AdWords data to be shown as “Not Provided” in Google Analytics and other analytics systems from 9th April 2014 - 5 things you need to know

Importance (to search marketers): [rating=5]

Recommended link: Google AdWords advisory

This is big news for companies that invest Google AdWords, particularly if it's a big contributor to their business and they mainly use their analytics system for reviewing effectiveness and ROI. It has less impact if you rely on Google AdWords own reports or a third-party system using their API.

1. It brings paid search data in line with natural search data. Google has been removing SEO keyword data for over 2 years. As we show in this post on not provided for SEO. The proportion of keywords marked “not provided” has risen over the past two years, so it’s now typically over 80% of searches.

2. It’s not unexpected - Google needed to make the privacy of search…

New research shows key concerns of CMOs in modern marketing

It’s fair to say that marketing jobs vary quite drastically. I get to see that from an agency perspective every day. Where one marketer may get applauded in one organisation, the same actions in a different organisation might get them fired. It’s not as though there’s a ‘right’ answer to the marketing challenge, either. There are so many variables - market, brand age, business size, product, budget, belief systems and biases, let alone the senior management.

That said, with marketing evolving at breakneck speed, in the wake of changes in consumer behaviour and technology adoption, it’s always useful to look at what’s got the attention of other marketers to help inform our priorities.

Research source and methodology

In this new research by Deloitte and ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, they’ve distilled the responses down to the key drivers. Quick caveat: Let’s take this for what it is,…

An update on 10 major changes in LinkedIn that B2B marketers and professional users need to be aware of

LinkedIn is one of the fastest growing social networks, it recently announced that in March 2014 it had over a quarter of a billion members of which 66% are outside the United States:

85M+ EMEA65M+ Europe50M+ Asia and the Pacific9M+ Southeast Asia4M+ DACH​10M+ MENA

So, LinkedIn demands attention for professional use to advance your career and if you're involved in B2B marketing. If you’re looking to catch up on the changes in LinkedIn, here is a quick summary of the features that LinkedIn has added (as well as dropped) during the last 12 months

1. Status updates re-located: It is no longer possible to post status updates on your profile. Updates can only be posted on the home screen…

How to review and improve the engagement of your Facebook fans and impact on your business

As the largest global social networking site, Facebook opens up a huge opportunity to engage with your customers and increase affinity with your brand. Engagement is the key indicator of a successful Facebook page, with high levels meaning that you are posting content that your fans find both relevant and interesting. More engaged fans are more likely to be converted into paying customers. The question is, how do you measure how engaged your fans are and what are the best tools around that can help you measure engagement on Facebook? Follow this step-by-step process to start measuring how engaged your Facebook fans are.

1. Start off – Define your KPIs

To make sure you have targets to work towards, set out some KPIs that you can use to measure your progress against. There are many metrics available online, for example:

…

Will you be creating Showcase pages or...?

Importance (for B2B marketers): [rating=5]

Recommended link: Showcase Pages replacing 'Product and Services Tab' from Company Pages

In November, we alerted you to the new Showcase pages on LinkedIn where businesses can create a page for each brand, so Microsoft can create a separate Showcase page for each of Office and Windows, for example. 

Following on from this, LinkedIn have now announced that Showcase pages will become the only option for businesses to directly feature specific products and services via a page.

If you're a page admin you will likely have received an Email from LinkedIn alerting you to this, but if not...you need to be aware that although company pages are remaining, they are removing the 'Products and Services Tab' from…

A briefing on the options to improve your visibility with International SEO

For any company that trades overseas, or hopes to expand into foreign markets in the future, International SEO is a big factor in gaining awareness of their brand, products and services. When you need to market your website in multiple locations, there are a number of different options.  However, the SEO implications of each approach are often overlooked by many organisations, leading to underwhelming organic search performance in each locality. It is therefore essential that marketers are aware of the pros and cons that accompany each method of structuring international sites, before making a decision relating to the expansion of their website to target additional locations. In this article I will explain the different options for marketers to gain visibility in different countries and the pros and cons of each.

Targeting audiences in other countries

Often,…

What is responsive email design?

Responsive design is an approach for web and email designs that ensures the user has the best experience possible, regardless of whatever device they are viewing. Often you will find that a website viewed on a normal desktop PC will look a certain way, however once the same site is viewed on a tablet computer or mobile device it will look considerably different. Responsive design will re-arrange and streamline web and email content for these different devices and screen sizes. It helps to minimise resizing, panning and scrolling by the smartphone or tablet user. It may also involve enlarging smaller text as well as making links and buttons actionable and visible. This gives the user a much simpler experience enabling them to engage with the creative and offer in the email.

Examples of mobile responsive emails

Here is our first example showing the difference between a non-scaled email template on…

An in-depth tutorial to optimizing your business for localized search

Google’s campaign to deliver more relevant search results to users has led them down the path to personalization and localization. We’re not just talking about their country-specific search engines, we’re talking local cities and municipalities. With the growing number of users on mobile and other portable devices, localized search results are in high demand. There is a group that’s affected by this move towards localization. Brands with multiple locations, that generally rank on Google.com but are not necessarily targeting specific local areas in their campaigns, are at a disadvantage. This has particularly been the case since mid 2012 when Google's Venice update gave prominence to local business in the search results through maps and Google Places listings. So, why is it better for you to target individual local areas even if you’re a brand with multiple locations? Local Branding – At the end of…

Brands place real-time marketing value firmly in relationships

In my previous article I wrote about the challenges of managing real-time marketing since processes are changed, focus is drawn to live data and content is being produced by the hour.

In this follow-up I will look at our research showing how marketers rate the benefits and some examples which show the value in real-time marketing (RTM).

Where is the value in real-time marketing?

There are blogs aplenty about Oreo’s ‘dunk in the dark’ real-time coup at the Super Bowl. Jerry Daykin from Mondelez (owners of Oreo) spoke at our Social Speakeasy event a few weeks ago. He made the point several times that although it achieved marketing success; it was engagement, not reach that made it successful.

So we surveyed brands for their perspective on real-time social. And the resulting benchmark…

Prize draw options, tools and legal compliance to help create  an effective prize draws

Online prize draws are an increasingly common tactic used by marketers to encourage engagement and also to increase leads, particularly in key sales periods. I think this is largely due to the simplicity of devising and setting them up using social media campaign tools  and their popularity on social networks which facilitate sharing. I'm finding that I am often being asked about best practice for planning and running online prize draws. While I think the best approach differs in detail by audience and compliance needed for each brand and industry there are some general best practices we can summarise. In this post I have outlined a process I follow and included some of the tools you can utilise too.

Set-up and Planning

Key to any successful marketing activity is planning, I have outlined an approach to…