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A SMALL REMINDER
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Several imposter domains face Facebook’s wrath
Facebook has clamped down on 12 different Facebook-like domains operated by an Indian based company called Compsys.
These domains were impersonating the Facebook family of apps to deceive users into giving out their personal information with email alerts.
Weird looking domain names, email content with bad English… The exact same decades-old practice which marketers like us identify day in and day out.
So, it’s nothing new and Facebook has taken a strong stance on such practices in the past.
It took similar action against companies selling fake social media followers and Likes, click-injections, or companies trying to trick users into downloading malware.
The US alone lost more than $2.4B to such activities in 2018 alone, with one in ten people falling victim to similar deception.
These actions will also help Facebook to set a precedent, which it can then use as a reference for acting against others caught doing the same.
SPONSORED BY VOLUUM
Voluum is throwing the gauntlet: Who will get ahead in the clash of trackers?
Who benefitted the most from the rising competition in the tracker space? Users, of course.
Although, on the flip side, it has become very hard to decide which tracker is the best.
So, Voluum decided to create a video that compares its tool to the alternatives on the market.
It’s not only informative of what you can get by using Voluum, it’s even entertaining. Probably one of the funniest comparison videos you’ll see.
They compared Voluum to other trackers based on the elements like:
- The signing up process;
- Integrations – Voluum offers full API integrations while other trackers simply provide token templates;
- Automation features – Automizer, their brand new tool created for you to activate and pause campaigns, change bids and set auto rules – all within one panel;
- Typical problems with setting automated rules;
- Educational materials – Voluum shares tons of useful content with its users regularly. In fact, their content is so good it gets copied by competitors.
The gauntlet has been thrown. And we didn’t know you could talk about technical stuff in such a fun way…
Now it’s up to you to see which tracker fits the best your needs. Watch the video here.
And if you decide to give Voluum a try, as a Stacked Marketer reader, you get a 45% discount and a $5k starting spend limit (instead of $1k) for The Automizer.
E-COMMERCE
Increasing your store conversion rate from 0.54% to 4.25%
This is a case study shared by Mike L Lewandowski about a Shopify store in the pet niche.
Here we’re running through the conversion rate optimization improvements (as well as Facebook campaigns) used to scale the store to $251k:
+ Theme upgrade and customization: Along with the theme upgrade, they also created a cross-product linkage. The goal was to help customers find closely-related products where the built-in Shopify option selector was not effective.
+ Navigation: The navigation menu was changed to be more conversion oriented. The default menu included links like “Home”, “Shop”, “Contact” and “About”, but these do not lead to a sales funnel. To improve this they added links for “Shop Dogs” and “Shop Cats” and moved the “About” and “Contact” links to the footer.
+ Homepage: A multi-image slider was replaced with a static image featuring the best selling product line and a strong CTA.
+ Product pages: In addition to some copy improvements, they added a tabbed description area for easy access to the shipping and return information.
+ Reviews optimization: Reviews were reorganized to display the ones with images at the top as they’re considered more credible. In addition, they linked Amazon reviews to boost social proof. If you don’t have your items listed on Amazon you can use Facebook reviews instead.
Along with these points, they also improved website page speed and added upsells and cross-sells to the funnel to increase the average order value.
SEO
The business intelligence approach to link building
Have you heard of an approach where you use business intelligence for link building? What are some of the questions you’d want answered by that data?
- Tactical: How many links do I need to build? What type of links should I build and of what quality? What anchor text should those links contain?
- Resources: How much is link building going to cost? How long is it going to take?
- ROI: Is spending money on link building a good business decision? How long until I can expect a positive ROI?
Cody West, the author of this post, shared this live link intelligence report. It’s an awesome read that we wanted to bring to your attention in case you’re trying to improve your organic search traffic. Here are some starting points before you go digging deeper:
Backlink data sources
You can only make decisions as good as your data allows, right? You want to see your own links and your competitors’ links.
The usual tools are recommended by Cody but there is an important extra thing to mention.
If you are doing an analysis for a large site, spreadsheets might not cut the mustard so it’s worthwhile learning to use a tool like BigQuery or similar.
Pages vs domains
Google is still using PageRank. Its Wikipedia entry defines PageRank as “an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results.”
Cody brings attention to the “web pages” part. For a more thorough read on PageRank, Gary Illyes recommends checking out this piece by Larry and Sergey.
Going down the rabbit hole…
That’s just setting the stage. Now is the time to grab a coffee, tea, beer or whatever beverage you prefer, tune out all distractions and dive into a super comprehensive analysis.
Cody pulls concrete data and analyzes it to answer questions such as:
- How many links do you need to build that “domain authority”?
- What are the categories of links?
- How much will it cost to build these links?
- What anchor text should you use?
Give it a read and give Cody a hat tip for the awesome piece!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- FACEBOOK: It’s not you, it’s Facebook’s ordinary madness. Many marketers are complaining about Facebook suddenly flagging ads that have been running for months.
- SEO: Google showcasing Rich Results for homepages isn’t actually a new feature, it’s just a bug which has now been fixed.
- SEARCH: Google’s rival DuckDuckGo is being questioned by authorities as part of an antitrust investigation into the search giant.
- TWITTER: A new feature under Account Settings will soon allow users to apply for profile verification.
BRAIN TEASER
The things I bite, they don’t bleed,
I don’t bite until you push me;
I bring my victims together each time I bite,
But they’ll come undone if you pull it just right.
What am I?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Group Selfies with Social Distancing, anyone?
When was the last time you had a group selfie with your loved ones?
Not anytime in the last few months, right?
That’s actually great! You’ve been contributing to the world by following social distancing measures.
However, for those of you craving a group selfie, things are looking up! Apple’s most recent patent could make group selfies a possibility even if you’re miles away from your loved ones!
It’s called Synthetic Group Selfie and it will allow you to do a selfie session in which the software inserts people into the photo as if they were right there with you.
You can add pre-recorded or even livestream videos, and users can edit the shots to put themselves front and center.
Fun Fact: Apple applied for this patent in 2018, well before anyone saw COVID-19 coming. So, this is just Apple exploring an idea rather than producing a roadmap. Don’t expect this to pop out anytime soon.