Youthup Wire

Posted by MiriamEllis Moz’s very warmest thanks to the 1,453 respondents who volunteered time to contribute to this second installation of our industry survey. It’s rewarding to have such a large survey group; as this report details in high relief, the work of marketing a single business location can pass through a dozen hands. Owners, staff, in-house SEOs, agencies, creative directors, webmasters, project managers, and consultants may all be contributing to promoting just one local company. By capturing their hands-on experience, we get the big picture of local SEO as an effort not confined to experts, but rather, requiring all hands on deck. In this report, you’ll find insights to share with coworkers and clients on: Company infrastructure Local ranking factors Tool & software usage Gaps in the marketplace High ROI strategies and tactics Get the full report! A window in time on local business marketing The data in our survey depicts the local SEO industry both before and during the public health emergency. As such, it’s an eagle’s eye view of both the status of marketing priorities up to the present and a gauge of preparedness for change. Change has always been the only constant in local SEO — our industry is accustomed to an environment that can turn on a dime, literally overnight. This challenging setting toughens businesses for tough times. No one knows yet how COVID-19 may ultimately alter consumer behavior, but in the short term, one good sign which has emerged from the State of the Local SEO industry report is that local businesses were strongly embracing organic assets prior to the pandemic. Not long ago, you might have encountered narratives about websites being “dead” due to the dominance of local packs, zero click SERPs, and other Google features. Fortunately, our report indicates that many marketers have wisely ignored such schools of thought and have continued to promote the vital role local business websites play in connecting with communities. For now, if connection is curbside or delivery instead of foot traffic, local businesses which have been thoughtfully maintaining their websites own a strong platform for next moves — perhaps implementing local e-commerce, or taking orders via form submissions, or hosting gated video consultations. Access to the State of the Local SEO Industry’s data will enable you to do your own analysis of the sum total of marketing knowledge up to the present with an eye to future strategy. Here’s a preview of 3 emergent narratives that particularly caught my eye. Proximity falls to third as a local ranking factor Our 2019 report cited user-to-business proximity as the dominant influence on Google’s local pack rankings. So has every Local Search Ranking Factors survey since 2017. This is a surprising departure. Download the report for further analysis and view the numbers in the light of how Google might adjust proximity based on new factors like curbside pickup and local delivery. YOY, 19% more respondents are involved with offline marketing 94% (up from 75%) of our survey group are consulting with clients at least some of the time on topics like real-world customer service and consumer policies.This statistic professionally delights me, because of my years of advocacy here on the Moz blog for local search marketers to care deeply about what happens in real time between consumers and brands. Some enterprising agency should consider doing a webinar or eBook on the history of brick-and-mortar marketing so our industry can engage in deeper levels of learning and make informed decisions about future offline marketing strategy. COVID-era customer fulfillment strategies are here to stay  51% of respondents intend to permanently offer amenities like home delivery, curbside pickup, and video conferencing. Now is the time for innovative marketing agencies to put in the work researching the best possible solutions for clients for the long haul. Will it be in-house delivery fleets, or outsourcing to third parties like Instacart and Doordash? Which e-commerce platform is the best, not just for UX but for SEO? Many brands swiftly cobbled together new services to meet the state of emergency, but as time goes by, consumer feedback and marketing analysis will point the way to thoughtfully choosing the best transactional methodologies and platforms. All of these technologies predate the pandemic, but the year ahead is going to see them much more fully tested. Please accept our invitation to download the free State of the Local SEO Industry Report 2020, with 30+ timely questions on topics that impact how you work, what to offer, and how to improve your strategy for the year ahead whether you own a local business or are in the business of marketing local brands! Get the full report! Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

I love online shopping. In fact, online shopping is almost the only way I shop. And I’m not alone. In 2019, there were 263 million digital buyers in the U.S. By 2024, this figure is projected to increase to 282.7 million online buyers. As a marketer, these figures prove that businesses should invest in Google shopping ads. Google shopping ads, the ads that appear on the search engine results page when someone is searching for a product, can be confusing to set up. In this post, we’ll review how to structure your Google shopping campaign and the top strategies that’ll drive sales. If you want to set up Google shopping ads, you might be wondering, “Which campaign structure should I use?” and “What’s the difference?” Below, let’s discuss the two different methodologies behind a Google shopping campaign structure. Featured Resource: Google Ads Planning Template Download this Template While setting up Google Shopping Ads campaigns sounds complex, using a planning template can make it easier. HubSpot’s Google Ads PPC kit will help you determine what your bids should be, set up and optimize your budget, find new keywords, and optimize your campaigns. 1. One campaign and one ad group. The simplest way to set up your Google shopping campaign is to use just one campaign and one ad group. When you first set up a Shopping campaign, you’ll have one ad group with one product group called “All products,” which will include your entire inventory. This is a great approach if you want to run a straightforward campaign, without using complex optimization techniques. However, if you want to customize your bid based on which products you’re selling, then this approach isn’t for you. 2. Several campaigns with varying campaign priorities. Instead of running one campaign with one ad group, you can run multiple campaigns and prioritize them based on your bidding strategy. For example, you can set up a campaign targeting unbranded keywords by using a negative keyword list that includes your brand’s name. You might choose to have this campaign be a low or medium priority since the searchers who aren’t using branded keywords are in the beginning stages of their research. On the other hand, you can set up a second campaign targeting branded keywords and setting a high priority because these users are further in their buying journey and more likely to convert. By using several ad groups, optimized with negative keywords, you’ll have more control over the search terms that your product shows up for. However, it’s important to note that you can’t choose which keywords your product shows up for. You can optimize your campaigns with negative keywords and customized bids, but you can’t choose the keywords you want to target. Additionally, you can also set up different campaigns for different product groups. Again, you can decide which campaign is a high priority and which one is a low priority depending on which products you think will convert more. Although this method gives you more control, it requires more strategizing and organization in the planning phase. Plus, what works for one company, might not work for another. This means that you’ll want to test and see what works for you. Once you have a good idea of the campaign structure you’re going to use, it’s time to strategize. Below, let’s dive into the top Google shopping ad strategies that’ll help you develop a campaign that drives sales. 1. Create customized campaigns using negative keywords. When you create multiple campaigns, you can divide them into high, medium, and low priority. One strategy is to use several campaigns with varying priorities to target certain searches. To do this, you’ll need to develop a negative keyword list for each campaign so you can control which searches your product shows up for. This might mean that you develop a campaign for more generic searches versus high intent, branded searches. With this strategy, you’re going to want to think about which searches are more likely to convert versus those that aren’t. 2. Consider your pricing. With Google shopping ads, your ad is going to be competing with several other products. That’s why it’s important to consider your pricing. In the example below, you can see the Google shopping ads that showed up for the search “Fabletics leggings.” While most of the products are Fabletics, there are a few from other brands. You can see Fabletics leggings priced around $45-60, however, you can also see Old Navy leggings for $28 and SHEIN leggings for $10. Price can play a large role in the purchasing decision, so it’s important to keep your prices competitive to increase your sales. 3. A/B test your campaigns. When you’re devising any new strategy for a marketing campaign, it’s important to A/B test. With Google shopping ads, you’ll probably try a few different techniques. You might want to test different ad groups, priority settings, bids, or negative keywords. Additionally, you can also test which product groups and product pages are more likely to convert. With Google shopping ads, it’s important to find the right balance between your campaign structure and bidding strategy. To improve your sales, you should run A/B tests to see what works for your company and what doesn’t. 4. Optimize your product pages. Not to be redundant, but keep in mind that your Google shopping ads won’t target specific keywords. This makes it even more important to optimize your product pages so you can signal to Google which keywords your product should show up for. To do this, you should use keywords in your product title, page title, meta description, image alt text, and product description copy. This will help Google decide when to show your product. 5. Split your ad groups by product. One strategy you can use when you set up your Google shopping campaign is split your ad groups by product. For example, perhaps you want to group certain products together. Let’s say you sell scrunchies and wine, like Kaitlyn Bristowe.

Email marketing is a key component of any successful marketing strategy — in fact, email marketing provides companies with a potential ROI of $44 for every $1 spent. In particular, email newsletters are an essential way for your business to keep your subscribers up-to-date with relevant information, and ultimately drive more leads. Newsletters give marketers the ability to capture email sign-ups through form submissions, and nurture leads. If you have a blog, you’ve probably sent newsletters to notify subscribers about new blog posts. Alternatively, perhaps you’ve used newsletters to send business-related information to your subscribers. Anyway you slice it, newsletters help you keep your contacts engaged with your business. An email newsletter tool is essential, since it allows you to beautifully design a newsletter email, deliver the email to your subscribers with features such as A/B testing and smart content, and monitor and analyze how the newsletter performed. However, not all email newsletter tools are created equal. With differences in features, pricing, and availability, choosing an email newsletter can be hard — especially with the number of options available. Additionally, newsletter tools differ in how much of the customer journey they can cover. Ultimately, when choosing your email newsletter tool, you’ll want to ensure the tool matches your business’s goals — which is why we wanted to take out the guesswork, and highlight the top email newsletters out there for your business. Best Newsletter Software 1. HubSpot’s Email Newsletter Tool Designing, sending, and analyzing email newsletters has never been easier with the HubSpot Email tool. HubSpot offers a drag-and-drop email editor so you can easily create a polished email newsletter that you can personalize to fit your brand’s design without needing a designer or IT professional. Additionally, you can experiment with smart content rules, personalization, A/B testing, and advanced reporting — ensuring your email newsletters are optimized for your business. You can also see who’s engaging with each newsletter email and when, what device they’re using, the most popular links and documents, and more. You can use these insights to design tests that will take conversion rates to new heights for your business. Ultimately, what makes HubSpot’s Email tool so exceptional is its ability to pair with HubSpot’s free forms tool to easily collect email leads, as well as HubSpot’s free CRM to give you insight into how your marketing emails are performing. For example, you can use an email subscriber’s lifecycle stage, list membership, or any information in their contact records to automatically serve up the most relevant subject lines, content, links, attachments, and calls-to-action. HubSpot’s email tool starts free. 2. Benchmark Benchmark offers the ability to easily create email newsletters via drag-and-drop functionality, giving non-technical marketers the power to create beautiful newsletters. There’s also a good selection of newsletter templates that you can choose from in the Benchmark template library. Some of Benchmark’s most valuable features include detailed analytics on how each email campaign performs, A/B split testing to ensure you’re sending the best emails, spam testing tools that ensure your emails get to inboxes, responsive designs and templates, list segmentation tools, and auto-responders. Benchmark is free for up to 2,000 subscribers, and lets you send up to 14,000 emails per month. Image Source 3. GetResponse GetResponse offers features that become available as you need them, from a range of starter features all the way to enterprise features such as webinars and landing pages. Hosting landing pages in GetResponse will further enable you to capture email subscribers for your newsletter. GetResponse also allows you to create well-designed email newsletters with their drag-and-drop email editor, segment contacts tool, campaigns creator, and A/B testing tool. With a ton of templates to choose from, you can create an email to match your brand, and send emails more efficiently. GetResponse does not offer a free tier, but they have a 30-day trial, and pricing starts at $15 per month. Image Source 4. SendInBlue With SendInBlue, you don’t need technical skills to create well-designed email newsletters. The drag-and-drop functionality, HTML editor, and expansive template gallery gives you the tools you need to create stunning emails. You can personalize the design of your newsletters with easy builders, choose the form fields for your subscription form, and design many ways for your visitors to opt-in. SendInBlue has a robust automation pipeline, allowing you to send different emails based on specific actions taken by your contacts. However, SendInBlue does not have a CRM, so it’s not the best option for scaling teams. SendInBlue lets you send 300 emails per day (6,000 emails per month) for free, and pricing starts at $25 per month for 40,000 emails. Image Source 5. Mailjet Mailjet offers email solutions for fast moving teams, especially in Europe, and great scaling opportunities for larger companies. The service is keen on being developer-friendly with a powerful API solution for engineers to build on their email platform. One appealing feature of Mailjet is the ability to create dynamic content that is personalized for each recipient based on data such as name and location. If your team demands email newsletters be built together and reviewed often before sending, Mailjet’s collaborative tools make it easy for teams to work together on emails. For example, you can create a draft of your newsletter in Mailjet, and your teammates can suggest edits before it’s sent — all within the app. Mailjet gives 200 emails per day (6,000 emails per month) for free, and pricing starting at $8.69 per month for 30,000 emails. Image Source 6. MailChimp MailChimp offers a free email marketing service with a large selection of templates to choose from for newsletters. MailChimp is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses looking to get their feet wet in email marketing, but is not suited for scaling teams since it lacks powerful automation and segmenting features. MailChimp is a valuable tool nonetheless, especially since its free plan generously offers up to 12,000 free email sends per month. You’ll also like the variety of newsletter templates that MailChimp offers,