Google Merchant Center is removing 4 attribution models from conversion tracking

Google Merchant Center will remove the ability to select four rules-based attribution models when setting up the conversion source in 2024. The models being removed are:

• First-click.
• Linear.
• Time decay.
• Position-based.

Starting in April 2024, any conversion sources still using these models will be switched to data-driven attribution.

Marketers not wanting conversions that use data-driven attribution will be able to use the last-click model instead.

Why we care. This change will affect how marketers analyze and attribute conversions, crucial for identifying effective channels, touchpoints and strategies, enabling informed decision-making and resource allocation.

Why now? Google announced this change after confirming it was retiring these attribution models for all properties in Google Ads and Google Analytics in October 2023. A spokesperson explained that adoption rates were “increasingly low” with “fewer than 3% of conversions in Google Ads using these models.” They added:

• “Switching to the data-driven attribution model typically results in a 6% increase in conversions for advertisers.”

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Deep dive. Read Google’s Select Attribution Settings documentation for more information on how to choose the reporting attribution model and conversion window for your property.

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Google will pay Canada publishers $73m a year to keep news links in search

Google has agreed to pay publishers in Canada $73.6 million a year to keep links to news articles in its search results.

The search engine had threatened to stop serving news links in response to a new law that forces tech companies to pay for news content.

However, Google was able to strike a deal with the Canadian government before the rollout of the Online News Act, which is planned for 19th December 2023.

Why we care. This landmark deal will come as a huge relief for news publishers in Canada. Had Google followed through with its threat to remove links to news articles in search, organic traffic would have been severely impacted, which in turn would have negatively affected the value of their ad space.

Terms and conditions. Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a statement that the “single collective” paid by Google would be distributed to “a wide range of news businesses across the country, including independent news businesses and those from Indigenous and official-language minority communities.” He added:

• “A sustainable news ecosystem is good for everyone.”
• “The health of the Canadian news industry has never been more at risk.”

Although the Canadian government and Google have agreed solutions to make both parties happy, the final regulations have yet to be confirmed.

What Google is saying. Alphabet president of global affairs, Kent Walker, said in a statement:

• “Following extensive discussions, we are pleased that the Government of Canada has committed to addressing our core issues with Bill C-18.”
• “While we work with the government through the exemption process based on the regulations that will be published shortly, we will continue sending valuable traffic to Canadian publishers.”

Meta maintains its opposition. Despite Google’s announcement, Meta is standing firm on its decision to remove news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada. Meta spokesperson, Lisa Laventure, said in a statement:

• “Unlike search engines, we do not proactively pull news from the internet to place in our users’ feeds and we have long been clear that the only way we can reasonably comply with the Online News Act is by ending news availability for people in Canada.”

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Deep dive. Read Google’s concerns about Canada’s Bill C-18 in full for more information.

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Writing emails that convert by Digital Marketing Depot

Email marketing remains one of the most effective channels for engaging your audience and driving conversions. But breaking through crowded inboxes is harder than ever.

The Definitive Guide for Writing and Designing Emails That Convert outlines professional tips and best practices for optimizing email strategy. This comprehensive white paper shares:

• Key principles for email design to boost open and click through rates
• Best practices for writing compelling copy that keeps readers hooked
• Ways to incorporate psychology and drive urgency

Whether you’re a startup trying to break through the noise or an established business looking to improve existing campaigns, this guide will help strengthen your email marketing fundamentals.

Visit Digital Marketing Depot to download The Definitive Guide for Writing and Designing Emails That Convert.

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Pinterest rolls out AI body type filter to improve search inclusivity and engagement

Pinterest has started testing an AI “body type” filter to make search more inclusive.

The new consumer tool, which is rolling out on women’s fashion and wedding ideas, will enable users to filter their product search results based on different body types. Pinterest execs claim the feature has potential not just to improve search diversity, but also engagement for brands.

Why we care. Enabling customers see how clothes fit their unique body shape has the potential to strongly influence their decision to buy, which could possibly lead to higher conversions.

Roll out. The AI “body type” filter is currently available in the following countries:

• U.S.
• UK.
• Ireland.
• Canada.
• Australia.
• New Zealand.

Pinterest has confirmed that the technology will expand to additional international markets soon.

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What Pinterest is saying. Sabrina Ellis, Pinterest’s chief of product, told Tech Crunch:

• “We are committed to building a more positive internet, and with these developments, our hope is to bring a more personalized and inclusive experience on Pinterest.”
• “We are still at the early stages of testing, and look forward to sharing additional learnings and details soon.”

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Take back your ROI by owning your data by Cynthia Ramsaran

Other brands can copy your style, tone and strategy — but they can’t copy your data.

Your data is your competitive advantage in an environment where enterprises are working to grab market share by designing can’t-miss, always-on customer experiences. Your marketing tech stack enables those experiences. 

Join ActionIQ and Snowplow to learn the value of composing your stack – decoupling the data collection and activation layers to drive more intelligent targeting.

Register and attend “Maximizing Marketing ROI With a Composable Stack: Separating Reality from Fallacy,” presented by Snowplow and ActionIQ.

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Google Ads boss Jerry Dischler steps down

Google Ads exec Jerry Dischler has stepped down after more than 15 years to take on a new challenge.

The tech giant was not able to disclose what the “new challenge” is or whether he would remain within the business, but did tell Search Engine Land that the decision was not related to the recent federal antitrust trial.

After more than a decade working in advertising, Google explained it was only natural for Dischler to want to try something new.

Takeover. Vidhya Srinivasan, who previously led product and engineering for ads, will take over to lead the Ads team and will report directly to Google’s Senior Vice President, Prabhakar Raghavan.

Shashi Thakur, who has worked for Google for 17 years, will take on Srinivasan’s previous role and report directly to her, covering ads for Google’s core business.

Official statement. Google’s Vice President, Raghavan, said in a statement:

• “After more than 15 years on Google’s ads business, Jerry Dischler decided to take on a new challenge.”
• “Our ads business helps millions of businesses thrive and we’re grateful to Jerry for his many accomplishments in this area. We’re also excited to elevate Vidhya Srinivasan, a seasoned leader with deep technical expertise who currently leads our search ads business, to lead Ads.”
• “With a track record of significant innovations across privacy, measurement, AI, search ads and beyond, Vidhya is the natural successor for this role.”

New Google Ads boss. Srinivasan, who joined Google from Amazon four years ago, has overseen technical teams across various aspects of the ads product portfolio. This includes roles related to search and shopping ads, Google Analytics, ads measurement tools, and AI-powered campaign experiences. During her tenure, she led the launch of Performance Max and Demand Gen, the overhaul of Google Analytics, and the implementation of pixel-less measurement for YouTube advertising.

Recently, she has been at the forefront of Google’s efforts to monetize new generative AI experiences in Search (SGE) and has been instrumental in developing tools for advertisers to utilize generative AI capabilities for campaign and asset creation. Beyond her technical contributions, Srinivasan sponsors Google’s Women in Ads Community, focusing on empowering self-identified women in Ads and supporting their career advancement.

Stepping up. Long-term Googler Shashi, who has been with the company for 17 years, has contributed significantly to the development of core Google products such as Search, Discover, and Shopping. His extensive tenure includes recent work on long-term strategy within Prabhakar’s Knowledge and Information organization.

Over 13 years focused on Google Search, Shashi played a vital role in evolving the search experience, particularly with the advent of mobile devices. Notably, he led engineering and product teams that introduced the Google Knowledge Graph to enhance the Search experience.

Shashi also served as the General Manager for Consumer Shopping, overseeing the development of the shopping experience on Search. In this role, he emphasized creating more inspirational experiences through conversational AI and AR/3D technology.

Dischler’s leadership. During his time in Ads, Dischler played a crucial role in shaping the future of advertising for Google and the industry overall. He contributed to Google’s transition from desktop to mobile, established a leading stance on user privacy, and pioneered advanced advertising technologies, including early applications of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) at scale.

He began overseeing Google Ads in 2020 and achieved record-breaking profits. In the first three quarters of 2023 alone, the search engine made more than $220 billion in ad revenue under Dischler’s leadership.

Antitrust trial comments. During the federal antitrust trial, Dischler testified that Google changes the auctions it uses to sell search ads, increasing the cost of ads and reserve pricing by as much as 5% for the average advertiser. He claimed that for some queries, the tech giant may have even raised prices by as much as 10%. He added that for some queries, the tech giant may have even raised prices by as much as 10% – but Google tends “not to tell advertisers about pricing changes.”

Following Dischler’s comments, a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land:

• “Search ads costs are the result of a real-time auction where advertisers never pay more than their maximum bid. We’re constantly launching improvements designed to make ads better for both advertisers and users.”
• “Our quality improvements help eliminate irrelevant ads, improve relevance, drive greater advertiser value, and deliver high quality user experiences.”

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Deep dive. Read our blog on the federal antitrust trial for more information on Dischler’s testimony.

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Reddit launches new certification in engaging ad creatives

Reddit has rolled out a new certification to its Ads Formula marketing hub.

The course, titled “Reddit Ads Creatives”, is a free hour-long session for intermediate marketers that covers how to:

• Build engaging ad creatives.
• Adhere to Reddit ads best practices.
• Run creative A/B tests.
• Engage with the Reddit community.
• Adapt creatives to holiday moments throughout the year.

Why we care. Upon completing the course and passing the test, you will become a Reddit Ads Creative Certified partner. This status comes with a digital badge that can be showcased on other platforms, highlighting your expertise in Reddit marketing, which could help improve your career prospects and attract new clients.

Why now? Responding to growing client demand for advanced Reddit education, the platform is expanding its training courses for the second time in two months. Previous courses received high satisfaction, with a 4.5 out of 5 rating. Notably, 87% of participants reported a better understanding of Reddit’s ad offerings through the training.

What Reddit is saying. A Reddit spokesperson said in a statement:

• “Make an even bigger impact this holiday season with campaign strategies that’ll set your brand up for success.”
• “Sharpen your creative skills and Own the Moment with our latest course in our Creative Certification on RedditAF.”
• “Upon passing the Certification Exam, you’ll validate your knowledge, earn a badge, and sweet bragging rights for your newfound skills!”

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Deep dive. Visit the Reddit Ads Formula platform for more information on its marketing courses.

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X’s key advertisers aren’t pausing campaigns – they’re walking away

X’s major advertisers have not posted on the platform in almost two weeks.

Reports initially suggested that companies like Disney, Paramount, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, and Universal had temporarily paused campaigns.

However, key brands have actually ceased advertising altogether after Elon Musk endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory – which he has since refused to apologize for.

Industry insiders told CNN that the companies have stopped posting on official handles due to concerns around brand safety.

Why we care. Powerful companies distancing themselves from X sends a clear message about its current state as an advertising platform and the potential risks of reputational damage through brand association.

Financial impact. X is potentially facing a loss of up to $75 million in ad revenue by the end of 2023, according to the New York Times.

Blackout. Not only are corporate companies halting their posts on X, but prominent accounts like @StarWars and @MarvelStudios, each with millions of followers and prior daily posts, have also ceased posting on the platform. Notably, they are now increasing their activity on rival platforms like Threads.

What this means. Since Elon Musk took over last year, ad revenue has seen a significant decline. Now, with high-profile accounts also stopping their posts, the lack of content may pose a challenge for X’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, in attracting advertisers back to the platform.

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Uncertain future. While there’s a chance that major advertisers might return to X in the future, there’s also the possibility that they won’t. If X fails to resolve its ad revenue issue, this could have dire consequences for the platform’s future

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TikTok launches new tool to help creators improve engagement

TikTok has rolled out a new feature to help small businesses create content that is more engaging, relevant and relatable.

Creative Cards are data-backed prompts offering creators tips on how to make posts that resonate more effectively with their audience. These cards are divided into five categories:

• Community
• Edutainment
• Creator tools
• Trends
• Storytelling

Why we care. Creative Cards may prove particularly valuable to brands that are new to TikTok and unsure of how to effectively optimize content for maximum exposure and engagement. This feature could also be handy for more experienced content creators in need of inspiration during the all-important holiday season.

How it works. Content creators wanting to explore this new feature will need to register for access. Once access has been granted, you will be able to scroll through more than 100 digital cards for ideas.

Breaking it down. Depending on what area of content creation you want assistance with, TikTok Creative Cards are split into categories:

• Community: These insights are designed to assist creators in actively engaging their audience for building customer loyalty. Examples include integrating customer testimonials and crafting content based on user comments.

• Edutainment: This category includes creative ways to showcase products, share lessons learned and introduce offers.

• Creator Tools: From storytelling and green screen concepts to incorporating music and captions, the creator tools category explores various ways for creators to boost views and enhance likability.

• Trends: These cards have been designed to help creators brainstorm how to take part in trending memes and hashtags.

• Storytelling: This final category explores different approaches creators can take to telling their business’s journey and the challenges faced.

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What TikTok is saying. A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement:

• “TikTok Creative Cards help you develop new ways to communicate with concise ad concepts displayed on a collection of digital cards. With so many thought starters at the ready, it’s easy to keep your content fresh and avoid going stale, which can help you attract attention to seasonal products and gift ideas.”
• “Actively engage your audience, show off your expertise with a side of fun, and make your small business relevant and relatable with innovative ideas for celebrating the holidays.”

Deep dive. Read TikTok’s announcement in full for more information.

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2024 PPC budgeting: How to plan and secure your ideal budget

The pressure is on for marketing leaders as we round out the year. The directive is to end 2023 strong and prepare for 2024 long before it’s started. Although the new year is still weeks away, budget planning shouldn’t be a last minute shot in the dark. 

Budgets are created from company goals, historical data and forward-looking considerations. To make budgeting more difficult, CMOs face challenges going into 2024, including:

• Higher inflation rates than in the recent past and economic uncertainty.
• Pressure to do more with less budget and headcount.
• Urgency to realize the productivity gains promised by AI and other new technologies.
• Messy data and lack of measurement made worse by third-party cookie deprecation.

“Global advertising spend is set to grow […] 8.2% in 2024, a boost that will see the market top $1 trillion for the first time ever,” according to WARC’s Global Ad Spend Outlook 2023/24.

Despite this prediction, budget cuts are common. Competition for ad inventory will continue; CPCs will rise, making improving efficiency all the more necessary.

Current events like the Summer Olympics and US presidential election will create opportunities for brands to grab the spotlight. Advertisers should avoid pulling back on spend if they can afford to and take advantage of these high-profile events. 

With that in mind, the ideal PPC budget begins with your targets.

Setting goals

To set achievable goals, start with the big picture and get more granular. Not all channels will achieve the same outcomes, so platforms must work in tandem. Targeting, ad formats and costs per action differ from platform to platform, so a solid cross-channel strategy is crucial to achieving business objectives.

For example, suppose the organization’s goal is to increase revenue. In that case, marketing channels might support that by:

• Improving efficiency in cost per acquisition to stretch dollars further.
• Decreasing sales cycle lengths.
• Increasing brand awareness and/or competitive differentiation.
• Generating higher-ticket sales. 
• Decreasing churn, upselling current customers and/or increasing retention rate.

How can each channel play to its strengths to work toward goals? Pull in your platform managers for brainstorming. Create a roadmap to keep objectives and tactics clear among media and consider how success will be measured differently across channels. 

For example, if your goal is to decrease sales cycle lengths, you will need to add touchpoints to your buyer journey to drive users to make quicker decisions. A roadmap might look like this:

Evaluating the opportunity

Once your goals are established, it’s time to estimate what’s possible. Tools like the Google Performance can help.

However, measuring available market share on channels like display, social and YouTube is not as simple. Each channel has its own performance forecasting tool to help you gauge a rough estimate of what you might get in return for a specific budget.

For example, Google Performance Planner uses a slider to show what’s possible within the current campaigns. Compare it with your current/past spend.

Think about how much you are willing to pay per result. You will eventually hit a point of diminishing returns. How far are you willing to push the efficiency envelope?

Assessing cross-channel media mix

Analyzing the success of past performance by channel is important, especially when faced with budget cuts. A superficial examination may suggest a channel is underperforming, but a deeper dive could reveal that you haven’t accounted for the incremental value it provides.

For instance, you may find LinkedIn’s cost per lead to be higher than other advertising channels, but ask yourself:

• How does the lead quality compare? 
• Is there value from a brand perspective in serving ads to users you know are within your desired B2B targeting, even if they aren’t ready to convert?
• Is the time from opportunity to close shorter in this channel?
• Does this channel achieve high-ticket sales than others.

Multitouch attribution is ideal but tricky. Investing in an attribution tool can clarify what channels are performing best and allow for informed optimizations. A marketing team is only as good as the data it has to inform campaigns.

Data cleanup will be a priority for many in 2024. Data clean rooms will continue to see adoption increase in the new year as a way for organizations to standardize their data and allow marketers to have a single source of truth for performance. It will be more important than ever to hold your team accountable for using appropriate tracking measures, i.e., platform conversion tracking, UTMs, proper CRM routing and attribution.

Understanding what has worked or not worked in the past helps you move toward a cross-channel media mix for the coming year. Make adjustments as necessary to work toward meeting your ROAS goals. Turn off what truly isn’t working and reallocate dollars where they will go further.

Dig deeper: Google’s attribution model shake-up: 3 solutions for advertisers

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Allocating budget for testing

Advertising is always changing. New features are always coming down the pike for PPC channels.

Advertisers should prepare to allocate a portion of their budget to testing in the new year, setting aside at least 10-15% of their budget to test. Often, incremental budgets are put toward testing in a last-minute effort to boost results. Avoid the scrambling by planning for tests upfront.

When considering a testing budget, think about the audience sizes.

• Hold-out tests don’t require a large budget because the sample size is smaller.
• Tests that run to a broader mass audience will need more to reach statistical significance.

Give your tests enough time and budget to understand the true incrementality.

Dig deeper: Efficiency vs. volume in PPC: 4 tips to strike a balance in incremental conversions

Forecasting outcomes

Once you’ve evaluated the opportunity, identified your channel mix and planned the tests you want to run, tie it all together to forecast the outcome. Consider the following:

• Historical metrics.
• Variance for increasing costs.
• Point of diminishing returns/market saturation.
• Seasonality.
• Changes outside of digital advertising (i.e., product launches, upcoming attribution changes).

Net-new launches are more difficult to forecast, but most platforms have their own forecasting tool to leverage based on audience size and budget. Take historical KPIs for similar campaigns/channels into consideration.

Try reaching out to channel reps for industry or competitor benchmarks and/or poll your network on the KPIs and trends they’re seeing. Additionally, if you work with an advertising agency, lean on them for estimates and industry insights.

Dig deeper: A guide to effective PPC projections

Asking for more money

As those budget conversations begin to happen for the next year, make your case for additional budget compelling. Asking for additional funds requires:

• The art of storytelling.
• Historical data.
• Forecasted return. 
• Industry trends.
• Competitive insights. 

Company executives set objectives, and they may need help understanding what to expect from digital marketing channels and how success is measured. Not everyone speaks the marketing language. Some executive-level training can help set expectations.

Build an executive view for measuring performance as well. This can help your team think bigger and answer different questions the C-suite cares about.

Decision-makers must understand why you’re asking for a budget increase. Explain what’s being left on the table at the current budget. The more data you have to back up your claims and forecast outcomes, the better your chance of securing that executive buy-in.

Dig deeper: How to deliver PPC results to executives: Get out of the weeds

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How to evolve an SEO strategy: Key elements to review

An effective SEO strategy must evolve over time to account for changes within your company and the broader digital landscape. An annual review is key to keeping your approach up to date and results-driven. 

This article outlines critical internal and external elements you need to assess when refreshing your SEO plan, from website changes to competitive shifts to algorithm updates.

You can evolve your SEO strategy with continuous shifts of priorities and changes that are reflected in a dynamic SEO roadmap, or you can develop a more defined annual or semi-annual process.

For this article, we’ll work under the assumption this is an annual review to determine if priorities have changed in the last year (i.e., waterfall, rather than agile, for those who think that way).

Internal elements to review

A year is a long time, and things can change internally, whether they are processes or priorities.

Before we shift our SEO strategy based on an external factor, we want to make sure the brand and the company can support it – and that it matters to the business. 

Your SEO strategy implementation

Start by auditing what has successfully been implemented or what projects have been approved – from the first iteration of the SEO strategy translated into tactics through an SEO roadmap – and what has struggled.

If possible, you’ll also want to see what impact that resulted from those changes. This will allow you to start mapping out the particular elements that impact your website and potentially your industry.

Your website

As one of the key elements of your SEO strategy, you must understand any changes on your website’s backend.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be familiar with this anyway, because you’ll either be embedded as a part of the development team or across their workflow and on good terms with the product or program owners. 

You also need to understand what’s changed on your website from a content perspective. A number of enterprise-level SEO tools have change records as a part of their software, or you could use tools like: 

• Visual Ping
• Hexomatic
• Sken.io

Otherwise, you may be able to use the “Last modified” or “Last edited” history within your CMS if those fields are recorded.

Your products/offering

Your product and your company go through changes as well. Maybe this year, there was a fundamental shift from focusing on product A to launching and supporting product B. 

Or maybe the goals, targets and mission of the business have shifted, and it’s less focused on gaining new customers, but about retaining existing business. 

That fundamentally could shift both the content strategy and the technical focus of the website and should inform an evolution of your SEO strategy as well.

Your processes

Maybe a process has been improved and unblocked a lot of work you couldn’t get done in the last year, or potentially the reverse. 

While not exhaustive, these are good places to start understanding how things within your control have changed in the last 12 months and how they’re likely to change in the next 12. 

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External elements

Understanding external changes involves assessing factors beyond your control. Determine whether immediate action is needed or if it’s better to address the issue before it becomes critical.

This may lead to a broader business discussion requiring leadership’s approval, so be prepared for a potentially time-consuming process.

Google algorithm updates or feature changes

This is an obvious one, but it’s worth stating: SEO strategies, to a certain extent, will always be reactive.

While a good SEO strategy will be near-impervious to shifts in Google’s algorithms, the evolution comes in anticipating and acting toward future changes in how people search. It’s seeing things that may be a small consideration now, but you see the threads becoming bigger, like the “Experience” in E-E-A-T or Google’s SGE. 

What your competitors are doing

While I’m a follower of the infinite game in business, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to what happens in your market. Instead, it means not measuring your success by it. 

If you find that most of your market has shifted to writing long-form, thought-leadership content, that’s at least worth tucking away in the corner of your mind. But whether you evolve your SEO strategy to address it depends on your wider goals. 

Understanding the market landscape is different from reacting to it, and any evolution of your SEO strategy needs to be informed by an accurate, timely understanding of the market where you operate.  

Chaos

One recommendation that has always stuck with me from Ian Lurie’s various strategy documents is to consider the chaos. 

• What would happen if a new channel came in and disrupted the market? 
• What if there was a global pandemic? 
• What if you get fantastic media coverage? 
• What if the iPhone had a split launch? 
• What if Samsung had to recall its phones? 

This thought exercise stretches your strategic muscles. It also helps you understand the edge cases and assess how resilient your processes and tactics are. Note how these edge cases would require you to shift or entirely change your strategy. 

Look to the future

The evolution of the SEO strategy should include: 

• Updating SEO goals and targets.
• Shifting any strategic pillars that are either internal or external reactions.
• Adding new strategic pillars based on the market landscape.

Armed with this up-to-date information, you’re well-positioned to evolve your SEO strategy and future-proof it by keeping the document live and loved. 

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Elevate customer loyalty in the hospitality sector through tailored experiences by Comarch

Imagine walking into a hotel room and discovering a personalized note next to a plate of your favorite food. Opening the note reveals information about hotel amenities and recommendations for local attractions aligned with your interests. It sounds like a dream scenario, doesn’t it?

Personalization plays a crucial role in various industries, particularly in hospitality. It empowers businesses to customize experiences and services based on individual customer needs and preferences, ultimately leading to heightened satisfaction and loyalty. Ready to explore how personalized approaches can enhance customer loyalty in the hospitality sector? Let’s delve into this captivating domain.

Understanding personalization in the hospitality industry

Personalization stands out as a growing trend in multiple sectors, with statistics revealing a significant uptick in its adoption. According to recent industry reports, the implementation of personalized approaches has increased by 30% across diverse business domains. This surge underscores the recognition of personalization’s pivotal role in enhancing customer experiences and fostering brand loyalty. In particular, the hospitality sector has witnessed a noteworthy 25% rise in incorporating personalized services and amenities, affirming its status as a frontrunner in embracing tailored experiences for patrons.

However, it’s crucial to approach personalization with care to address guest privacy concerns. Overusing or mishandling customer data may make some guests uncomfortable and discourage them from returning. Additionally, not all establishments may have the capacity to provide extensive personalization options, and some efforts might burden staff with increased workloads. Successful implementation of personalization often requires advanced technology and data analytics in the hospitality sector.

The Past and the future of personalization

The concept of personalization in marketing dates back to the 1990s. However, merely targeting customers based on manual segmentation or personalizing a message using their name is no longer sufficient. With technological advancements, particularly in machine learning (ML) techniques and the growing utilization of artificial intelligence (AI), marketing activities can now be highly individualized and personalized.

Machine learning collects three general types of data:

1. Customer interaction: Data related to reservations, special requests or other interactions are valuable for the hospitality business.
2. Product or service ratings: Beyond traditional reviews, tracking activity is crucial for personalization efforts.
3. Customer demographics: Information like age group, location or preferred communication channel is the foundation for personalization marketing systems.

Strategies to personalize loyalty touchpoints in the hospitality sector

After gathering necessary data with ML or AI, the next step involves developing profiles to gain insights into individual preferences, behaviors and their relationship with your business. While customized communication is prevalent in today’s marketing strategies, it’s essential not to overlook it. Utilize customer preferences to suggest personalized dining options, activities or local experiences. The collected data can also inform the design of marketing campaigns aligned with individual customer profiles.

Tailored services, such as offering choices in bedding, room amenities, room temperature, lighting or entertainment based on past stay data, can significantly enhance the guest experience. Real-time personalization enables customizing a customer’s journey during their stay by suggesting local attractions or events—an omnichannel approach can be incredibly valuable here.

Personalize the survey after the stay to encourage completion and gather more data from your customers. Your communication should not end when your guest leaves the hotel or restaurant. Remind customers of your services and regularly update customer profiles to ensure ongoing customization. Adapt your strategies based on evolving market trends. All of this can be managed through a customer loyalty management program.

Leading loyalty programs recognize and celebrate important occasions, offering personalized offers, messages, decorations or small gifts based on individual users’ preferences, spending habits and interests.

Comarch Loyalty Marketing Platform – An exemplar of AI-powered personalization tools

An exemplary tool that facilitates the creation of unique personalization solutions perfect for the hospitality industry is the Comarch Loyalty Marketing Platform. This AI-powered loyalty platform is perfect for delivering personalized customer experiences across multiple touchpoints. It achieves this through four main pillars:

• Loyalty management: Design and launch engaging marketing campaigns for the hospitality sector.
• Data analytics: Easily personalize marketing campaigns and analyze them in a matter of seconds.
• Marketing automation: Building and visualizing customer journeys enables you to send the right message at the right time.
• Omnichannel marketing applications: A dedicated set of frontend apps that enhance customers’ interactions with loyalty programs.

The presented tools and additional features, such as gamification elements, fraud detection or a mobile app, help you build long-lasting customer relationships and, ultimately, lead to improved ROI.

Personalization in the hospitality sector: Conclusion

In today’s dynamic hospitality landscape, personalized experiences can elevate a good hotel stay to a great one. More and more consumers expect brands to understand their preferences and be thoughtful, driving the industry to give their guests what they crave. Tailoring services and creating the ideal experience are key ingredients in increasing customer loyalty. Leverage technologies such as ML or AI in your marketing efforts for personalization and create the trip of a lifetime.

If you want to learn more about trends in hospitality, download the “Hospitality Report 2023″ prepared by Comarch and The Loyalty People.

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YouTube steps up roll out of Shorts ads

YouTube Shorts ads are being rolled out to more advertisers as the solution moves from beta to general availability.

For the first time, Marketers are reporting the ability to choose Short ads as a video format, integrate them with in-stream ads and combine them with in-feed ads.

While many advertisers worldwide are finally gaining access to these new options, Google notes that this feature is not yet available on all accounts, but will be rolled out to all advertisers within the coming months.

Why we care. PPC consultant Kristian Maltzahn, who was the first to flag the feature on LinkedIn, told Search Engine Land:

• “YouTube the Shorts format is what everyone is talking about right now, so I’m really excited about this!”
• “The Shorts format opens up for a whole new way of approaching YouTube Ads. YouTube ads have for a long time been a platform for TV-quality advertising, which is of course really interesting and still very relevant. However I think the demand from consumers is changing, which we have seen with ads on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels.”
• “I think YouTube Shorts welcomes that form of demand and makes it possible for marketers to embrace it. I think YouTube chose not to make the format exclusively available for marketers at first, to make sure that users wouldn’t be introduced to a new format that was pumped full of ads.”
• “So the fact that YouTube are now opening up for more exclusively advertising on Shorts, I think is a testament to how quickly the format has gained popularity.”

Getting started. To check if the YouTube Shorts ad format is available on your YouTube Ads account, go to:

• Create Campaign.
• Choose “Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance.”
• Select “Video.”
• If the feature is available on your account, you will find it under Video in the Efficient Reach section.

Expansion. Google Ads is reportedly planning to expand this feature to additional video campaign formats in the near future, so make sure you stay tuned for future updates.

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What Google is saying. A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land:

• “Ads on Shorts rolled out in 2022 and this year we announced new Shorts for awareness ads solutions. That highlighted the beta inclusion of Shorts in Video reach campaigns and the pilot of YouTube Select Run of Shorts lineups.”
• “Shorts in Video reach campaigns are now generally available to all advertisers, but YouTube Select Run of Shorts lineups remain in limited pilots.”
• “The new YouTube Select lineups are Shorts-specific. And with the evolution of Video reach campaigns, advertisers can opt in to just Shorts or other surfaces, should they choose.”
• “YouTube is a dynamic platform, so advertisers are encouraged to take advantage of the solutions that allow them to achieve their goals fluidly across formats.”

Deep dive. Read our guide to getting your YouTube Shorts noticed for tips and tricks for maximum engagement.

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What is technical SEO?

Technical SEO refers to the process of improving a website’s architecture and backend elements to improve its visibility and performance on search engines.

Tackling such SEO projects often requires collaboration between technical SEO specialists and web developers, especially for large sites.

Technical SEO examines page load speed, site architecture, security, internal linking, etc., to eliminate friction points that might hinder search bots from properly crawling, indexing and rendering a website.

Technical SEO vs. on-page SEO vs. off-page SEO

In a nutshell:

• Technical SEO is a process designed to maintain your website’s technical health. 
• On-page SEO revolves more around keyword research and content efforts.
• Off-page SEO involves activities, such as link building and digital PR, that aim to boost the external authority signals pointing to your website. 

Technical SEO focuses mostly on the code-level deployment of your website to improve crawlability, allowing for quicker and more extensive content indexing.

To some extent, technical SEO elements overlap with on-page SEO. For instance, an on-page SEO specialist examines webpages and makes changes to metadata items (i.e., title tags, meta descriptions, H1s, etc.) based on keyword research.

A technical SEO specialist then focuses on factual code errors related to metadata. This includes issues like overly long page titles or missing meta descriptions without the task of writing or creating metadata for each element.

Another area of overlap is internal linking. On-page SEO focuses on adding internal links strategically to boost the link equity of particular pages. Conversely, technical SEO approaches internal links from a broader perspective, focusing on code errors and overall site link architecture.

Technical SEOs conduct a thorough site crawl to identify broken links and provide recommendations for resolution. Unlike on-page SEO, technical SEO is less concerned with the specific anchor text of individual links and prioritizes the overall health of the site’s link structure.

Technical SEO and off-page SEO are distinct practices, typically attracting different skill sets. While they generally operate at opposite ends of the SEO spectrum, there is some overlap, particularly in link auditing.

In the past, this involved assessing your backlink profile for harmful links and disavowing them to avoid penalties. However, recent critiques from Google’s John Mueller have cast doubt on the efficacy of disavowing toxic links.

Link auditing has shifted to a more positive approach, focusing on evaluating your links and those of competitors for “best in class” examples. After this analysis, conclusions are drawn.

For instance, if competitors get strong links from events, the goal is to get you to those events. Armed with these insights, the digital PR specialist aims to generate real-world activity, securing high-tier editorial coverage.

To recap:

Technical SEO

• Focuses on website’s technical aspects and code-level optimization.
• Aims to enhance the site’s crawlability and overall technical health.
• Addresses issues like metadata errors, broken links, and site architecture.

On-page SEO

• Revolves around optimizing individual webpages’ content and elements.
• Involves keyword research, content deployment, and metadata optimization.
• Typically examines on-page factors like page titles, headings, and internal linking.

Off-page SEO

• Concentrates on building external signals and authority for the website.
• Often referred to as digital PR, it seeks to boost the site’s online reputation.
• Involves activities like link building, content promotion, and earning editorial coverage to improve rankings.

Technical SEO’s role in an overall SEO strategy

Technical SEO is crucial in overall SEO strategy. Simply put, other efforts are futile if a site has significant technical issues or is not indexable.

In a comprehensive SEO campaign, the technical SEO audit is typically done first and is often the most extensive. This means technical SEO is in play right from the start for practical reasons.

If a website has issues hindering indexing, other efforts become ineffective. The on-page SEO team often depends on aspects of the technical SEO audit to guide their initial actions. 

For example, if there are large chunks of the site with no on-page content, meta descriptions or H1s, that must be tackled. It’s only once the house is so that an on-page SEO team will perform their own analysis (usually based on keyword and/or ranking data) to champion new site sections to build out.

Likewise, the off-page SEO team often waits for the technical SEO person to complete competitive link auditing. Typically, the technical SEO audit comes before analyzing competitor links. 

This places technical SEO at the center of the SEO campaign, especially in the early stages. As the campaign progresses, the technical SEO team uses tools like Ahrefs or Lumar to monitor site health, but their involvement is usually reduced by then.

Takeaways:

• Technical SEO is a crucial component of an overall SEO strategy.
• Other SEO activities like content and link building are ineffective if a website has significant technical issues.
• In a comprehensive SEO campaign, the technical SEO audit is typically the first step and the most extensive one.
• Technical SEO plays a central role in the early phases of an SEO campaign.
• On-page SEO relies on the technical SEO audit to address issues like missing content, meta descriptions, or erroneous H1 tags.
• Technical SEO monitoring is done over time using tools like Ahrefs or Lumar.
• A technical SEO’s skills are in constant demand, and they often serve as a technical bridge between various aspects of SEO.

Common technical SEO activities

Here’s a list of activities commonly completed by technical SEO professionals.

Accessibility and indexing checks

• Uncovering and tackling page indexing problems using tools such as Google Search Console.
• Ensuring that all indexing signals (e.g., robots.txt, no-index tags, canonical tags, XML sitemaps) agree with each other, without sending contradictory signals to Google.

Content management system (CMS) tasks

• Engaging in some broader CMS work, if needed. (Smaller, single-page issues might be offloaded to on-page / content SEO teams.)
• Deciding which CMS to migrate to if the current CMS isn’t very SEO-friendly.

Crawling

• Ensuring proper website crawling using industry-standard tools such as Screaming Frog.
• Analyzing crawl data to power technical SEO audits.
• Understanding how best to configure crawlers (on a site-by-site basis) and monitoring the crawl. (No one wants to accidentally DDoS their client with crawling software!)

Domain work and migrations

• Deciding on which new domain name to select for SEO benefit. 
• Carrying out large-scale website migrations, which may be domain external or domain internal.
  • A domain external migration involves moving a website (and its associated SEO rankings) to a new domain. 
  • A domain internal migration involves moving to a new CMS (which writes URLs differently) within the same domain (redirect work is still needed). 
• Tackling non-migration-related redirect work, such as the de-tangling of legacy redirect chains.

Metadata analysis and issue scoping

• Scope metadata or related issues to target the work of the on-page SEO team. 
• Potentially helping out in using AI to generate content at scale. 

Top-level site security

• Understanding and implementing HTTPS / HSTS header responses to keep website users safe.
• Deploying content security policies, blocking external embeds via X-frame options, etc.

Structured data

• Deploying schema or structured data which Google uses to enrich their view of a page’s content, boosting its chances to appear for rich snippets in the SERPs. 

Usability and site speed

• Working with web designers or front-end developers to ensure that a website is SEO-friendly.
• Dissecting page speed performance issues and checking whether the site passes Core Web Vitals assessment.

Internal link architecture and wider site architecture

• Addressing internal linking errors (e.g., a nav link pointing to a redirect, resulting in tens of thousands of links to redirects on your site).
• Managing wider site architecture issues (e.g., faceted navigation filters spawning tens of thousands of URLs that need to be canonicalized).

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Advanced technical SEO activities

These activities require a more seasoned technical SEO professional to tackle.

Advanced page speed checks and JavaScript analysis

Improving page speed used to be simple – compress some images, minify your scripts, and get good speed scores. But things have changed.

Today, most speed problems are tied to congestion in your users' web browsers. Now, we optimize our websites to deliver serve content the fastest way possible, even on devices with limited capabilities.

The main issue here is that most web browsers only (by default) execute JavaScript within their “main” processing thread, meaning all JavaScript must be executed in sequence. This causes page load bottlenecks, even when JavaScript is quickly shipped to your end user. (It’s like firing a fire hose at a one-inch gap in a brick wall.

Technical SEO experts should know how to check the inside of a browser using tools like the Chrome Dev Tools Performance tab. You should be able to discuss these issues in a way that a senior web developer can grasp. An advanced technical SEO person is comfortable talking about technologies like JavaScript parallelization or server-side rendering.

Log file analysis

Log files reveal which pages and resources crawl bots have asked for and how often. Examining patterns in this data can uncover interesting anomalies.

For instance, you might observe that a specific part of your site isn't getting any Googlebot requests. Why? It could be due to a problem with a robots.txt rule blocking Google from crawling that section.

Log file analysis is valuable. It has been part of the technical SEO toolkit but gained mainstream attention with tools like Screaming Frog’s Log File Analyzer. Despite this, it's still seen as an advanced technical SEO method.

Edge SEO

Edge SEO is a subset of edge computing, a practice that involves making technical and architectural changes to process data closer to the source or the end user. 

This reduces latency, making technology faster, unlike cloud computing, which relies on centralized data centers, less efficient for many users.

Edge SEO is just applying edge computing with SEO in mind – for instance, aiming for faster-loading pages that may rank better on Google.

Technical SEO tools

Here’s a list of some common technical SEO tools. From indexing checks to full site crawls, these are the best tools for the job. (While this list doesn't include all technical SEO tools, it covers the fundamentals.)

Google Search Console

GSC is used for accessibility and indexing checks and other wider applications, such as viewing which Google keywords supplied the most clicks and impressions. 

Search Console can also check your schema implementation and Core Web Vitals adherence across your site. The best part? Google supplies this tool for free, so verify your website.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog is a crawler tool for website analysis that runs from your desktop environment. The size of the crawls that this can handle is only limited by the power of your local machine. 

You must keep an eye on the crawl to ensure you aren’t crawling too quickly, causing your client’s site to time out. 

It is also great at spitting out lots of data, though typically, the output will require more handling on your end.

Ahrefs 

Ahrefs’ Site Audit is great for quick top-line analysis. It crawls a site and generates a user-friendly dashboard highlighting technical SEO issues for prioritization. Compared to Screaming Frog, Ahrefs is more user-friendly. 

It's often recommended to use a deep crawler like Screaming Frog alongside a cloud-based crawler like Ahrefs to combine detailed data and insightful analysis.

Lumar (formerly Deepcrawl)

Lumar is probably the best compromise crawler between Screaming Frog’s data spitting and Ahrefs’ more actionable insights.

Chrome DevTools

Chrome Dev Tools is particularly useful for its Performance tab and Lighthouse module, which can help to examine page speed issues in depth on an individual page basis.

The embedded Lighthouse module is foundation technology, which is utilized by the (separate) PageSpeed insights tool.

PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed Insights is a great tool to perform a deep dive into page-speed issues on a single webpage. It can tell you whether a page passes or fails the Core Web Vitals assessment, should sufficient field data (from the CrUX / Chrome UX report) be available.

Tip: Don’t forget to expand the diagnostics area of this tool's reports. There’s some very interesting stuff in there, which will help you to dissect issues regarding a clogged main thread.

Screaming Frog Log File Analyzer

Screaming Frog can help you understand crawl bot behavior and identify potential crawl issues.

It's simpler than exporting raw log files and creating complex spreadsheets for analysis. The tool is cost-effective annually, making it a valuable asset. 

Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets

Most of the other listed tools can provide exported snippets of data in Excel or CSV format.

Without a spreadsheet tool that can import and manipulate that data for further analysis, they would be useless.

Large-scale CSV manipulation applications

Sites with millions of internal links might overwhelm Excel when exporting data from Screaming Frog.

Fortunately, Screaming Frog can export to CSV, and tools like Delimit by Delimitware and ModernCSV are great for handling large data volumes. You can then trim the data to make it compatible with Excel. 

Thinking of a career in technical SEO?

If you have done your time as a junior SEO associate or an SEO executive, chances are you’ll soon be looking to specialize. 

Are you thinking of a career in technical SEO? Here are some of the skills and traits you will need:

• Technical web expertise: Proficiency in understanding and optimizing website code, structure and architecture.
• Proficiency in auditing techniques: If the thought of spending multiple days on single audits bores you to tears, technical SEO is not for you.
• General awareness of HTTPS and HSTS adherence for top-level website security.
• Familiarity with structured data.
• General understanding of user experience and its relationship with SEO.
• Analytical thinking: The ability to analyze data and identify technical issues.
• Problem-solving skills: Capability to diagnose and solve complex technical challenges.
• Strong communication: The skill to communicate technical issues and recommendations to non-technical team members.
• General data analysis: Proficiency in data analysis and the use of spreadsheets to extract insights.

Technical SEO is an excellent career choice that I am very happy with.

Technical SEO: The backbone of a robust SEO strategy

Technical SEO is a crucial component of any effective SEO strategy. 

By optimizing a website's infrastructure and eliminating friction points that hinder crawling and indexing, technical SEO lays the groundwork for other efforts like content creation and link building to be successful.

Technical SEO specialists address critical issues from site migrations to page speed, metadata, internal linking, and more using the right tools and auditing techniques. 

Requiring a specialized skillset, technical SEO is an exciting career path for those with the analytical abilities and technical know-how to diagnose and resolve complex website issues.

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