BUSINESS
Why your website might soon crash on Chrome and Firefox
It all comes down to a single digit.
Mozilla has issued a warning that many websites may no longer work once Firefox and Chrome reach version 100.
The reason: The user agent. In case you’re not familiar, the “User-Agent” is a small piece of text that tells you what type of web browser your visitors are using.
Here’s the problem: Many dynamic websites are hard-coded to only accept user agents with double digits. “100” is not a double-digit number.
Websites expected to crash: Here’s a list of major websites that don’t accept three-digit user agents. Yahoo and T-Mobile Poland are some of them.
Why you should pay attention to this: A lot of marketing software relies on user agents. This includes anything from web analytics, A/B testing software to something you paid a third-party developer to code for you.
Here’s the thing: If you rely on software millions of websites use (like Google Analytics), you’ll probably be fine. But many pay developers to create small scripts that add small functionality to our websites or clients’ websites.
Those scripts often rely on user agents and haven’t been updated in months. Now would be a good time to talk to your developer and see if this will affect you.
ADVERTISING
Don’t panic about Google’s “Privacy Sandbox” announcement
The media loves to sensationalize everything.
“Google plans privacy change similar to Apple’s, which wiped $230 billion off Facebook’s market cap” was the title of a recent CNBC article covering this update. The Verge reported: “With Android Privacy Sandbox, Google wants to ditch ad tracking but keep the ads.” Uh-oh.
C’mon people! We’re here to tell you: There’s no reason to panic. Yes, these are clickbait headlines. Consumer Acquisition also shared the same opinion. Here’s why you shouldn’t panic.
Google depends on advertisers. Google, unlike Apple, makes most of its revenue from advertising, rather than selling hardware. Because of this:
- They won’t kill ad tracking without providing a viable alternative. They stated this in their press release we featured yesterday, and if you consider the first point, it makes sense.
- It’s still just an idea. Google hasn’t provided a timeline for anything. The guess is that they will move slowly with this, and will first test if their proposed replacement keeps advertisers’ ROI.
The move towards privacy-focused alternatives is just a matter of time but it doesn’t mean everyone will do it Apple-style.
SPONSORED BY #PAID
Are some influencers catfishing e-commerce brands?
It happens all the time. You meet somebody online and after some texts, decide to meet them in person, and… Bam! It’s a totally different person.
It also happens with influencers.
They seem to have great content and the engagement rate seems quite high. So you decide to run a campaign with them and… It’s a flop.
But you don’t need to get your heart (and wallet) broken.
#paid is a matchmaking app that connects brands with ROI-oriented creators.
You don’t need to swipe right and left. Because #paid does that for you! You have to set your campaign’s goals, and the platform will show you creators that are a match.
Then you just need to evaluate if the matches #paid found are the right fit for you.
Starbucks, Misen, Uber Eats, Frank and Oak, and thousands of other brands found their perfect creator on #paid.
Experience your marketing love story today.
SEO
What too many marketers get wrong about the ROI of SEO
ROI of SEO = (Revenue from organic traffic – cost of SEO)/(cost of SEO).
Right? Wrong!
If it was that easy, this post wouldn’t even exist. And neither this piece by Tom Critchlow commenting on the matter.
First, it’s hard to define the cost, because there are many voices to take into account: SEO strategy, front-end product, back-end technology, content production, analytics and technology.
Plus, SEO scales internally: When you spend more on SEO, it means your team will need to create more content, audit more pages, and so on.
Second, it’s hard to define the revenue generated by organic traffic. What about branded search? What about investing in new landing pages that benefit conversion, paid media and SEO?
These have an effect on the revenue voice, but they’re not “SEO investments”.
The solution according to Tom Critchlow is incrementality. Essentially, calculating how much new business comes from a specific campaign, channel or strategy.
Usually, paid media teams have been more sophisticated than SEO teams at measuring incrementality:
“…pausing Google Brand Search resulted in a 25% decrease in combined Paid+Organic conversions with a 99% confidence interval.”
Not many SEO teams do that.
Bottom line: Everytime an SEO recommends an investment in content production, or any other SEO project, they should be able to define the incrementality of that work.
As Tom Critchlow closes the post, “if you care more about how much it costs in both dollars and resources, and you measure return more closely as SEO-influenced revenue you’ll be able to get more budget and buy-in for your work.”
SPONSORED BY HIRE PEGGY
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THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
How Affirm targets both B2B and B2C audiences
Marketing to one group of people is hard. But marketing to two different audiences, with separate needs and decisional processes, it’s another level of complexity.
However, when we analyzed Affirm for our February deep dive, we realized that this company does it very well. And here’s how.
Generally, the positioning can be summarized in this way:
- For customers: “The payment company that lets you pay your own way – it’s a company that’s on your side.”
- For businesses: “The easy payment solution that helps businesses improve their sales. Here are some stats.”
There’s also clear separation on both their website and their ads. On their website, the homepage targets consumers but they have a dedicated “For Business” page.
Ads are more interesting…
For consumers: Affirm knows that people don’t get a loan because they need money. They get a loan because they want a specific product.
For instance, when the iPhone 13 was released, they were running a Facebook ad showing the device and the message in the copy was: “Can I buy the new iPhone without breaking the bank?”.
For businesses: In this case, Affirm plays on the advantage of using Affirm – more sales. They also try to show why they are better than competitors.
The main difference is that when Affirm talks to businesses, they lead with statistics and numbers, proving how they can improve sales.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
SEO: Almost all websites out there have at least one SEO issue that is damaging its ranking. Stop bleeding traffic with this free intelligence tool that will identify the exact issues and help you rank higher. And without any risk because it’s free to use.*
GOOGLE: You’ll now be able to obtain your call history data much faster from your Google Business Profile. Using the Google Business Profiles API, you can import it directly into your CRM software.
ADVERTISING: If it works, spend more money on it. January saw a 19% surge in ad spending compared to the same month last year.
GOOGLE: Using Google Fonts? Here’s a new font to add to your roster: “Roboto Serif”. Google says this font “makes reading online easier.”
AMAZON: So much fuss for nothing. Amazon will, after all, accept Visa cards in the UK. News broke in November last year that Amazon would stop accepting Visa cards issued in the UK because of the high transaction fees.
ANALYTICS: Using Google Analytics 4 Data API? Charles Farina just shared some really interesting data metrics that have been added.
*This is a sponsored post.
BRAIN TEASER
What can point in every direction but can’t reach the destination by itself.
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.
What do you get when you mix politics, crypto, and social media?
You get El Salvador’s President calling US Senators “boomers”. Yep, El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele isn’t shy with his words.
After US Senators introduced a bill targeting El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin, he reacted on Twitter.
The tweet began with “OK boomers…” setting the stage. You can guess how it went from there.
In case you didn’t know, El Salvador was the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender back on 7th September 2021.