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Dec 7, 2021 Dominate Mobile SERPs with the Right SEO Strategy How Can Agency Leaders Sell the Value of Mobile SEO Services to Their Clients? Thankfully, communicating the value of a mobile-first SEO strategy is rather easy. It boils down to four key points: 1. Google prefers your mobile website over the desktop version. 2. Local customers are searching for businesses like yours on mobile (with an intention to visit in person). 3. Mobile has accounted for more than half of all online pageviews since 2017. 4. If your client’s competitors are outranking them, a better mobile site experience is likely a major factor. What Mobile SEO and Desktop SEO Have in Common Mobile and desktop SEO, while they have their differences, do share some commonalities. Chief among them include: 👑 Killer Content is Always King Content is the heartbeat for any SEO strategy. For a blog post or other piece of website copy to perform at a high level, it requires: High-volume, low-difficulty keywords Contextual, user-focused messaging A smooth reading experience Publishing to a page with little to no technical errors 👉 Place Emphasis on User Experience A user should not have difficulty navigating your website. Whether on mobile or desktop, allow them to find the pages they are looking for in a matter of seconds. 🛠 Technical Health is SEO Wealth A website’s technical health directly affects its SEO performance. Common errors like low site speeds and excessive third-party code can turn off users (and search engine algorithms). Beyond increased bounce rates, this will also cause search engines to penalize your site with lower organic search result rankings. What Makes Mobile SEO Unique? 🗺 Greater Emphasis on Geography People take our mobile devices everywhere. We use our smartphones for directions, to look up business information, and to share our locations with friends and family. When populating the mobile SERPs, a search engine is more likely to recommend results closer to your geographic location. For example, if you look up the name of a movie on your phone, Google might recommend a nearby movie theater and its showtimes. Conversely, the desktop results for the same film might generate resources like the movie’s trailer or IMDB page. 📱Google Mobile Has No Pagination Page-one results are SEO gold when it comes to desktop strategy. However, Google recently did away with pagination for their mobile results. Instead of prioritizing page-one for mobile, taking an approach to landing an “above the fold” ranking should be the priority before users start scrolling down the page. 🔖 Unique Mobile SERP Layout Layouts for mobile SERPs are visibly different than desktop. Beyond the narrower, vertical screen, search engines like Google will also give preference to highly optimized pages with mobile-friendly title tags and meta descriptions. If these meta elements are more concise, this means they will display on the mobile SERP layout more effectively. 🔎 App Recommendations in Search Results Search engines are able to determine which type of device you are using. If an algorithm determines that an app might provide value to you based on your search terms, the app will show on the SERP for you to download if you agree it will help meet your needs. 📲 Google Prefers Mobile In 2019, Google announced it will be using “mobile-first indexing” for cataloging and ranking pages across the web. This means that it prioritizes the mobile version of a website over its desktop counterpart. The Most Important Factors for High Mobile Rankings Search engine algorithms prioritize different user experience factors when determining organic rankings for mobile and desktop. The primary ones that affect mobile performance potential are: 👁 Site Layout The layout of your mobile page can affect your rank potential. If the page is not properly designed for mobile users, this will be noted and the page will be penalized. To avoid this penalty, take a mobile-first approach to your website design. Use a responsive design scheme so that your site will display appropriately to the dimensions of the user’s screen. 🏎 Site Speed Mobile users are looking for quick information. When your page takes too long to load, this does not satisfy their demands. Often, site speeds are affected by large website assets that require a long time to load. These can include, but aren’t limited to: Excessive third-party code Unminified javascript/CSS Large, unoptimized images ☝️ Mobile-First UX If a site’s UX features do not align with mobile, this will affect ranking. Are CTA buttons appropriately sized? Are there too many popups on mobile that could be annoying to users? These are noted when search engine bots crawl through the mobile version of your website. Keep the mobile version of your site as simple and straightforward as possible. Provide the information your target audience wants and a quick call-to-action that requires little effort. If something feels like it’s “a little too much,” it probably is on mobile. You may also want to include mobile-friendly features like a “click to call” button. This allows a visitor to instantly call your client’s business number with the press of a button rather than manually searching for it and typing it into the keypad. 😁 User-Focused Content Write keyword-rich content designed to help your client’s audience. While there are opportunities to showcase a company’s awesome products and services, most users are using search engines to learn more about topics they’re interested in. Develop great pieces of content that answer real questions your target audience might be asking. Plainly spell out your information so that it can be easily understood by human readers and AI algorithms alike. 💪 Content Consistency Google will penalize sites that use different content on the mobile and desktop versions of the same page. At a glance, it might seem logical to offer an abridged version of your desktop content on mobile. However, this affects a consistent cross-device experience for your site visitors and Google views this as poor UX. 📍 Geographic Keywords for Brick and Mortar Businesses Mobile devices are portable, and search engines take this into account. Type in almost any type of business on a keyword research tool and one of the highest-ranking keyword variants will always be “(business) near me”. If your client is a business that wants to reach more local customers, don’t shy away from using their location information in your content. This will help tell search engines where the business is located so that they can provide the information to users. Be sure to also ensure your client’s business is featured on all relevant online directories as well like Yelp, Google MyBusiness, and other similar listing services. If your client’s site does not rank highly at the moment, they can still drive organic traffic to their site through these key referral sources that may have a greater presence. 👉 Concise Metadata As we mentioned above, mobile SERP results are shorter than desktop. Keep your title tags, meta descriptions, and other meta elements as concise as possible while still conveying important information. Scale Your Own Agency with an Expert White Label SEO Team At Conduit, our in-house white label SEO team brings over two decades of combined experience to help your agency scale with managed SEO services. From auditing to strategy development and implementation, we will handle the complete fulfillment cycle as an extension of your own team. To speak with us about our desktop and mobile SEO services, contact us today to learn more about white label partnership.

Apr 16, 2020 Due to the advancement of speech recognition, voice search optimization SEO has exploded in popularity; in fact, a prevalent stat thrown around in the SEO community is that about 50% of all searches will come from voice by next year. Now, whether you’re skeptical about that presumptuous prediction or not, as a savvy digital marketer, you cannot ignore these facts: 40% of adults are currently utilizing voice search at least once a day (Location World) A quarter of individuals between ages 16 and 24 use voice search on their mobile device in the last month (Global Web Index) According to Purna Virji of Microsoft, 25% of searches that are conducted in the Windows 10 taskbar were done via voice–this is on a desktop! 72% of the surveyed individuals who own voice-activated speakers say that those devices are part of their daily routine (Think With Google) Many adaptive SEO’s are finally making conscious efforts to implement Voice Engine Optimization strategies (more on this later), but before you learn the best practices of VEO, you should understand how it works. What is Voice Search? Voice search or conversational search is just what it sounds like. Instead of typing keywords into a search query to generate results, you are able to speak into a device. The evolution and advancement in voice search technology is making it easier than ever to search on home assistants. So what exactly are these home assistants? The major voice search platform includes: Siri: Siri uses Google’s search engine to deliver results Alexa: Alexa uses Bing’s search engine to deliver results Google: Google uses Google’s search engine to deliver results Cortona: Cortona uses Bing’s search engine to deliver results To sum it up even more, here are what the biggest names in voice search rely on: Amazon: Amazon is part of Alexa which uses Bing Apple: Apple came out with Siri which uses Google Google: Google voice uses Google Windows: Windows came up with Cortona which uses Bing Voice Search Ranking Factors Backlinko, a reputable source for SEO analyzed 10,000 Google Home search results and discovered the following: 1. Length of Answers The average voice search result is around 29 words. 2. Schema Markup 36.4% of results for voice search implement schema on its page. 3. Easy-To-Read Content The average voice search result from a Google Home was written at a ninth-grade reading comprehension level. 4. Word Count Google tends to rely on long-form content as the average word count of a page that was used as a voice search result is 2,312 words. 5. Featured Snippet Check this out, 40.7% of the voice search answers coming from Google Home were from featured snippets. How Does Voice Seach Work? Due to the complexities of human linguistics, producing accurate voice recognition results have been a difficult feat to accomplish. This is because you can say the same word with a different pitch and cadence. Compare that to a static input such as an image; images are treated as an array of numerical values which can be directly fed into a computational neural network–a computer can figure out what an image is because each pixel is assigned a numerical value, which represents a certain color on the RGB scale. The speech recognition software takes the input of the original analog sound wave and assigns a value based on the wave’s height. After recording the wave heights at equally-distanced points, the software is able to assign each point a numerical value, after which the data is fed through a recurrent neural network; this type of neural network is able to influence future predictions using its memory. For example, if you say “hel”, the neural network can extrapolate that “lo” will be the next syllable, forming the word “hello”. Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem Thanks to the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem, the input of the soundwave can be immaculately reconstructed into digital form just from measuring the equally distanced recorded soundwave heights. Once the sound wave is digitized and the automatic speech recognition system processes the data and turns it into text, the now-converted text is used as a search engine query. One of the more prominent reasons why voice search is growing rapidly is due to the impeccable accuracy of transforming voice to text; Google, the most accurate of them all as of this writing, is able to recognize human voice with up to 95% accuracy–nearly that of a human. The type of search engine depends on the device you use; for example, if you use Google Voice or Siri, you can expect to receive results based on Google’s algorithm. (Fun fact: Google pays billions of dollars to Apple just so they can be the default search engine for all of Apple’s devices). If you use Amazon’s Alexa or Microsoft’s Cortana, you can expect to see results from Bing. Voice Search's Impact on Local SEO A common misconception of voice search optimization is optimizing solely for smart speakers. According to this Bright Local study, 56% of individuals used voice search to find information about a local company in the last twelve months on a smartphone. Compare that to only 18% of the individuals surveyed stating that they use a smart speaker for that purpose. In addition, 46% of voice search users reportedly look for a local business using voice search on a daily basis. Here’s another pertinent stat: 53% of individuals report that they use voice search when they are driving. What do you think they’re searching for? Perhaps a local business? From the same Bright Local Study, here are the typical next steps a user takes after using voice search to find a local business: 28% said they call the local business 27% said they visit the business’s site 19% said they visit the business’s location Clearly, “voice search” isn’t just a hype word anymore; if you don’t start implementing voice engine optimization strategies, you’ll fall behind in the ever-changing environment of SEO. Voice Search Optimization Stats There are a few thorough case studies on voice search optimization and its impact, one of the more popular being Backlinko’s behemoth 10,000+ word article. Below you will find a summary of his most notable findings after analyzing 10,000 Google Home results, along with some actionable advice from the Conduit SEO team. Page Speed The average page loads in 4.6 seconds for voice search queries. Action: Head over to Google’s page speed insights tool to make sure that the page you are trying to rank loads at 4.6 seconds at the most. If your page doesn’t pass this test, Google’s tool gives you some key opportunities to improve the page’s speed, some of which include eliminating render-blocking resources, minifying CSS, compressing large images, and reducing server response times. HTTPS 70.4% of Google’s voice search results are secured with an SSL certificate. Action: Migrate your client’s site to HTTPS. If done incorrectly, it can produce pernicious effects. If you are unsure how to do this, reach out to a qualified digital marketing expert here at Conduit. Length Of Answers The average voice search result is around 29 words. Action: Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Be sure to write short, concise answers that properly cover the query. Schema Markup Although a small correlation, 36.4% of results for voice search implement schema on its page, compared to the 31.3% average for conventional searches. Action: For competitive niches, anything that can be used to push your client in front of their competitors should be implemented. Think about how Schema started: in 2011, three of the largest search engines at the time came together to create a semantic vocabulary for search engines to better understand the contents of a web page. If these rival search engines came together to work on a joint project with a goal to better understand web pages, it’s a good idea for you to implement it. You don’t need to be a programmer either; there are WordPress plugins such as Project Supremacy that make the creation and implementation of Schema Markup extremely user-friendly. Authority Of The Domain Domains considered higher in authority have a propensity to show up in voice search results far more frequently than lower authority sites. According to his study, the mean Domain Rating (Ahref’s metric of measuring how powerful the backlink profile of a site is) of a result is 76.8, which is on a logarithmic scale of 100. Action: This is one of the points at which the traditional SEO of the last twenty years comes into play. Building backlinks from high authority sites will continue to play a salient role in the foreseeable years. There are many link building strategies, including guest posting, broken link building, and resource page outreach. Many link building guides cover each of these in-depth; you will ultimately determine what makes the most sense for your client. Easy-To-Read Content According to Backlinko’s findings, the average voice search result from a Google Home was at a ninth-grade reading comprehension level. Action: Avoid industry jargon as much as possible, and make your content easily ingestible for your users. Word Count In regard to voice search results, Google seems to be favoring long-form content; in fact, the average word count of a page that was used as a voice search result is 2,312 words. Action: Cover the topic as in-depth as possible. You shouldn’t force words onto a page for the sake of reaching a certain word count, but you should be fully satisfying the search intent of the user, and write about topics in the article that both the user and Google would expect to see. Featured Snippet 40.7% of the voice search answers coming from Google Home in their study were from featured snippets. Action: You may ask, “how do I show up in featured snippets?” A common way the Conduit SEO team steals featured snippets is from reverse engineering what’s already being used. For example, how is the content structured in the featured snippet for which you’re trying to optimize? Are the answers listed in bullets points, are they being pulled from header tags, or something completely different? Follow the structure of what Google is favoring and write a more comprehensive piece of content. How To Optimize Your Pages For Voice Search A prevalent stat thrown around in the SEO community is that about 50% of all searches will come from voice by next year. Yet, as we are witnessing the significant growth and popularity of users searching by voice, marketers are scrambling to figure out how to optimize their website and product pages for search. Voice Search Optimization Checklist So now that you know what voice search is and the ranking factors, let’s see how you can optimize your product pages for voice searches: 1. Add Product Q&A When optimizing content for voice search, be sure to focus on the 5W + H questions – who, what, where, why, when and how. Being able to answer a question will grow your webpage drastically. 2. Use Lists And Table Organize your product pages with bullet points and tables as this will allow voice search platforms to have a better understanding of your content. This also increases readability and makes it easy for readers to read and engage. 3. Include Schema Add schema to your page as this helps search engines better understand your page. This is incredibly important for voice search as it can allow Google to pick up important information when trying to answer a question. “Speakable” – which is a schema markup currently in beta on schema.org is a great one to add to your page as this identifies important sections in an article or webpage that are best suited for audio playback. 4. Optimize Product Description Be sure to add terms that are related to your product in the product description. Google uses semantic analysis to understand what the query typed or spoken really means. LSIGraph is a great tool to help you find profitable semantically related keywords. Conclusion If you are not thinking about voice search optimization as a means of increasing your search visibility, don’t wait until it’s too late. Voice search is growing and more users are adopting it and as you know, the digital marketing industry is never stagnant. Take into account the voice search ranking factors and follow the steps above to get started on your voice search strategy. Change is a ubiquitous component of SEO, so if you want to stay ahead of everyone else, it’s important to keep up on the latest trends and changes in the industry. Even though many consider voice search to still be in its infant stages, staying ahead of the curve will allow you to stand out, as well as give you the tools and knowledge to implement strategies built to withstand the ups and downs that come with the industry. In order to stay ahead of the curve and execute the best campaigns possible, our analysts are constantly staying up to date on industry trends by feeding our brains with articles, podcasts, etc. Working with a white label SEO Partner like Conduit Digital gives you the ability to start optimizing your client’s websites for voice search results. What is voice search optimization Voice search optimization or voice search SEO is the process of optimizing your website content and local SEO factors such as location and user generated (third party) reviews in order to increase visibility for voice search results. Voice search optimization is vital for Local SEO.

Oct 7, 2021 On October 4, Facebook and Instagram experienced a massive platform outage that marked their longest stretch of downtime since 2008. This event caused a tidal wave for online businesses and even resulted in the company’s shares dropping nearly 5%. It also impacted their other services like WhatsApp, Oculus, and Messenger. What Caused the Outage? Facebook engineers explained that the outage was caused during routine maintenance. A command was erroneously issued that disconnected the company’s backbone network from Facebook’s global network of data centers. This also affected the tools that their engineers would use to resolve the problem. Thankfully, Facebook was able to recover from the outage within the day. However, for most regular business hours in North America, the platforms remained virtually unusable. The lost revenue from the platforms’ downtime, plus the drop in stock values resulted in potentially billions of lost dollars. How Did This Affect Agencies? Digital marketing agencies share a trusting relationship with platforms like Facebook. They invest their clients’ budgets into advertising on these platforms with the expectation that Facebook will provide a reliable, consistent, and high-quality service. A business day-long outage cuts directly against all three of those desired attributes. Some agencies that focus mainly or exclusively on social advertising lost an entire business day waiting for a platform they built their businesses around to come back online. The October 4 outage was concerning and peculiar at best, panic-inducing for agency leaders at worst. It served as a strong reminder that planning for unpredictable red alerts is critical for agencies to maintain an excellent experience for their clients. These contingency plans allow your team to continue to add value to your business when a core operation is unavailable beyond anyone’s control. Now that the dust in Facebook’s data centers has settled a bit, let’s look at some key takeaways that agencies should note. Attention to Detail is Non-Negotiable in a Digital World The Facebook and Instagram outage was caused by oversight. A connection-severing command was issued during what was supposed to be routine maintenance. This event is a prime example of what can go wrong when even the most basic functions are overlooked. Providing an excellent agency experience for your client demands meticulous attention to detail. Any and all deliverables that are sent from your team to your client should have multiple sets of eyes on them before they reach the client’s inbox. This way, if there is an issue to resolve, you can address it proactively instead of waiting for the client to point it out. Consistent, quality deliverables are a sign that your agency has strong credibility. That does not mean that a client will love everything you put in front of them. That said, if they can look at something you’ve sent them and see that it was crafted to professional standards, they can trust that your agency lives up to its claims. Aligning promises and payoff is the best way to validate your brand’s authority. Anticipate and Plan for Red Alerts Beyond Your Control The Facebook engineers were able to resolve the outage because they had digitally simulated similar scenarios in the past. Though the process proved long and laborious, they knew which steps they had to take. There was a clear endpoint and the team had the GPS to reach the intended destination. Similarly, agency leaders need to prepare for situations like this that are beyond their control. What do you do if Facebook and Instagram are down again? What if the client’s website suffers a security breach? Having plans in place to proactively address these types of scenarios is critical to maintaining a trusting relationship with clients. They will know that you know what to do when chaotic moments arise. Have a Red Alert Communication Plan No matter your agency’s core competencies, your team engages in an aspect of public relations each day. Communicating with clients, maintaining their trust, and continuing to reinforce their positive perception of your business are all key PR principles. A long-held mantra in the PR industry is that the best way to address a crisis is to prepare for it. When a major platform experiences an outage and your client wants to know how it affects their campaigns, this is a type of crisis communication scenario. The best way to tackle these moments of uncertainty is to remain ahead of them. Create a proactive red alert communication plan for when events like the Facebook/Instagram outage happen in the future. Here’s an easy-to-follow template for a red alert communication plan your agency can put into practice with your own clients: 1. Start By Understanding the Problem You can’t brief your client on what is happening if you do not have an understanding of the events first. If an outage occurs on another platform that you are running campaigns on, check their social profiles and websites for official statements. You should also visit industry publications to see if they have any additional information. Dissect and distill this information as plainly as possible. Being able to succinctly explain what happened enables you to effectively communicate to your clients. 2. Consider How the Problem Affects the Client’s Business If Google Ads were to suddenly switch off overnight, how would this affect your client’s PPC, display, and/or YouTube campaigns? Should the client worry, or will a little time and patience prove the most suitable remedy? Consider how an outage will affect your client’s business, if at all, and take a transparent tone with your messaging. Assure your client that your team is remaining on top of the latest developments and that you will address the situation when necessary as it resolves. 3. Message Your Clients Before They Message You Let your clients know that a platform outage has occurred. In your messaging, include some key talking points like: When the outage happened The outage is beyond anyone’s control It will be resolved, but it will take time Your team will conduct a thorough review of their accounts on these platforms once they are back online to ensure they remain intact In your message to your client, invite them to contact you directly if they would like to learn more about what is happening. This can present an opportunity to strengthen your credibility with them. A Holistic Suite of Digital Services Matters Now More Than Ever For businesses that advertise and publish content exclusively on social, the Facebook and Instagram outage was a serious blow to their marketing efforts. It also highlights how going all-in on just one or two digital platforms is no longer a viable option in today’s digital ecosystem. Providing your clients with a full suite of digital solutions enables them to continue their marketing efforts when events like these happen. Facebook and Instagram are experiencing another outage? If you are also running PPC or email campaigns, they are still delivering impressions during this time. When your team has access to a complete arsenal of digital tactics, you are far better equipped to adapt and continue to add value to your accounts. However, that often feels easier said than done in the current agency climate. Hiring the right people to manage a full digital suite has become more challenging than ever. At Conduit Digital, we provide your agency with a complete team of certified digital marketing experts to serve as an extension of your own. This rounds out your in-house core competencies and gives you the scope and scale to confidently say “yes” to more of the right opportunities. To learn more about how you can scale your own agency with a more complete product suite, visit our Agency Partnership page.

Oct 12, 2021 AgencyTalk Ep.01 Recap In the first AgencyTalk episode, Conduit CEO Tim Burke and Marcus Murphy discussed an important, yet seldom-addressed topic: Agency failure. What causes agencies to ultimately shut their doors for good? Check out the video below to hear Tim and Marcus’s takes along with some other great insights! Watch AgencyTalk Ep.01 Here: The Elephant in the Office No One Wants to Talk About: Agency Failure As with any industry, not all digital marketing agencies will last indefinitely. When Marcus asked Tim what are some reasons for agency failure, this is what he had to say: 👉 Not Beginning with the End in Mind When starting any business, there needs to be an end goal in mind. From there, you can create a GPS roadmap to achieve what you set out to accomplish. Without that north star, leaders can’t lead their teams effectively. Lack of specificity is and always will be the greatest roadblock toward progress. 👉 Lacking Framework to Reach Your Goals Even if you have outlined specific goals for your agency – how do you reach them? Without the right process framework to arrive at your destination, a directionless environment can result in massive detours on your business journey. When you have the infrastructure built to support your mission, you can remain on course and produce tangible results along the way. 👉 Misaligned Priorities Starting an agency does not unlock a get-rich-quick opportunity. It requires a dedication to working hard, delivering on results, and a great plan to reach your goals in order to scale. While everyone’s business operates differently, authenticity and credibility should be two universal threads in the fabric of your business. You produce high-quality, original work for your clients and follow through on the commitments you’ve made to them. This will help improve your agency’s reputation and reduce dreaded account churn. 👉 A Shaky Foundation for Your Operations A successful agency builds its foundation on these following principles: A team of the right people to carry out the processes required to reach your business goals. A complete product suite to remain competitive in today’s digital marketplace. Airtight processes to enable your team to perform to their highest potential. A pricing strategy that meets your client’s expectations and generates profit for your business. Performance results that justify your client’s investment and grows their trust in your team. These P’s form stable pillars for a great digital agency. When they are all working in sync with one another, you can position yourself to scale higher than the competing agencies in your market. 👉 Constantly Chaotic Capacity Utilization ties inherently to scale. When you are underutilizing your team, your agency is not operating profitably. When you are overutilizing them, this strain on capacity can cause excess stress and lead people to leave your team. Without the infrastructure to manage capacity at high volumes, an agency stands the risk of failing under the weight of its own ambitions. Scaling Your Agency Profitably with Digital Performance Partnership To summarize everything above, agencies fail in isolation. Without support, critical operations can crumble and profitability seems like a pipe dream. Businesses need a strong support network behind them in order to scale. For agencies, a white-label digital performance partnership supplies that much-needed help when those can’t-miss opportunities arise. As Tim says, there are three types of white label partnerships: Platform, vendor, and partner. 1. A platform is a marketing software that your team can use to manage operations efficiently. 2. A vendor is a transactional relationship where a service is provided in exchange for money. Most vendors are freelancers, consultants, or a specialist provider that focuses on one or two digital marketing services. 3. A partner is a team that acts as an extension of your own from operations to performance. Your partner cares as much about your agency’s success as you do. Why Choose a White Label Partner Over a Platform or Vendor? Conduit was founded to be the white label performance partner for successful digital agencies. We chose partnership instead of acting as a platform or vendor because we believe the best results come from investing in those who invest in us. Over the years that we have partnered with agencies, these are the key benefits that we believe highlights the impact of agency partnership: 💰 More Long-Term Profitability White label partners operate on a wholesale model while delivering measurable performance results. This generates long-term profitability by allowing your agency to keep expenses at a reasonable level for maximum value. 📈 Better Manage High-Scale and High-Volume Partnership allows you to align your agency’s utilization rate with your growth rate. Instead of worrying about overutilizing your team or having to hire new people, your partner’s team can help you expand your services with certified experts or even simply handle your account overflow profitably. 💻 A Complete Digital Suite for Your Agency If your client wants a service that you don’t provide, there’s a good chance they will start looking for a competing agency that can and will fulfill their needs. When you have access to your a complete suite of digital marketing solutions, you can trust your partner’s team to fulfill these campaigns at a high level. The sentences “we can’t do that,” or “we don’t do that here,” are no longer part of your business vocabulary. Launch Your Own Digital Performance Partnership Today At Conduit, we spend each day helping our successful agency partners scale. With a complete suite of digital products managed by dedicated in-house teams of certified experts, we give your agency the ability to say “yes” to more of the right opportunities. This is all accomplished without offshoring or outsourcing and never “setting and forgetting” your client’s campaigns. To learn more about scaling your own agency with a digital performance partner, contact us today to learn more about white label partnership.

Jun 29, 2020 After months of testing, Google is ready to fully introduce first-price auctions to Google Ad Manager. Starting on September 10, Google fully transitioned to a first-price model after years of using a second-price model. Aimed at assisting publishers by helping them to bring in more ad revenue, first-price auctions mean major changes to Google Ad Manager. How Second-Price Auctions Work In the past, Google used a second-price auction to determine winning bids. In second-price auctions, the winner of the bid only had to pay the price offered by the second-highest bidder plus $0.01. This led to a common strategy where you could bid way above market value to ensure you won as many impressions as possible. This strategy worked well for agencies and clients since they only had to pay 1 cent higher than the next highest bid. For example, you want to win impressions for a highly targeted/valuable keyword. You might decide to bid $20, knowing that you’ll likely only pay $10.01 (depending on market value). This model tended to be more friendly to the demand-side, while the supply-side publishers lost out on potential revenue. How First-Price Auctions Work Since introducing the testing of this model in early March, Google has clearly seen the benefits for their publishers. Under the first-price auction model, if your bid wins you pay exactly the amount you bid. For example, using the $20 bid scenario we laid out earlier, if the buyer wasn’t notified of the bidding model change they would potentially be spending more money than anticipated. This is because they would now have to be clearing at the $20 they were bidding when they only expected to pay $10.01. While Google has released its plans to transition to the first-price auction, many ad exchanges did not. This may lead to some unethical practices by untrustworthy ad exchanges. Short-Term Effects of The Switch To First-Price Autions The jury is still out in regards to how the bid model changes will work out long-term. In the short term, our in-house experts expect it to drive up prices while bidders adjust to the new model. Fortunately, many forward-thinking ad exchanges have already switched to this auction-strategy. This means that ad exchanges that have not switched will be most heavily affected when buying Google inventory in the short term. Long-Term Effects Of The Switch To First-Price Auctions In the long-term, this strategy will be beneficial for publishers and generally negative for agencies and clients. Fortunately, our experts expect pricing and bids to level-off as more marketers become adjusted to the model. We expect that as time goes on agencies/clients will become more accustomed to the first-price model they will adjust bids to only what they’re winning to pay or what they think the winning bid will be. In fact, there may be long-term benefits for agencies. If publishers are able to generate more revenue through a first-price auction method, it would create an environment with less ad-spam. This would drive us toward a less invasive ad model. Unfortunately, it may be some time before the market adjusts. In the meantime, expect higher bid prices as the industry becomes accustomed to the first-price auctions. Positives/Negatives For Ad Agencies There may be some debate over how much the first-price model will affect agencies’ approach to bidding. Our experts see this change as an opportunity for savvier agencies. Those with more advanced/ongoing bidding strategies will have to manage bid strategies more actively/effectively. For example, using the $20 bid example from earlier, “set it & forget it” type agencies might be stuck paying much higher than they should. Or, if the market adjusts and outbids these agencies, they might start losing out on more and more bids. A savvier agency will notice these adjustments and use data to effectively neutralize the cost differences in the switch to a first-price model. It could even end up saving clients money. By adjusting to this new strategy and using our expert ppc google ads tips, you can deliver the best results for your clients. Conduit's Opportunities The move to a first-price model gives Conduit a significant advantage over “set it and forget it” agencies. Since we provide constant optimizations, we can actively alter bids to identify a sweet spot for our clients. This will deliver the same inventory for a lower price than competitors. For example, Conduit and Agency B both start bidding at $2 for their clients. With significantly more inventory available in the market, Conduit actively lowers the bid while maintaining delivery. Conduit will then clear at a lower CPM than Agency B. This allows for more inventory for clients without losing quality. Conclusion Overall, first-price auctions will create some uncertainty in the bidding world, especially at first. While initially being more beneficial for publishers, the demand-side of the platform may see both positive and negative changes. As agencies and clients adjust to the new normal, savvier agencies will be able to effectively adapt while “set-it and forget-it” agencies will fall behind. As America’s Digital Agency Connection, Conduit will continue to be at the forefront of bid adjustments and ad-exchange campaigns.

Jan 23, 2020 What Is OTT Advertising? OTT advertising is an internet-based, non-skippable, immersive, video-on-demand content format that allows advertisers to engage with a unique audience that is committed to the content it is consuming. OTT stands for Over-the-Top-Television, which originally referred to the devices that go “over” a cable box to provide the user access to TV content such as Roku or AppleTV. In OTT channels, content is delivered via the internet rather than through a traditional cable/broadcast provider. A connected TV, also called CTV, is a television or connected device with an internet connection and a UI that enables users to access OTT content through applications. OTT Ads OTT and CTV ads are served as pre-roll and/or mid-roll within streaming content on connected devices such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Google Chromecast, Apple TV, and gaming consoles. It refers to film and television content provided by a high-speed internet connection rather than a cable or satellite provider. OTT ads are the closest digital marketing product to traditional TV viewing. The big-screen guarantee promises that your OTT viewing experience will parallel the traditional broadcast experience. How Does OTT Work? OTT ads are delivered using a variety of factors such as programmatic TV delivery, household audience targeting, performance optimization, and as an extension of traditional TV. Programmatic TV delivery utilizes machine and artificial intelligence as a mechanism for buying and placing media to enable real-time impressions and targeting reporting. Household audience targeting enables OTT and CTV users to enjoy an enhanced TV experience that allows them to choose what to watch, and when to watch it. We identify viewers based on their online behaviors. In this way, we target the audience group behaviorally and not by the genre they are likely watching. Performance optimization occurs when OTT analysts monitor and interact with campaigns daily. Your OTT analyst will make adjustments to application inventory, Video Completion Rates (VCR), and frequency of the ads to deliver the best possible performance results. OTT used as an extension of traditional TV combines the power of TV with the precision of digital marketing. You should tailor campaigns to local audiences using advanced targeting tactics to maximize and measure relevance. What Types of Targeting Are Used For OTT? Geographic Targeting Geographic targeting is one of the most advanced location-based advertising techniques for targeting users based on a specific and sought after geographic area. This offers you the ability to accurately geo-target their potential customers across connected and streaming platforms. This enables you to capture your audience’s location within a media market, city, state, country, zip code, and/or radius requested. Behavioral Targeting Behavioral targeting enables advertisers to combine the effectiveness of search with the brand impact and reach of OTT targeting. Keyword level targeting gives advertisers the ability to target potential customers with OTT ads based on searches they perform across the web. A user performs a search, then the system collects data associated with that search. Then the same user is shown a pre-roll and/or mid-roll ad based on the keywords searched. Brand recognition level increases for you as the user is seeing the brand on multiple mediums. Addressable Geo-Fence Targeting Addressable geo-fence targeting brings clients a powerful, effective, and accurate new way to target specific households and businesses with OTT and CTV video advertising. Targeting up to one million street addresses within their campaign, clients can improve their TV campaigns, direct mail campaigns, and other marketing efforts. This targeting is based on plat line data from property tax and public land surveying information to maximize the precision of addresses being targeted. Benefits of OTT Big Screen Viewing OTT advertising is likely speaking to multiple members in a household. Over 93% of these users are viewing in the same area of the house or are viewing simultaneously in other rooms of the house. With a single impression, you are reaching multiple consumers with an opportunity to introduce your brand, drive, recall, engagement, consideration, and influence purchasing behavior. Audience Targeting Big screen delivery to an entire household reaches anyone in the home, geographically and behaviorally. Advanced targeting delivers your ad to household members who have already expressed interest in your products and services. Engagement OTT/CTV has the highest level of engagement among all other digital products. With no ability to skip ads on the big screen, OTT and CTV consistently deliver VCR rates over 90%. Viewers have self-selected their content and are tuned-in, making them highly likely to pay attention. Watching ads on the big screen means users are always “prime-time.” Examples of OTT Streaming Devices Over-the-Top marketing utilizes devices to give users access to the TV channels they want. Here are a few of the most popular streaming devices currently being used: Roku Roku is a digital media player that allows you to stream video, music, and entertainment content. You can stream Amazon Video, Netflix, HBO GO, Hulu Plus, Spotify, and more from the comfort of your own home without needing to pay for a cable package; all it requires is an internet connection. Roku reported having over 29.1 million active users last summer. Roku devices were used 3.5 hours per day on average, making it one of the most used devices in your home. Amazon Fire Stick The Amazon Fire Stick is a small device roughly the size of a flash drive that plugs into a TV’s HDMI port. The Fire Stick enables any TV to stream content over Wi-Fi such as Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Pandora, HBO GO, and much more without needing to pay for a cable package; all it requires is an internet connection. Amazon has reported over 34 million active users for the Fire Stick. Examples of OTT Streaming Services While streaming devices such as Roku or Amazon Fire Stick give users access to streaming, they require streaming services to deliver the content to these devices. Here are a few of the most popular Over-the-Top services: Pluto TV Pluto TV is an internet-based TV platform which is owned by Viacom. Pluto TV generates revenue from Over-the-Top advertising between programming, with plans to remain a free television provider. Pluto TV’s user base has increased by more than 3 million since the beginning of the year. Viacom has said that Pluto TV finished 2018 with more than 12 million monthly active users, 7.5 million of which were on connected TVs. Tubi TV Tubi TV is a free, ad-supported service, with advertisements shown during commercial breaks between programming. It is the largest independently-owned video service in the United States since Pluto TV’s acquisition by Viacom. As of June 2019, Tubi TV offers more than 15,000 films and TV series with deals from major content creators such as NBCUniversal, Lionsgate, and Warner Brothers. Tubi has over 20 million monthly active users. Xumo Xumo provides free Live and on-demand streaming entertainment. Xumo features over 160 different channels to choose from including popular digital and television networks such as CBSN, History, and PGA tour. As of April 2019, Xumo has confirmed over 5.5 million monthly active users after adding distribution deals with LG and Comcast Xfinity. Last summer, Xumo reported a 325% rise in viewership and a 90% increase in user consumption. OTT Pricing Model In terms of pricing, OTT is based on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) model. This is very much in line with the majority of other digital marketing products, making the transition to OTT advertising easier for marketers. While this pricing model lines up with the current digital marketing landscape, it stands in stark contrast to traditional TV pricing methods. Traditional advertisers rely on an antiquated ratings points basis, using metrics such as cost per point (CCP), gross rating point (GRP), or television rating point. These models have proven to be out of date and less effective than a CPM OTT pricing model. Thanks to the programmatic and immediate nature of OTT, everything is bought in real time. This means that platforms and advertisers are never left with an aging inventory that may be prioritized or deprioritized unfairly. Everything is bought in real time and ads are only served when it matches the client’s targeting parameters. Top Features of OTT Advertising OTT, CTV and Internet TV, are popular buzzwords in the digital advertising world, and rightfully so. Based on the significant video advertising shift towards OTT Television, agencies are missing more than just the boat if they are not including it within their product suite. At Conduit Digital we like to call it “Tra-Digital” because OTT is the perfect extension of traditional advertising but with the power of digital targeting. The explosion of 170 million OTT users was led by streaming on Smart TVs and devices like Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, Google Chromecast and Apple TV that allow them to access television content for free through the internet. Power OTT applications like Pluto TV, ABC News, Sling TV, ESPN, and NFL allow viewers more live TV and on-demand content than they can possibly consume. When it comes to brand awareness, OTT is king. CTV delivers commercials with an average Video Completion Rate of more than 90% and those ads are non-skippable! High video completion rates mean high engagement and relevance. Here are our Top 4 reasons to add OTT and CTV to your digital advertising lineup. 1. Large-Screen Advertising Connect TV advertisers are able to target the largest screen by household giving advertisers the capability of targeting audiences with a great likelihood of reaching multiple viewers at once when factoring in co-viewing. 2. Behavioral Targeting Show commercials to audiences that are most interested in your brand or product to drive brand awareness, website visits and consideration that aids in conversions. 3. Geo-Targeting Target by state, DMA, city or down to zip. Yes, you read that correctly! With OTT you can target down to the zip if market conditions allow. This is great for local advertisers who want to utilize a cost-effective video advertising option that targets their business community. 4. Live and Dynamic Reporting Be transparent with your clients. Conduit campaigns come with advanced reporting capabilities giving agencies and advertisers data on delivery by day, application by keywords and helps to inform other marketing plans. Video Completion Rate transparency allows clients to see the percentage of their commercials that are being watched from start to finish. CTV advertising offers an industry VCR rate of more than 90% and is exceptional for advertisers looking to improve brand awareness and reach. OTT Trends OTT advertising is the fastest growing digital marketing product. In fact, the data suggests that it will only keep growing. Here are some important trends currently happening in Over-the-Top marketing: 61% of Americans own a Smart TV (or CTV) 52% of Americans use OTT services For viewers between the ages of 18-34, OTT usage is over 65% The average OTT customer owns up to three OTT devices they can use to watch OTT content and subscribe to different services People spend more time watching OTT content than they do driving a car or talking to friends and family As OTT services gain more and more popularity, this presents grim news for cable, satellite, and broadcast providers/advertisers. Cord-cutting millenials are supplanting aging baby-boomers as the primary consumer target. In fact: Millennials who subscribe to at least one OTT service watch more than twice as much OTT content as they do live TV. The top content that people want is movies, followed by scripted TV shows. Live news and sports, thought to be the killer app keeping broadcast and cable alive, rank #3 and #4 respectively across all demographics. Fewer than 40% of Millenial OTT users plan to keep their cable package. The amount of cord-cutters is rising exponentially. Nearly ⅔ of cord-cutters are more like “cord burners;” they say that cutting cable has noticeably improved their life and there is nothing a cable company can do to lure them back into having a bundle. TV Advertising vs OTT Advertising Last year, brands spent over $70 billion in advertising through traditional television audiences. Studies and data show that this media strategy is extremely outdated. Only 5% of all ad dollars go toward OTT marketing, despite the fact that over 50% of the audience is already there. As over the top advertising catches up with traditional TV advertising, it is important to stay ahead of the curve. What Is The Future Of OTT? OTT advertising is the bridge that will finally connect digital and traditional marketing. As OTT continues to grow, it is important to have a strategic digital partner who understands over the top advertising and where it is going. Conduit’s OTT team utilizes robust datasets and emerging industry trends to develop conversion-oriented OTT campaigns that deliver proven results.

Jan 5, 2022 Across the United States, hiring has never proven more difficult, and digital agencies are no exception to these staffing roadblocks. When new client opportunities arise, does your current bandwidth allow you to say “yes” to them? Let’s be honest. Saying “no” and passing up on can’t-miss new accounts flat-out sucks. It cuts directly against an agency’s ability to scale and drive new revenue. Through a premium white label digital marketing partner, however, you can overcome these common hiring challenges. With a trusted external ad operations team serving your clients in lockstep with your in-house team, you can position your agency to be prepared to land and expand these white-whale accounts. Today, we’re going to peel back the curtain on wholesale digital marketing. We’ll cover everything from how the wholesale model works for agencies and how to select the right solutions for your needs. How Wholesale Digital Marketing Works: The Reseller Playbook 📘 As a general concept, wholesaling involves purchasing a product or service from a provider at one price point, marking it up internally, and then reselling it at a higher number that allows your business to remain profitable. A produce wholesaler, for example, purchases fruits and vegetables from a commercial farm, marks up the prices of these goods and then sells them to grocery stores. The markup covers both the wholesaler’s own expenses as well as enough space in the margin to generate a profit to grow their business. In the same vein, a digital agency can purchase a wholesale product like SEO managed services from a white label provider. You can then mark up the cost of these services based on the partner’s rate card, and resell them to the client. The partner handles the fulfillment while your team can spend more time on core internal competencies and sales. An Example of Wholesale Digital Marketing in Action 🔎 Mark is an agency owner in the New York Metro area. His agency was recently approached by Sarah’s successful law firm about the possibility of helping them manage large-budget SEO and PPC advertising campaigns. Mark’s agency has served lawyers in the past, and he would love the opportunity to pursue this new potential account. However, his internal team is maxed-out on their bandwidth and they specialize more in public relations and social media marketing campaigns. From his perspective, it would take too much time away from current client work to have his team take a crash course in these product areas in an attempt to bring on this account. After a quick online search for “wholesale digital marketing,” Mark finds a white label partner that offers a full suite of products, including both SEO and PPC. The partner’s in-house team features certified experts in these disciplines that can manage this lawyer’s campaign for him. After reviewing the provider’s rate card and deciding he could sell these services at a profit with Sarah’s current budget, he begins a white label partnership. Once the partnership begins, Mark submits an Insertion Order for both an SEO and PPC campaign. The partner’s team handles all aspects of fulfillment from audits to campaign builds, ongoing optimization, reporting, and communication. The urgent need to train his internal team or try to quickly hire an in-house search expert is removed from his laundry list of agency leader duties, and he did not have to say “no” to this account opportunity. How to Select the Right Wholesale Digital Marketing Solution In the digital marketing field, wholesale, white-label, turnkey, managed services, and other similar terms refer to an outsource provider that can act as an extension of your agency’s in-house team. However, within this niche there are three main types of providers: platform, vendor, and partner. Here’s how you can tell the difference between the three: 🌐 Platform A wholesale platform can help reduce the learning curve when adopting new digital services at your agency, but it is usually heavily software-based and requires a large amount of manual control. Someone in your agency’s in-house team would need to still have a heavy hand on the controls, and the platform may not provide sufficient resources to master its features. As a result, there is still a large amount of internal education required and it can still become difficult to gauge results. 📦 Vendor A vendor refers to an outsource solution that operates on a strictly transactional basis. This could be a lone freelancer or a specialist provider that focuses on either one or a small handful of products. As an example, the vendor might only offer solutions related to social media. If you want to expand your accounts over time into new services, they may not have the ability to scale with you. Because vendors also operate on a mostly transactional basis, it can become difficult to anticipate the quality of deliverables they provide. Once they have checked each box on their agreement, they often disappear back into the digital ether until you pay them again. 🤝 Partner A wholesale digital partner is both a true wholesale and whole-scale solution for agencies. A partner provides features not found with platforms or vendors, such as: Holistic suite of digital services Complete in-house implementation Custom live reporting Responsive human communication Flexible onboarding and offboarding of services By definition, a partner is equally invested in your accounts’ success as your in-house team. This allows your agency to drive true performance, and prove it, on an ongoing basis. Make a Resolution to Enable Better Opportunities with Wholesale Digital Marketing 💪 As the new year begins, make a resolution for your agency to solve hiring challenges and drive complete performance for your clients. With the right partner in your corner, you can turn wholesale digital marketing into your business’s greatest strength by allowing you to continuously scale at a profitable rate. At Conduit, we provide world-class wholesale digital marketing services for successful agencies around the globe. Offering a complete suite of services, sales support materials, and world-class fulfillment completely in-house, we equip your agency to say “yes” to more of the right opportunities. To get started, reach out to us anytime to learn more.

Jun 3, 2020 As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the country, businesses everywhere have had to rethink their marketing strategies. As advertising agencies, it is our duty to guide these clients in the right direction when it comes to their advertising strategies and marketing platforms. Recently, the team at Conduit Digital sat down with our Google Agency Partner, Ann, to discuss the changes in the digital marketing industry during COVID-19. In this edition, we are going to break down how CRM integrations are crucial for you and your clients during this time and what your agency can do to help. What Is CRM Integration? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. The goal of implementing CRM integration is to build your website and CRM to function together seamlessly. Instead of using your CRM to just be a system that retains customer information based on manual entries, integrating your website/marketing automation software brings in valuable customer information directly into your CRM. Some of the most popular CRM software such as Hubspot and Salesforce allows you to not only record customer information but to track their entire journey on your website. During a time when lead quality is so volatile, it is a perfect opportunity to assist your clients in implementing their CRM integrations. Why Is CRM Integration So Important? Due to increasing volatility in lead quality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, your clients’ ads may not be reaching the right consumers. Although Facebook and Google advertisers have seen increased traffic on the platforms, the quality of leads has declined and the CPCs have been volatile. For more information on how to assist your clients with their Facebook And Google Ads during this time, check out Conduit Digital’s latest blog. Read More Instead of trying to force your clients’ ads through the crowd, take the time to help them set up all of their CRM integrations or tracking integrations with Google Analytics or Facebook. This is designed to assist your clients in the long run as this crucial time can be used to gain a better understanding of your clients’ target demographics and qualified leads. Set Up The Tools For Success There are many ways for you to assist your clients with their integrations and tracking implementations. With a variety of different tools and platforms at your disposal, it can be difficult to know which tools are key to success for your clients’ business. Examples of CRMs The two most popular CRM platforms are Hubspot and Salesforce. Hubspot offers complete marketing, sales, and service software that helps your business grow without compromise. Salesforce enables you to unify marketing, sales, service, commerce, and IT teams with a suite of apps and customer support. By integrating your clients’ existing customer lists with platforms like these, you can begin to help them organize, track, and target the leads that show the most engagement and interest in their services. Google Google has many tools at its disposal to help your agency and your clients set up integrated tracking throughout the customer journey. By helping your clients set up their Google tracking and planning, they will be set up for success following the COVID-19 pandemic. 1. Google Tag Manager (GTM) By utilizing Google Tag Manager, you can place all of your clients’ tracking tags and pixels in one place. This ensures a seamless tracking experience as you watch users journey through the marketing funnel and see your clients’ ad spend generating results. 2. Google BigQuery BigQuery is Google’s serverless, highly scalable, enterprise data warehouse. This large-scaled data bank was designed to make a data analyst’s job more productive with unmatched price-performances. Setting up your clients’ data in BigQuery could save you time and money in the future. 3. Google Reach Planner Reach Planner is a Google Ads campaign planning tool designed to accurately plan for reach-based video campaigns across YouTube and video partners sites and apps. 4. Google My Business Link your clients’ Google My Business to their Google Ads account. Accomplishing this step will ensure consumers see the most up-to-date local information they need at the exact time they’re prowling to purchase. Facebook The Facebook Pixel is a piece of code for your clients’ website that lets you measure, optimize, and build audiences for your ad campaigns. Placing your clients’ Facebook Pixel will help you understand how your cross-device ads help influence conversions. Your agency can optimize for the audience most likely to convert with the Facebook Pixel, optimize delivery to people likely to take action, and ensure your ads are shown to the people most likely to take action. What To Do After Integration After assisting your clients in setting up their CRM integrations and platform tracking tags, your clients may be wondering what the right approach is as they begin to re-open their doors in our “new normal.” During our sit down with Google, here’s what they had to say about helping your clients resume their marketing efforts. Set Up DMA Specific Landing Pages By creating DMA or city-specific landing pages, your clients can speak directly to their audience and spread the message they wish to send. Integrating customized ads with this onsite messaging will enable your clients to connect with their customers. Create Dynamic Ad Copy Dynamic Ads enable your clients to send customized messaging to each of their target customers. By serving dynamic ads, your clients can be more personalized with their messaging to ensure they are truly connecting in the right way with their audience. Focus On The Local Economy The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every community differently. Focus on the trends in the local economy rather than trends you may be seeing in the market as a whole. The ways things are today may not be what they will be 2 weeks or 2 months from now, so be prepared to understand the challenges your clients face in their local economies. Conclusion CRM integration and tracking tag implementation are crucial for your clients. By helping them through these processes you will be able to differentiate your agency by setting your clients up for future success. Begin to think about the ways your clients can reach their target audiences and get the qualified leads their marketing dollars deserve. During these uncertain times, it is important to be transparent with your clients as possible. Many businesses are struggling during this time but there is still great opportunity for many clients going forward. Conduit Digital is dedicated to helping our Agency Partners navigate the marketing minefield. It is our mission to provide completely transparent reporting, constant helpful communication, and engaging, informative content to help your agency through this time.

Oct 7, 2021 Your Digital Agency is Only as Scalable as its Client Roster Whether you have just launched a new startup or have crushed campaigns for decades, you likely want to get clients that contribute toward your goals for scaling your agency. From client bases of Fortune 500 corporations to dedicated networks of local businesses, the quality of your client roster plays a direct role in your ability to scale. The Hard Truth: Not All Potential Clients Will Be Compatible with Your Agency Every agency leader can name at least one client that causes the most friction with their team. It feels like, no matter what you do, the client just does not align with the way that you conduct your business. This does not mean they are a “bad” client. However, it indicates that they are not compatible with your agency. Having a large number of incompatible clients can cut against your ability to scale as much as other pain points like struggling to hire more of the right people. When searching for the best clients to help your agency scale, it’s about finding the right opportunities, not just casting a wide net and hoping for the best. What might look like a “white whale” client on the surface may not always prove an ideal fit for the way you run your own business. Today, we’re going to discuss how to identify both high-compatibility and low-compatibility clients. Practicing discernment during your lead nurturing process can help you better identify which current and/or potential clients are the right fit for your long-term business goals. First, let’s cover some ways that you might be able to identify an incompatible client: What Makes an Incompatible Client? People and businesses are too multifaceted to simply label as “bad” or “good.” Instead, when it comes to determining if a potential or current client is the right fit for your agency, we prefer the terms “compatible” or “incompatible.” They may run an excellent business, but their culture, processes, or expectations may just not align with your own. How do Incompatible Clients Affect Your Agency’s Ability to Scale? An incompatible client can hinder your team’s ability to deliver consistently on campaigns and drive true results for their business. Sometimes, these issues can be resolved, but in many cases, they become persistent points of friction. Large agencies with more expansive teams and client bases can continue to scale beyond incompatible clients with less difficulty than smaller agencies. When an incompatible client drives a wrench in the gears that make your agency machine hum, this takes the focus away from your core objectives. Here are some factors you should consider when screening potential clients: How Much Does the Client Understand the Benefits of Digital Marketing? As an agency leader, you do not have to expect your client to possess senior analyst-level knowledge of your products and services. Instead, you should pay attention to how much the client understands the value of what they are paying for. Does the client understand why you are doing what you’re doing to achieve a campaign’s desired outcome? If not, this can affect their ability to trust your team to manage the campaign in the way that best benefits their business goals. In these situations, a client will either not understand aspects of digital marketing and want to learn more, or they will not care to understand. If they do not care about their marketing as much as you do, this is a key indicator of incompatibility. Are the Client’s Expectations Realistic to their Budget? Simply put: The more competitive an industry is, the more budget you need to generate results from your campaigns. A lawyer in New York City will require an exponentially larger paid search budget than one in Cape May County, New Jersey. Why is that? The Big Apple has more hands reaching for a piece of the same pie than a highly seasonal shore community. Continuing with the NYC lawyer example, if a lawyer based in the city wants to spend $2,000 each month to try to achieve 20,000 monthly conversions on their contact form, this will not generate the desired outcome. Why? There are many other lawyers in the same geographic area with monthly budgets in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. They will always have the larger budget to win PPC auctions for more keywords. If the client’s expectations are not realistic, they will seldom show satisfaction. This can create an adversarial aspect to your agency-client relationship that cannot be truly resolved until either the client lowers their expectations or increases their budget to match it. Do They Trust or Doubt Your Team? Great client relationships are built on trust. The client trusts the agency to manage their campaigns with a large amount of autonomy and the agency fulfills their digital marketing needs consistently. In short: Both parties allow the data and results to speak for themselves. In reality, though, incompatible clients will examine every aspect of your team’s operations with a fine-toothed comb and look for reasons to complain about the results they are receiving. If the client continues to remain skeptical of your team’s work, despite months of driving success for their campaigns, you will hit a point of friction that is not always easily resolved. Lack of client trust often comes down to objectivity: Are you delivering what they’re looking for? As marketers, we view achievements on a metrics basis. Are the numbers on the spreadsheet where they need to be? Are the checkboxes checked off? To the client, their perceived achievements are more aligned to their big-picture business goals. They are looking at reports that you provide them to see if their investment generated the desired return. Using a framework like Key Performance Actions (KPAs) provides a more objective way for both agencies and clients to set goals and measure performance on the path to achieving them. A KPA campaign builds from the overall business goal the client desires and reverse-engineers a campaign structure to meet it. Whereas a conventional campaign might track only conversions, KPAs track audience behavior data from all aspects of the campaign to paint a more holistic picture of the engagement your marketing efforts are generating. Do They Generate Enough Revenue to Sustain their Account with Your Agency? Does the client fail to meet their financial obligations to your agency on time? If you are losing revenue for the services you are providing, this can create a rather large strain on the account relationship. For example, the client may say that they want to continue receiving services but cannot or will not pay for them at the moment the bill comes due. From a project management standpoint, this also creates a large risk for scope creep. If account growth is not managed within the confines of the client budget, this can result in your team performing way more work for a client than what they want to pay for. Having an airtight process structure, clearly defined obligations in your MSA agreements, and a team of high-performing project managers are three key ways to combat this. At the end of the day, your agency is a business, and it needs to operate profitably to achieve scale. If a client fails to honor their payments on time, it can cut directly against your own business goals. Financial warning signs can also be identified during the screening process for potential clients. Ask them what their average monthly revenue is versus their desired monthly budget. For example, if they make approximately 20,000 dollars each month, but they need an $8,000 monthly marketing budget to achieve desired outcomes in their market or industry, they will not likely be able to consistently sustain spending 40% of their monthly revenue on marketing. How to Identify High-Compatibility Clients for Your Agency Create a List of Ideal Client Personas that You Want to Target Many successful sales teams utilize the concept of buyer personas. What are the ideal types of customer avatars that you want to target? Similarly, in the agency world, consider the ideal types of clients you would want to have at your agency. Some agencies dedicate the majority of their business to specific industries or geographic regions. Others may only work with agencies that can afford a certain minimum monthly marketing budget. Regardless of the exact type of ideal clients you’d want to have, knowing what it is you want in an ideal client can help you identify them. To create ideal client personas, make a checklist of traits that you want to look for in an account. These might include but aren’t limited to: Industry focus The client’s own target audience(s) Business subject matter Monthly marketing budget Geographic location Size of company Marketing needs Decide Which Products/Services Best Fit Their Needs Clients turn to agencies for digital marketing solutions that help them generate more traffic and key performance actions from target audiences. Knowing the client’s industry, developing a solution that meets their needs, and possessing the right team to execute on these initiatives can play an instrumental role in both expanding existing accounts and landing new ones. Lack of specificity is a major roadblock toward scale. Offer a Full Suite of Digital Solutions Client needs can evolve with time, and if your team has the means to adapt alongside, you can expand the account indefinitely. To assist in deploying a full suite of solutions, many agency leaders consider a white label digital performance partnership. This can help extend your in-house capabilities without the overhead that comes with hiring and training new internal team members. Show Interest in Their Industries through Your Content Develop content for your own agency that shows your knowledge of digital marketing within the context of your ideal client’s industry. For example, if you wish to target healthcare clients for your business, dedicate blog posts and landing pages to digital marketing needs that these types of organizations commonly encounter. Nothing helps generate leads for your agency quite like a client viewing your killer pieces of content and saying “They get it.” Avoid Any Red Flags You See During the Lead Nurturing Process As you learn more about potential clients during the lead nurturing process, look for any red flags that might indicate low compatibility with your agency. If you identify them, be sure to ask the potential client about them to ensure that no miscommunications are happening during your sales process. If it turns out they may actually be incompatible, then you can make the decision whether or not to continue to try to land their account. Consider Replacing Incompatible Clients with Compatible Ones Many agencies are hesitant to let go of incompatible clients, even if they do not mesh with your internal processes or team. The thought of losing revenue is not something that helps agency leaders sleep at night. However, if an incompatible client is impeding your ability to scale, it may require either terminating the account or choosing not to renew it when the service agreement expires. If you decide that you want to rid yourself of an incompatible account, start looking for a new, more compatible client that could replace the revenue that you would otherwise lose by letting the incompatible one walk. In most cases, a lateral move financially for a client that is better aligned with your agency can bring more long-term benefits over time. Use Digital Performance Partnership to Say “Yes” to More of the Right Opportunities With the right digital performance partnership, your agency can stand a greater chance of getting the right clients to meet your scale initiatives. With a full suite of digital solutions, you can remain competitive to land the clients you want and offer them the services they need in the moment to retain them long-term. At Conduit, helping successful agencies to continue landing and expanding high-quality clients is the reason we open our doors every morning. With a full suite of expert-managed in-house digital solutions, we can bridge the gap you need to pursue your ideal client accounts with confidence. To learn more about how our team can help you say yes to more of the right opportunities for your agency, visit our partnership page for more information.

Jun 2, 2020 Did you know that data is now more valuable than oil? In this discussion, we will be talking about how agencies can maximize their data opportunity. Our Director of Client Experience Tim C. Burke, Director of Ad-Ops Rob Burke, PPC Manager Mike Gibson, and Senior Manager of Programmatic Advertising Roger Cooney sat down to discuss data opportunities and the things your agency should be doing to maximize data. Maximizing First-Party Data Nearly any established business already has heaps of data at their disposal, even if they do not know it yet. Email addresses, phone numbers, names; this is all information that businesses have readily available to add to any marketing campaign. Your clients can use this first-party data in many ways including: Remarketing Remarketing is a great way for your clients to maximize their data. Your agency can actively market to customers who you already know have an interest in your clients’ work or services. Lookalike Audiences Your agency can take your clients’ first-party data to create lookalike audiences. Taking that list of existing customers and creating a list of potential customers that are similar to the existing audience will enable you to reach people who are more likely to convert. Audience Supression Similar to using first-party data to create lists of potential customers, you can use this data to create lists of people you do not wish to target. For example, if a customer has already converted, they are likely a waste of marketing dollars. Creating suppression lists can help you disqualify certain leads for your clients. Sadly, we have found that less than 10% of clients are actively utilizing their first-party data. Utilizing this data will enable you to maximize leads and conversions for your clients. Provide ROI on a Full Scale Taking your clients’ first-party data based on sales and tying it back to the ad campaigns you run will help to communicate a clear ROI on behalf of your agency. The combination of sales data and marketing data is how you maximize the campaign. Marrying back-end data with front-end data is the goal. A Marketer's Dream For a traditional marketer, it has always been a dream to be able to tie that initial ad experience to the actual sale. When it comes to digital, that is becoming more and more of a reality. With the data and technology available now, you can tie-in directly when a person sees an ad through the funnel to when they make a conversion. Many businesses do not even realize they have the opportunity to see that path. At Conduit Digital, we have been looking for ways to bridge that gap between attributes in traditional radio or TV ads and the sale. By working holistically and taking a full-funnel approach we can see exactly how users convert, which ad they viewed, where they viewed it, and how effective it was. Data and Privacy There has been a lot of talk recently about data privacy and what it means for the digital marketing industry moving forward. From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the introduction of the CCPA and the death of the “cookie,” data in marketing is going to fundamentally change. As marketers, we love data. It allows us to provide better results for our clients and agencies, allows us to connect closer to consumers, and provides us incredible knowledge and insights. Even as consumers, some of us, like our PPC Manager Mike Gibson, don’t mind our personal information being shared (to an extent). “I actually don’t mind people having my data. Now I don’t want people to have 100% of my data. But if feel like its about user experience. Knowing what websites I’ve been on, what I have in my cart, and seeing that on Facebook or wherever provides me with better user experience.” As Senior Manager of Programmatic Advertising Roger Cooney says, “It’s not really privacy that people care about, it’s being surprised. Everyone knows that all your data is being tracked in some capacity, it’s just when that’s being used in a way that isn’t expected, is when people actually care.” Be Future Proof We utilize data in ways that might surprise people. They are agreeing to the way we utilize cookies. But when you explain geofencing to someone who has never heard of it, it is a head-exploding moment. There is a realization there like, “Oh that’s how I was being served those ads.” People like to think that their phone is spying on them but in reality, it is just really good targeting. One thing that you have to remain focused on is being diversified in your targeting capabilities. So if you are hyper-targeting to the hundredth degree to deliver results, then you can be hamstrung in the future as we go cookie-less. A Message To Local Businesses If you’re a local business or a small agency and you are monitoring your website traffic and you’re concerned that you have a drop from a Monday to a Tuesday, don’t be! It happens literally all of the time. You will drive yourself or your agency partners crazy! Take a look at your traffic weekly or, better yet, monthly. Where Data Will Be In 2025 Who knows where data and privacy will go in 5 years! Our team sat down to give their thoughts on the subject! Roger I personally think its gonna go more of a direction of less privacy, not more. However, I think its gonna go in a way that is not malicious in intent. But I think that the benefits of being able to target ads to people will outweigh the cons. That’s with the caveat that people will be more responsible with their data and aren’t putting it in a position where it could be compromised. Tim C. Burke I think the data privacy bubble is going to burst. I think that people are going to realize that if it’s not used for malicious intent, that it is actually going to benefit their lives. You’re going to get the internet of things. Let’s say you have a smart refrigerator and it sees that you bought milk a week ago. Now you get served an ad for milk and you realize you need to buy more milk. Those types of technologies are going to open up and as long as the data isn’t used in the wrong way, it is only going to benefit the consumer. Rob The emphasis on brand and the emphasis on content are going to become immensely important. So if retargeting as we know it goes away, then you’re not going to be able to say, “Hey come back to my site, come back to my site, come back to my site.” The first time they are there they’ll need to find enough value to want to return back on their own. The 500-word blog or having a site just for the sake of it and chucking money at it, those days are going to be gone. It’s going to be good for everyone cause its gonna be focused on quality.

Jul 24, 2020 Facebook offers two options to receive official certifications to set yourself apart as a Facebook Certified Professional, one for buying and one for planning. Facebook Blueprint Certifications are the only certifications globally recognized by Facebook for advanced-level proficiency in the skills needed to advertise on their platform. If you are one of the few digital marketers not incorporating Facebook advertising into your campaigns, you’re missing out on advertising on one of the best social platforms. What is the Facebook Blueprint? Before we jump further into what these certifications entail, let’s first go into what Facebook Blueprint is. Facebook Blueprint is an online learning platform offering courses in Facebook and Instagram advertising aimed at marketing professionals. Launching in 2015, over two million people have enrolled in at least one of the 90 self-paced courses. Advertising on the world’s largest social media platform is no easy feat, if done correctly which makes these courses all the more valuable. The classes have a wide range of topics from everything you would wish to know about advertising on the platform like promoting an app or generating leads. There are eight core Blueprint exams that cover different aspects of Facebook marketing: Facebook Certified Digital Marketing Associate Facebook Certified Marketing Science Professional Facebook Certified Creative Strategy Professional Facebook Certified Media Planning Professional Facebook Certified Media Buying Professional Facebook Certified Marketing Developer Facebook Certified Advanced Marketing Developer Facebook Certified Advertising API Developer Partaking in these courses is a great way to enhance your Facebook advertising skills and set yourself apart from your competition. How Much Does The Facebook Certification Cost? Each exam can cost upwards of $150 US and certifies you for one year. The test itself is scored from 300 to 1,000, and you will need a 700 in order to pass. (Please keep in mind that these prices will vary depending on your country.) While these may seem like a hefty price tag, these certifications are the highest accreditation offered by Facebook. It shows the world that you fully understand the intricacies of Facebook advertising at an expert level. How Long Will It Take to Become Certified? If you are new to Facebook Advertising and want to pass the exam, we would suggest spending an hour or two per day, for at least 4-6 weeks. Actively is key here. Most of these courses can be taken within 10-15 minutes and all you will need is a Facebook to log-in to start! Are the Facebook Blueprint Classes/Courses Hard? While the tests are long, they are completely achievable and a realistic goal for anyone. If you are familiar with other certifications like Google Analytics or Google Adwords then you will understand that while challenging, still very possible to achieve. The proctored exams are challenging and require a sufficient amount of time spent studying the Blueprint Courses paired with extensive knowledge of both the Facebook Business Manager and the Ads Manager. The Blueprint Courses are designed to level-up your skills and help you prepare for the exams. They are the highest achievements you can earn in the eyes of Facebook due to the amount of commitment and dedication it takes to learn a particular set of skills. Why Should You Become Facebook Blueprint Certified? While you need to invest in time and money in earning your Facebook Blueprint Certifications, they are highly respected in the Social Media Marketing industry due to the difficulty of the exams and the secure testing environment. When you have a Facebook Blueprint Certified Professional managing your Social Advertising Campaigns, rest assured that your campaigns are in the hands of experts! Our analysts have the most advanced skill set and can help businesses successfully achieve their digital marketing goals and increase your social media ROI! Passing your exams and receiving your certifications as Facebook Planning and Buying Professional means you are endorsed by Facebook! You have mastered the ability to plan and buy Facebook ads while maximizing the potential of your campaigns. Passing your exams means you are in the top 1% of Facebook Experts! Facebook Certified Professionals achieve verified badges for their hard-earned certifications, which symbolizes knowledge and trust. Facebook continues to grow and evolve as part of an ongoing effort to improve user experience, transparency, and safety on their platform. At Conduit, all of our social media experts are Facebook Blueprint certified so you can be sure that your social campaigns are in the best hands!

Jul 16, 2020 One of the most exciting developments in Programmatic Advertising over the past few years has been the evolution of Geo-Fencing targeting. Technological advancements have led to unprecedented, precise levels of targeting that your client needs to take advantage of! While Geo-Fencing capabilities vary depending on the Demand-Side Platform you’re using – some are actually just targeting a 1-mile radius – our solution is accurate to within 5 meters and comes with unparalleled conversion tracking. What is Geofencing? Geofencing, in its simplest form, is a type of ad retargeting that targets a customer or potential customer with an ad when they fall within a predetermined diameter or distance from a business. Imagine that there is an imaginary fence built around your local shoe store. When you walk through the fence with a mobile device, this will trigger the action of sending push notifications to your device. These notifications can be about store promotions/discounts, restaurant deals, ride-sharing notifications and other information deemed useful to the consumer. The purpose of this type of advertising is to build brand awareness for your business and to also stay top of mind. So if a customer doesn’t convert that same day, serving ads to them afterwards may help increase the chance of conversion later on. How Effective is Geo-fence Targeting? Geofence targeting is by far one of the most effective means of digital advertising today. According to a 2018 geofencing survey, 53% of users say they have received and acted on an alert about a sale or promotion. With a conversion rate like that, it’s hard to imagine a reason why a business would not incorporate geofencing into their digital campaign. Our Agency Partner came to Conduit Digital looking for digital solutions to bring their client Casino Pier incredible success. With a yearly flash sale on Easter weekend for their customers, Casino Pier was looking to drive more sales with ½ priced for tickets to their rides and amusement park. The campaign was designed to focus on acquisition, advanced acquisition, brand awareness, and sales. With Geofence targeting being one of the driving forces in this campaign, our expert team was able to generate 164.5K mobile impressions in one county alone! This helped contribute to the 480% increase in their ROI for that year! Still don’t think that Geofencing is worth your time? Our team sat down to discuss the advantages of utilizing Geo-fencing in your digital marketing strategy. Why You Should Use Geo-Fencing 1. Conquering The Competition One of the most effective marketing concepts, conquesting works by targeting people who we know are in-market for relevant products/services since they are engaging in some way with your client’s competitors. In the case of Geo-Fencing, we are targeting people who have visited the competition’s physical locations – a tremendous advantage for clients in dozens of different industries! In one particularly strong example, we implemented a Geo-Fencing Conquest strategy for a regional Restaurant chain and targeted competitors within close proximity. Through our advanced conversion-tracking capabilities, we were able to show that people who saw our Geo-Fenced ads were a whopping 300% more likely to actually visit our client’s physical storefront! 2. Targeting The Needle In The Haystack While targeting the competition is straightforward enough, we’ve all had clients where it is much more difficult to pinpoint an in-market audience. Through Geo-Fencing, there are often ways that we can get your client’s ads in front of the right people, even in some of the most niche industries! One of our most frequent examples is B2B – many times there may not be high search volume for some of these services and it may be difficult to develop an impactful digital marketing strategy. However, we have seen success by Geo-Fencing Convention Centers hosting industry-related events, effectively getting your client’s ads in front of hard-to-reach users! 3. Demographic Targeting With Foot Traffic Attribution Lastly, we’ve also seen strong results by targeting demographically-relevant areas, as opposed to the industry-relevant locations discussed in the previous points. This can be a compelling strategy for clients who know the demographics of their target audience, as it offers the ability to track foot traffic which isn’t typically possible with traditional segment-based demographic targeting. While working with a high-end fashion retailer, for example, we were able to drive measurable foot traffic to their store by Geo-Fencing areas with a high concentration of wealthy people, such as Private Country Clubs and affluent neighborhoods. Utilizing geofencing targeting in your digital marketing strategy is a no brainer. The ability to build a “fence” around you or your competitors business in order to directly target those users will increase your overall conversion rate. People spend, on average, 27% of their life on the internet each year. Whether they’re shopping, researching products, or checking the score, our Programmatic Display & Native team ensures your client’s brand is there.