better solution to fencing. In addition to being low-maintenance and durable, Cap Composite Fencing is an environmentally responsible choice. It is made from recycled materials, helping to reduce plastic waste and minimize environmental impact. With each Cap Picket Panel, over 40 pounds of recycled plastic is diverted from our natural environments, contributing to a cleaner planet.
The founders note their composite products are made from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified wood waste products and recycled food-grade safe HDPE plastic. Not only do they NOT cut down trees to make their products, but they are also committed to leading the way in the industry in addressing climate change by planting trees. And through their partnership with the National Forest Foundation, one tree is planted for every order placed on the Frame It All website.
Frame it All’s Cap Composite fencing features a co-extruded 360-cap coat that provides unparalleled structural strength. The Cap Coat has high levels of UV stabilizer protecting all parts of the fencing against fading, rot, and fungus. This innovative coating not only ensures the longevity of Frame it All fences but also provides a natural wood grain or brush textures that surpasses the aesthetics of non-capped WPC and vinyl fencing without every needing to be painted or stained. The company boasts a 30-year warranty to back up the longevity of their Cap Composite fence.
LED linear lighting has revolutionized the lighting industry with its numerous advantages. In this blog post, we will define the key benefits of LED linear lighting and how it has become a popular choice for both residential and commercial applications. From energy efficiency to long lifespan, LED linear lighting offers remarkable advantages over traditional lighting options. We will delve into its versatility, durability, and ability to create seamless, uniform illumination. Join us as we uncover the rise of LED linear lighting and why it has become the preferred lighting solution for modern spaces.
Pros of LED Lighting
Versatility
LED linear lights offer exceptional versatility due to their wide range of shapes and sizes. This makes them suitable for various applications, including accent lighting, task lighting, and general illumination in both commercial and residential spaces. Their ability to be formed into different shapes and extended to different lengths is one of the key advantages of LED linear lights. Additionally, LED linear lights are flexible and visually pleasing, allowing for the creation of unique lighting designs that complement the overall style and decor of any space. They can be used to achieve sleek and minimalist designs or more intricate and elaborate patterns. Furthermore, LED linear lights provide installation options such as surface mounting, recessing, or suspending, giving designers the freedom to achieve their desired lighting effects. Manufacturers offer a wide range of stylish and easy-to-install LED linear lights that produce various fashionable effects through creative designs. Straight linear lights of 4 feet or 8 feet, L-shaped linear lights of 120°, T-shaped linear lights, and X-shaped linear lights are among their products.
Color Temperature
It is possible to adapt LED linear lights to a extended variety of settings due to their wide range of color temperature options. Color temperature refers to the hue of light emitted, ranging from warm yellow to cool blue-white. Color temperature has a significant effect on mood and ambiance. The use of warm white light (2700K-3000K) in residential settings creates a cozy and inviting atmosphere, while the use of cool white light (4000K-5000K) in commercial settings creates a bright and energetic environment.
Additionally, LED linear lights excel in color rendering, accurately displaying the true colors of objects and surfaces. This feature makes them suitable for environments where color accuracy is crucial, such as art galleries, museums, and retail spaces.
Manufacturers offer LED linear lights with different color temperatures, including 3000K, 4000K, and 5000K. Their latest product, the L8070 series LED linear lights, even allows for selectable color temperatures (3000K, 3500K, and 4000K) using a single switch on the fixture.
Low Heating
Linear light fixtures are an excellent choice for areas where heat can be a concern, such as near heat-sensitive materials or in display cases. They have a low heat output and can be easily customized to suit specific needs. Retail settings, for example, can use LED linear lights to illuminate display cases without overheating delicate items or food. Similarly, LED linear lights offer bright and even illumination without excessive heat, which is crucial for preserving artifacts and artworks in museums and art galleries.
Due to their lack of filament – the part that burns out in incandescent fixtures – and use of epoxy resin over glass, LED linear lights are much more durable than traditional lighting fixtures while also possessing a much longer shelf life. On average, LEDs have an operational lifespan of 50,000 to 100,000 hours, or between 10 and 20 years, depending on the frequency of use. This is nearly 25 times longer than conventional fluorescent and incandescent fixtures.
Cost Efficiency
LED linear lights are more cost-effective than fluorescent or incandescent linear lights despite their higher initial costs. This is because they consume less energy and have a longer lifespan, reducing the need for frequent replacements.
Conclusion
In conclusion, LED linear lighting has emerged as a game-changer in the lighting industry, offering a multitude of advantages over traditional lighting options. With their versatility, LED linear lights can be tailored to various lighting applications, allowing for the creation of unique and visually pleasing designs. The wide range of color temperature options enables the creation of different moods and ambiance, catering to the specific needs of different spaces. Moreover, LED linear lights excel in energy efficiency, longevity, and low heat output, making them a cost-effective and sustainable lighting solution. With all these benefits, it is no wonder that LED linear lighting has become the preferred choice for modern spaces, revolutionizing the way we illuminate our surroundings.
