SEO
All ranking systems in one place
Looks like you won’t have to tell clients “it depends” as often as you used to…
Google released a guide containing descriptions and updates of all ranking systems in a centralized hub for users to “better understand how these systems work.”
New, old, retired: The centralized page will reflect real-time tweaks to existing systems. It will also publish future updates and sunset the outdated ones.
It also describes Google’s AI system categories, which are responsible for different aspects of content:
- Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) helps Google understand how combinations of words express different meanings.
- Multitask Unified Model (MUM) is a system capable of both understanding and generating language. It’s responsible for creating things like featured snippets.
- Neural matching helps Google understand representations of concepts in queries and pages and match them to one another.
- RankBrain system allows Google to understand how words are related to concepts.
You can see the full list of all current and retired systems here.
Why the change: Besides the need for a centralized hub, Google also wanted to differentiate between “systems” and “updates to those systems.”
For instance, Google’s most recent “Helpful content update” was a brand new system. Calling updates to this system, “update to Helpful content update” is terribly confusing.
Why we care: Having a clear understanding of which ranking systems exist, how Google defines them, and which are still in use is obviously helpful for several reasons.
For example, you might refer to this document when you’re explaining to clients why something works or doesn’t work. Nice, right?
ADVERTISING
Customer retention takes priority, mobile spending rises
Like they say, it’s a lot more expensive to acquire a new customer. And when a recession hits, the expensive stuff usually gets the first chop…
… So advertisers are banking on retention: Teams are moving away from acquisition and shifting to “building brand loyalty,” Twillo reports.
67% of marketers claim they’re focusing on retaining existing customers, with 69% of marketers leaning into proven ROI channels and “making the most of first party data.”
But mobile ad spend is still going up, too. Advertisers bumped up spending by 5%, reaching $23B during Q3 2022. TikTok recorded a 29% boost in ad spending quarter-on-quarter.
It also looks like streaming platforms are less interested in retaining and more interested in obtaining, as they’re looking to target younger audiences on social media.
For instance, Netflix invested 16% of its entire budget to advertise on TikTok. Seems big.
Why we care: While retention is important, shifting away from prospecting campaigns could seriously impair growth and scalability of your brand. Not an easy balance to strike.
But if you do want to acquire users, you may want to appear on their smartphone screens. Something to keep in mind…
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COPYWRITING
How to go from skippable to high-converting copy with this simple headline formula – right now
Look closely enough, and you’ll see we’re using the formula in our own headline above.
And if you’re reading this, it’s obviously working… right?
We recently came across an interesting Facebook Group post by Alen Sultanic, and it raises an important point:
Copy that emphasizes features and benefits gives you bad to average results.
So instead of focusing on features and benefits, you should sell outcomes.
According to Alen, the formula you’re about to see increased one marketer’s opt-in rates by 71% and conversion rates by 63%. Pretty amazing.
So let’s start with a decent headline idea, then improve on it. Alen gave this example:
“How to lose 20 pounds in 20 days (or less) using a little-known herb only found in the Amazon Rainforest.”
It’s a decent headline, no? It’s got a nice outcome, but the outcome isn’t as compelling as it needs to be.
Alen says compelling outcomes are built on two things:
- Where we are -> Where we want to go.
- Who we are -> Who we want to become.
When you understand where your target audience wants to go, and who they want to become, you get a truly compelling outcome.
Here’s the magical headline formula that helps you achieve both:
“How To Go From Feeling [what problems they’re aware of, but can’t solve] To [outcomes they want] By [mechanism] In [timeline] days or less.”
Apply this formula to the original headline example, and you get:
“How To Go From Having Belly Fat, Feeling Tired, and Fighting Cravings To Easily Losing 20–30 Pounds In The Next 3 Months — Using This Little Known Herb From The Amazon Rainforest.”
Much more powerful, right?
If you decide to test this formula in your campaigns, let us know how it goes. We’d love to hear!
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THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
How to make sure you’re not sending illegal texts
Disclaimer: We aren’t lawyers. Think of the information below as your marketing buddy telling you what they’ve found effective… not as hard-and-fast legal advice, which varies greatly by country.
OK. Now to the insight…
There’s one big problem with SMS marketing: Texting someone is one of the most invasive forms of marketing, and there are compliance laws designed to protect people’s inboxes.
And while SMS marketing can be incredibly lucrative, you can also run into problems if you’re not compliant.
But here’s the good news: We spent a bunch of time researching compliance for our SMS report for Stacked Marketer Pro members.
Here are a few pointers to help you increase your likelihood of staying compliant in the US and in most other places:
- Only send marketing messages to people who have consented to receive them. For example, don’t send marketing messages to a list of people who signed up for customer support.
- Give people the option to opt out of your marketing messages at least one in every five texts.
- Don’t send messages between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. in your recipient’s time zone.
- Respect the SHAFT rule: no words that relate to sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, or tobacco.
There you go. Save this checklist for the next time you’re putting together an SMS campaign… it could just help make you some more money.
In the meantime… Check out the full SMS marketing guide in Stacked Marketer Pro. It’s packed with useful, valuable insights like this one, and will help you make a lot of money while saving yourself a lot of headaches.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
E-COMMERCE TRENDS: Some areas in e-commerce continue to thrive and grow. Others… not so much. Insider Intelligence laid out the most important 2022 e-commerce trends in a report to help you forecast 2023. Download the e-commerce trends for free.*
BLACK FRIDAY: Forget about customer lifetime value for a sec. Think about holiday season value – aka the amount each shopper will spend during the holidays. According to Deloitte, customers will spend $500 on average – or 12% more than last year. Positive sign.
E-COMMERCE: Three out of four US shoppers use smartphones to make online purchases, Pew Research reports. And one in three shop on mobile at least once a week. Marketers and merchants, you know what that means – optimize for mobile. Always.
BUSINESS: Online marketing is a young industry, but the global population is getting older and older. How will an aging workforce and customer base affect your business? This article offers some clues…
GOOGLE: A tiny update from Google, but useful if you want to run Gambling and games ads in Maryland. Google announced it will begin to accept and run ads for sports betting from certified, state-licensed entities in Maryland. Nice.
*This is a sponsored post
BRAIN TEASER
NASA was considering sending canaries into space to study them under zero gravity.
The project was scrapped when someone realized that in spite of having sufficient water supplies, they could die of dehydration within a few hours.
Why?
You can find the answer here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
No second chances with this VR headset
You’ve heard about “permadeath” in games, right?
Well, it looks like we’re one step closer to making it a reality with… a headset that kills you.
And yes, this means you could actually kick the bucket if you die in real life.
Made by the creator of Oculus—and now owned by Facebook—these headsets are designed to “instantly destroy your brain” if your VR avatar dies. Sounds… fun?
Supposedly, the purpose is to “raise the stakes” in the virtual world.
Chill out, man. We just wanted to pick flowers and sell our products in the Metaverse…