Category: Digital Marketing

Find More Money for Your Digital Marketing Budget (When Your Annual Budgets Are Set or Used)

Digital marketing is a primary way that businesses attract new customers, so most companies dedicate the majority of their marketing budget to different forms of digital marketing. However, that budget on its own may not be enough to achieve the results that you’re looking for. Or perhaps the budget has not been properly set. It could be gone before the end of the year or before a key time for sales. That’s when it is essential to find more money for the digital marketing budget.

 

Top ways to find more money when your marketing budget is gone:

 

Cut Corners (in a good way)

Not in a bad way! First, look for any money that may have been set aside for a specific need but that hasn’t been officially spent or allocated. Can this money be reallocated to tactics within your digital marketing budget? Could some spending be shaved off another area of marketing to add more to digital marketing? Example – check your paid ad spend levels – it’s not uncommon for this to be an area where you’ll have more budget available from under-utilized spend. Also check areas that aren’t giving as much of a return so you can build up your coffers on the digital side of things.

 

Reuse What You Have

Reusing content you already have instead of creating brand-new content can be a great way to make your money go further. Update some evergreen content with new information. Explore bringing back old campaigns that did well or start using your internal talent group to create posts for social media. You’ll get more for the same money.

If you use an outside advertising agency, make sure that you’re allowed to reuse the content in ways other than what might have been in the contract. If you paid for the content and it is legally yours, then you won’t have to worry. However, if the agency retains any rights to the content, there may be rules about how it can be used.

 

Reallocate Budget Based on ROI or Long-term Goals

Think of it like short-term vs. long-term (and how your organization might view your goals and their results). Something with long-term returns might need to be cut for short-term gains or visa versa. Review current marketing initiatives and prioritize them based on their ROI. Cut or reduce spending on lower performing initiatives to free up budget for more effective tactics.

 

Switch to Organic Marketing Channels

Sometimes organic channels amplified correctly can work as a stop gap vs. paid versions of the same channels.

 

Partner With Other Businesses or Organizations

Reach out to complimentary products and services and look for co-marketing opportunities. For example, think of Pepsi and Doritos, Intel and HP computers, or mountain dew and gamers.  Collaborate with complementary products, businesses or industry associations to split the cost of marketing initiatives. Sometimes they’ll even front the entire budget because they need your products/services! Reach out and find those opportunities and redirect the budget saved to digital marketing.

 

Consider Ditching or Switching Unnecessary Software/Tools

Sometimes you don’t need 100 marketing tools to give you the same data you can find in Google Analytics with GA4. And that marketing automation platform you use that costs $10k/month… is it really worth it?

 

Are There Grants, Funding Opportunities, or Government Contracts Available?

Research grants and funding opportunities that are available to businesses in your industry. A lot of time there’s regional, state, or even federal money that can help you save on your marketing budget.

 

Replace Job Postings (staff) with Agency Services

We’re not saying fire your staff, however, when a member of the team leaves, it may be worth using an agency’s ad services instead of going through the rigamarole and high cost of hiring someone. For example, we had a client recently lose a member of their content marketing team. That member had an annual salary of $75k. Their main output was content strategy, 4 blog posts a month, 1-2 social media posts a week, and the odds and ends of working with a large organization. This client came to us and were able to leverage our services for only $22k per year. They saved $53k per year in salary (not to mention overhead, healthcare, and perks) and ended up with a more deliverables monthly at a higher quality.

 

Make It Work (five-head)!

If all else fails and you have to make your current budget and setup work, then do it. Chances are that your budget was allocated based on previous results. There’s a good chance it will do well for you. It might not meet all of the goals you want, but you may be able to tweak the current content, ads, and other posts to make sure it’s as good

 

What we’re seeing first half of November…

  • Many people noticing significant changes to rankings across a variety of industries in the past week — Monday, November 4th to Sunday, November 10
  • Drastic ranking changes also occurring in local map packs
  • On Tuesday, November 12, Google Search confirms multiple updates
  • Google says they didn’t make an announcement because the updates were “not broadly noticeable”
  • Many disagree

November 12 Update: Google Search Confirms Multiple Updates

After much anticipation, Google Search announced that they had several updates in the first week of November. The leading search engine added that they regularly update the algorithm.

In following tweets, Google reminded webmasters that they will usually announce (and preannounce) updates when it’s broadly noticeable, in that many sites will notice a difference.

Google concluded the series of tweets by reassuring webmasters, “…we have updates that happen all the time in Google Search. If we don’t share about them, there is no particular actionable guidance to follow nor changes to make other than to keep focused on great content…”

Webmasters who felt the update was indeed broadly noticeable answered with retort.

Google’s Danny Sullivan responded to the sentiment, “Our job is to provide the best results we can. If we do an update, it may mean some sites get less traffic than before. Other sites that perhaps might have been under-recognized may do better.”

Still, several cases have emerged where long-term rankings suddenly sank for websites that had great content and followed all the rules.

One person commented:

November 11 Update: Signs of Unannounced Google Search Update

Our Observations

On a week over week comparison of Monday, November 4th to Sunday November, 10 we’ve noticed some changes to our clients’ organic traffic.

One ecommerce client is seeing an organic traffic increase of nearly 17%.

Screenshot of an ecommerce client’s Organic Traffic potentially impacted by a November 2019 Google Algorithm update.

 

Another client (also ecommerce) is seeing an organic traffic increase of 29%.

Client potentially impacted by a November 2019 Google Algorithm update. Organic Traffic screenshot from Google Analytics.

 

A client in the behavioral therapy space (services nationwide) is seeing an increase of 44%.

Organic traffic snapshot of a client who provides therapy services potentially impacted by a November 2019 Google Algorithm “Turkey” update. 

 

Several other clients have also seen a lift, although not as significant as the clients above.

One client who specializes in corporate training has seen an increase of nearly 11 percent.

Organic traffic snapshot of a corporate training client potentially impacted by a recent Algorithm Update in November.

 

While another client in the fitness space is seeing an organic traffic increase of nearly 8 percent.

Organic traffic snapshot a client in the fitness space.

 

We’re also seeing an upward trend across websites focused on local SEO.

A credit repair company is seeing gains of nearly 25 percent.

Credit repair company seeing positive organic traffic changes.

 

Another organization in the cannabis space is seeing a lift of 55 percent.

Cannabis organization seeing 55 percent increase in organic traffic.

 

While a jewelry store saw an increase of nearly 16 percent.

Local jewelry store company seeing organic traffic increase.

Others’ Observations

We’re not alone in our observations. The SEO community is buzzin’ about signs of an unannounced Google update rolling out.

Unofficially dubbed the “Turkey Update” or “November Update,” the impact appears to be wide-reaching, affecting websites across multiple industries. It’s been favorable for some, but many have suffered great losses.

One SEO reported gains and losses across a variety of industries.

Another tweeted that multiple food and lifestyle blogs are seeing traffic drops of over 30 percent.

Owners of high-traffic travel websites have also reported drops:

 

The local SEO community is also reporting volatility. Members of r/bigseo have reported changes to the local SERPs. Likewise, several members within the Facebook groups that ENDURANCE participates in have also seen major drops.

This has been confirmed by BrightLocal’s SERP monitoring tool, RankFlux, which has detected volatility in the last week. They reported seeing “fluctuation across all industries…the possibility of changes to the local algorithm.”

We will keep you up to date as this unfolds. Stay tuned.

 

If your website has been affected by the recent update, contact us for a consultation.

The ENDURANCE Goal for Paid Campaigns

At ENDURANCE, we strive to average a 4 to 1 ROI (aka ROAS) across all paid executions for our clients. This means that for every dollar in spend, their paid advertising returns $4 dollars (at minimum). And we understand that cannot always happen – sometimes an industry is so competitive, that having a 1:1 ROAS (return on ad spend) is good enough because the brand recognition is worth it. Or sometimes you might go months without a sale, but each sale is worth x1000 times more than your monthly spend. There are many other situations where a 4:1 ROAS just isn’t possible (market competition, platform limitations, etc.), but that’s our goal nonetheless and being up front and honest with clients before we jump into spending their campaign budget about the expected ROAS has never steered us wrong.

We’d like to share the results of a recent client (we’ll call Acme Co.) who came to us only for a limited time. They spend their paid ad budget on advertising during back to school months (a very competitive space, especially in the student back to school realm we were playing in), during the rest of the year, their products are already in big box stores, so paid advertising is really only an options during a small back to school window.

 

The Challenge – to beat a 3:1 Return on Ad Spend

The agency we inherited the client account from is very, very good at what they do. They are a leading paid agency in the United States, one we know very well for their  management of large commercial brands. Acme Co. was large, but not the largest client we’ve ever worked with, and the transition from the old agency to us was shaky.

The previous agency was able to maintain a 3:1 ROAS in 2018 using a major influencer – still an impressive feat given the situation and industry – and we were asked to beat it (without a major influencer).

Our Paid Results:

Here are a few screenshots of our results…

Snapshot - First 15 days, all Google Mediums
First 15 days – All Google Channels
Paid Performance Highlight for Search
Last 15 day Snapshot – Google Search Campaign
Paid Performance - Google Shopping Campaign
Last 15 Day Snapshot – Shopping

 

Are you ready to run your paid spend w/ ENDURANCE?

START YOUR PAID CAMPAIGN TODAY →

Here’s the Lowdown on the BERT Google Algorithm Update (And What it Means for Your Website)

For many years, Google has ignored common words such as “and”, “or”, “of”, “to”, “for”, “a”, and others. The reasoning was mainly due to the amount of time and lack of relevance many of these terms had affected search inquiries. But in a recent algorithm update, a few of these words have become a pivotal aspect in deciding where search results will rank.

As only one piece of this major Google update, common words are part of a much larger emphasis that is now being placed on long-tail keywords and the natural language people use in search inquiries.

There are a few things everyone should be aware of as it appears this update is only the beginning of a much larger plan to change the entire mindset behind search engine optimization.

 

What Was the Recent Google Update?

Known simply as BERT, this algorithm change made a significant impact on the rankings of about 10% of sites and pages across search results. The update placed an emphasis on improving the search engine’s understanding of the context within an inquiry as opposed to simply looking at each word individually.

In their statement about the changes, Google said that it will have a better grasp of “more conversational queries, or searches where prepositions like ‘for’ and ‘to’ matter a lot to the meaning”. In turn, the update will make it easier for people to search in a more natural way that they would normally speak, as opposed to trying to think of the relevant keywords they need to include within the search query.

Looking deeper at the way someone would naturally search for something means that Google is placing an even bigger priority on its ability to answer questions and understand the real search intent behind every search.

A before and after comparison of the BERT update
A search result for a long tail query before and after the BERT update

 

How Will the BERT Update Affect Websites?

In their statement about BERT, Google said the changes will focus more on search queries than it will on websites. But this still means your content will have to be optimized to be worthy of relevant results.

With an understanding that this major change is focusing on natural language, this is going to have a serious impact on websites and pages that have poorly written content. Regardless of the keyword research and usage, if a page isn’t providing details within context that flows and provides answers, it is likely to see a dip in the rankings.

Basically, Google is saying that if a person is reading your content and can’t grasp the point or the main idea behind what you’re trying to say, then the search won’t be able to either. This extends to the structure of a page, the use of images, proper internal linking to relevant content, and ensuring that everything within the site is important to the topic.

 

Sites that Were Affected by the Google BERT Update

Only one out of every ten searches were impacted by these changes, leaving many people with limited concern about their place on search engine results pages (SERPs). But as with any Google update, some companies and specific websites saw either positive or negative fluctuations in their search rankings once BERT was rolled out.

A handful of news sites including The New York Times saw their rankings dip immediately following the update. Experts predict the drop was due to the algorithm’s emphasis on long-tail keywords and the fact that many news providers are often focused more deeply on simpler, shorter search terms.

Google has made it clear that these updates were only the beginning of a bigger outlook for a new way of looking at the natural language used in searches. So while this may not have impacted the other 90% of searches yet, it is a good time to take a look at your own content and make some changes to prepare for possible future adjustments.

A search query and featured snippet after the BERT update
A featured snippet example of BERT in action. Notice how the snippet is able to interpret the meaning of the query, despite not having all of the keywords in the title tag.

 

What to Do After the BERT Update

Google’s Danny Sullivan has stated that you can’t optimize for BERT and that Google is still seeking to reward great content.

If your rankings have dropped, it’s likely your pages are failing to satisfy search intent or your content is poorly written. BERT is about understanding natural language queries. You can make sure your content is worthy of a spot in SERPs by satisfying search intent, offering unique value and writing for people.

Think about the ways people would ask about what you do, what you offer, or how your business/service solves a problem. From there, provide both the questions and the answers within your website content in relatable, easy-to-understand ways that demonstrate your authority, knowledge, and relevance in your industry.

Remember: Write with people in mind.

 

Do You Need Help After this Recent Google Update?

Whether you were part of the initial 10% who have been affected by BERT or you’re part of the lucky 90% who has been given a head start, there’s no time like the present to improve your website content and SEO.

Here at ENDURANCE, we’re fully committed to keeping up with Google algorithm changes as they’re rolled out to ensure everyone we work with gets the most up-to-date and effective SEO services.

Get in touch with our team today and learn about all the ways we can help you improve your search rankings, marketing efforts, and more!

8 SEO Trends Going Into 2020

In an ever-changing digital world where robots are conducting surgeries, people are ordering groceries online, and digital forms of currency are being traded for thousands of dollars, it sometimes feels impossible to keep up with the times.

Similar to fashion fads, tech developments, and other constantly changing industries, trends in SEO seem to come and go with the wind. Or at least with every Google algorithm update.

But as each year passes, knowledgeable marketing professionals are able to identify these SEO trends and use them as a means to promote and advertise for companies of all shapes and sizes.

As long as your SEO team is up-to-date on the most recent developments, you can ensure your business shows up on search engine results pages (SERPs), thus helping to boost traffic to your website.

 

1. Using Video for SEO

From the 1.8 billion users on YouTube to the rapidly expanding video features on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the marketability of videos is unlike any other. This is one SEO trend that is here to stay, already overtaking written content and other forms of online promotion.

Video for SEO is a trend that will become a new standard

Videos are now an essential staple of effective marketing funnel automation for companies who want to streamline their advertising and boost their sales processes. They can be used on landing pages, in marketing emails, and on social profiles, making every avenue more engaging and dynamic to the viewer.

The most crucial aspect of using video for SEO is the ability to hold the attention of whoever is watching and lead them to a clear call-to-action at some point during the clip. While you avoid being too “salesy”, every video you promote should provide tremendous value to the viewer, whether it be informational, entertaining, or to solve a problem.

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) for SEO

The concepts of artificial intelligence (AI) have been around for hundreds of years. But it hasn’t been until the last few years that it has become a reality for everyday people to benefit from its use. As one of the latest SEO trends, it is interesting to see how AI is impacting industries all over the world.

AI-powered SEO is more dominant now as web developers, marketing agencies, and other online companies are learning how to automate key pieces of websites. These tactics allow a business to focus on simply producing relevant content while allowing the AI efforts to boost the site’s traffic.

Even though this concept is rapidly turning into a pivotal part of online marketing, there still aren’t many companies offering services related to AI for SEO. But if you can find the right team to help you with your SEO strategy, getting ahead on this growing development will have a major impact on your company’s future.

3. Voice Search

“Alexa, what are the biggest SEO trends this year?”

A smart device with Voice Search capabilityEven Amazon’s artificial intelligence system knows that voice search is one of the key patterns your business should be looking into right now. Millions of people across the world now own smart devices like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and the Apple HomePod. These systems are pre-formatted with thousands of functions that can be accessed instantly with the user’s voice.

 

The main question is how could a company benefit from these unique learning machine gadgets? To get your business on the map with this new opportunity, you’ll need to think about the way people ask questions and present the answers to those inquiries through either written content or engaging videos.

Using long-tail keywords, conversational techniques, and focusing on local SEO practices, you’ll be more likely to find yourself providing answers to the questions asked of Alexa and other smart systems.

 

4. No-Click Searches Among the Biggest SEO Trends

Have you ever typed a question into Google and had the answer instantly pop up in big, bold letters? Welcome to the world of zero-click searches. Google SERPs are now able to recognize exactly what a person wants to know and provide them with a solution without ever having to click away from the initial results.

Though you may not get a site visitor by showing up as the answer to one of these queries, the level of trust established in your business will pay huge dividends to your ability to rank other pages across the search engine.

Site authority is still a big deal when it comes to ranking higher. And if you focus on previous tactics we’ve mentioned like using long-tail keywords and answering questions people are asking, you’ll be much more likely to show up for pages people will need to click on for more information.

5. Less Paid, More Organic SEO Tactics

While paid advertising strategies like pay-per-click (PPC) and social media ads aren’t going anywhere, more people are beginning to recognize the difference and are developing “ad blindness” across platforms like Google, Facebook, and Instagram. This leads many of them to automatically skip by the paid ads and go straight to the organic results.

These paid options are also constantly increasing their prices due to the high level of competition expanding to nearly every industry. To save money, more companies are placing a larger emphasis on organic SEO trends as a means of making their way to higher search rankings.

While there are many options for boosting organic SEO traffic, some of the best approaches include:

  • Detailed keyword research
  • Great content that adds value
  • On-page and off-page website optimization
  • Emphasis on user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX)
  • Local SEO

6. More Snippets at the Top of Google Results

Snippets, also commonly known as “Position 0” in Google rankings, are the most sought after spot for any marketing or SEO professional and their clients. They are the first organic result that comes up in search following the paid ads. Bordered by a thin black box, they tend to stand out the most as people are looking for items online.

A Featured Snippet search result

Nearly all featured snippets are already ranked within the top 10 search results. But the Google algorithm has become highly intelligent in recognizing resources that offer extra value to searchers, placing them in the featured section.

As more keywords are targeted and companies focus on identifying the search intent behind an inquiry, we’ll begin to see many more results show up in these snippets. It will be one of the top SEO trends to watch for over the next year or so.

7. Bounce Rate & Click-Through Rates are Bigger Factors

Although they have essentially always been ranking factors for search engines like Google, your website’s bounce rate and click-through rate (CTR) are now considered two of the most important pieces of your SEO strategy.

For clarification, the bounce rate involves the amount of time spent on your website and whether the viewer leaves the site after only viewing a single page. While the click-through rate covers any time an individual is led from a landing page to another part of your website by clicking a link to another piece of content.

The most fundamental ways to avoid low rates on these two ranking factors are by providing high-quality, engaging content that is creative and provides value. Every page on your website which someone can access from an external link should be keenly focused on user experience and provide clear, concise calls to action that lead them to the next stage of your marketing funnel.

8. Mobile Optimization is More Vital than Ever

For years now, mobile web traffic has outmatched desktop use across nearly every platform out there. And yet nearly 31% of search results that show up on the first page when viewing on a desktop are different than the results shown on a mobile device.

Users searching the web on their mobile devices.

This is because too many companies aren’t optimizing their websites for mobile viewing. Even if a site visitor somehow finds your un-optimized website on their smartphone, they will almost always recognize it immediately and hit the “Back” button right away. Talk about taking a hit to your bounce rate.

As you search for a team to build your website, ensure they know the proper strategies to create responsive pages that are optimized for mobile-first viewing. Without these basic steps, your site traffic will take a major hit in both search ranking and in its ability to convert leads into sales.

Trust a Team that Stays Informed of Current SEO Trends

The approach you take to properly executing search engine optimization will be the most important aspect of your company’s ability to be found online both now and in the years to come.

As future SEO trends come and go, it is essential that you have a team that can keep up with the changes. Otherwise, your website will do little more than disappear into the crowd of billions of search results across Google.

The crew at ENDURANCE stay in the know with constant research, A-B testing, and other marketing strategies.

 

Learn more about how we can help your SEO and online presence by contacting us today!

 

Depending on what point in the calendar year is an organization’s fiscal year, client-side leaders in charge of digital marketing efforts have already planned their future (2020) goals.

Goals Senior Digital Marketing Managers are focusing on

According to Altimeter’s recent Digital Marketing survey conducted Q2, 2019 that targeted senior marketers around the globe, here are the top 5 Digital Marketing Strategy Goals for the next year:

header - digital marketing goals in 2020

 

It’s all about Brand…

  1. Increase Brand Awareness and Brand Health – 37% / 100%

Brand, Brand, Brand, it’s all about brand. At ENDURANCE, we believe heavily in Digital + Brand. It’s reassuring that top marketers around the world agree.

 

Create New Prospects

  1. Increase number of new leads/customer prospects – 26% / 100%

This one feels a bit misleading to me. Doesn’t ever company whether an commodity company, service business, straight ecommerce, etc. all want to increase customers? We might want to dive into this goal a bit further in the future because #1 leads to #2 and #2 can live alone. 

 

Is Customer Experience a top digital Marketing goal for you?
Is Your Customer Experience the same online than it is in the store?

A unified Customer Experience

  1. Deliver a high quality, unified customer experience across all digital channels – 20% / 100%

This might seem easy and straight forward, however in larger organizations, many stakeholders have many agendas. One leader may want to invoke the speech of Abraham Lincoln in their marketing messaging, another Donald Trump. Unifying the experience no matter a customer is on a blog webpage or instagram story is harder than it sounds. 

 

Increase Product/Service Affinity

  1. Increase awareness and positive sentiment around new products – 13% / 100%

This is how companies grow. They expand service/product offerings, define the plethora of details in a marketing plan, and Go-To-Market with that plan. I’m surprised it’s actually not a higher priority! However, some organizations have product launch vs. product maintenance in different silos, so this might explain the low priority on this goal.

 

Take advantage of existing business

  1. Increase Business Revenue w/ existing customers – 5% / 100%

This is easier said than done, and a lot of times uneducated internal resources are leading the way on these marketing iniatives. As the study suggests, this may be an undiscovered opportunity for many companies. Especially if your agency isn’t help with these types of efforts – get them involved asap.

 

All done digital marketing goals of the future

 

Well there you have it!

Do these goals line up to yours? Do they line up to what your agencies are working on? Do your agencies have solidified mandates their driving toward?

Success and excellence in digital marketing is obtainable for all, and if you need help define what success looks like for you and your goals in FY2020?

Don’t be shy! Reach out and ask us if we can help

Until Next time, subscribe to our newsletter to get ENDURANCE insights delivered right to your inbox as we post them.

 

SRC: https://www.prophet.com/wp-content/filemgr/2019/07/Altimeter_2019-State-of-Digital-Marketing_PDF.pdf