Good morning, Marketers, and what’s the linchpin in CRO?

In his keynote at yesterday’s SMX Convert, Michael Aagaard gave us a closer look at disappointment from a neuroscientific and psychological perspective. He dug into what conversion research we can do to understand where/when our customers experience disappointment and how to mitigate that.

The key is really mapping out and managing the expectations of our customers so we can create better and more motivating conversion experiences. One example he shared was that a client was having trouble once customers got to the “enter your credit card” part of their journey. With some research, he discovered that the whole process before that stage had primed these potential customers to think that what they were getting was free. Record scratch!

Of course they weren’t converting. They were likely majorly disappointed when they learned they weren’t getting something for free after all. The whole process of delighting vs disappointing customers makes sense — people who have a great time every step of the way are obviously going to convert because you’ve made it so simple for them.

How do you improve your CRO then? One tip: go through your own funnel and figure out where the disconnects are. Remove those barriers and test, test, test!

Carolyn Lyden,
Director of Search Content

Three PPC targeting tactics that power every stage of the funnel

In her hit session at yesterday’s SMX Convert, Amy Bishop, Owner and Marketing Consultant at Cultivative, schooled us on multi-channel targeting tactics to turn prospects into paying customers. Her three-step strategy includes ways to better understand your audience, how to determine their varying paths to purchase, and tips to ensure that you’re targeting them at every stage along that path.

1. Knowing your target audience. Just like on the SEO side, it’s critical to have your personas handy for this exercise. If you don’t have a set group of personas, Bishop included a few questions to ask yourself about your potential target audience.
2. Designing your campaigns to support the funnel. “A common question that I get,” said Bishop, “is which channels belong where [in the funnel]. I would really caution against this line of thinking because most channels have different ways that you can reach prospects. It doesn’t have to be ‘YouTube at the top, then display, and then search.’ You can make any channel work for you depending on who your prospects are and which channels they use and which targeting options are available across all channels.”
3. Considerations for improving your campaign performance. If you’ve taken all the steps above and in Amy Bishop’s SMX Convert presentation and are still having some hiccups, here are some common mistakes she’s noticed in campaigns before: lack of data, not optimizing to a higher funnel conversion, and not testing better qualifying audiences and look-alikes.

>> Want to see the whole session? Sign up to watch the entire SMX Convert learning journey on-demand.

Read more here.

Don’t miss your chance at a Search Engine Land Award

The team here at Search Engine Land wanted to provide a meaningful way to “Celebrate the Power of Search” within the search marketing community. That’s why we created the Search Engine Land Awards program. Winning one of our 19 awards is a unique, and cost-effective way to put your organization a step ahead of its competitors and help to gain new business.

Additionally, the process of reflecting on a great year of work, its successes, and lessons learned can be a wonderful team-building exercise, and getting nominated (or better yet – winning!) has been a superb morale booster for many past recipients.

The Search Engine Land Awards are dedicated to honoring the best practices of search marketing by recognizing the consultants, agencies, in-house teams and individuals that worked to execute successful programs encompassing organic, paid, local search and more. Applications close on Sept. 3, so if you;’re thinking about applying or haven’t finished your application, get started now!

Apply here before the Sept. 3 deadline.

Want to see what previous Search Engine Land Award winners have been up to? Check it out here:

• PPC award winners talk strategies for competitive times, industries, and marketplaces
• Content consolidation among winning SEO strategies, award winners say
• Award-winning tips from the 2020 Search Engine Land SEM and SEO agencies of the year

Social Shorts: TikTok, YikYak? (yes, really) and social media marketing IS content marketing

TikTok releases Creative Solutions guide for marketers. Some dos and don’ts: Do bet on uniqueness and creativity. Content with its own flair makes TikTok thrive, and is key to great results. Don’t expect that every piece of creative will contribute to a result. Don’t just replicate the same creative used on other platforms. Read the full guide here.

“I don’t really know what to make of this, but if you’re interested, for whatever reason, your favorite anonymous social media app YikYak is back in app stores in the US,” wrote Andrew Hutchinson for Social Media Examiner. “You now have another option to get a feel for what people in your local community are interested in, which could be worth taking a look at. Maybe.”

Content Marketing 101: Reach your audience in many ways. This guide from Mara Calvello with G2 emphasizes that social media is still part of a comprehensive content strategy. “Whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, or Snapchat, there are many opportunities to share your content, switch up its messaging, and get it seen.” If you’re not including social in your content plan, make sure to go back to the drawing board.

What We’re Reading: A privacy-first approach to personalization: Gaining consumer trust with transparent data collection

We’ve mentioned it before on Search Engine Land, but advertisers are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to personalization and privacy.

“91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant recommendations to them, and the majority of consumers feel positive (58%) about personalized ads,” Sanam Saaber reports in StreetFight. But at the same time, we’re combatting a wave of distrust from the very same consumers as they don’t completely understand how and why advertisers use their data.

With Google pushing back the FLoC implementation to 2023, Saaber reinforces what we’ve been hearing from many experts in paid search: get your ducks in a row now. If you had a testing plan for first-party data, don’t postpone it! This just gives you even more time to test it out.

The four data types are often conflated, but they’re very different in the eyes of the consumer and the law, wrote Saaber.

• Zero-party data is information provided intentionally and proactively by consumers (e.g., surveys, questionnaires, profile information)
• First-party data is information collected directly from consumers’ actions (e.g., actions on site, social media engagement, mobile app usage)
• Second-party data is data collected by another company, directly from consumers
• Third-party data is information collected from a number of sources and bought from data aggregator firms (e.g., third-party cookies)

One of the keys to making customers feel ok with your data collection practices? Communicate what’s going on to them. Be transparent in what you’re collecting and what you’re doing with it, and give them a reason to share it:

“Too many brands provide long and unreadable privacy policies that aren’t educational. Impress customers at the start of their journey with creative and digestible content. Consumers are generally willing to share their information if they understand the benefits they’ll get in return, like personalized coupons or more relevant recommendations.”