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Jun 5, 2020 Conduit Digital understands how hard it is to stay on top of the latest trends and changes in digital marketing. With such a fast-paced, ever-changing landscape, it is more important than ever before to have a trusted digital partner who will not only employ cutting edge tactics and solutions but will help better educate your agency and your clients. Our CEO Tim Burke, Director of Client Experience Tim C. Burke, Director of Ad-Ops Rob Burke, PPC Manager Mike Gibson, and AT Manager Whitney Hoydis sat down to discuss the ways your agency can stay up to date and what to look for in a digital partner. Feed Your Head If you are an ad agency owner or run a digital agency, you know how important it is to keep up with your clients, their vertical, and the digital marketing agency as a whole. We are constantly looking for ways to feed our heads to make sure we are knowledgeable enough to help you are your clients. Importantly, this is not an age thing. No matter your age, you should and can constantly be looking for ways to stay up to date and remain knowledgeable in the space. Subscribing to daily blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and depending on the experts in the field is so important in this industry. To grow in this space is to keep abreast of what is going on. How We Do It Conduit Digital’s team is constantly looking for ways to feed our heads and nourish our noggins. One of the ways we accomplish this is by starting the day off with an industry-relevant podcast. For example, our Director of Ad-Ops Rob Burke listens to Gary Vee’s podcast every morning as a high-energy way of starting the day and staying informed. Gary Vee’s podcast is a great example of a podcast that focuses on the end user’s attention within the digital marketing industry. In fact, Conduit Digital had the honor of being featured on Gary Vee’s podcast following his exclusive visit to our headquarters! Set Your Agency Up For Success The best thing your agency can do is to set yourself up for success. Doing your due diligence of staying up to industry news empowers your agency to continue to deliver results for your clients. It helps to build trust and allow your clients to fully understand their campaigns and the industry. Subscribing to emails and newsletters, visiting websites and jumping on webinars will benefit your agency greatly. Dedicate around an hour of your day to cover emerging industry trends and continuing education. Seeing how the leaders in the space are innovating and doing things differently will enable you to take these tips and utilize them in your agency. It helps you to not only keep up to date on trends but to think differently about marketing. Being able to present complicated digital marketing tactics in a way that is easy for the client to digest is crucial to having good communication. Being able to make your clients understand exactly what they are purchasing helps to fix that communication problem. Have The Macro Down In order to deliver real results for your clients, you have to have the macro of digital marketing down. In other words, you have to know how products work together and recommend the best strategies and solutions. Once you understand how everything relates together, then you can start to dive deep into each product and understand them better on a micro-level. Understanding how many offerings there are, whether it is over-the-top-television, pre-roll, youtube, social, there are different benefits to running different products for your vertical. That is where agencies should put their focus. Have a Trusted Partnership While your agency focuses on digital trends at the macro level, it is important to have a trusted digital partner who understands the micro-level. Digital products are constantly changing. Even staying up to date on OTT alone can be a full-time job. Knowing when to enter certain spaces, staying up to trends, and being able to understand the micro-level will help your agency partnership thrive. Focus on maximizing immediate opportunities. Tried and tested product offerings create results for a reason: they work! Innovation lets us know what is possible. A trusted partner delivers what is probable. As Google Premier Partners, we get regular updates, data, and beta programs from Google. How you use that knowledge and access can present the most opportunities for your clients. Ask those questions to your digital partners and dig deeper to fully understand your product offering. How We Feed Our Head Our digital drivers are constantly looking for ways to feed our heads with the latest news and trends in the industry. Here are our Top 10 go-to ways to feed your head: CMO Podcast The CMO Podcast is not your typical marketing podcast, this is a unique look at the thought process and motivation of the CMO. LinkedIn Always a great place for business professionals, LinkedIn provides excellent insights and trends in their blogs and content. Moz Moz has unbelievable content for any level of SEO. No matter if you are a beginner or expert, they have the content you need. Google Discover Google Discover brings you a roundup of all of the content indexed by Google on the internet. No matter what you are looking for, you’ll find it here. AdWeek AdWeek is a great way to stay up to date on the digital landscape. Did you hear our parent company Traffic Builders was named the 21st fastest-growing agency in the world by AdWeek? The Digital Marketing Podcast The Digital Marketing Podcast covers everything from SEO technology to social platforms to process-based platforms. EMarketer As a premier publication, eMarketer is a great way to keep up with trends and data in the industry. Reddit There are subreddits (communities) for nearly anything in the digital space. Not only do you get to interact with your peers, you can stay up to date on the latest trends. Gary Vaynerchuck Gary Vee provides so much great insight into the digital marketing space. Listen to his visit to Conduit Digital’s headquarters! Blogs There are a lot of great blogs out there for digital marketers. Some of our favorites include blogs from WP Engine, flywheel, elegant themes, Hendrickson, and more! Conclusion When you are not staying up to date on the latest products, trends, and offerings, your clients are at risk of going elsewhere. Only by feeding your head on a macro level trusting your digital partner on the micro level, can you reduce your risk and provide your clients with a full-funnel solution. Using this method has enabled Conduit Digital to eliminate risk and decrease client churn! For more on Staying Up To Date On Industry News and Trends, as well as tips on surviving your biggest agency pain points in 2020, check out the rest of our content! We update and provide weekly valuable insight for just about every digital product!

Oct 7, 2021 Are Conversions Still the Right Way to Measure Digital Marketing Campaigns? “Conversion” is probably the most-used word in digital marketing. There are endless articles online that off opinions on what exactly is the “best way” to drive them for your client’s campaigns. Today, we’re going to take a clear-cut look at what a conversion is and what it should do. Then, we’re going to ask you an important question – Do standard conversion strategies really work for your clients? What is a Conversion in Digital Marketing? Our partners at Hubspot define the term “conversion” rather excellently: “A moment when a website visitor takes a desired action. Once a visitor converts, they become a lead.” Essentially, a conversion is a goal that a digital marketing campaign attempts to accomplish. When a user completes the action tied to that goal, they convert into a sales lead for your client. It’s important to know that there is no single type of conversion. A conversion can be anything from form fills to signing up for an email list or downloading an eBook. Regardless of what conversion you choose, it should offer these three key performance features: 1: Aligns with the Client’s Business The conversion strategy you choose should align with your client’s business goals. For example, if your client is a technology sales company, you may want to use a form-fill that can provide your client’s sales team with the information they need to effectively communicate with that lead. 2: Built Into a Highly Engaging Campaign If your digital campaign does not engage your target audience, they are not going to convert. The conversion method you choose should seamlessly integrate with all of the killer content, creatives, and targeting tactics that you’re building around it. After you’ve sold that user, completing the conversion action should feel like a no-brainer to them. 3: Measurable Performance Conversion assets should generate meaningful data that can be measured. These performance metrics can provide insight regarding whether or not the campaign needs future optimizations, budget increases, or other adjustments. Now Here’s The Real Question: Are Conversions the Best Way to Drive Winning Campaigns for Your Client? Digital marketing wisdom and all of the “digital gurus” on LinkedIn feeds will say that conversions are the most important metric. Now, is that based on what the client wants to actually accomplish for their business, or based on “expert opinions”? Here’s the harsh truth: As agency leaders, we can advise clients on what the “best” strategy is for their business. However, if they disagree with your opinion, they will start looking for a competing agency that can and will build campaigns that meet their own personal business goals. Introducing the New Way to Measure Performance: KPAs Beginning with the End in Mind Key performance actions (KPAs) tell a much more complete and objective story for your client’s campaigns. Rather than building toward an end-goal based on conventional wisdom, a KPA strategy starts by understanding what the client wants to accomplish for their business and reverse-engineering a campaign to generate audience actions that support that specific goal. Client-Specific Actions KPAs are all about building campaigns that meet the client’s needs rather than using conventional wisdom to determine what might be “best” for the client based on industry narratives. When your client feels that their digital investments are generating the actions they are looking for, this results in a much more satisfied client that is far more open to expanding their account with your agency. Insights for the Full Journey Unlike traditional conversion-built campaigns, KPAs will account for the complete scope of audience behavior during the campaign. Examining each aspect of audience engagement, you can generate more holistic insights and understand a more complete story of the buyer’s journey. This allows the advertiser to perform more impactful optimizations with objective data. KPAs bridge digital marketing with the real goals your client has for their business. For example, if your client is a downtown clothing store that wants to drive more foot traffic, a KPA campaign would start with that end goal and build a holistic solution around that. KPA’s in Action Let’s demonstrate an example of how a KPA-driven campaign would look in action. Your client is a successful software development company in the United States that builds B2B-targeted financial products. They want to increase their lead generation by 30%. After some thought, your agency decides that a paid search and an image-driven LinkedIn advertising campaign are the two best channels to support that goal. Your Paid Search and Paid Social analysts would work to build a campaign that supports the overall end goal: Increasing lead generation. Rather than arbitrarily determining a static conversion, the campaign would be designed to generate leads at all possible touchpoints and track these actions through a Live Report. After preparing the ad copy, shared landing page, creatives, budgets, and targeting strategies, both campaigns would go live. The Live Report would track all individual KPAs that are generated, which might include: Ad clickthroughs Sitelinks extension clicks (search) Ad likes (social) Ad shares (social) Ad comments (social) Form fills on the landing page CTA buttons on the landing page Video plays on the landing page Click-to-calls on the landing page or search ad Tracking all of these actions holistically can paint a more complete picture of how the client is succeeding at generating leads and where they need to optimize further. For instance, if they are generating a good amount of likes and comments on their LinkedIn ads, but most form fills are coming from search ads, this can generate multiple insights. The client may want to then increase their paid search budget to double down on what is working best, or you may decide that the LinkedIn campaign needs to further optimize its creative assets, ad copy, and targeting strategy. The end goal for this KPA campaign is to provide your client with a definitive “yes” or “no” answer, determined by data. Simply put, did the campaign accomplish what the client asked for? Let’s say that your finance software client’s campaigns have ended. You’re speaking with their CMO on the phone, and they ask you “did you increase our leads by 30%?”. Looking at the report, you see that they did increase by 31% with 25% of that coming from paid search. You can then say “yes, our team did increase your leads, with more than two-thirds coming from paid search.” The data might also indicate that most audience members first clicked on a Sitelink extension to your client’s “Product Demos” page on the website before filling out a contact form rather than clicking through to the landing page directly. For a future paid search campaign, you then might decide to build a new landing page with a heavier emphasis on product demos content. Similarly, you might also decide to develop a new social campaign with creatives that shine a brighter light on the software’s unique features in action through video. Drive the Audience Actions Your Client Actually Wants with KPAs At Conduit, we build each campaign for our partners’ clients around the KPA model. We believe this paints a more complete picture of the audience actions that clients truly care about. This results in more measurable, objective performance data that our agency partners can use to land and expand new and existing accounts. Your agency can start driving KPA campaigns, too. To learn more about how you can make our team part of your own, visit our Agency Partnership page.

Apr 29, 2020 Digital Marketing is a dynamic field in nature. As marketers, and especially here at Conduit, we are continually looking for ways to incorporate new emerging technologies to catalyst our ability to think ahead and form effective and data driven strategies around ever changing consumer trends. We also understand that sometimes, and increasingly more often, we find ourselves needing to tailor these strategies to conform to new laws and legislation that have profound effects on the ways in which we execute our digital marketing campaigns. Laws like HIPAA, COPPA, and the more recent GDPR to name a few, have resulted in a shift on how we are able to provide consumers with targeted digital marketing ads as well as set new guidelines on how to effectively run a digital marketing campaign. The California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA, is the next groundbreaking legislation on this list and is being looked upon as the United States most comprehensive legislation on data privacy ever passed. Its purpose, in short, is to give California residents greater control over the ways in which their online data is collected, sold, and stored while also affording these users with a greater sense of transparency into how this information is being utilized by for-profit institutions. As digital marketers, we should all be aware of the effects this law will have on the ways in which we utilize data to build and execute targeted marketing campaigns. The purpose of this paper is to help shed more light on the CCPA. What exactly is it? How does it compare to other privacy regulations recently passed, and how it will affect marketers not only in California, but throughout the United States beginning in January 2020? It is also important to note that we are in no way, shape or form legal professionals and as such, this information should not be taken as professional legal advice. The Long Road To Privacy Regulation Throughout the last few years, the debate about user privacy has boiled up to a hot topic of debate following the famous Facebook – Cambridge Analytica scandal in which Facebook was found guilty of collecting the personal information of millions of users’ profiles without their consent, and subsequently utilized this data for political advertising. This event helped spark what is known as the “Great Privacy Awakening”. This ‘awakening’ describes the period when a large majority of internet users started to become aware of the fact that they really had no knowledge of how our personal data was being collected and utilized by these large corporations. This “awakening” was followed by a massive wave of support towards the push for greater privacy regulations aimed towards some of the worlds largest tech companies such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon. This support wave crashed on the shorelines of California on June 28th, 2018 when the California Consumer Policy Act was hastily signed into law, following in the footsteps of the European General Data Protection Regulation. What Exactly is The California Consumer Privacy Act? The CCPA is a groundbreaking Bill passed by the Government of California to promote greater transparency towards how a consumer’s personal data is being utilized. The policies outlined in the Bill are set to go into effect on January 1, 2020. These policies will afford citizens of California with four basic rights pertaining to their personal data: The Right to Opt-Out: All California citizens aged 17 and above will have the right to ‘opt-out’ of the sale of their personal data to third parties. As stated in the CCPA Bill, “A consumer shall have the right, at any time, to direct a business that sells personal information about the consumer to third parties not to sell the consumer’s personal information.” To ensure users are aware of their right to “opt-out” businesses must provide a clear and conspicuous link on the business’s Internet homepage, titled “Do Not Sell My Personal Information”. This link must direct users to an Internet Web page that enables a consumer, or a person authorized by the consumer, to opt-out of the sale of the consumer’s personal information. This “opt-out” law shifts to an “opt-in” law for users who are under the age of 16. For users between the ages of 13 to 16, they must provide authorization for the business to sell their data to a third party. For users under the age of 13, this authorization must be given by a parent or guardian. The Right to Be Forgotten While the “Right to Opt-Out” allows users to unauthorize the sale of their data to third parties, they also have the right to request that any business delete all personal data that they have collected directly from that consumer. The “Right to be Forgotten” must also be explicitly disclosed to all customers by the business in a “form that is reasonably accessible”. However, this is not as far reaching as the Right to Opt-Out, as businesses will not be required to comply with a consumer’s request to delete personal information if the request infringes on one’s right to free speech, or, if the data collected data is necessary to carry out the following: A business transaction for which the personal information was originally gathered, such as providing a good or service, or to execute a contract agreement between consumer and business. Detect security incidents such as any malicious or illegal activity, or to help prosecute the responsible party. Comply with a legal obligation Or, to utilize the data internally in activity that is reasonably aligned with the expectations of the consumer based on the consumer’s relationship with the business. The Right to Equal Service The CCPA also ensures that regardless of a consumer’s preferences to exercise their rights established within the Bill, a business cannot discriminate against any consumer. For example, a user who selects to opt-out of the sale of their personal data to a third-party, or who requests a business delete their personal information cannot be: Denied goods or services by that business Be charged a different price or rate for goods or services, including the use of discounts or other benefits or imposing penalties on said consumer. To be provided a different level of quality of goods or services Be suggested that they will receive different prices for goods or services or different quality of goods or services. The only instance in which a business is not obligated to abide by this article is if the quality or price of the good or service provided is directly correlated with the collection of a consumer’s personal information. The Right to Know Finally the CCPA offers all users the right to know what personal data is being collected and for what reason. The California Consumer Privacy Act states that, “A consumer shall have the right to request that a business that sells the consumer’s personal information, or that discloses it for a business purpose, disclose to that consumer:” The categories of personal information that the business collected about the consumer. Categories of personal information that the business sold as well as the categories of third-parties who received the information. The category or categories of information that were sold to a third-party. The categories of information that were disclosed for a business purpose. Furthermore, upon the receipt of a verifiable request of information by a consumer, the business must disclose and deliver, free of charge, all requested information within 45-days. The information disclosure must include all personal information collected by the business throughout the 12-month period prior to the receipt of request. These four basic rights create the framework for the legislation. But it’s important to distinguish that these rights do not apply to everyone, and the CCPA details exactly who is protected under these newly established rights. Who is Protected Under The CCPA And Will My Business Be Affected? The CCPA is a California Legislation that will protect the data privacy rights of all California consumers. A “consumer” is defined in the Bill as any “natural person who is a California resident”. An important distinction about the protections outlined in this Bill is that all residents of California are protected under the CCPA regardless of whether they are located within the state or not. So the same regulations apply to all California consumers regardless of their location including instances such as traveling out of state for business or leisure. This protection places a unique responsibility on businesses to refrain from the collection of personal data of any California resident at any place and time, which could lead to a strong reliance on unique identifiers such as user ID and IP addresses to ensure compliance with the legislations outlined in the Bill. In regards to which businesses are required to comply with CCPA guidelines, the CCPA will affect any for-profit business regardless of their physical location. Furthermore, any for-profit business that: Have annual gross revenues in excess of $25 million. Buys, sells, or receives the personal information of 50,000 or more California consumers, households, or devices. Collects fifty percent or more of annual revenue from the sale of consumers private information. will be subject to abide by the laws set by the CCPA. This will also include any business or entity that controls, or is controlled by another entity that meets the aforementioned criteria, or, who also shares common branding with said parent entity. This far-reaching definition aims to cover a broad range of businesses that may fall within the consumer data industry. Compliance has become a large area of focus throughout 2019 for businesses that will be held to the policies laid out by the CCPA. The enforcement of this new law, despite the challenges, can actually become a competitive advantage for early adopters. In an article by Mitratech, they mentioned that, “Research done after the imposition of the GDPR found 62% of UK consumers felt more comfortable sharing their personal information after it went into law. By showing they’re compliant, companies can get out in front of what’s become a seismic shift in consumer attitudes, where transparency is what drives trust”. Keeping along with this line of thinking, it is important that businesses get ahead of the curve when it comes to compliance to ensure that all t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted, as the law also has put in place stiff penalties for those who are found to be in violation of the California Consumer Privacy Act. What Are The Penalties For Non-Compliance With The CCPA? As with all laws, there have been severe monetary penalties put in place for those who neglect to become compliant with the regulations put in place by the CCPA. These penalties include a $3,500 fine for non-intentional violations and a $7,500 fine for what are deemed to be intentional violations of the CCPA. Any business that is found to be in violation will be given a 30-day grace window to rectify the violation upon receiving notification of their noncompliance. Additionally, the CCPA grants the right to citizens to put forward a class action lawsuit against any corporation in the instance of a data breach. These class-action lawsuits could result in the payment of between $100 and $750 per incident, or could be greater than $750 if the damages exceed that amount. How Does The California Consumer Privacy Act Compare To The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)? The CCPA mirrors the European GDPR in many ways, mainly, in its objective to provide consumers with greater control over their personal information. The GDPR provides users with the same basic rights given by the CCPA which we previously touched upon, however, there are many distinct differences in how these laws are enforced, who is protected under these laws, as well as the penalties that are incurred by companies who are found to be non-compliant. Unlike the CCPA which explicitly offers protection solely to “consumers” who are natural persons (individuals) and residents of California, the GDPR’s protection is much further reaching and inclusive of all ‘data subjects’ who are natural persons, but does not specifically mention any guidelines in regards to necessary citizenship or residency within Europe. Another distinction between the two is that the GDPR protects information that can be linked to any specific ‘household’, while the CCPA concerns itself only with the data of specific ‘individuals’. Lastly, the GDPR requires compliance from all businesses, public bodies, institutions, and not-for-profit organizations while the CCPA only pertains to ‘for-profit’ organizations. As previously mentioned, the CCPA and the GDPR offer their constituents similar rights to greater data privacy. For businesses that may need to be dual-compliant, there are a few main similarities and differences that you should be aware of, as it pertains to these four basic rights. The Right to Opt-Out Both the CCPA and GDPR afford individuals with the right request that an organization refrain from the selling of their private data. However, the means in which these rights are exercised vary tremendously between the two legislations. As we mentioned, the CCPA offers the ability to “opt-out” of the sale of their personal data to a third party and is available through a link on the home-page of the business website titled “Do Not Sell My Personal Data”. All consumers must be made aware of the data that is being collected and the purpose of collecting that data. As long as those requirements are met, a business has the right to collect that information until a consumer independently chooses to exercise their right and “opt-out”. The GDPR on the other hand requires an “opt-in” to data collection from all users if the reason for the data collection does not fall under one of several legal categories for which the data would be necessary, including: To execute a contract with the individual, for example, to supply goods or services that the individual has requested, or to fulfill obligations under an employee contract When data collection is necessary for any type of legal compliance Vital interests, or when the data collected is utilized to preserve one’s physical integrity or life Since the GDPR has gone into effect we have seen examples of this opt-in policy enforced on business domains that utilize cookie tracking in the form of a “cookie banner”, which requires that a user accepts or declines that specific websites data collection policy before entering the site. The Right to Be Forgotten Again, the CCPA and GDPR each offer consumers the right to request the deletion of all personal information that has been collected, and/or sold to a third party, which has been the focus of a lot of businesses who have previously not had a good handle on thies data after it has been distributed or sold. Unlike the CCPA which does not define the scope in which a consumer request may be made and does not require a consumer to justify his or her reasoning for a request to be forgotten, the GDPR only allows for the deletion of consumer data if and only if: Consent is withdrawn, and there is no other legal reasoning for the continuation of the collection of personal data, or, If the data is no longer needed for the original purpose for which it was collected Several differences also lie in the time frames to which a business must respond to a request to private data deletion. The GDPR requires a business to respond to the consumer within 1 month of receipt of a qualifying request for deletion. This is considerably shorter than the CCPA which requires a business to respond within 45 days. The Right to Equal Service Consumers who fall under the protection of the GDPR and CCPA are provided protection against discrimination of services based on their decision to exercise their rights towards data privacy and protection. However, the GDPR is less specific as it does not explicitly define the scope in which users are protected from discriminatory action based on these preferences. The language within the Bill does state that regardless of their choice consumers should be processed ‘fairly’. While there is no exact definition for what ‘fair’ processing entails under this Bill, the focus remains on ensuring that regardless of one’s choice to opt-in or not they cannot receive different treatment as it pertains to the receipt of goods and/or services. The Right to Know The final commonality between the four main rights provided in both the CCPA and GDPR is the consumers right to know what private data is being collected, and why. This also includes a consumers right to request full disclosure of exactly what data is being collected, along with any third-parties who have received their data. The main distinction between the two lies in the specific length of time that the disclosure report must cover. The rights outlined by the GDPR apply to all personal data that has been collected from the consumer making the request, meaning that, that specific consumer must be made aware of all personal data collected by the business. Included in their response must also be information regarding the period of time in which that data was retained by the business, information relating to the consumers right to file a complaint, as well as any data transfers that occured with that specific individuals data. This policy drastically contrasts the rights outlined within the California Consumer Privacy Policy which has a much shorter reach, and pertains only to data collected within the 12-month period prior to the request. What is Considered Private Information By The CCPA and GDPR? Now that the groundwork has been laid in regards to both the CCPA and the European GDPR, there has been a lot of emphasis put on ‘private information’, and ‘personal data’ but what exactly does that include? Unfortunately, the answer is not as black and white as one would hope, and the definition is up for interpretation in both the Californian and European privacy regulation bills. As has been written within the California Consumer Privacy Act, personal information is defined as, “information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. Personal information includes, but is not limited to, the following if it identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could be reasonably linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household” This information includes identifiers such as real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifiers such as IP address, email address, account names, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport numbers, or other similar identifiers. Similarly the European Commission defines ‘personal data’ as any information that relates to an identified or identifiable living individual. Different pieces of information, which collected together can lead to the identification of a particular person, also constitute personal data and follows this with similar examples as listed in the CCPA. These loose definitions of key pieces of information make it increasingly difficult for businesses to gain a firm grasp on the steps they need to take in order to ensure full compliance with the CCPA and GDPR. What's Next For Privacy Regulations In The United States? The California Consumer Privacy Act is slated to go into effect on January 1, 2020. Since its approval, many other states have made a push to pass their own versions of online privacy law to help give more rights to consumers in regards to their private data. Nevada has followed suit with the passing of the “Nevada Senate Bill 220 Online Privacy Law”, which requires businesses to offer consumers the right to opt-out to the sale of their personal information to third-parties, much like the requirements listed in the CCPA. Similarly, Maine and New York are two states that have also made efforts to pass stricter privacy laws for their citizens. With the inevitable continuation of state-by-state legislation, hopefully soon will come a day where our Government can push for a federal law to help give equal privacy rights to all citizens of the United States, as it will start to become increasingly difficult for businesses to be compliant with all individual state laws as it pertains to the preservation of online privacy. What Does The CCPA Mean For Digital Marketing? As a marketer, the biggest question we can ask is how will the CCPA affect the industry and the way in which we are able to execute a targeted marketing campaign? And the short answer is that there is no way to know right away. Putting into perspective the guidelines laid forth by the CCPA, we can only speculate the number of users who may decide to exercise their right to opt-out of the sale of their personal data. We can also only speculate as to what effect this would have on digital marketing, but as leaders in the space we will continue to be on top of the changes that are brought along with the enactment of the CCPA beginning in January of 2020. But let’s think about this for a minute. For years, companies have been heavily reliant on consumers granting access to location data from their personal devices, despite any skepticism in regard to what that information is being used for. It is an important trade off that a majority of consumers are willing to accept, we give information about ourselves to help provide businesses with the ability to give us a greater ‘user experience’. It is no secret that data and technology help facilitate meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships between consumer and business, and we speculate that this view will not change based on the regulations passed in the California Consumer Privacy Act. But what if a large majority of users begin to opt-out of the sale of their personal data? From what has been outlined in this paper, it is easy to see that all forms of Behavioral targeting will be greatly impacted by the CCPA, as access to third-party private data becomes severely limited as users begin to opt-out. So where would this leave us? We speculate that digital marketing will start to see a larger shift towards utilizing first-party data, as well as a shift in focus towards contextual targeting to reach one’s ideal audience. Along with this shift to contextual targeting will most-likely be a transition from Open Exchanges to Private Marketplaces or PMPs. This transition will create high demand from marketers to secure inventory that is contextually relevant to the good or service that is being advertised without the utilization of behavioral data such as keyword searches, geo-fencing data, and other online site browsing activity for insight and access to their ideal user. While these are just speculations, it is important to think about the various possibilities that await the industry on the other side of 2019. In Conclusion The California Consumer Privacy Act is only the beginning of privacy regulation in the United States. As we have seen, these regulations aim to help give greater control to consumers over their personal data, how it is shared, collected, stored, and sold. Here at Conduit and as a leader in the Digital Marketing space, we will continue to analyze the impact that the CCPA has on the industry, and share how we are continuously staying ahead of the curve to ensure that we continue to provide high performing marketing campaigns for our industry partners in 2020 and beyond.

Oct 14, 2021 Welcome to Agency Talk It started with Marcus and Tim saying “You know what would be really good? If we had a show together.” Fast-forward almost a year later, and they’ve finally made it happen! We’re excited to share with you AgencyTalk: The ultimate podcast for digital agency leaders and decision-makers. Each episode, Marcus Murphy (CEO, The Five Percent) and Tim  Burke (CEO, Conduit Digital) dive deep into the most pressing pain points that digital agencies are dealing with on a day-in, day-out basis. Watch the Intro to AgencyTalk: Actionable Ideas Only! No Theoretical Musings. No Ivory Towers. AgencyTalk isn’t a typical, buttoned-up marketing podcast. Instead, it’s a very real look at in-the-trenches topics based on Tim’s hundreds of conversations with agency leaders around the world. Marcus and Tim want to build a tribe of listeners who share a passion for agency growth and want to create opportunities for themselves. Each week, they’re going to offer listeners actionable ideas that they can implement at their own agency to build toward their goals for scale. Why Start AgencyTalk? Marcus and Tim both believe agencies are the backbone of a business. Anytime a business launches a successful marketing campaign, there’s often an incredible agency team behind it. Agency owners often feel like they’re the only people who think about their business at the end of the day. They invest so many hours of their lives thinking about their clients’ companies, and it can feel isolating when it seems like you are the only person who cares as much as you do about your own brand. That changes with AgencyTalk. This is a podcast by agency leaders for agency leaders hosted by two people that love your craft as much as you do. What to Expect from AgencyTalk Marcus and Tim are going to cover a wide spectrum of topics that directly impact agency decision-makers. These can include subjects like: Managing capacity during one of the greatest hiring shortages in American history Mastering trending digital tactics to drive measurable results for your client’s campaigns What to do when those client red-alert moments happen at your agency Scaling your agency (profitably!) And many, many more! How to Tune In AgencyTalk will be available on YouTube as well coming soon to all major audio streaming platforms. Watch, listen – it’s your choice!

Oct 27, 2021 Why It’s Time to Adjust Your Mobile SEO Strategy If you haven’t heard, Google introduced a major change to their mobile search engine results pages (SERPs). Instead of providing results across multiple pages, their mobile version now uses continuous scrolling. Instead of page-one or page-two results, users instead can scroll through an endless stream of links relevant to their search terms. Today, we’re going to discuss this major shift for mobile search engine optimization and how it can affect your own agency’s SEO strategies going forward. First, though, let’s cover some essential information: Mobile Search’s Continuous Scrolling: What You Need to Know Here are some quick facts about the new shift to continuous scrolling on Google’s mobile SERPs: Google’s desktop version still provides results in a page-based format This update has been introduced in the US only, so far Google made this change to modernize the mobile search experience A “see more button” still exists on the SERP, but it is much further down than it used to be This is intended to help expose users to more helpful links upfront, rather than the first 10 results on page-one in the old format Shifting to an “Above the Fold” Mindset for Mobile SEO Google Search’s traditional desktop browser still uses pages to catalog their results. When optimizing for desktop, hitting the first page for relevant organic results should still be the baseline goal. With mobile, though, it’s time to rethink this. Now that Google’s mobile version of Search no longer includes pages, agencies have to adapt mobile optimization strategies. Instead of a “page-one” target, agencies that provide their clients with mobile SEO services ought to adopt an “above the fold” mindset. This involves targeting organic search positions at the absolute top of the SERPs before a user begins to scroll. If you can provide them with the valuable content they’re searching for, and optimize it for performance, you can stop the scroll and drive more quality traffic to your client’s site. So, How Do We Get Above the Fold? Though there are some shared principles between optimizing a website for mobile and desktop, there are some distinct differences to look out for. These include: 👉 Site Layout To compete digitally in the 2020s, every site must be optimized for both mobile and desktop. The simplest way to do this is by using a CMS that provides responsive designs where the pages adjust their layouts based on the dimensions of the user’s screen. Visitors should only have to scroll vertically. 👉 Equally Responsive On-Page Features In addition to your layout, any other part of the website’s on-page features needs to also be responsive. From embedded videos to images and call-to-action buttons, they need to fit within the dimensions of the screen the user visits your site with. Again, horizontal scrolling is a death sentence for mobile search performance. 👉 Turn Off Popups Popups are difficult to deal with on mobile. The exit buttons on most mobile popups are too small for a person to press and tucked away into a corner. This not only adds extra code to your page, but it also impacts the user experience and can contribute to a much higher bounce rate. 👉 Be Concise with Your Metadata SERP elements like title tags and meta descriptions need to be more concise and better communicate the value of your content. Why? These parts of a search result are shortened on mobile. Write as if Ernest Hemingway was a digital marketer. 👉 Prioritize Site Loading Speed Quick site speed is a hallmark of excellent SEO. If a page loads quickly, Google marks that as a positive. Mobile users are accustomed to “on-the-go” content consumption. They may also be using cellular data instead of a WiFi connection to view your site. Depending on where the user is, browsing with data could lead to slower internet speeds. Two quick ways to boost your site speed are by reducing excessive code and properly sizing images. If the image is too large or too many site plugins are running at once, this places a greater burden on the load times. Keep your site as simple and streamlined as possible to provide a better loading time. 👉 User Experience is Everything Whether on desktop or mobile, user experience is Google’s number-one priority. Does your website offer value to the person using the search engine? Constantly test your pages on both desktop and mobile layouts to ensure that all the features of your website operate smoothly. Adjust frequently where needed so that your users benefit most from your website. 👉 Don’t Ignore General SEO Best Practices No matter the device you’re optimizing for, there are some basic SEO principles that you should also keep in mind to ensure promising performance across all forms of Google Search, including: Only one H1 heading per page Using your focus keyword early in your content Writing awesome content your target audience will love Adding ALT text and descriptions to your images Properly sizing images for quicker load times Not overburdening your pages with excessive third-party code Link your pages internally using keyword-optimized anchor text 👉 Provide Helpful, Contextual Content Create a user-focused content strategy. Think from their perspective, ponder the questions they want answers to, and write content to answer them. When great copywriting is put into the proper context and backed by a website in excellent technical health, you stand a far greater chance of reaching those desired above-the-fold search positions. Search engine algorithms want to provide users with resources that actually help them in their daily lives. When you contribute to that mission, along with some intelligent keyword planning, you position yourself for greater mobile SEO success. Improve Your Agency’s Mobile SEO Capabilities Today At Conduit, we’re the digital performance partner for successful agencies that are looking to scale. If you’re ready to take the next step with SEO and are looking for ways to scale your own client roster, contact us today to learn more about white label partnership.

Jul 5, 2022 Running programmatic campaigns for healthcare can require some creativity due to limitations related to HIPAA regulations. If you’re like many other agencies, you may be struggling with how to navigate HIPAA compliance while also delivering results for your clients. Our Programmatic Team at Conduit has managed hundreds of campaigns spanning more than one hundred HIPAA-sensitive clients in verticals ranging from CBD to limb prosthetics across multiple DSPs. Today, we’re going to share with you some of their insights for maintaining compliance while striving to reach the right audience. Let’s dive in. What is HIPAA? HIPAA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. It has evolved over the past decades to also include protections for digital patient information in the medical industry. This law has a few different layers into what it does for U.S. citizens. Originally it was created so workers could carry forward insurance and healthcare rights between jobs. In the present day, the law has expanded to include many more nuances and intricacies. According to the HIPAA Journal, “the Act has since expanded into an act of legislation that also governs health insurance fraud and tax provisions for medical savings accounts and ensures acceptance of workers with pre-existing conditions into occupational healthcare insurance schemes. Primarily, however, HIPAA concerns the privacy and security of patient health information. In a lot of ways the implementation of HIPAA regulated a lot of aspects in the medical industry to make the entire health care system more regulated and easily accessible for not only health care providers but also for people to access their own medical records and who else has access to their protected health data.” But how does HIPAA affect digital marketing and how are they related? According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, “The Privacy Rule defines “marketing” as making “a communication about a product or service that encourages recipients of the communication to purchase or use the product or service.” Generally, if the communication is “marketing,” then the communication can occur only if the covered entity first obtains an individual’s “authorization.” This definition of marketing has certain exceptions, as discussed below. Examples of “marketing” communications requiring prior authorization are: A communication from the hospital informing former patients about a cardiac facility, that is not part of the hospital, that can provide a baseline EKG for $39, when the communication is not for the purpose of providing treatment advice. A communication from a health insurer promoting a home and casualty insurance product offered by the same company.” For marketers, understanding HIPAA and the strict regulations involved in executing these strategies can prove two key factors in running a successful medical campaign. Due to the continuous evolution of what HIPAA encompasses, marketers should remain updated on these topics to keep pace with the changing requirements and restraints that affect the medical industry. Failure to do so could prevent a campaign from launching, resulting in wasted time and effort. As a baseline, marketers should remain current on what is and what is not HIPAA-compliant. This will ensure that you can run your campaign without many complications. There are over 70,000 health-related searches on Google every minute, which equates to over 1 billion every single day, according to Google Health Vice President David Feinberg, MD. via The Telegraph. So when it comes to programmatic advertising, serving the right ad to the right user at the right time could be a lifesaver for consumers. So how can marketers leverage this information in an efficient and ethical way for their clients? HIPAA mandates that marketers cannot use first-party data like cookie-based data, CRM data, and website analytics to link individuals to medical conditions. Different forms of retargeting also violate HIPAA regulations to link users to their conditions. Healthcare marketers have been slow to adopt programmatic, in comparison to other forms of digital ads, into their marketing strategy mainly due to uncertainty surrounding the correct way to implement programmatic without violating HIPAA. However, violating HIPAA can definitely be prevented. How Programmatic Advertising is Bridging The Gap Through programmatic campaigns, online publishers are permitted to collect data related to a consumer’s interests in specific conditions or symptoms by consumption of related content. Using that data, publishers can create segments of users interested in certain conditions and make those anonymous audiences available to pharma companies through programmatic pipelines. This targeting can also be extended across devices. Once a publisher zeroes in on a user’s interest and links the user to an email address, the user’s now private identity can then also be extended to a mobile device. For example, if a drug manufacturer wants to target people who have diabetes, a publisher can create a segment of site visitors who have shown interest in this topic by reading related content like testing blood sugar. The publisher can then make that segment available to advertisers through a programmatic pipeline for purposes of targeting via display or video advertising. When it comes to programmatic digital marketers achieving their clients’ overall goals on a tactical level, there are a few tactics in the programmatic space that you can use while still being HIPAA compliant. Programmatic Tactics Contextual Targeting Contextual Targeting is a go-to tactic among several different verticals across multiple programmatic campaigns, but what does it do specifically? Contextual Targeting monitors a user’s web behavior, like pages visited, blogs engaged with, and searched keywords and phrases. Ads are then served that align with that content. There are a few ways that contextual targeting can be leveraged to maintain HIPAA compliance: Whitelists – targeting contextually relevant domains and serving ads exclusively to that inventory Topic Targeting – pre-set audiences grouped together by topic of interest based on web behavior Custom Browsing Segments – audiences created based on keywords and phrases completely custom-built and highly specific to your advertiser For instance, say your client is interested in targeting users who have arthritis. Contextual targeting could be implemented through whitelisting websites like webmd.com or leveraging a custom browsing segment of keywords that people with arthritis engage with like “joint pain relief,” “arthritis remedies,” etc. GEO-Fencing Geo-fencing technology allows programmatic marketers to draw a digital virtual fence around a specific brick-and-mortar location. The client’s ads can then retarget users after visiting that physical location in person. Depending on the type of medical care your client provides, geo-fencing may not prove a HIPAA compliant solution. Locations that provide specialized treatment for conditions deemed medically sensitive may be subjected to heavier restrictions due to the user’s privacy rights preventing them from being retargeted with unwanted ads after leaving the geo-fenced location. For this reason, there are set restrictions on locations marketers are allowed to geo-fence within their campaigns that must comply with HIPAA. These restrictions vary based on the medical sensitivity of the advertiser, the creatives/ad messaging in use, and the type of location attempting to be geo-fenced. Here are a few scenarios that give insight into the variance: Scenario 1: Your client is a cancer center looking to target users who have pancreatic cancer with ads that speak directly to this audience. They also want to geo-fence other cancer centers in an effort to reach people who would be looking for a second opinion. Because the advertiser is highly medically sensitive, the ads are very specific to the audience, and the location attempting to be geo-fenced is sensitive – geo-fencing would not be allowed. Scenario 2: Your client is a fertility specialist trying to drive awareness about their services couples who may be struggling with infertility. They’re interested in geo-fencing OBGYN offices within the area with creatives that speak directly to their target audience. In this case, geo-fencing is allowed but the fence must have a 1-mile radius implemented around the OBGYN offices. Scenario 3: Your client is an allergy drug company looking to geo-fence local pharmacies and parks in the area in an effort to boost sales. Geo-Fencing would be allowed without any restrictions as neither the advertiser nor the locations being fenced are considered medically sensitive. HIPAA protects the privacy of protected health information in the hands of a healthcare provider, health plan, or clearinghouse. PHI is information that relates to the past, present or future healthcare, services or payment for an individual. Geo-Fencing does not touch any of that information if the restrictions on medically sensitive locations are navigated appropriately. You might be wondering what happens if your advertising campaigns fail to adhere to HIPAA guidelines and your platform fails as a safety net? Here’s an example. According to the HIPAA Guide, NPR covered an instance when Copley Advertising set up geofences in reproductive health centers and methadone clinics. The campaign served ads that contained headlines like “pregnancy help” and “you are not alone”. These were targeted at women who physically visited these locations. The clients that Copley Advertising were serving for this campaign included adoption agencies and Christian pregnancy counseling organizations. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey began pursuing a case against the agency due to the company violating the state’s consumer protection laws. This resulted in Copley being forbidden to use geo-fencing technology within the state or healthcare facilities that could infer the medical status of a person. This ties back to not adhering to the creative messaging guidelines paired with sensitive location geo-fencing. Though this is one example of what could happen, advertisers should keep in mind that potential repercussions for HIPAA non-compliance can extend beyond the platform. Site Retargeting Site Retargeting, or remarketing, is one of the most impactful strategies that can be deployed. It is also, however, one of the trickiest tactics to utilize for medically sensitive programmatic campaigns. Since this tactic serves ads to users who have visited an advertiser’s website, this poses a direct threat to violating a user’s privacy. Let’s use an example. A woman just left a routine checkup where she learned she’s showing possible signs of dementia and is referred to see a specialist. In the interim, she goes home and searches “early onset dementia” on Google and a blog on this topic from a local Neurologist’s website is suggested. She clicks, reads it, leaves the website, and leaves her computer. Then her husband sits down to find a lasagna recipe on foodnetwork.com and he’s served a display ad from the Neurologist’s office with messaging that mentions dementia care. Here, the neurologist has disclosed protected health information about a medical condition to an unauthorized third party. Since there is no control over or method of knowing who is using a given device or shared IP when implementing a retargeting strategy within a medically sensitive vertical, this particular instance is an example of why retargeting is not allowed in the traditional sense. With that said, there are some instances where retargeting medically sensitive audiences may be allowed. This is typically when the advertiser does not exclusively or primarily offer sensitive services. Limitations will vary by platform but it remains imperative to adhere to all compliance standards and restrictions. The common denominator among all platforms, however, is the creative messaging and landing page. The ads being used in the campaign cannot imply any knowledge that a user has a specific medical condition. As long as these ads are generic and users are being sent to a nonspecific page, your campaign will remain HIPAA compliant. For example, a dermatology office may have a section on their website pertaining to skin cancer, but they’re promoting general dermatology services. Site retargeting is permitted in this case, but the ads must remain generic and avoid driving to any page mentioning skin cancer information or treatment, such as the home page or contact page. Site retargeting can be a very powerful tactic to utilize in a campaign, as mentioned. This tactic targets individuals who are already familiar with your brand so it’s an efficient avenue for reaching relevant users. When it comes to deciding which pages you want to retarget people from, use the pages of your site that are both conversion-oriented and compliant. CREATIVE & MESSAGING As addressed earlier, creative and overall messaging is a significant component of whether your campaign maintains HIPAA compliance or not. Consider what you want users to take away from your ads while still maintaining a generalized approach. A useful rule of thumb is if the ad, its messaging, or an accompanying landing page is indicative of a certain condition, it will not be permitted. The more narrow the targeting, the more generalized the messaging will need to be. For highly targeted tactics, such as search keyword targeting, geo-fencing, and retargeting, it’s best to err on the side of caution and keep these creatives generic so your campaigns remain HIPAA compliant. Creative messaging can become more specific when casting a wider net through more broad-based tactics like pre-curated audiences and contextual targeting, such as whitelisting. While pre-curated audiences can get very specific, this tactic is still generally considered more broad than geo-fencing and site retargeting. These audience segments are made up of users who are identified as having particular interests, intents, and demographic criteria. This data is gathered from a variety of methods ranging from Census data, Credit Bureau data, to users’ web behavior. These segments are compiled in accordance with HIPAA regulations in mind so they are free to use for medically sensitive campaigns. An example for using pre-curated audiences may be a fertility clinic looking to obtain new patients. They may look to target newlyweds or females aged 25 through 35. Keeping creatives generic doesn’t mean advertisers are not able to get their message across to the right consumers. Top-of-the-funnel branding is what programmatic digital marketing is. These campaigns are not meant to be lead generating, but rather are meant to reach relevant users in the identified geo-target to increase awareness for the products or services advertisers want to market! In the medical industry, it’s important to be transparent with potential clients, by informing them about the capabilities they’re able to successfully execute and how while remaining both compliant and relevant to the end goal! It is then digital marketing experts’ role to provide the client with alternate ways in which they can achieve their goals maximizing the tactics available to them in a HIPAA compliant manner, inclusive of creatives and messaging. Final Thoughts & Key Takeaways Knowing how to navigate around HIPAA and a user’s overall privacy rights can become a frustrating and confusing roadblock when executing programmatic marketing campaigns of this nature. One of the biggest takeaways is understanding that HIPAA and privacy rights are constantly evolving and what is allowed today may not be allowed in the upcoming year, or even the upcoming months. Digital marketers need to stay informed and up to date on new HIPAA regulations and privacy laws. As mentioned, there are ways to successfully execute and run a medically sensitive programmatic campaign without violating a user’s privacy. While some tactics are fair game, others may come with restrictions. Generally, Contextual targeting is allowed without any restrictions. Where there is a bit of a gray area is particularly with Custom Browsing Segments, or Search keywords. Sensitive keywords will not be permitted to run regardless of how general the ads or advertiser is. This includes keywords that are highly indicative of a medical condition, such as “cancer” or “dementia.” Keywords that are not attributed to a medically sensitive treatment or condition, like “sprained ankle” or “urgent care” are eligible to run. For optimal results, consider adjusting the keyword retargeting recency to shorter windows than the standard 30 days. Whitelisting will allow digital marketers to target specific ad-servable sites that users would be likely to visit based on the nature of the campaign. Since there is no retargeting or exact search pattern associated with this tactic, it makes it a foolproof way to target users without violating HIPAA. Geo-Fencing is also a great way to reach potential consumers, however, this tactic has to be carefully utilized in medically sensitive programmatic campaigns to ensure you are not invading a user’s private information. If the targeting is primarily aimed at the patients of medically sensitive locations, generally Geo-Fencing will not be allowed without the use of a 1-mile radius. Geo-fencing medically-sensitive locations are permissible if the advertiser is not medically-sensitive, such as a college looking to increase enrollment in its nursing program. If you have a client that runs a medically sensitive campaign, it may be best to think of alternative locations to geo-fence outside of medical offices. For example, if an advertiser runs a weight loss clinic, it may be more effective to geo-fence gyms or nutritional stores. This helps to keep the targeting highly relevant while avoiding any potential legal liabilities. Site Retargeting is another tactic that will probably be one of the more difficult to successfully execute without violating HIPAA, but it can be done! It is imperative that the ads being used to retarget a user is generic and not specific to a treatment or condition. So long as the campaign is retargeting people with generic ads and sending them to a non-specific page, something that would not infer they have a specific condition or need a specific treatment, the campaign remains HIPAA compliant. Site Retargeting and Geo-Fencing are the two tactics that digital marketers should be hyper-conscious of as these two are the most targeted yet pose the biggest threat to violating a user’s privacy if not done properly. The way advertisers are able to utilize these tactics while remaining HIPAA compliant takes away the more targeted aspect that usually draws advertisers to these tactics. Pre-Curated Audiences will allow marketers to reach relevant users based on interests, intents, or demographics in a way that has already been collected in a HIPAA-compliant manner. This provides flexibility and creativity in deciding how best to reach the ideal demographic. It’s a great way to reach users and speak more freely about the particular product or service being advertised without infringing on their privacy. All in all, the most important aspect of medically sensitive campaigns comes down to the creative elements and messaging. Campaign creatives, and subsequently the landing page, can make or break campaigns in terms of being HIPAA compliant or not. If clients are keen on utilizing highly-targeting tactics such as Geo-Fencing, Site Retargeting, or Search keywords, then they must also be equipped with the caveats and restrictions that come with them, including creative messaging. When done right, these tactics are highly effective and provide great value to any campaign. If the creative is generic and does not implicate a user has a specific condition or needs a certain treatment, the campaign is permitted to run these tactics. If a client is very set on advertising a specific medically-sensitive product or service, say promoting potential users receiving a new type of radiation treatment, this would come with restrictions on the campaign, such as being unable to run certain tactics. This campaign would not be able to geo-fence other cancer facilities unless a 1-mile radius was implemented as the ad is targeting users based on the assumption they have cancer and need radiation. Remember, the more targeted a tactic, the broader the messaging. Save the specific creative for the broader tactics such as Whitelisting, Contextual, and Pre-Curated Audiences. When it comes to the more targeted tactics like Geo-Fencing and Site Retargeting, keep the creative messaging generic! This will ensure that your medically sensitive campaign remains HIPAA compliant. Medically sensitive programmatic campaigns can be a tough aspect of digital marketing to navigate, for not only marketers but also advertisers! But, as long as digital marketers are aware of what is and is not HIPAA compliant they can find digital solutions for any type of medically sensitive campaign that will reach ads to the right consumers. Launch HIPAA Compliant Programmatic Campaigns for Your Clients At Conduit Digital, we partner exclusively with successful and established digital marketing agencies to provide elite performance, reporting, and communication infrastructure for their clients’ campaigns. All of our programmatic products are directly managed in-house by our own team of U.S.-based certified Programmatic Analysts. To learn more about how you can start saying “yes” to better opportunities for your agency in the medical industry with programmatic advertising, or any of our other products, schedule a 20-minute call with us below.

May 6, 2020 As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the United States, more and more local businesses are becoming victims of state-wide lockdowns being issued by state officials. At first, California, Washington, and New York residents were directed to ‘Shelter-in-place’, but now 24 state governors have issued the same warning to their residents. Although these orders are proving effective in ‘flattening the curve’, the same orders are also inflicting considerable pain on local businesses. Despite these widespread ‘Shelter-in-place’ orders, there is still room for advertising and there is still room for ad agencies to provide value to their clients. Here are 5 helpful tips that your agency can implement with your local clients, which will provide value even during this pandemic. 1. Help Client’s Build A Strategy That Maximizes The Opportunity That Is Still Out There Believe it or not, there is still opportunity out there; you just need to help your clients see it and get creative. One great piece of branding, intentional or not, that we saw in Conduit’s home state of New Jersey came from a local Pizzeria. The owner of the Pizzeria made it known that he had taken out a $50,000 loan so that he could keep his staff employed during the pandemic. This gesture of goodwill was so unique and impactful that it was picked up by several major news outlets within the state and was even trending on Facebook. What happened next was several Facebook users tagging their friends and asking them to buy pizzas from the restaurant. Over the past week, three Conduit employees have shared the story in our company Slack channel, encouraging employees that live nearby to purchase food from the Pizzeria. Although it may have been subconscious, this gesture appears to have had a positive impact on the owner’s brand. Now, we’re certainly not suggesting that you recommend your client take out a loan to pay employees, but helping your client develop a goodwill gesture could help put their brand in a positive light even in these dark times. Other examples of this have included companies helping with the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) to help frontline healthcare workers. Help your client become the positive news article in the sea of negative articles that are currently circulating. You can help your clients position their brand in an empathetic way that will benefit them long after the pandemic has subsided. Help your brand become the NJ Pizzeria. 2. Help Your Client Harness The Power Of Social Media (Both Organic And Paid) The lockdown of the majority of Americans has led to a dramatic increase in social media activity. In one study, one agency saw a 50% increase in engagement across social media platforms over the last two weeks. With social distancing now in full effect across the country, social media platforms are the easiest and safest way for many of us to keep in contact with friends and family members. This presents a huge opportunity for local businesses. Now is the time for local businesses to step up their social media efforts because that is where the eyeballs are. Helping your clients construct an organic social media strategy across the most popular social media platforms is an effective way of ensuring that your clients continue to communicate with their customer base. More specifically, posting within local community groups, such as ‘township chatter’ groups, has shown to produce high engagement for brands. Often these groups are a collection of local customers that utilize your client’s services regularly, so this is a great place to speak directly to them. If your client is still looking to spend marketing dollars on social media platforms, there is no better time than now, with several people reporting significant drops in CPCs. You can help them develop a social media targeting campaign aimed at their custom audience. Now could be the perfect time to keep your client’s message out there for a fraction of the cost. 3. Optimize Your Client’s Google My Business Listing Not every business has been instructed to close due to pandemic. Here in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy has made exceptions for the following business types: Grocery stores Pharmacies Medical supply stores Gas stations Convenience stores Hardware and home improvement Banks and financial institutions Laundromats and dry-cleaning services Pet stores Liquor stores Auto maintenance Printing Delivery services Nurseries and garden centers Restaurants (takeout only) If any of your clients’ businesses have remained open, having a fully-optimized Google My Business listing is a quick and easy way to guarantee that searchers can still find their business when searching locally. A simple act of adding your client’s business category to their Google My Business listing can greatly increase their chances of ranking in the local three-pack for non-branded, local searches. For restaurants specifically, a Google My Business listing offers considerable opportunity. Restaurant owners can optimize their listing by uploading their menu to the platform, making it easy for searchers to see exactly what food items they offer without having to call or visit a website. Enabling the delivery option within the platform can allow searchers to order food from a restaurant in less than two clicks of a button. If set-up properly, a fully-optimized Google My Business listing can be a virtual storefront for a business and greatly increase the number of sales or leads that a business receives. 4. Help Your Clients By Building A Support Community There is one thing that is certain during these times: we’re all in this together and we will get through this together. Applying this attitude to managing your clients could help them greatly. Now is the time to bring your clients, help them share marketing and advertising strategies with one another, and help them get through this together! An easy way of doing this is by starting a Facebook or LinkedIn group of your clients that provides marketing resources and encourages collaboration. You should apply the same level of thinking to the clients that you work with. Right now, nearly all of our clients are going to bed at night anxious. The anxiety of the unknown that agencies are currently experiencing are also being experienced by our clients. An easy way of doing this is by starting a Facebook or LinkedIn group of your clients that provides marketing resources and encourages collaboration. Being seen as the leader and the instigator of this community could position you in a positive light both right now and in the future. A sign of a great partnership is being there for someone through the good times and the bad. Be the partner that offers help and guidance during these very uncertain times. 5. Help Your Client Master The Art Of Video As discussed earlier, social media engagement is exploding and it will continue to grow until ‘Stay-At-Home’ orders are lifted. Now is the perfect time to educate your client and help them build a winning video strategy. Several studies have shown that engagement with video content far exceeds that of static images. In 2020, nearly every American has access to a smartphone with powerful video-capturing capabilities. If you have access to video editing tools, help your client stay in contact with their customer base using the most engaging form of content available. Furthermore, helping your client master video can increase the reach of their marketing message by introducing them to marketing channels that they otherwise would not have utilized, such as YouTube, Snapchat, Tik Tok plus many more. Don’t Allow Your Clients To Stop Advertising As agency owners, now is the most important time to be a resource for your clients. The actions that are taken over the next few weeks and months could have significant impacts, both positive and negative, for your agency and your clients for years to come. One thing you must prevent right now is your clients putting their advertising efforts on the back burner. It has been written about in several articles the negative impact that no advertising had on businesses during the 2008 Great Recession. Not all advertising has to involve spending marketing dollars on platforms such as Google Ads and Facebook. If you do choose to continue running ads, use these helpful tips to maximize delivery on your Facebook and Google campaigns. There are several ways that businesses can advertise on platforms without spending a single dollar. Conclusion As agencies, we owe a duty of care to our clients to help them maximize these opportunities and keep their brand name top of mind and conversions and sales rolling in. By implementing these 5 essential tips, you will ensure that your local clients are well taken care of during this worldwide crisis. Conduit Digital understands the struggles that agency owners are facing during this time. We invite you to join us at #AgenciesUnited to begin a dialogue with agency owners around the world. Together we can stand by each other and get through this crisis stronger as an industry.

May 1, 2020 COVID-19 has forced many companies to make tough decisions regarding the longevity of their business itself. Whether running with a heavy payroll expense or an overabundance of software subscriptions that are in mid-contract form, agency owners are looking for cost-saving ways to help navigate the stormy waters in which we live today. Cutting costs is something that is often never spoken about when times are good and yet is always at the front of the priority list when revenue drops. Many owners will request a copy of the income statement and scan for the highest ticket items to cut right off the bat. The truth is that during a crisis the solution will not come from just one place but be the sum of many moving parts. When Do I Know Its Time To Cut Costs? Before you start slashing hours and prices, you need to first figure out if this is necessary step for your business. Though it may seem obvious, not many people know when they should start budgeting. Businesses and agency owners should start considering cost cutting techniques when they begin to see a decrease in revenue. Even if you were to maintain the same costs of doing business, the reduction in revenue means less profit for your agency and over time, the pricey over head will begin to eat away at your savings. The best thing you can do for your agency right now is to start to take inventory of your business and see if there are any costs you can begin cutting early in order to save more down the road. Use these tips below to help you navigate the critical job of cutting costs and keeping your business afloat. Steps To Cost Cutting 1. Know your business Hopefully, this is something that has been happening during normal business operations. Regardless, decision-makers must understand all facets of the cost structure supporting operations. The worst step a decision-maker can make is to cut a cost that can be a revenue source simply because it’s more expensive than the next item. Knowing your business inside and out will allow you to make the correct decisions when trimming the excess from your company. 2. Project the next six months After understanding the cost structure you must then take a look at what is the bare minimum you will need for the next six months of “on the books” revenue. This will look very different from company to company. Some companies are not contract-based and rely on day to day sales. In this instance, a projection must be made to estimate the next 6 month period. For those companies that rely on contracts, simply take “on the books” value for the next six months of operations. Outside of six months, the clarity of the data begins to diminish and accuracy is key during times of uncertainty. When calculating the minimums you must only look at what payroll, software subscriptions, inventory, etc. is needed to deliver on your six-month projection. This is not the place to skimp or cut corners! After all, this is revenue on the books. The last thing you need is to perform sub-par work and have to worry about credits to the consumer to make good. Perform at your best and people will remember you when things begin to turn for the better! 3. Compile the excess Once you have what is needed to perform the 6 months of booked revenue it’s time to organize the excess! Like in a home, businesses have luxury items that we can honestly say are not 100% needed to continue operations. When looking at your expenses, you should divide them into 4 categories: Must Have, Nice To Have, Luxury, and Payroll. Must Have The must-haves are not required for a 6 months projected revenue but instead are things you need to maintain a business such as utilities, rent, etc. Nice To Have The Nice To Have are items that are exactly that, nice to have. You can do business without them but it would make life a little more difficult. Luxury Luxury items are those items that are more perks then anything. These items don’t tend to add up to much (depending on the business) but will help save money right away. Payroll Finally, there is payroll. Excluding those salaries that are needed for the 6-month projections, organizing your team into two different buckets will help you make those tough decisions. In every company, there are those employees who are directly tied to revenue. These people are your direct salaries (Cost of Goods sold salaries). They can range from your analysts to the salesman but either way the job they perform is what brings in revenue. Then you have indirect salaries. This team handles the business operations and ranges from your accounting team to customer support teams (in some cases, the customer support team can be tied to revenue). This is why Step 1 is so important! 4. Cut Time Here you are. At the moment where tough decisions are to be made and you need to eliminate wasted costs. When you look at the Four buckets in excess there are some obvious conclusions. You can easily cut the luxury items. These items will be there when things progress to normality but tough times call for trimming the fat. Analyze your “nice to have” bucket. Automations are not a place to cut right now. The goal is to produce more output with less expense. If automations are in place, they may be worth keeping for the client to get their expected deliverables. This is the perfect time to begin vetting those more affordable options that have emerged since you build the process. One subscription might be a bigger name but during the recent bull market run, many companies emerged that should now be vetted! The goal is to cut costs not eliminate the actual process of the business. I want to spend a few moments talking about payroll because this is an area that decision-makers jump to first since most of the time it is the highest $$$$. For every drop in revenue, you can always find a reason why. That reason could be as simple as sales are not coming in, or it could be a global pandemic like we are currently in. Either way before cutting payroll you must look at the options! In times of crisis like these, the federal government tends to offer programs to help ease the hit payroll as on a company. For instance, the Federal Government will offer payroll tax credits, grants, or in the case of COVID-19, develop an 800 + page CARES ACT. This allows companies to move their employees to part-time and have the employee collect unemployment to help balance the reduction of income. Other options include the workshare program. Not all states are enrolled in the program. Check here to see if your state is a participant. Under normal times, the program will not make them whole (in regards to salary) but will allow companies to keep employees on staff and maintain benefits for easy recall to full-time status. Many of these programs come with stipulations regarding layoffs but before letting go of an employee that you have invested time and funds in, look into your federal programs first. Be prepared that any employee you let go you may not be able to get back. The Process This process should be done on a regular basis and more often when times get tough. Running this cost savings process on a rolling monthly basis will allow you to monitor your costs and keep the company running lean during those tough times. By keeping data up to date you will be able to adjust on the fly when decisions need to be made and when business ramps up the proper decision can be made based on the most up to date data. We must always remember what the end goal is: Grow the revenue back to normal levels. Whenever going through this process you must always remember that goal. Stripping the company too bare will prohibit that growth. Sacrifices made today can propel your company to higher goals later on. Even when times are not as tough, running this process is still an important factor to ensure profits are not being wasted. It is recommended that you go through this cost savings process at least twice a year to help you run an efficient business that allows you to put otherwise wasted dollars toward growing your company! When making these tough decisions the reality of the situation is that there is no one size fits all solution. During times of crisis, there is no correct way of doing things especially when information is changing by what seems the day. In order to help mitigate the stress, use the cost-saving tips mentioned above to gain better clarity. If you want to know how to increase your agency’s ROI, we’ve got you covered too! Be flexible, be adaptable, stay strong, and always remember, this too shall pass!

Nov 3, 2021 You’ve reached a point in your agency leader journey where you’re deciding “what’s next?”. If you’re looking to scale your operations higher and say “yes” to more of the right opportunities, an agency partnership might be the solution for you. Today, we’re going to cover 5 key signs that your agency is ready for a digital performance partnership. First, let’s discuss what an agency “partner” actually is. Understanding The Difference Between Platform, Vendor, and Partner Before you can decide if an agency partnership is something you’re ready for, we have to cover the difference between white-label platforms, vendors, and partners. 🎛 Platform Platforms are most commonly software systems that help automate specific digital marketing processes. These are suitable for those that want a “quick fix” with little-to-no human involvement on the other side of the screen. However, platforms offer limited personalization and require you to bootstrap your campaigns with little resources to draw from. When dominating digital performance is your main goal, platforms may not prove the best solution. 📦 Vendor A vendor is a limited-scope service provider – often a specialist or another agency with a limited product offering. Common examples could include an agency that only offers a single service or a freelance web developer on Fiverr. Vendors operate on a purely transactional basis and the quality of the deliverables you pay for varies. This can be difficult to guarantee quality. Once a vendor crosses their t’s and dots their i’s on their contractual agreement, they often disappear back into the digital ether. 🤝 Partner A digital performance partner acts as a true extension of your in-house team. With real certified experts handling your client’s campaigns on your behalf, they’re just as invested in your success as you are. Partnerships can be identified by the way the relationship with your agency touches every aspect of their own operations. From communication to measuring performance, your partner team is working in lockstep with your own. At Conduit, we partner with successful agencies by acting as their complete ad operations fulfillment solution or as an extension of their in-house team.  Performance and communication are the two equal pillars of how we define and measure partnership with the agencies that we work with. Signs You’re Ready for a Digital Performance Partnership ☝️ 1: You Have a Strong Client Base with High Expectations You’ve mastered how to get the right clients for your agency. Your roster is in excellent shape with great businesses you’re proud to serve. With a roster of can’t-miss clients also comes high expectations for performance. This requires that your agency have the holistic product suite and internal capacity to meet these demands consistently across the entire list of businesses that you work with. ✌️ 2: The Numbers Support It We get that not everyone wants to talk numbers. You didn’t start your agency to balance budgets, but it is part of keeping the office lights on. Agencies that are ready for a performance partner need to have an airtight grasp on their numbers to scale profitably. Margins and expected revenue need to be in a position to furnish to the partnership. Digital performance partnerships are all about scaling profitably. The right partner will provide you with a transparent rate card that will give you a complete picture of the internal costs for services so that you can price them externally to meet your necessary margins. 🤟 3: Clients Are Asking for More Than What You Can Do In-House As the account relationship matures with your client, they might ask for more digital services than you provide in-house. The first reaction to this might be “we don’t do that here” or “we can’t do that right now.” With today’s digital ecosystem, though, that answer no longer suffices. For example, if your client wants OTT advertising and knows they cannot receive that service from you, they will find a competing agency that can and will fulfill this need. Staying competitive requires a full product suite. Partnership helps by rounding out your agency’s core products with the other digital products your client wants to use for their campaigns. ✊ 4: You’re Growing Faster Than You Can Hire In all the conversations we have with agency leaders daily, we’ve heard one common pain point above the rest: hiring. There seem to be exponentially more job listings online than there are people to fill them right now. When you need to add an expert to your team, but can’t find the right person, you’re risking operating dangerously beyond your internal capacity. Overcapacity can result in a stressed-out, time-strapped hustle that does not benefit your agency or your clients. Digital performance partnership inserts a team of expert analysts into your operations. You do not have to worry about seeking a qualified candidate, hiring them, and training them. Instead, with your partner’s own analysts, you can launch an expert campaign for your client with minimal ramp-up time. 🖐 5: You Want Best-In-Class Campaign Performance The quality of work that you do for your clients reflects directly on your agency’s brand. If you want to continue your reputation and credibility, you need to deliver consistent, high-quality results. A digital performance partner treats your client accounts as seriously as you do. Because they’re all-in with you, quality drives each aspect of every shared campaign between your team and theirs. Activate the Power of Digital Performance Partnership Today At Conduit Digital, we strive to be the most complete digital performance partner for successful agencies looking to take their ad operations to the next level. With our own in-house teams of certified experts managing your client’s campaigns across a full product suite, world-class wholesale pricing, and a wealth of resources like custom Live Reports, you can position your agency to confidently say “yes” to those can’t miss opportunities. Learn more about true digital performance partnership today by visiting our Agency Partnership page or reaching out to us directly below!

Dec 15, 2022 According to a report from GroupM, global eCommerce will grow from 19% to 25% of worldwide retail sales by 2027. As consumers have altered their lifestyle habits drastically over the past few years, spending behaviors have also changed. As 2023 projects recessionary numbers for the economy and shoppers conduct transactions with greater scrutiny, this may seem like a horror show for advertisers. Can you continue to promote your client’s products when people may be more selective with their spending? In fact, a downturn in economic activity could pose an opportunity for many agencies to align their retail clients’ products more closely with their target audience. When spending decisions are heavily weighed, the quality of the purchase matters most. If a potential customer receives an ad for your client’s product that matches their exact needs, they may be more willing to spend if they believe it will meet their expectations more than other competing brands. What Can Retail Advertising Agencies Do to Strengthen Client Strategy in 2023? Double Down on Shopping Campaigns Seamless checkout experiences are no longer a luxury; they’re the new norm. Whether you are serving ads through Google or on social, being able to complete a purchase in as few steps as possible can lead to higher conversions and a better user experience. If you are to concentrate your eCommerce advertising efforts on any platforms, Google, Meta (Facebook & Instagram), and TikTok are three excellent platforms to start with. Google’s shopping ads serve across multiple surfaces across billions of pages on the web. These include Google’s Search, Images, and Shopping feeds as well as YouTube and other partner websites. Using Google’s Merchant Center, you can focus on aligning your client’s products by their attributes and features rather than a keyword strategy as well as show in-store inventory for physical locations. Meta’s top-two platforms, Facebook and Instagram, were 2021’s leading channels for influencer marketing campaigns. When customers learn about a new product from a personality that they admire and trust, they are more likely to feel confident in purchasing a product. Instagram alone is projected to generate $15.95 billion in global ad revenue by the end of 2022 through its Stories feature alone. Finally, we arrive at TikTok – the social video platform that has changed short-form content forever. This year, TikTok launched shoppable ads that can appear in their users’ feeds with the benefit of the app’s next-level algorithm. If your client seeks to target young adults with more disposable income, leave TikTok out of the campaign strategy at your own risk. Seek New Retail Clients in “Recession Proof” Industries An industry that qualifies as “recession proof” is one where there is always a consumer demand for products in these categories, regardless of economic conditions. Some categories that hold this title can include: Food Toiletries Cosmetics and Personal Care Clothing Pet Care Clothing Baby Products Automotive Parts Home Products OTC Healthcare Products and Pharmaceuticals Another major category to consider for your agency is cannabis. As more states permit the recreational or restricted use of cannabis products, consumer demand skyrockets and dispensaries become major retail powerhouses in their local markets. Many of these products like food and toiletries are perishable, limited-use, or single-use items that are designed to meet ongoing needs. If you want to specialize in one or more of these categories, build a strong base of industry knowledge among yourself and your team to demonstrate to potential clients that you are an authority in marketing their products to their ideal customers. Some simple ways to brush up on knowledge in any retail industry can involve: Reading trade publications for these verticals Studying the marketing practices of the industry’s largest competitors Reading customer reviews of brands online Conducting keyword research for industry-relevant search terms Signing up for industry-leading brands’ email marketing lists Watching YouTube reviews of popular products in these categories Brush up on best practices for marketing in the cannabis industry These above tactics can provide you with a strong baseline to gauge the pulse of the specific marketplace your ideal clients want to advertise in. This can then inform the strategy that you propose to these clients to increase their confidence in choosing your agency as their growth partner. Encourage Pushing Through Over Cutting Back During an economic downturn, many clients tend to cut spending as a gut-reaction to financial anxieties. Will they have the money to spend on advertising, or will they have to give up another expense to keep their current budget? While these fears are certainly understandable, pushing through where possible always proves the wisest tactic on the other side of a recession. When other competitors are cutting back, maintaining your client’s current budget or increasing it can generate more opportunities to serve ads to target users that may have otherwise purchased a competitor’s product if the competitor had not reduced their own budget during a recession. Adopt a Multi-Channel Strategy Rather than concentrating all of your client’s ad budget on a single lane, adopting a multi-channel strategy allows them to reach all possible target users that are consuming content on high-volume platforms. This can also aid in remarketing efforts to help reach the same user as they navigate through various apps and websites in their regular media consumption activities. For example, you could create a holistic advertising campaign that combines search, social, and programmatic to reach individuals in every possible ad space online. You can also combine these with organic campaigns like SEO or social content to reach consumers that place greater trust in products they discover on their own rather than through advertisements. Deliver Elite Performance Across All Campaigns If a client feels confident in the strategy that you present them with, they are more likely to feel inspired to spend more on their digital marketing campaigns. This does raise an important question, though: Can your in-house team deliver the elite performance your clients expect across all channels? This is where a white label performance partner comes in. A white label performance partner helps to round out your agency team’s skillset by providing access to their own team of expert analysts in specific channels. If crushing paid social campaigns is business-as-usual for your agency, but you lack a PPC or programmatic specialist in-house, you can partner with a white label solution to run your client’s campaigns with help from a team that already possesses the knowledge and expertise to deliver results at a high level. As a solution-based service, a white label partner also provides additional cost-savings for your agency. Instead of the traditional overhead associated with hiring, training, and retaining a full-time employee, you have the ability to run campaigns through another team of experts for a predictable fee that you can then mark up to your clients and generate additional profit for your business. When you are searching for your ideal white label partner, look for one that offers the following benefits: A team of platform and product-certified analysts Live reporting and performance dashboards Sales success resources Responsive, timely communication A holistic suite of products to round out your own service offering Case studies that prove past performance Most importantly, look for a team that understands the responsibility of their partnership with your agency. When you succeed, they succeed, and vice-versa. Your partner should hold an equal stake in the performance and results of your client’s campaigns and treat them with as much care and attention to detail as you would for your in-house services. Start 2023 with a Conduit Partnership At Conduit Digital, we partner with established and successful digital agencies throughout North America to deliver elite performance across a holistic suite of channels, including Paid Search, Paid Social, Programmatic, SEO, and more. If you are looking to round out your suite of services and take your retail advertising clients’ campaigns to the next level in 2023, schedule a 20-minute discovery call today to learn more about the power of partnership.