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Jul 21, 2022 For more than a decade, over the top (OTT) television has transformed the way that audiences consume their favorite content. Ever since Netflix first launched direct streaming, many passionate viewers have abandoned their traditional cable subscriptions in favor of on-demand digital programming. However, Netflix has always required a subscription fee for access to its content until its rather recent announcement to offer ad-supported tiers. Soon after the company started drawing a sizable audience, other competitors like Hulu began offering free-to-stream programming in exchange for the audience viewing advertisements at various intervals throughout the duration of the movie or show they were watching. Today, OTT advertising is one of the most sought-after, yet difficult-to-find digital marketing services. For many agencies that live in or serve suburban and rural areas, finding and hiring someone with advanced programmatic knowledge and expertise can prove a trying experience. At Conduit Digital, we became one of the original adopters of OTT advertising in the white label space in 2017. We identified a clear and massive need for agencies to offer this product to their clients and have invested countless hours in testing every possible platform to create a curated suite of platforms for you to advertise on. If you are considering launching an OTT advertising campaign for your client, you may be wondering what are some of the best platforms for doing so? We will break them all down in exhaustive detail for you here. Do you need help with OTT right now? Skip the read and book a call with us instead: So Why is Everyone Rushing to Advertise on OTT? At the end of last year, we predicted that OTT advertising will explode in 2022. As it turns out, our crystal ball did not lie to us. This past May, AdWeek projected OTT ad spend to surpass $21 billion this year, with many media buyers calling it a “must buy” product. With more consumers examining their monthly expenses under a microscope than ever before, OTT has become a desirable alternative to traditional cable television due to its superior personalization and the wealth of free-to-stream options available. For those looking to cut monthly expenses, watch on-demand at all times, and enjoy more tailored ad experiences, cutting the cord for digital programming is nothing short of a no-brainer. The OTT explosion resulted in an entirely new digital avenue for collecting audience data that advertisers can leverage to generate new conversions and drive return on ad spend (ROAS) for their clients. However, many agencies have approached this new tactic slowly and cautiously due to the sheer volume of platforms to choose from. If you’re looking to start advertising via OTT, you’ve found the right list. Here are 7 of our Programmatic Team’s favorite platforms that we consistently run campaigns on for our clients. 1. Hulu Co-owned by Comcast and Disney, Hulu benefits from the support of the largest global media titans. It offers an extensive library of shows, movies, and original content that you can stream at multiple pricing tiers. With an audience size of 35 million viewers in the United States alone, Hulu ranks among the top 10 streaming services in terms of pure subscribership. Statistically, approximately 1 in every 10 Americans consumes content on the platform. This creates an expansive pool of potential viewers that will view your client’s advertisements on the biggest screen in the house! Thanks to the platform’s immense support from its parent companies, Hulu offers an extensive menu of ad formats and targeting capabilities. For example, you can target viewers by factors such as: Age Interest Gender Location Show genre Depending on your preferences and your client’s desired budget, you can also select from multiple formats. Situational ads can play non-disruptively during programming and integrate your campaign into the overall viewing experience for a more seamless impression. Conversely, traditional more disruptive formats are also available at specific time slots during the show or movie being streamed. 2. Fire TV Advertising on Fire TV provides a highly scalable solution for your client. Sold via a cost-per-completed view format, your client can continue increasing or decreasing their budget as their campaign generates key performance actions (KPAs). Like Hulu, Fire TV benefits from an extensive backbone provided by its parent company, Amazon. Already compiling a massive pool of data from its flagship eCommerce website, Amazon can also equip your client’s campaign with other targeting options based on viewer interest, demographic data, keywords, viewing preferences, and more. Fire TV also allows your client to integrate their other programmatic tactics into one unified campaign. For example, you can also include banner and text ads to complement your video creatives. 3. Pluto TV Pluto TV offers viewers free content to stream in exchange for watching ads throughout the programming. Its advertising capabilities have generated immense momentum this year, and the service’s ad revenue is expected to surpass $1 billion in the U.S. alone in 2022. As a subsidiary of Viacom, Pluto TV also benefits from a considerable content library and technical infrastructure supported by its parent company. This enables advertisers to target viewers on multiple levels with a higher frequency of ads served due to the company operating exclusively on an ad-supported-video-on-demand model (AVOD). At its core, AVOD means that the platform does not offer a commercial-free subscription model. 4. Roku Roku is another popular streaming service that benefits heavily from its ad-supported model. The platform also offers a wide range of targeting options that primarily leverage its first-party data to reach your client’s desired viewers. Roku acts as a hub for many different channels that can be streamed free of charge in exchange for ads. This allows the platform to gather data based on multiple touchpoints. Depending on the goal of the campaign, the ads are billed on a cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) or cost-per-install (CPI) basis. For example, Roku categorizes viewership based on 5 primary signals: 1. General behaviors – Inferences gathered by the audience member’s content consumption habits 2. Linear TV viewership – Inferences based on viewing linear television content 3. Channel usage – How often specific content is engaged with 4. Content affinity – How often an audience member watches certain types of content or genres 5. Geography – Where the viewer is located Roku advertisers can also choose to exclude any of the signals above to further narrow down on their ideal audience. 5. Sling Sling markets itself primarily to young adult-aged, cord-cutting viewers. This audience segment is often comprised of individuals in the 18-34 age range and have a notable amount of disposable income. Advertising campaigns through Sling are facilitated by its parent, Dish Media. Campaigns can be launched through one of three general tiers and further refined through your own targeting. These include: Video The “Video” tier operates similar to traditional television commercials and is intended for advertisers seeking to reach a broad, general audience. After determining your target viewers, you can leverage core subscriber data to serve ads to these viewers. You can also daypart your content and send it to desired networks to ensure that you’re reaching the ideal viewers when they are engaged with the platform. Data-Driven Video The Data-Driven Video tier takes the Video tier one step further. Instead of reaching a large general audience, advertisers can drill down further and leverage deeper insights from generated by specific viewers for more sophisticated targeting. Addressable Dishs’ Addressable ads offer a uniquely powerful way to target at the household level. After defining and segmenting your audience, you can deliver your creatives directly to ideal households when they are actually watching content on the platform. Advertisers can use the Addressable 1:1 targeting to gather more advanced insights into a campaign’s performance. These include, but are not limited to: Sales matchbacks Traffic to your client’s website Visits to physical locations A/B testing insights Conversions at the time of tuning in 6. Tubi Tubi is another AVOD-driven OTT platform but with a unique focus on integrating advertising with the viewer experience for optimum results. Their ad formats are built on the following core principles: 100% full-screen, non-skippable displays Quality over quantity: ads only take up 4-6 minutes for every hour of programming for higher engagement and recognition Engaging formats that range from 0:6 billboards to 90-second full videos Advertisers can decide whether to run a standard video or interactive video ad on Tubi. The interactive videos allow audiences to click through to specific landing pages that you can use to further drive conversions for your client’s campaign. 7. Xumo Another ad-supported free streaming service, Xumo is owned and operated by telecom titan Comast. Like the other platforms listed above, it benefits from a robust infrastructure similar to that of Comast’s other property mentioned in this article, Hulu. Xumo emphasizes offering customized programmatic packages to advertisers. This enables your agency to exercise a great deal of control over budget, strategy, and measuring the performance metrics that matter most to your client’s business goals. Like its half-sibling Hulu, Xumo enjoys access to the wealth of first-party data that Comcast can provide. Coupled with highly customized package options, you can ensure that your message is reaching the right audiences that engage with the platform. OTT is Only Part of the Programmatic Story, Though! As a programmatic channel, OTT advertising integrates seamlessly into a holistic programmatic strategy that could also include other tactics like audio, display, and text-based advertising. Some of the platforms above also allow for you to extend your campaign with these formats to maximize your complete reach potential. When we discuss programmatic opportunities with our partners, we often recommend a strategy that incorporates at least two or more tactics. This enables your client to capitalize on the full potential of their campaign and target audiences at multiple touchpoints throughout their content consumption experience. Quick-Start an Elite OTT Advertising Campaign with a White Label Partner Now that you know some of the best OTT advertising platforms, you might be wondering how to get started? Should you focus on just one platform, a combination, or start serving to the full list we mentioned above? This is where your agency’s white label ad operations partner comes in. At Conduit Digital, we partner with successful and established agencies throughout North America to deliver elite results for your clients. Our 100% U.S.-based, expert-certified Programmatic Team leverages custom domain and application whitelists developed in-house through countless hours of testing and vetting each one’s capabilities to ensure impressions of the utmost quality. To learn more about how we can help you integrate OTT advertising into your agency’s product offering, schedule a 20-minute call with us today.

Jul 13, 2020 With the help of smartphones and the ability to scroll through social media apps at any given time, time spent on social media across the world is on the rise and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the average person spends 2 hours and 33 minutes a day on social media. Social Media Advertising has become an extremely effective way to spend your digital advertising dollars now more than ever. Choosing the best social media platforms to advertise your business is on a key ingredient in your recipe for success! With so many platforms available, Social Media Advertising is not a one size fits all approach since each platform has a unique audience and their own set of targeting options to reach them. Between Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, your business can reach the most ideal audience on social media to help accomplish virtually any business goal you may have! With the help of our guide, you will be able to decide which platform or combinations of platforms will best suit your business! Read on to learn more about each social media platform or just skip ahead to the section you’re most interested in! Facebook & Instagram LinkedIn Twitter Facebook & Instagram According to Facebook Insights, there are approximately 7 million active advertisers on and your business could be the next to benefit from advertising on this powerhouse of a social media platform. With Facebook and Instagram being connected, there are more opportunities to reach the most desirable audience to produce impressive results. Whether that be generating brand awareness for your products or services or generating leads to increase your sales, advertising on these platforms is the way to go. The diverse nature of both Facebook and Instagram allow for advertisers to use the platforms as a standalone product or part of their complete digital marketing solution! Know Your Goals The reach across Facebook and Instagram is broad, but they possess robust advertising objectives and unique targeting capabilities, so you can show your ad to a personalized audience! In terms of objectives, advertisers have the ability to choose the desired outcome of their Facebook and Instagram campaign. It’s important to know what the goals are of the campaign so you can choose the appropriate objective. This is ultimately the action you want users to take when they see your ad. Awareness – based objectives work to spark interest in your business. These objectives help increase awareness of your brand and help get your ads seen in front of as many users possible within your target audience. Brand Awareness and Reach are great for businesses who want to acquire new customers by showcasing their value, change brand perception, or warm up potential customers to what you have to offer. Overtime, as your business goals shift, consideration and conversion-oriented objectives are available when you are ready to focus your efforts on engagement and encouraging users to take action! Consideration and conversion– based objectives work to get users to seek more information and take action off the platform. Consideration objectives like Traffic, Engagement, or Lead Generation are valuable for businesses with goals that require actions to be taken. If you are interested in sending people to websites so they can learn more, obtaining information from people via a Lead Ad, or even engagement on your ads, consideration objectives are the way to go. A step further, conversion objectives are geared towards getting people to take a valuable action like making a purchase or submitting their information on a website. In order to be able to optimize your ads towards users likely to take those actions, the Facebook Pixel is required. Using a Facebook Pixel allows the system to track the activity taking place on your website and show your ads to users likely to take those same actions, like making a purchase! Know Your Targeting Options While it is important to choose a platform that offers capabilities that will help you achieve your client’s goals, knowing the targeting options on each platform is equally important.This ensures your ads are delivered to the best audience in the most effective way possible. To pinpoint your target audience, Facebook and Instagram allow you to define your audience with the basics: age, gender, and location. With the abundance of detailed targeting options like demographics, interests, and behaviors you can really hone in on a relevant audience. Custom Audiences are used to reach people already familiar with your business, so you can use this tactic to target users based off of website traffic or a customer list you may have. Lookalike audiences help you reach new users who have key similarities to those relevant users in your custom audiences. The targeting options on Facebook and Instagram are endless! Last but not least, ad format and creative options on each platform are also an important element to consider. You want to ensure that the platforms you choose have the format and creative that not only aligns with what you are trying to promote, but will resonate with who you are trying to reach! Facebook and Instagram offer a wide variety of creative and format combinations so you can create the most engaging ads possible. Facebook and Instagram ads can first be structured with a single video, static image, or a slideshow. With those creative types, businesses have the option to utilize different formats to reach their target audience. To highlight a few strong formats offered on Facebook and Instagram, there are Lead Generation ads. These ads help collect information about people interested in your business upon clicking the call to action button, which takes users to a customized form without ever leaving Facebook or Instagram. The carousel format is also available, which is a single ad that can showcase a combination of up to ten images or videos. This method is powerful when trying to show different products or tell a visual story across multiple cards. LinkedIn If your business goals are B2B Marketing or Lead Generation, LinkedIn could be the platform for you! Advertising on LinkedIn is effective when trying to reach a professional audience. A user’s LinkedIn profile is a first impression to many as you can showcase your skills and expertise. Users have an incentive to keep their profiles accurate & up to date so rest assured that you are going to reach key decision makers! LinkedIn is the largest business-oriented network and with the combination of their objectives, powerful targeting, and unique ad formats this platform is a one stop shop for reaching the professional audience that matters to your business. Like any other social advertising platform, the objective you choose is the goal you want to accomplish. The objectives on LinkedIn are also bucketed into the categories of: Awareness Consideration Conversion If your business goal is to reach a professional audience and introduce them to your brand, Brand Awareness campaigns are there to help you maximize the exposure of your business on Linkedin. LinkedIn Objectives Consideration Objectives are great if you are interested in users engaging with your business. Whether that be through engagement or video views on your LinkedIn ads or sending them to your website to learn more information. If your goals are more focused on conversions, selecting the website conversions objectives will be much more beneficial for your campaign. With this, you will have the ability to track and optimize your campaign towards the actions users take after they reach your website. LinkedIn also offers a unique conversion objective, Job Applicants. If generating applicants is your goal, this is the objective for you! This objective was created so businesses can promote their open job positions to recruit top talent on Linkedin. Once you settle on a marketing method and an objective that can accomplish your goals, read on to find out how to reach those users! When it comes to the reaching key decision makers in a business or viable candidates, LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities are unmatched. LinkedIn prides itself on the accuracy of their professional targeting. In addition to targeting users by gender, age, and location the strongest targeting options are focused on a user’s company, job title, industry, and education. You can even filter down to professional interests and skills! LinkedIn data is known to stand out since their users have a professional incentive to keep their profiles accurate and up to date! In addition to in-platform targeting, you can also use lookalike audiences to reach new professionals with similar traits to your ideal target. This level of targeting provides the highest accuracy and ensures you are narrowing your audience to those key people that matter. The unique ad formats on LinkedIn also offer advantages when helping you achieve your business goals. There are formats like sponsored content, also known as ads seen directly in feeds, are great to generate awareness, leads, and engagement. Text Ads displayed on the side rail, encourage users to drive qualified traffic to your website. LinkedIn offers the ability to personalize In-Mail for a user’s inbox in the form of Message Ads or Conversation Ads known as Sponsored In-mail. Sponsored InMail Ads These ads are powerful because it allows you to send a message to your prospects and engage with them in real-time. Conversation Ads create more structure to your messages as the recipient will have to choose from a list of actions you created. For Instance, if your Conversation Ad CTA’s can prompt users to select “Request A Demo”, “Tell Me More”, and even “Sign Up For Webinar”. With Sponsored InMail, LinkedIn will only send messages to users who are active, so you don’t waste your advertising dollars on users who won’t answer or messages that will bounce back. With Sponsored Content and Mail as well as Text and Dynamic Ads, LinkedIn ad formats can compliment many business goals and objectives. Twitter Twitter is the best platform for your business if you are interested in engaging with users in real time conversation. Twitter is formulated for engagement and fast responses and is the best platform to keep it short and sweet. Your business has the opportunity to convey a message while finding new ways to capture your audience’s attention! Still not sure if Twitter is the right platform to add into your Social Advertising mix? If your audience is present on this platform, Twitter has strong objectives, targeting, and ad formats that can help you stand out! Twitter Objectives to Know Each of the objectives Twitter offers serves a specific purpose. If your goal is increasing awareness, choosing “Reach” will maximize how many users see your Twitter ads. Twitter’s consideration objectives are among the most robust offered since this is a social platform that is designed for engagement. Do you want to drive engagement on your Tweets or drive clicks to your website? The next group of consideration objectives help your business optimize towards goals of video views, app installs, website clicks, engagement, & Twitter followers. If your business has an app, the App Re-engagement objective helps get users to take action on your app. Twitter is a compatible platform for your business if you are looking to promote your app for installs and re-engagements like in app purchases. Twitter is all about businesses and users connecting with each other. People join Twitter to see what is happening with the world, join in on trends, and to find something new. With such a unique audience, Twitter’s targeting options help you reach the right users. Twitter Targeting Options Twitter offers traditional targeting (by location, demographics, interests, and keywords) but a feature unique to Twitter is your ability to tap into conversation topics, event targeting, and movie and tv show targeting. Conversation topics help you reach users based on the types of conversations they are actively engaging with in real time. Event calendars house different events all over the world, so users can share if they are interested in attending, which allows advertisers to utilize event targeting in their strategy. Movie and TV show targeting is an option to be used if your business closely aligns with people who are engaging with interests related to specific TV shows and movies. Business can also benefit from Twitter targeting by device, carrier, and new mobile user targeting as well as tailored and lookalike audiences based on customer lists, your website, or engagement on twitter. When a platform is designed for conversation, engagement, and fast responses, businesses need to stand out in order to capture user’s attention. Promoted Tweets Twitter ads will be featured in a timeline and with the use of ad formats like promoted text, images, videos and GIFs, businesses can reach users as they scroll in their timelines. It is essential to be creative while developing your ads so they can stand out in a feed! Unique to Twitter, your ad can be formatted as a promoted poll, where users can answer questions in an interactive poll helping you gain insights and receive feedback instantly! Conclusion Social Media Advertising is not a one size fits all approach since each platform has a unique audience and their own set of targeting options to reach them. With the help of this guide, it is our hope that you can now choose the best social media platforms to advertise on!

Sep 9, 2020 Programmatic Display Advertising has revolutionized the way that marketers buy & sell advertising space across the internet. As a marketer, what are the best ways to ensure that you are tapping into the full potential of programmatic, and how do you sell this potential to clients who may not be fully bought into digital? When it comes down to it, your programmatic solution can only be as good as the tech stack you’re utilizing. Within these tools and platforms lies the true benefits of introducing a programmatic digital strategy to your clients marketing efforts. What Is Programmatic Display Advertising? Programmatic advertising is the use of software to purchase digital advertising space across the internet. The advancements in technology are what have made programmatic advertising so popular today. The reliance on machines allows advertisers to obtain digital ad space in a much more efficient and cost effective way. To learn more about Programmatic Display & Native Advertising, check out our Ultimate Guide here. One of the most robust marketing platforms out there is offered by Google known as The Google Marketing Platform. It consists of several tools that enable you to strategize, optimize, and report on the performance of your programmatic campaigns. Not to mention, using these tools will help your agency make money selling programmatic display. One of the biggest benefits of the Google Marketing platform is the ability to see campaign performance from various angles with tools to slice data in a seemingly unlimited number of ways to ensure you’re gathering desired insights. What Is Google Display & Video 360? Google Display & Video 360 is the Google Demand Side Platform or DSP.  This platform not only gives marketers access to purchasing ad space programmatically, but also provides an abundance of tools to help focus your campaigns targeting to reach the right audience at the right time, and provide users with a meaningful message and clean user experience. Within this platform Marketers have the ability to run several types of campaign ads. DV360 has the option of Display, Video, Native, Audio, YouTube, and Email. This variety allows for all campaigns to be housed under one platform and budgets can easily be managed and adjusted. Another added bonus of DV360 is the variety of targeting options available to you when building out a campaign. These range from inventory targeting, to geography, all the way down to the ability to serve based on specific weather conditions. DV360 has all of your bases covered and is fully equipped with the tools to help make sure your clients ads are reaching the right users, at the right time. Google Analytics: What Is It? Google Analytics is another product offered within the Google Marketing Platform that is an essential piece to not only marketers, but to anyone who is curious about how people navigate their website or application. Google Analytics is a free web analytics service offered by Google that provides data, reports and website tracking. Google Analytics Tips Put simply Google Analytics highlights three important pieces of information about your website. The first being Audience, which digs deep into who the people on your website are. What demographic are they in, what interest groups do they fall into, even insights into device usage. The second is Acquisition, which shows the channels they took to get to your website. Where are a majority of your visitors coming from? Are they searching for your brand name directly, or are they being sent via a referral from a specific social media platform? Finally it highlights user Behavior, which dives into what users are doing once they are on your site. Which pages have content that is showing to be the most engaging, how much time are people spending on specific pages on my site? Which sites are not receiving as much traffic as you thought? All of these insights play a huge role in the optimizations of a marketing campaign, and can further ensure that your ads are reaching the right people who engage with your site. Now having the ability to set up campaigns, and analyze the performance is all a very important piece of digital marketing. But how do we tie both of those together in a way that our clients can easily understand? That is where Google Data Studio, the reporting and visualization tool of Google Marketing Platform comes in. What is Google Data Studio? Google Data Studio is a completely free reporting tool that allows you to produce fully customizable dashboards to present the most important data to your clients. You have the ability to port over data and include a wide variety of widgets to create a clean and easily digestible report to tie the bow on the efforts put into a successful marketing campaign. Data sources can be linked effortlessly to include metrics and statistics directly from Google Analytics and DV360, which again helps create a seamless connection between the tools offered within the Google Platform. While each of these products can be used successfully as a stand-alone, the real benefit comes when they are used together. Being able to create a targeted marketing campaign through DV360, optimize that campaign based on insights gathered from Google Analytics, and report on those insights through Google Data studio is an easy and effective way to not only run a marketing campaign, but to share the success of it as well. At Conduit we utilize the Google Marketing Platform everyday to ensure we are not only set up for success, but also to know we are offering the best digital solution available anywhere in our space.

Mar 25, 2021 Google Local Service Ads allow businesses to reach their local markets and communicate their unique value to potential customers. With the economic strain of COVID-19 still persisting in many parts of the world, creating effective advertising campaigns that reach nearby audiences can help businesses survive and thrive in a challenging environment. In this Complete Guide, we’ll be covering everything you need to know about Google Local Service Ads, such as: What are Google Local Service Ads? What is Google Guaranteed? A Brief History On Local Service Ads What do Local Service Ads Look Like? How Much Do They Cost? What Locations Can You Run Local Service Campaigns In? What Categories are Google Local Service ads Available For? Next, we will be publishing a part-two of this guide that will show you how to get started with Local Service Ads the right way to drive maximum impact for your campaigns! An Introduction to Google Local Service Ads What Are Google Local Service Ads? Local Service Ads is Google’s lead generation platform targeted at helping home service contractors reach customers in their local market. These ads appear at the top of a Google search when a user enters a relevant search term for a particular industry. For example, if you search “plumber New York,” the Local Service Ad unit will display on the search engine results page (SERP). From there, searchers can contact the business directly and the business will be charged for that call. However, before businesses can begin generating leads through Local Service Ads, they must establish themselves as Google Guaranteed entities. What is Google Guaranteed? Google Guaranteed is a badge awarded by Google verifying that a business has completed the evident background check process and has had their insurance and license verified. We will dive deeper into this later. If a business is guaranteed by Google, the customers of the business can receive a refund of up to $2,000 for any work they are not satisfied with. This Google assures ad quality and maintains its sterling lead generation reputation. What Does a Local Service Ad Look Like? Google Local Service Ads have a simple display that quickly shows the following features: Business name Business photo Average user review Google Guaranteed/Screened verification Business hours Business location Call button to call the business directly A Brief History on Local Service Ads Google first launched its Local Service Ad program in 2015 in San Francisco for select businesses serving home service verticals. The program was designed to directly compete against Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor. The program’s launch allowed users to contact verified local contractors directly from Google Search. This resulted in an enhanced user experience and quicker results for searchers. Once the program proved successful, it was launched in other metropolitan areas such as New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, and many more. How Much Do Local Service Ads Cost? Google only charges businesses for valid leads received through the Local Service Ads program. If a business believes a lead was fraudulent, they can request a refund and it will be issued if Google also deems the lead as fraudulent. The cost of a lead through the program will vary between location and service area. In our experience across several locations and service areas, the general cost of a lead ranges from $10 to $30. Benefits of Local Service Ads According to our friends at Google themselves, Local Service Ads offer the following benefits: Have your business appear at the top of Google SERPs Connect with potential customers actively searching for your services Simple interface for getting started quickly with a personalized profile Mobile app allows you to communicate with customers wherever, whenever Google Guarantee establishes credibility Only pay for leads related to your business and its services Customers choose you Google Guaranteed businesses may also be listed as a local provider on the Assistant. You don’t pay for this service. What Countries are Eligible to Run Local Service Ads? The following countries are eligible for the program: United States Canada Austria Belgium France Germany Ireland Italy Spain Switzerland United Kingdom Google is constantly identifying opportunities to expand this program. We can anticipate that, as it gains more popularity, it will open opportunities for businesses in more countries to run Local Service Ads. Eligible Local Service Ads Categories Local Service Ads are only available for select categories at this time. These categories mostly involve home services targeted at consumers. Categories in the United States include: 1. Appliance repair 15. Law 2. Carpentry 16. Lawn care 3. Carpet Cleaning 17. Locksmiths 4. Countertop services 18. Moving 5. Electrical 19. Pest control 6. Fencing 20. Plumbing 7. Financial planning 21. Real estate 8. Flooring 22. Roofing 9. Foundations 23. Siding 10. Garage doors 24. Tax services 11. House Cleaning 25. Tree services 12. HVAC 26. Water damage services 13. Junk removal 27. Window cleaning 14. Landscaping 28. Window services Are you unsure if your business is eligible to run Local Service Ads? Finding out is easy. Just use the Google Eligibility Checker. Stay Tuned for Part 2: Setting Up Your Own Campaign Next week, we will be returning with an ultimate guide for actually setting up and running a Local Service Ads campaign. Stay tuned as we dive deeper into the mechanics of building a successful, conversion-driving strategy!

As Q4 approaches, has your agency prepared to close out the current year in preparation for what’s on the horizon? We know Q4 comes with its own challenges, but it is also a great time to discover new ways to add value for your clients and maintain the high level of performance they have come to expect from your team. During Q4, many clients are often reassessing their budgets and determining their needs for the upcoming year. Depending on their satisfaction with the results your agency has produced for them, they may decide to: Increase their investment in your agency’s services Maintain their current budget with your agency Decrease their marketing budget Cancel their work agreement with your agency Out of these possible outcomes, the last two are likely the ones any agency leader would want to avoid. The first one, of course, is the most desirable. As you continue demonstrating how the fruits of your labor benefit your client, would you not be positioned to pitch them on investing further? How do you inspire and motivate your clients to continue investing or increase their investment with your agency? You prove the performance you have delivered for your accounts has led to tangible results! That leads to you arriving here. How do you prepare for Q4 and also continue to perform for your clients during a demanding time of year for your business? Need to Scale Your Agency Now? How to Prove the Past Year’s Performance for Your Clients When you want to demonstrate the value your services provide, nothing compares to a live report. This deliverable becomes a living digital entity that can outline exactly what your team has accomplished for your client and the tangible results these efforts produced. Whether your client requests a record of what you have done for them or not, keeping an internal track record of these successes can benefit your agency in more than one way. For example, if you are not sending these documents to clients so that they can see what you have accomplished for them, you can still use the report to create a case study or whitepaper to promote your own business. However you plan to use your live reports, make sure that they remain housed in an easily accessible folder on your cloud drive. If the client does request that you do provide them with this information, you can retrieve it with little time and effort. Along with the raw data, ensure that these figures also include insights from your team to put them into their proper context. For example, if your client now ranks '#1' on Google for 50 new desirable keywords, did they displace any of their competitors as a result? Did their organic traffic increase by a certain percentage once they began climbing the SERPs for these terms? You can use the information within your SEO reports to construct the proper narrative that pairs seamlessly with the data. This not only highlights your achievements but it also illustrates how you delivered these results for your clients and demonstrates the tangible value they produced for your client’s business. How to Continue Adding Value to Your Clients’ Accounts During Q4 Q4 is often a hectic time of year and between the end of year rush and the holidays your clients may not be engaging with your team as frequently, so how do you continue to add value? Rather than keeping your head down in the work, look for ways that you can better prepare them for the new year. As an example, you could invest time into researching and identifying keywords for their SEO and/or Paid Search campaigns for the new year. When they are ready to hit the pavement in Q1, you will have fresh ideas and new opportunities prepared, which can also help cut down on crunch time in the future. 5 Ways to Use Q4 to Strengthen Your Own Business 1. Set Your Own Goals for the Next Year At Conduit, we abide by the mantra of beginning with the end in mind. When you have an end goal envisioned, you can create a roadmap that leads you to your desired outcome. Try to find a moment during Q4 to outline both abstract and concrete goals for next year. For example, you may have a goal that is less definable but equally important such as “improve the client experience at my agency”. Conversely, you could also have one that is more tangible in nature like “increase the client roster size by 30%”. If you already have 30 clients currently onboard with your agency, you would then need to acquire another 9 during the next year to meet this objective. No matter the goal you set, it should follow the S.M.A.R.T. framework: Specific – What are you trying to achieve in particular? Measurable – How can you track your progress towards achieving the goal? Achievable – Can the goal be realistically accomplished? Relevant – Does the goal directly benefit your agency as a business? Time-bound – Can you set a realistic timeline or deadline for accomplishing it? With the S.M.A.R.T. framework in place, you can define exactly how you will achieve your goals without any ambiguity. You can track progress along the roadmap and make sure that all of your necessary benchmarks are met to reach your desired outcome. 2. Take Inventory of Your Current Capacity and Bandwidth Has your team spent the past year working at or over capacity? Does it feel like “extra bandwidth” is a mythical, unobtainable state of being? If your team is already maxed-out with your current client roster, this could affect your ability to scale. Should a new, large account onboard in the new year, you may not have the capability to continue delivering elite performance across all of your accounts if they are all competing for your team’s work hours. Do you feel like you have reached a brick wall in terms of capacity? It may be time to hire one or more new team members or explore the possibilities of a partnership with a white label provider to stabilize the bandwidth crisis. However, if you find that you have plenty of bandwidth, this may also present a new opportunity. You could use the available time to invest in other aspects of your agency such as any of the following: 3. Strengthen Your In-House Team What are some ways that you can build up your current in-house team? From free Google Skillshop certifications to trainings and industry seminars, you can discover opportunities to expand their own knowledge and expertise to provide a more excellent service for your clients. You can also use any available bandwidth to have a “listening tour” with your team. Ask them where they think the agency’s operations can improve further. For example, they may have ideas for a new tool or service that can help streamline processes or automate recurring tasks so that they can spend more time on higher-level objectives. Want to start somewhere simple? Listen to podcasts by other agency leaders, such as AgencyTalk or PredictiveROI's Sell With Authority Podcast . You can easily drop links into a Slack thread or email and send them to your team. 4. Invest in More Internal Marketing During a busy year you may unintentionally neglect one of your most important clients: your agency! While prioritizing client work always comes first, you should also ensure that you dedicate any available bandwidth and resources to promote your own business to potential clients that you want to reach. Align your own internal marketing strategies with your business goals for the upcoming year. If you want to land more clients in the medical industry, you can create a paid media strategy designed to target these business leaders within your desired niche and geographic locations. You can also spend more time researching your competitors that are targeting the same niche to see where they are creating success and how you can compete more effectively against them. Lastly, as an agency leader, one of the best forms of internal marketing is testimonials from your existing clients. Ask your client’s point-of-contact, such as their CEO or CMO, if they can provide you with a quote in either written or video form that you can use to promote your services on your own website. 5. Look for New Ways to Land and Expand Accounts Are there any services that clients have been requesting that your agency does not have the resources or expertise to deliver on? If you cannot eventually meet these needs, your client may decide to explore opportunities with a competing agency that can and will rise to the occasion. Keep a close ear to the ground on what your clients have requested over the past year. Are there opportunities that you can pursue to expand your ability to deliver across these desired channels? A white label partnership can enable your agency to integrate these capabilities into your offering at an expert level immediately. You can then confidently say “yes” when asked if you can provide TikTok advertising or OTT advertising services. Not only will your agency appeal to more desirable prospects, but you can also explore more opportunities to expand your accounts with current clients! Say “Yes” to Better Opportunities in Q4 and Beyond with a White Label Partner At Conduit Digital, our team partners with successful agencies across North America to deliver elite, scalable white label digital marketing products and performance for their clients. We equip your agency with a 100% U.S.-based suite of services, resources, and reports that you can use to enable better opportunities for your business. To learn more about how you can say “yes” to these opportunities in the new year, schedule a 20-minute discovery call with us today.

Sep 24, 2020 Over the Top Television has become a powerful tool in the hands of digital marketers and business owners alike . OTT has many different targeting capabilities that can be utilized to reach the optimal target audience for almost every campaign! The perfect extension of traditional tv ads, OTT in the right hands can help bring amazing results to any campaign. From targeting a specific geographic location to targeting users based on their recent purchase history OTT has a wide range of targeting capabilities. Below we will go into detail regarding the different targeting capabilities for OTT across various DSPs. With nearly 60% of Americans ‘cutting the cord’ and replacing traditional TV with OTT, finding ways to take advantage of all of these capabilities is becoming more important every day! Geographic Targeting Geographic targeting is one of the most advanced location-based advertising techniques for targeting users based on a specific and sought after geographic area. This offers you the ability to accurately geo-target potential customers across connected and streaming platforms. This enables you to capture your audience’s location within a country, media market, city, state, zip code, and/or radius requested. Geographic targeting helps ensure you are not wasting resources by serving Ads to individuals who live hundreds of miles outside of your physical market. Instead, it allows you to get as granular with your targeting as a radius around a specified address. Streaming Service & TV Application Whitelists Quality of engagement and traffic is of the utmost importance when running an OTT campaign. Client’s do not want their Ads served to the dog sitting on the couch watching TV while their owner is at work. At Conduit Digital, our OTT team has spent countless hours vetting and creating the right Streaming Services and TV Applications whitelists to serve your client’s ads on. No serving on Apps that are only meant to be on as background noise or screensaver. The team has identified over 1,000 domains to only serve where relevant audiences will see your clients’ ads while also driving great performance. These whitelists can be layered with other targeting tactics to combine for some really advanced targeting. Site Retargeting Is there a more ideal user to target than someone that has previously shown interest in your client by visiting their website? Did you know that 96% of users who visit a webpage will leave without ever converting to a lead or sale? This is where site retargeting can be one of your best friends while running an OTT campaign. There are many different approaches to using site retargeting, and choosing the right approach is dependent on your campaign goals. Site retargeting can be utilized to retarget users who have visited your site or a specific page on your site. If you only wanted to retarget users who have visited your “Contact Us” page after they left, site retargeting gives you that capability. Or if you wanted to target individuals who have left something in their shopping cart with Ads reminding them to complete their purchase you can do that! If your goal is to capture every user who visits your site and retarget them to help keep your brand top of mind, site retargeting allows you to do just that. Email Retargeting Email Retargeting is a powerful way to reach an audience that is interested in your client’s industry! Email retargeting is a fairly new targeting capability for OTT. Allowing for the ability to create custom audience lists based on users current subscriptions and newsletter emails they receive. With email retargeting you are tapping into a whole new area not seen before in OTT campaigns. Purchase Receipt Retargeting Just like Email Retargeting, Purchase Receipt targeting uses emails that users receive to build a custom audience. The difference, however, is these users have received receipts after purchasing something online. For example, if someone just received an email receipt for a dog collar, they could be categorized within a ‘dog owners’ audience. Purchase receipt retargeting helps give you peace of mind that your Ads are being served to audiences that are within your specified demographic. Search Behavioral Search Behavioral targeting allows for custom audience creation based on a list of keywords that are relevant to your client’s campaign. Behavioral targeting enables advertisers to combine the effectiveness of search with the brand impact and reach of OTT targeting. Search is an amazing capability when used in an OTT campaign. You are able to create custom keyword lists that can be as granular or as broad as you want them to be. This helps ensure your Ads are being seen by the users in your target audience. Point of Interest (Geo-Fencing) Point of Interest (POI) targeting, sometimes called Geo-Fencing, utilizes multiple data sources to pinpoint a user’s exact whereabouts, allowing clients to target competitors’ locations and other relevant physical locations where their target audience may frequently visit. POI can also be utilized to target a specific event or events your client’s target demographic attend. Have a rare car dealership? With POI you would have the ability to gather user pools from events such as a Baret Jackson car auction and serve them Ads for the rare car dealership. POI targeting can also be coupled with foot traffic attribution, so your clients will know how many times someone visits their business after viewing an ad! At Conduit Digital, we found that users who were served one of our clients’ ads after visiting a brick and mortar location were about 3 times more likely to convert than those who visited the same targeted locations but were not served an ad! Demographic & Interest/Affinity OTT campaigns are able to reach users based on their demographic and psychographic affiliations utilizing first and third party data. In terms of demographics, your clients’ ads can be targeted towards people based on things like their age, gender, income, education, and marital status. This can be paired with the ability to target user’s interests, like coffee drinkers, fitness enthusiasts, and musical instrument buyers to really put the ads in front of the most relevant audiences! In-Market or Intent Intent targeting can be utilized to target users who have shown behaviors putting to them in-the-market to buy a specific product. This is a great opportunity to target users who may be searching on competitors’ websites or doing research on which specific brand they should spend their money on. Dayparting While it is important to always try to reach the right audience, it is just as important to reach that audience at the right time. With dayparting, your OTT campaign will have the capability to serve your clients’ ads during the time of day users are at their most engaged. No serving Ads to sleepy eyes at 3am or the pet friendly channel that is made for users to put on when they leave their house to comfort their pal. We serve to engaged users and dayparting makes that possible. OTT Targeting In a Nutshell Knowing your audience and knowing what tactics to use for your campaign are immense. To learn more about OTT and the benefits it wll bring to your client, check out our Ultimate OTT Guide. We hope we can help with pain points that come with setting up an optimal OTT campaign. Let us know in the comments below!

Jul 21, 2020 When you think of search in general, you think of a group of listings that take you to websites. At least, that is the way search has worked. Now though, users have as many (if not more) opportunities to learn and convert before ever even getting to a website. So, what does this mean for the SEO and search community in general? It means, treating the SERP page like the landing page, rather than the portal to get to a landing page. What Does ‘SERP’ Mean? Before we can jump into the specifics as to why and how you should be treating the SERP as a landing page, we should first discuss what ‘SERP’ even means. For any novice digital marketers, you have probably been reading and hearing the term a lot. SERP stands for “Search Engine Results Page”, which are the web pages that populate every time someone online enters a keyword or search query using search engines like Bing or Google. Every SERP is unique, even for search queries performed on the same search engine using the same keywords or search queries. This is because virtually all search engines customize the experience for their users by presenting results based on a wide range of factors beyond their search terms, such as the user’s physical location, browsing history, and social settings. The SERP can be made up of, Google Ads, Organic Results, Google My Business listings, Google Maps, Images, Videos, etc. Based on the query and Google’s interpretation of what your search intent may be will determine the layout of what your SERP will look like. Two SERPs may appear identical, and contain many of the same results, but will often feature subtle differences. Why Is the SERP so Important? The SERP is unique for each different search query based upon the keywords and phrases used when a consumer is searching for their results. These results can vary from person to person based on Google’s algorithm. This ensures that the consumer is being served up relevant results that match the intent behind their query. SERP is important because the higher a company’s website ranks, the more searchers will click on the website. It’s believed that nearly 75% of online users do not go past the first page of search engines, so it’s important to develop a strong SEO strategy in order to rank higher on the SERP and capture leads. If your website is stuck on page 2 for a few keywords, you may need to reestablish a strategy in order to bump them up to the first page. With the SERP being the new landing page for many websites and businesses, how will you get yours to stand out amongst the other ads and organic listings? Read on to find out. Be Consistent Running a PPC, SEO, and local search campaign separately just doesn’t get it done any longer. All of these campaigns need to be working together, creating consistency on the SERP that will make a business recognizable and in turn increase your CTR. This includes making sure the business name being used is the exact same across all search campaigns. For example, if your business name is Jake’s Roofing Associates, be sure to use the exact business name is PPC ads, title tags, and Google My Business. Far too often, you will see variations (Jake’s Roofing, Jakes Roofing & Associates, etc.) which can be confusing and lead to a lower CTR on search. Consistency also means using similar phrasing in the listings. If you have a CTA in your PPC ad, mirror it in your SEO title and create a GMB post about the offer you’re promoting. Again, having this consistency will lead to a higher CTR of the overall campaign. Be Strategic Knowing that many users may not ever actually end up on the website, understand the intent behind the searches that are being conducted every month. For education searches, make sure you are drafting content that specifically answers the question and don’t be subtle about crafting the content to answer the question directly. With more and more searches displaying rich snippet content, this can lead to expanded visibility right at the top of the search. For more conversion-focused keywords, be sure to bid on them in your PPC campaign. You will also want to make sure you have ad extensions and have linked the GMB listing with your PPC campaign, especially for those bottom of the funnel keywords, as these users generally are looking to convert and giving them that opportunity right on the SERP will boost overall ROI. In today’s marketing climate, it’s not only important to use a top notch strategy when developing your SEM campaigns but it’s also crucial to stay up to date on any changes. Google is constantly changing its algorithm, layout, even bidding pricing. To stay ahead of your competitors, you need to make sure that you’re feeding your brain with the latest industry news and trends. Be Innovative While a lot has changed on the Google SERP, there are even more changes that are still to come. We’ve seen Local Service Ads, Shopping Ads, GMB Offers, Video and Image results, Direct Booking apps and so much more. You need to be taking advantage of as many of these as possible. Not only because they offer opportunity, but also because that will allow you to take advantage of what’s next. The farther you fall behind with what Google is offering, the more difficult it will be to catch up. Our PPC team has crafted an extensive list of Google Ads Tips and Tricks for you to try out on your next PPC campaign so you can stay ahead of competition. This is especially true since there are now more businesses taking advantage of these opportunities than ever before. With competition growing more fierce for SERP visibility, and with users relying more on the SERP than ever before, not being there can make a business invisible. The good news is it’s not too late. With a strategic SEM campaign from a full-service digital marketing agency, you can take full advantage of these opportunities. Implementing a search engine marketing solution is more than adding a credit card to Google Ads. Having the right digital marketing agency is the difference between a true marketing campaign and putting money into a product.

Jul 1, 2020 An integral part of a successful Social Advertising Campaign is Facebook Pixel. The Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that should be placed on a website prior to launching any campaign. It is an analytics tool that helps us understand the actions that users are taking on a website and tool to evaluate the effectiveness of our advertising. What is The Facebook Pixel? The Facebook Pixel unlocks a multitude of targeting capabilities that can take your Social Advertising Campaign to the next level. It enhances your targeting and makes sure that your ads are being seen by those who are most likely to take action and convert. Facebook’s core targeting options are based on data collected directly on the platform, what users share on their profiles, and the behaviors they exhibit on the platform. How Do Facebook Pixels Work? Imagine someone clicks on your ad and is brought to your website where they buy one of your products. When you have a Facebook pixel placed, this action will cause it to trigger a report for this purchase. By using this pixel, you’ll know how effective your ads are and how many people are converting based on the ads. The users information is then saved so you can use it to create custom audiences to retarget. Facebook pixels can be used to not only target previous customers, but you can also use it to target users who have similar interests that of your current customer base. You can also use the pixel to target user who may have interacted with your ads previously, but never converted. Since this pixel will monitor everything happening on your website, you can see which products attract the most users. By collecting all this information, it’ll make your retargeting campaign much more effective. How Does Retargeting Work? Retargeting is a highly effective process of targeting your Facebook ads to an audience who has previously shown interest in your products/services. This allows you to put your ad in front of people who are already in-market to remind them how awesome your product is. Re-targeting website visitors through custom audiences is unlocked with the Facebook Pixel installation. This is a targeting option that serves your ads to people who know your business because they have engaged in some level of interaction whether it be your website, app, Facebook page, or in-store activity in the past. These audiences are highly relevant because you use your own business sources that matter the most: website traffic, customer files, app activity, and offline activity. Serve Specialized Ads A major strong suit of the Facebook Pixel installed is the ability to re-target ads to website visitors who visited your website up to the last 180 days. These ads can be designed specifically for the custom audience you want to target. Using social media targeting it a great way to save ad dollars and ensure your message is only being shown to people who have interest. The Facebook Pixel gives us the ability to serve specific ads for things they have shown an interest in on your website, so if a user didn’t convert, it is likely that a re-targeting ad can give them that extra push needed! You are also able to exclude people out of your audience as a result of the Pixel collecting data, so this means you don’t have to waste your ad dollars on people who converted or took specific actions already! Custom Audience Data Using custom audience data collected through the Pixel, we then can take it a step further and now have the ability to use that data to build lookalike audiences. Lookalike audiences are a way to reach new people with key similarities to those who have already known interest in your business. Lookalike audiences are a great way to reach new people and this audience will constantly update over time, so you are always reaching a new relevant segment of your target audience! How To Create A Facebook Tracking Pixel If you want to set up a Facebook pixel, you will need to first make sure you have: A website for your business Access to update the code on the site. Create a Facebook Pixel Navigate to Events Manager Click Connect Data Sources and select Web. Click Get Started. Select Facebook Pixel and click Connect. Read how the pixel works, then click Continue. Add your Pixel Name. Enter your website URL to check for easy setup options. Click Continue. Add The Facebook Pixel To Your Site Once the code is created, you’re then ready to add it to the backend of your site. If you want to install the code manually, you will need to navigate to the header template section on your CMS platform. Go to Events Manager. Select the pixel you want to set up. Click Continue Pixel Setup. Select Install code manually. Copy the pixel base code. Paste the base code at the bottom of the header section, just above the closing head tag. Click Continue. Optional: Toggle on Automatic Advanced Matching and verify the customer information you want to send. Click Continue. Add events using the Event Setup Tool or by manually adding code to your website. You can use one pixel across your whole website, including multiple pages of your website. However, there may be a need to use two pixels on one website. For example, if two different agencies run ads for your business, they may each need to set up a separate pixel on your website. By placing this pixel, you will have a better idea of which ads are performing the best. Utilizing this information will help you develop similar strategies for future campaigns and ultimately deliver your client’s a higher social media ROI. Conclusion Bottom line is that if you want to accurately monitor your campaigns and reach a highly relevant audience, the Facebook Pixel is your answer! The Facebook Pixel is a must-use tool for all Social Advertising Campaigns!

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

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

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

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