ADVERTISING
Digital advertising grew 12.2% in 2020
That’s according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report for 2020, conducted by PwC.
Susan Hogan, SVP of Research and Analytics at IAB does point out that the second half of the year made up for an abrupt drop from last year’s second quarter.
According to Susan: “The surge in consumer adoption of Connected TV, ecommerce shopping, and at-home deliveries created the pendulum swing needed for digital media to continue growing. These are just some of the factors that contributed to ad dollars moving from traditional media to digital media.”
Some other interesting stats from the report:
- Social media advertising reached $41.5B in 2020, making for 16.3% growth year-over-year.
- Video increased by 20.6%, taking more share.
- Programmatic grew by almost 25%.
The Crew’s take: Our industry is growing. After some uncertainty at the start of the pandemic, digital only grew and it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down.
TIKTOK
TikTok ramps it up
Speaking of social media growth, we have to bring you some news from TikTok (along with a bad pun).
TikTok is ramping it up with LiveRamp – that’s the bad pun – which will enable partners and advertisers using LiveRamp to use their customer data for better targeting in the US.
Targeting is known to not be quite as good on TikTok as on Facebook, but this does make it ever so slightly better.
On the app features side of things, TikTok launched a collection of new effects that “move to the beat”.
Keep these effects in mind if you want to create ads for TikTok. They’ll definitely help you fit in.
SPONSORED BY TRUENAME
Make your brand a call-to-action
The online business landscape has never been more crowded. Entrepreneurs in the US submitted more than one million new business applications in 2020. The intense competition for eyeballs and customers means your branding must be better than the rest.
Part 2 of our multi-part series will look into the best practices for choosing your brand name and your logo. Go here if you missed part 1.
Let’s dive right into it!
- Your brand name should be easy to read, to say, and to share with others.
- It should be catchy, something your audience will not forget.
- Make it intuitive so people quickly recognize who you are and what you do.
- Your brand (name + logo) should be consistent on all mediums and platforms.
- Get a domain name with your brand name in it. Descriptive TrueName™ domains offer the best choices to find a domain with a descriptive ending, such as .studio, .cafe, .world or .live.
Pro tip: A logo that includes your domain name is a smart way to elevate your brand, making it a call to action at the same time.
What are TrueName domains? They are descriptive domain names that help you tell the world what you do. Millions of companies and individuals use them already, including 94% of Fortune 50 companies! Two popular ones are amazon.care and xbox.games.
They come with benefits like:
- Hundreds of unique top-level domain names relevant to any business. Your fitness training business can end with .fitness. Your digital marketing agency can end with .digital, .marketing, or even .agency.
- Creative, memorable URLs that help websites stand out. Why use gethelpwithyourcareer[.]net when you can use career.expert?
- Consistent branding across all platforms. using your true name. Rocket.Chat’s brand name, logo and domain name are one-in-the-same so that every customer impression is a CTA to visit their website and demo the product.
- Keyword-rich, for a boost in your SEO. Think esports.live.
- Free security feature that helps protect you and your customers against phishing attacks.
Find your own TrueName domain here for $2.99* with promo code STACKED.
* Applies to most standard TrueName domains.
SEO
Here’s one answer to an endless debate
“Can I click on my own site’s links in Google to improve my ranking?”
Uttering this sentence in any online SEO community will elicit some quick reactions and probably cement your status as the newcomer in the group. (The answer is no, by the way.)
But while spam-clicking your own site in Google won’t do you any good, that doesn’t mean you should ignore click-based engagement signals in general.
Cyrus Shepard wrote a great piece at Moz breaking down 3 important click-based signals for SEO. Let’s take a look:
- Optimize for CTR. Google uses CTR to monitor how websites are doing in search. It’s not a big ranking factor (and it truly may not be a ranking factor at all), but optimizing for a higher CTR will get you more traffic – and that’s the point, right?
- Keep people on the page. A click isn’t just a click, according to Cyrus. Clicks can be weighted based on how long the user remained on the page. So, make sure your pages accurately answer user queries to keep them hanging around.
- Be the last click. What does that mean? Well, be the last site that a user clicks on before concluding their search. Cyrus points to a Google patent that states “a last click…can be considered as likely indicative of a good page.”
There’s plenty more in the full blog post from Cyrus here.
The bottom line: Although Google may not use click-based signals as major ranking factors, optimizing for the three pillars above will help your site get more traffic.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
REDDIT: There’s a new resource hub that Reddit launched meant to help businesses do better with Reddit Ads
YOUTUBE: In 2021, the platform has been used by 81% of US adults, surpassing Facebook.
GOOGLE: There’s an update to the Performance reports in Search Console.
FACEBOOK: Hotline is the name of Facebook’s Clubhouse + Instagram Live mashup app that just went into public beta testing.
ADVERTISING: This report from Apple called “A Day in the Life of Your Data” tries to explain how you should deal with attribution and advertising impact once ATT is rolled out.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Intel has a beef with Apple
Ever since Apple announced they will use their own chips in their computers, Intel has been throwing jabs.
The latest and most ironic is an ad featuring a MacBook Pro where Intel promotes “the world’s best processor on a thin and light laptop”… Can you guess where the irony comes from?
Intel is showing a MacBook that doesn’t use an Intel chip.
So, is that some sort of hard-to-grasp humour or a blunder by Intel?