Many people consider a boat to be one of their most valuable investments. In the thrill of smelling the fresh ocean air, many individuals set sail without doing the necessary checks.
An unnoticed problem in a boat can develop into a far more serious issue. To protect yourself and avoid surprises, you should undertake thorough boat checks before you head out on the water.
Wondering which are the things you should look out for? Here they are:
Bilge pumps
The bilge is the vessel’s lowest compartment, often placed at the bottom of the hull, where water might accumulate from different sources, such as leaking, rain, or waves. It removes water and other liquids from the boat’s bilge.
A bilge pump’s job is to recover and pump this water out of the boat, keeping the vessel afloat and preventing damage.
Your bilge pumps are your last line of defense, so ensure they’re in good working order. Most bilge pumps include a manual switch to test their operation, but it’s wise to raise the float switch (if safe) or manually pour water into the bilge to ensure the switch is activated.
Before you set sail, confirm that the bilge is working correctly. One of the best ways to test it is using water.
The advantage of testing the bilge pump with water is that you can check if it can move that water. The pump may function up to the switch, but clogs in the line could be costly in an emergency.
It’s also wise to have a backup bilge pump. Float switches sometimes fail, so having backups means you’ll have more time to get to a manual switch if you start taking on water.
Lights
You may aim to go out solely during the day, but a sudden change in weather or another difficulty may force you to navigate at night. As a result, you must check your lights before embarking on a cruise.
You should be aware that boat lights are legally necessary. Lights are required to let other boats see your boat on the water. The lights must be seen from 2 miles away.
During the inspection you should ensure that the boat has:
Bow Navigation Light: A light in the bow (front) of the boat indicates the direction in which your boat is moving.
Stern Navigation Light: A light located at the stern (rear) of a ship that indicates the direction the boat is going.
Masthead Navigation Lights: These are installed on top of any tall structure, together with an anchor light.
Don’t just look at the main navigational lights. Also, check the onboard lights to navigate your boat in the dark.
If any of the lights are not working or appear to be faulty, you should investigate further. This could entail inspecting the wiring, connections, and lights or enlisting the help of a professional boat technician or electrician to remedy the issue.
If you need to replace a part or the entire lighting system, get the part from a reputable store such as Teak Isle.
Steering
Many people assume that their steering will work, but a quick check of your system could save you a lot of stress later on.
Begin by visually inspecting the steering system of the boat. Examine the system for signs of deterioration, such as leaks, loose connections, or worn-out components.
While at it, examine the steering wheel cables, hydraulic hoses (if applicable), and other essential elements.
Free up any rusty steering parts with proper grease, or de-grease and reapply if sections of your steering have become gummed up with debris.
You should visit a competent boat mechanic or technician if you find any problems with the boat’s steering system during the inspection or testing process. Don’t assume the problem is minor and won’t be much of a problem.
When you take your boat to a mechanic, ensure that they do a complete examination, diagnose the problem, and make any necessary repairs or adjustments to assure your boat’s safety.
Batteries
Begin by looking for evidence of corrosion, loose connections, or damage to the battery terminals and wires. Clean the terminals with a battery terminal cleaner or a solution of baking soda and water.
You should measure the voltage of the boat batteries with a multimeter or voltmeter. Set the meter to DC voltage and connect the positive (red) probe to the battery’s positive terminal and the negative (black) probe to the battery’s negative terminal.
A completely charged battery should have a voltage measurement between 12.6 and 12.8 volts.
If the measurement is substantially lower than 12 volts, the battery is likely depleted and has to be charged or replaced.
You also should check the electrolyte levels in flooded lead-acid batteries. Check that the plates are completely coated with electrolyte solution and, if necessary, add distilled water. Take care not to overfill.
Remember that it is critical to keep the batteries of your vessel charged and properly stored when not in use. If you believe your boat battery is not working properly or fails any of the above tests, consider replacing it to guarantee that your boat’s electrical systems have reliable power.
Safety gear
You need to ensure that you are safe when you are out fishing. The only way to make this possible is always to have safety gear on.
Your life jacket is the most critical safety equipment on your boat. Before you set out on the water, be sure that each passenger wears a life jacket that fits properly and is comfortable. A decent life jacket should include the following features:
Float: This may seem obvious, but it is critical; a life jacket cannot do its job unless it keeps you afloat.
Be able to put on rapidly: In an emergency, you may not have much time or energy; Practice swiftly putting on your life jacket in case of an emergency.
Fit adequately around your chest: If your life jacket doesn’t fit, it’s useless; don’t try to improvise with one that’s too big or too little; instead, buy one that fits nicely.
Grants for the summer holidays. The summer holidays are a fantastic time for many kids but can be so daunting for so many parents. With food poverty rife and the cost of living crisis in full swing, people need help. It is good to remind readers that there are many organisations who deliver food and other services to help you if you’re an individual in need of food over the summer holidays. You can get in touch with any of the following organisations who may be able to offer you support:
TURN2US
If your children are school age and receive free school meals during term times, you may be worried about food and other costs while they are on holiday. Find out what help might be available, depending on where you live in the UK here.
You may also be able to get extra credit during the summer holidays, using this govt link: tax-free childcare or the childcare costs element of Universal Credit.
FREE HOLIDAYS AND TRIPS
Families struggling financially, or facing illness, isolation or bereavement, will have an opportunity for a weekend break thanks to a new government fund.
More than 800 holidays and trips for families over the next few months will be funded by the £600,000 ‘England for Everyone’ fund. The fund will support parents, carers, and young people experiencing difficult times to get away, relax and enjoy themselves on a weekend break in England.
As ever, Olio is worth perusing because there are thousands of items being given away daily. You’re bound to find something you need to ease the summer hols. Get food and drink to everything in between. All perfectly good, unwanted food being given away to reduce food waste. Everything shared on OLIO is for free. They have also developed safe sharing ‘no-contact pickups’ in response to COVID-19.Visit their website for more information and to download the app.
HOLIDAY ACTIVITY CLUBS
Hundreds of thousands of children across England will continue to access free, nutritious food and engaging activities over the school holidays, as the government has allocated £200 million to fund the holiday activities and food programme throughout 2023.
These free holiday clubs run across England, supporting parents with childcare costs over the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays by providing free, nutritious meals and enriching activities, such as football, play sessions and cooking classes. New figures out today show that around 600,000 children benefited from the scheme over summer 2022 across over 8,000 clubs, events or organised activities in England. More info HERE.
CHILD FOOD POVERTY
Debt Movement are offering free school meals for kids during the summer hols. This was set up during the pandemic and the possibility of writing off your debt, if you’re struggling or on a low income due to events beyond your control, is still on offer HERE if you apply.
TRUSSELL TRUST
The Trussell Trust operate the largest network of foodbanks across the UK. You can search for your nearest food bank via their interactive map.
INDEPENDENT FOOD AID NETWORK
IFAN are the UK network for independent food aid providers. They support and connect a range of independent frontline food aid organisations while advocating on their behalf at a national level.
They have mapped 834 independent foodbanks. Please visit their website for more information here.
FEEDING BRITAIN
Feeding Britain are running a network of emergency food programmes across the UK. This protects children and their families from hunger. Hot meals and food packages are being made available through a combination of home deliveries and collection points. This ensures families on low incomes can put breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table each day. You can find out more via their website here.
TikTok is testing visual search in Shop, its ecommerce solution. Users can take a photo or upload an image to find and buy similar products.
Why we care. TikTok has been moving more into ecommerce lately, with a goal of generating $20 billion in sales. While this feature seems promising, it remains to be seen whether it will prove to have enough ROI for ecommerce brands to care.
What is TikTok Shop. TikTok Shop, which launched in beta in April, is an ecommerce solution designed to boost sales and brand growth. It allows users to discover and purchase products from their favorite creators and brands in a single, smooth experience.
How it works. A user clicks on the camera icon in the search bar. On the camera, TikTok instructs users: “Take a photo or upload an image to find similar products.”
The test. It is limited and only being tested in non-U.S. markets.
But. TikTok Shop is performing “worse than other TikTok channels and elsewhere,” AdWeek reported. Instagram moved into ecommerce but ultimately cut back on its shopping features last year. It will be worth watching to see whether TikTok figures this out or follows a similar fate.
QR codes have become a powerful tool for driving user engagement and seamless experiences. But are you harnessing their full potential? During this webinar, we’ll dive into the art of designing QR codes to ensure maximum scanning efficiency. Learn how to create visually captivating codes that entice users and make your app stand out from the competition.
QR marketing expert, Scott Allan, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer at URLgenius, will guide you through the potential pitfalls to avoid, ensuring your QR codes lead to tangible results.
A lot of what impacts SEO success is ultimately out of the hands of search professionals.
We can have elaborate and robust SEO strategies in place. We can demonstrate substantial traffic growth. Our organic conversions can be higher than ever.
All it takes is an errant noindex tag to decimate our success overnight.
There are a few ways to protect against this happening – including building processes, checks and balances and QA systems.
But ultimately, the most important method is training those teams on how their actions can improve or destroy SEO progress.
1. Invest in company-wide education
SEO seems like a mystical dark art to many people. Either that, or they reckon it’s just keywords and meta. As search professionals, we know that there are many facets to SEO.
Depending on the industry and website, SEO strategies might have a wide focus. You may have international sites with local SEO and language handling considerations.
Perhaps yours is a marketplace and you need to deal with out-of-stock items frequently. Perhaps you manage a network of sites and have to consider syndication and links more than most.
Why it’s advantageous to upskill colleagues
One of the biggest advantages you can give yourself in SEO is educating your company or departments who deal with the website/s.
This doesn’t mean in-depth training for every single person who has an impact on SEO. It can be as little as a general introduction to SEO carried out in your all-hands meeting or a guide you write and share internally.
Educating your colleagues means creating SEO-aware champions in each key department.
It’s always better to have someone ask, “Does this matter to SEO?” than not. Without raising their awareness of what SEO involves, they may not know to ask.
If your colleagues outside of the marketing department consider SEO to just be keywords and backlinks, they may not know to involve you in site architecture or branding decisions.
They may not consult you at the beginning of a site redesign or when considering re-platforming. You might not be looped in on the international expansion plans or the campaigns to create microsites for new products.
Opening the wider company’s eyes to the complexities of SEO can aid them in realizing when they need to involve you in their decision-making or quality assurance.
2. Keep SEO in the public eye
Once you have given your company an overview of what SEO entails, keeping them aware of what you are working on and how it’s performing is a great idea.
Keeping SEO in front of them will remind your key stakeholders that they need to be consulting with you. Showing the impact of your work demonstrates the benefits of SEO to them.
Training your colleagues or agency clients on the latest changes with search engines or approaches to SEO can remind stakeholders of the complexity and nuances involved in Search.
Share the experiments you run and what you’ve learned from them company-wide. You can demonstrate that SEO doesn’t always have a straightforward answer.
The classic “it depends” answer can wear pretty thin with stakeholders. Demonstrating how much SEO is experimental and iterative can help reinforce that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy.
3. Identify who needs more bespoke training
There will be colleagues who need more than the basic overview of SEO for their work to complement and not hinder yours.
The key to identifying who could do with a deeper education in SEO is looking at who you communicate with daily.
Brand-side
Chances are that the teams you interact with each day are the ones who will be able to impact SEO success. Audit your meetings and emails over the course of a week.
Who are you messaging the most?
Who are you in meetings with?
Alongside people who can help or hinder SEO through their work, consider key stakeholders.
Who holds the keys to your budget?
Who is involved in prioritizing developer time?
These people are the ones who can help your SEO strategy get implemented. It is prudent to help them to understand the importance of SEO.
Clients
If you are working as a consultant or for an agency, the process of identifying training needs will differ. After all, you may only have one key contact at your client’s organization. Consider asking your contact for an overview of their organizational structure.
An organizational chart or department overview will help you know who might need SEO upskilling. Look for the teams that have an impact on the website. For example, this might be developers, project managers, or marketing teams.
Alternatively, speak with your contact and ask them to identify who might benefit from SEO education. Explain that your training will ultimately help gain buy-in for SEO activity. They will likely have a list of who would benefit from that.
4. Determine the SEO skills needed for each stakeholder
Once you have a list of people who may benefit from training, split them into three groups:
Needs to be able to carry out SEO-informed activities
These people could use SEO skills in their work to help improve search performance.
For example, copywriters benefit from keyword research training and front-end developers from understanding how hreflang tags work.
They will likely need an overview of SEO and how their work impacts it. They will need training on specific activities and the tools needed to accomplish them.
Don’t get caught up in trying to teach them the entirety of SEO. It will probably make it harder to remember what they actually need to know.
Give them sufficient SEO context to understand why the activity is important. This enables them to figure out better processes because you have equipped them with the knowledge to do so themselves rather than just training them by rote.
Needs to understand the context of SEO
These people will benefit from understanding where their work, or the work of the people they manage, can impact SEO. They might be your UX designers, project managers, or PPC managers.
For this group, consider what they need to know to understand their impact on your work. Consider training stakeholders on when to involve SEO professionals in their decision-making.
This can be very important for team members who make changes to the website.
For example, your UX team might advise including pop-up boxes to encourage email sign-up. They will need to understand the implications of using interstitials and that it would likely need an SEO’s input to ensure it is implemented in a search-engine-friendly manner.
They may not need in-depth training on rectifying the issues you are highlighting or which decisions they make could cause them.
Needs to understand the importance of SEO
These are your colleagues or client stakeholders who don’t directly impact SEO but indirectly do through prioritization and budget-holding.
These are your marketing directors, chief operating officers and finance managers. The people who need to understand the remit of SEO to sign off on the resources needed for your strategy.
Your focus for training for this group is to show SEO’s impact on their bottom line. This might be operational efficiency, revenue or other KPIs important to your senior leadership team.
Work with them to find out what metrics they really care about and show them how SEO can impact them.
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5. Choose the best methods of training them
Workshops
As identified above, some of your colleagues or client stakeholders will need in-depth training. They may benefit from workshops to help them understand the processes they must follow.
Give them the full context of why the SEO skills you are teaching them are important. Walk them through examples and allow them to practice with you assisting. This will allow them to ask you questions as they learn new skills.
You may also consider follow-up sessions or refreshers when relevant new people join the company. This can act as a refresher for those you have previously trained.
Written updates
Sometimes the best course of action is to write up training guides and notes. This way, a permanent resource will be available for colleagues and clients to refer to.
If it is a document that allows tracked changes, you can also request that they ask any questions about it within it. This creates an FAQ within the guide to clarify anything where you accidentally omitted important foundational concepts or specific actions.
Videos
Sometimes showing people will be the best way to teach them.
Creating a quick video of you carrying out a specific SEO activity, such as a crawl or keyword research, could be the key to helping instruct many people quickly.
You are not requiring them to be present in a workshop but giving them a resource they can use when they are carrying out the task.
6. Consider what needs to be provided externally
You might decide that you would feel more confident in an external trainer helping educate your stakeholders, especially on specific aspects like technical SEO training for your development team or E-E-A-T guidance for your content creation team.
No SEO is an expert in every aspect of the discipline, so if you want to provide training but feel uncomfortable carrying it out yourself, employ an external consultant to help.
You may have been banging the same drum about an issue for a long time. Sometimes, having an external consultant provide the training on that issue can reinforce what you’ve been saying.
As frustrating as it might be, sometimes stakeholders respond better to hearing recommendations from external sources they have brought in for that specific project.
7. Assess outdated knowledge
One of the biggest struggles SEOs face is correcting wrong or obsolete SEO knowledge. Many of the stakeholders you identified as needing some SEO education have probably worked with SEOs in the past.
Some may even have been responsible for SEO despite not being specialists. As such, they will possibly have a level of understanding of SEO already.
This can be a great head-start for getting buy-in for your recommendations. However, it can also mean starting right at the beginning and helping to unpick wrong thinking.
A quick way to see if any pre-existing SEO knowledge needs to be corrected is by creating a survey or quiz.
You can intentionally choose fairly common SEO myths like duplicate content penalties and PPC budgets to help organic search performance. It should give you an understanding of where to pitch your training.
Some stakeholders might already be very well informed and you don’t need to spend much more of their or your time training them. You can keep them updated on changes in the industry relevant to what they are working on.
Others may have had SEO training a decade ago and need to be updated on how modern SEO differs.
8. Teach to encourage processes
Through the SEO upskilling of your stakeholders, you can encourage the adoption of SEO-beneficial processes.
For example, if you train copywriters to conduct keyword research, use those keywords in their copy, and write engaging page titles, they may add their current sign-off process.
The key to ensuring SEO considerations are adopted into relevant processes is educating the process owners. These are typically the senior members of teams.
They are the ones who decide if changes will impact efficiency and to whom you’ll need to highlight the benefits of considering SEO.
Allowing the SEO team to sign off on changes to the website can save a lot of headaches down the line. Unfortunately, it’s not often something that gets built into the QA process for many teams.
By training your colleagues and stakeholders, you will likely highlight the risks of not considering SEO impact in their work. This training can help to encourage them to build SEO into their sign-off processes.
9. Develop a self-serve curriculum
Creating a self-serve curriculum is the most efficient way of encouraging SEO upskilling.
Create a page on your intranet that houses all of the guides, videos and workshop presentations the SEO team has made. Tag them by department, project involvement or skill set to help your colleagues find training they might be interested in.
You can keep adding to the training over time and ask them to request their own resource from within that platform.
You can set out a roadmap based on training pathways, for example, “Training for Engineers” or “SEO training for Project [X].”
10. Get buy-in for your training
If you are asking entire teams to give up their time to attend an SEO workshop or asking for a half-hour slot in your next town hall meeting, you’ll probably need to demonstrate the benefits.
As it is likely senior stakeholders, you must consider what metrics they use to define success. Work backward to identify how SEO-related mistakes may have impacted those metrics.
For example, if a code deployment caused a crawling issue on the site, leading to rankings drops, demonstrate the link to the recent drop in organic leads and revenue.
Give examples of how training relevant people could prevent similar issues in the future.
Using SEO education for stakeholder management
Whatever level of training you can give your stakeholders, the more buy-in to your ideas and processes you’ll get.
The time you invest now will save future time, stress and discouragement when pitching ideas.
TikTok has launched a free AI tool that can create scripts in a matter of seconds. The feature, called Script Generator, is available to all TikTok Creative Center users with a desktop TikTok for Business account.
Why we care: The Script Generator will make life easier for advertisers by generating scripts for them. And the best part is, if digital marketers happen to hate the scripts generated, they have the option to run their enquiry again, as many times as they like, for no cost at all as the tool is completely free.
How it works: Advertisers will simply have to enter in some basic information about the services or products they’re offering (e.g., the product name, item description, relevant keywords) and then choose whether they would like a 15-30 second or 31-60 second clip.
After inputting all the information, you can simply click Generate scripts. This will produce various video scripts with hooks, scenes, calls to action and visual/audio cues.
Is there a catch? As with all AI-generated content, there is a risk of inaccurate information being published. Advertisers who rely solely on this method may also find their content becomes generic with no originality as AI content is created using existing trends, which could be bad for branding. This could also potentially result in a drop in engagement.
What has TikTok said? The company has warned digital marketers that they shouldn’t rely solely on AI-generated scripts as there is a risk of inaccuracies. It explained in a statement:
“TikTok does not make any promises or guarantees regarding the content generated by Script Generator. It is solely your decision whether to utilize and/or publish content created using the Script Generator in any ad or other material. You are solely responsible for any content created using Script Generator, including ensuring that such content is accurate and complies with applicable laws and regulations, and this content is not endorsed, sponsored, or approved by TikTok.”
However, Anton Reyniers, Google’s Head of Creative Partnerships APAC, praised the new tool, stating:
“TikTok are streets ahead in their genuine understanding of creative’s importance.”
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The big picture: While AI-generated content can be a great PPC tool (see: A Google Ads script that uses GPT to write RSAs), AI auto-generated content is not always accurate (as stressed by TikTok). So it could potentially be risky to rely solely on this method so humans remain a necessity in PPC.
As personal branding continues to evolve, The Empathy Firm, established by siblings Gavin Lira and Grant Lira, is making a significant impact with their groundbreaking, AI-driven Michalengo System. This state-of-the-art solution harnesses artificial intelligence to help busy founders and top-tier executives generate leads and build a solid, genuine brand more quickly and cost-effectively, all while maximizing the benefits of their podcast appearances.
Focusing on obtaining media coverage, especially podcasts, for their B2B clientele, The Empathy Firm understands that podcast appearances provide a one-of-a-kind opportunity for industry leaders to demonstrate their knowledge and develop their personal brand. The most effective podcast appearances involve repurposing content from the episode after it airs. The Michalengo System is transforming this process by using cutting-edge AI technology to convert podcast content into various formats that captivate target audiences while maintaining the authenticity of the business leader’s voice. This is something that Grant Lira & Gavin Lira paid extra attention to while making this system. This ensures the content is valuable for the end user.
The journey starts by scheduling the client for a podcast appearance. Once the episode is recorded, a publicist from The Empathy Firm employs a range of AI tools to develop diverse content derived from the podcast. These tools encompass Descript for removing filler words and enhancing audio quality, Munch for pinpointing optimal short-form video content, ChatGPT for creating captivating social media captions, Tweets, LinkedIn posts, and blog articles based on the transcript, and Swell AI for generating comprehensive article summaries from podcast recordings, which can subsequently be published in multiple media outlets. This all-inclusive strategy guarantees that the client’s message connects with a broader segment of their target audience and bolsters their brand across numerous platforms.
Furthermore, the Michalengo System produces “How To” videos for YouTube tailored to the client’s audience. Using Descript, the system identifies and clips pertinent podcast sections where the guest delivers an extensive explanation on a topic relevant to their target audience’s search habits on YouTube. ChatGPT then generates an engaging title and description based on the transcript. This method assists businesses in ranking on YouTube for specific search terms, offering continuous client acquisition possibilities and solidifying their authority within their niche.
Another component of the Michalengo System is utilizing Swell AI to create in-depth article summaries from the podcast. These summaries are subsequently published in various media outlets and transformed into blog posts with ChatGPT. Over time, this approach can generate organic inbound traffic to the client’s website, draw in potential customers, and further reinforce their brand. The press coverage gained also supports positioning and enables clients to leverage these features during their sales cycle to close more deals.
Munch, an AI tool within the Michalengo System, is essential for maximizing the return on podcast appearances. This AI-powered tool evaluates podcast recordings to identify the most engaging and powerful segments suitable for repurposing as short-form video content. Once these segments are chosen, Munch automatically creates captions for the video, making them more accessible and engaging for viewers on platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts, Snapchat Spotlight, and LinkedIn. By utilizing Munch, The Empathy Firm ensures that their clients’ unique insights and messages are effectively communicated in easy-to-digest, shareable video snippets, contributing to the expansion of their personal brand and overall online presence.
The podcast itself serves as the final piece of the Michalengo System, allowing clients to reach new audiences and showcase their expertise for 30-60 minutes. This exposure solidifies the strength of their brand, enhances acquisition efficiency, and builds trust among potential clients.
The Empathy Firm distinguishes itself from other PR firms not only through its innovative approach but also through its dedication to social responsibility and its impressive accomplishments. The firm recently launched a charitable initiative called “Podcasts for a Purpose,” which donates a meal to someone in need for every podcast booked for their clients. This initiative embodies the core values of The Empathy Firm and appeals to clients who appreciate conscious capitalism. Both Gavin Lira and Grant Lira have been featured in esteemed publications like Forbes and Entrepreneur, highlighting their expertise in personal branding and media utilization. Gavin Lira has also given a TEDx Talk, further showcasing their authority in the field and their commitment to making a positive impact on the world.
Upon examining the Michalengo System, it becomes evident that it provides a comprehensive, multi-channel personal branding strategy tailored to each client’s unique voice and expertise. By leveraging advanced AI tools and the expertise of The Empathy Firm, the Michalengo System turns podcast appearances into a potent branding mechanism, generating a wide array of content, from short-form video clips to insightful blog posts and newsworthy articles. This method not only enhances the online visibility and authority of clients in their respective fields but also drives organic traffic, cultivates trust among potential customers, and ultimately contributes to the long-term success and growth of their businesses. The Michalengo System is a true testament to the power of merging AI with human expertise to revolutionize the world of personal branding.
Similar audiences have been a valuable tool for expanding prospecting efforts and improving the scale and quality of Google Ads campaigns – and it’s going away starting Aug. 1.
The good news is that the impact will likely be surmountable.
Here are alternatives and new strategies to maintain your PPC targeting capabilities.
Google-recommended strategies to keep your audience targeting effective
Providing high-quality data and signals to Google Ads is key to maintaining effective audience targeting even without similar audiences.
This ensures that the various automation, machine learning, and algorithmic processes at play have enough of the right information to steer in the direction you want.
For search + shopping campaigns
Level up how you leverage smart bidding by providing high-quality first-party data.
You can do this through customer match lists, which can be uploaded directly to Google Ads in the audience manager.
Smart bidding strategies will automatically utilize this first-party data to proactively seek valuable customers and would-be customers using Google’s automation.
For display, discovery and video campaigns (Google Ads + Display and Video 360)
Suppose you have similar audiences applied to these campaign types as of Aug. 1. In that case, you will be automatically opted into using optimized targeting, which makes it no surprise that Google’s rec is to roll with it.
Optimized targeting is a broader strategy than similar audiences. Rather than building personas off of advertiser-provided seed lists, it uses real-time conversion data to construct personas of people deemed more likely to convert.
Optimized targeting will use your data (content targeting, selected audience segments, etc.) as a jumping-off point. It will also expand its search for qualified users beyond these boundaries.
Advertisers using optimized targeting across their display and Video 360 campaigns see a 55% improvement toward their specified campaign objectives when using first-party data and a 25% improvement when using Google audiences, according to Google.
For video campaigns (reach or consideration)
On Aug. 1, any video campaigns that fall into this bucket will automatically opt into audience expansion. This strategy probably resembles similar audiences the most in how it works.
Google will take the selected audience segments you apply and will expand your targeting to include segments across various types (e.g., custom segments, in-market segments) that look like the ones you’ve specifically chosen.
Think similar audiences that don’t use first-party data as the seed list.
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What else can I do outside of what Google recommends?
Beyond Google’s recommendations, here are strategies you can test to ensure you’re not missing out on any traffic volume or targeting opportunity come Aug. 1.
Adding and testing custom segments in your accounts
I’ve seen this strategy used in a couple of different ways that could be useful in this situation.
Option 1: Create keyword-based custom segment targeting containing your account’s top-performing search queries: one for brand and separate for relevant non-brand categories.
Gather this data by:
Performing a search query analysis across your existing search campaigns.
Compiling keyword lists of the terms with the:
Highest conversion volume.
Most efficient cost per acquisition.
Highest conversion value.
And/or any other key performance indicator that’s important to you.
Once these lists are created, you can apply them across your campaign types to capture users who:
Search the included terms and similar terms.
Show interest or purchase intent related to them.
Option 2: Create URL-based custom segment targeting using your competitors’ websites.
Collaborate with your client, internal team, etc., to identify your closest competitors and create a custom segment using the “people who browse websites similar to” option.
This will tell Google that you want to reach people like those browsing your competitors’ sites.
Talk about feeding two birds with one scone. You get pseudo-similar audience targeting and visibility to your competitors’ potential customers.
Smart bidding and its machine learning capabilities
These can be extremely powerful tools when used strategically.
I’ve seen success here primarily through adding conversion values and using offline conversion importing.
Adding conversion values to the existing conversion actions in your Google Ads accounts can assist in expanding targeting to include higher-value users.
When you add values to your conversion actions, you effectively tell the smart bidding automation, “This is the priority I place on each of these types of actions.”
When you add these values and use a “Maximize conversion value” smart bidding strategy, the automation will use real-time conversion data to seek new users who are most likely to convert on your highest value (highest priority) conversion actions.
Basically, it uses the same logic that similar audiences are, which is “find me more people who exhibit behavior similar to these traits.”
But in this case, the defined traits are conversion actions rather than advertiser-defined first-party seed lists.
Offline conversion importing, simply put, is taking the data the business gets after a PPC conversion action and sharing it back into Google Ads via some feedback loop.
This allows advertisers deeper visibility into which targeting tactics are actually driving bottom-line performance rather than just top-line conversions.
It has the added benefit of providing the highest-quality signal to the smart bidding algorithm/machine learning.
To make the most of offline conversion importing as it relates to the sunsetting of similar audiences, you should employ it alongside smart bidding strategies as a primary conversion action.
This will train the system to seek and optimize for these high-quality offline conversion actions, ultimately finding new users who exhibit behavior most like your existing customers.
Providing high-quality signals to Google
Google’s move to sunset similar audiences is consistent with its goal to focus more on user privacy.
Will it change the way we can seek new users? Yes.
Can we still provide high-quality signals and targeting guidance to Google Ads to maintain and continue to improve results for our businesses and clients? Absolutely.
While we’re seeing plenty of Google Ads features go, that doesn’t mean we are out of tools. It just means we need to find new or different ways to use the ones we’ve got.
Google has begun the rollout of the new perspectives filter in the mobile search results this weekend. This feature was announced at Google I/O and we have seen previews and tests from Google over the past months related to this feature and now it is live.
What it looks like. Here is a screenshot of the feature, you can see it by searching on mobile and sliding the search bar filters until you see a “perspectives” option. Click on the “perspectives” option to load those results:
More about perspectives. Searchers can filter their search results to show results to see videos, blogs and forums. These results aim to show people a more “lived experience” to their search queries, Liz Reid, VP of Search at Google, told Search Engine Land at Google I/O. These searchers are able to see answers from people who are sharing their own personal perspectives and these answers are provided in a user interface that is more friendly and consumable to the younger searcher.
When you tap on the perspectives filter, you will see more long and short-form videos, images, and written posts that people have shared on discussion boards, Q&A sites, and social media platforms, Google explained.
Hat tip to Kumarpal Shah for spotting this on Saturday.
Why we care. Here is a new way to see content within forums, videos, blogs and other formats where people are giving their view and perspectives on a specific topic.
The filter is deep inside the search filter bar, so it is not clear how many people will use it but it is rolling out now and some of you may be able to play with it to see if your content shows up for some queries.
Reddit launched two new ad products today – Contextual Keyword Targeting and Product Ads. The new features have been rolled out to help advertisers reach higher-value customers and to simplify the Reddit Ads Manager tool.
Why we care. Advertisers will be able to reach their target audience more easily and accurately, which could lead to increased conversions.
What’s new? Reddit’s new ad products enable brands to better connect with consumers already in research mode with the intention of making a purchase. These are:
Contextual Keyword Targeting. This new feature will help you reach consumers in active conversations on Reddit by choosing specific keywords you want their brand to be associated with. You will also be able to align keywords with creative ad copy for increased relevance.
As Reddit threads often become evergreen sources of information, Contextual Keyword Targeting will also provide long-term advertising opportunities.
Product Ads. This new ad format will let you target consumers already in the midst of their shopping journey. It will display information such as product descriptions and pricing (in local currency).
Product Ads will also feature call-to-action buttons that will direct users to a brand’s product page. Also, you will also be able to create ads directly from existing catalogs, quickly and easily with no need for additional resources.
In addition, if you are simultaneously activating ad campaigns on competitor platforms, you will be able to easily import the same catalogs to the Reddit Ads Manager.
What Product Ads look like. Here’s an example of a Reddit Product Ad:
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What has Reddit said? Reddit Chief Revenue Officer, Harold Klaje, told Search Engine Land:
“These updates will uplevel the search-and-discover experience for both brands and our users by tapping into our differentiated value as a hub for actionable conversation.”
“Our approach to this next phase of our Ads Product offering is to help brands help people make informed decisions, find answers to their questions, and discover products they care about – while in the process enabling advertisers to build connections with new and valuable new audiences,” Klaje added.
Interesting stats:
Redditors make 2x more category purchases than other online customers.
Redditors spend 2.5x more per purchase.
Redditors are more than 56% more likely to talk about a brand online positively.
Redditors are more than 46% more likely to trust a brand that advertises on Reddit.
