Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Facebook’s Sponsored Results, Google+ Shutdown, Consumer Brand Trust, Instagram’s Ad Spend Up

Lane Ellis on Dec 14th, 2018     Online Marketing News

2018 December 14 Headway Capital Image

Facebook relaunches search ads to offset slowing revenue
Facebook has announced that it will relaunch its sponsored search results and Marketplace advertising. This is the return of an option unavailable to digital marketers since 2013, a move that could help Facebook offset recent decreased revenue trends. TechCrunch

Consumers Say Brands Ask for Too Much Information
Brands asking for too much personal information is the leading cause of mistrust among U.S. consumers, at 35.9 percent. The second leading cause of mistrust is the result public data scandals at 28 percent, among several findings relevant to digital marketers in a recent Jebbit survey. eMarketer

Will Ad Dollars Continue Shifting From Facebook to Instagram in 2019? New trends report data
Instagram has continued to draw more advertising dollars than its parent company Facebook, according to new report data from Socialbakers. AdWeek


Digital Marketing News: Facebook’s Sponsored Results, Google+ Shutdown, Consumer Brand Trust, Instagram’s Ad Spend Up
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Lane Ellis

Measuring Content Marketing Success: Analytics Advice & Insight from the Experts

Lane Ellis on Dec 13th, 2018     Web Analytics

Blue tunnel of numbers image.

Welcome to the seventh installment in our “Collective Wisdom” series of content marketing strategy and tactics articles.

Previously we’ve covered planning ahead for content marketing success, the art of crafting powerful content, and an array of strong promotion tactics.

So, what’s up next? Measurement and analytics. Measuring and analyzing your content’s performance is critical so you can uncover new opportunities, make improvements, and determine whether you’re meeting your goals.

Here we share some tidbits of analytics wisdom and insights from some famous figures inside and outside the digital marketing realm.

Having the Right Data is Crucial for Measuring Success

How do you gauge success in content marketing?

At the most basic level, you want to learn how much online traffic is coming to see your content. But what should you count and what can be ignored?


Measuring Content Marketing Success: Analytics Advice & Insight from the Experts
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Tiffani Allen

TopRank Marketing’s Top 6 SEO Predictions & Trends for 2019

Tiffani Allen on Dec 12th, 2018     SEO

SEO Trends & Predictions 2019

The year-end hustle and bustle is on, marketers. We’re all finalizing next year’s tactical mix and strategy, refining targets, and setting goals—all with the intention of driving bigger, badder, and better results in the new year.

When it comes to setting your SEO strategy for 2019, here’s an important stat to keep in mind: 61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority.

For more than two decades, SEO has been a foundational digital marketing tactic. And as algorithms have been refined, content has proliferated, and innovation and technology have changed how we search—competition in the organic search landscape has hit an all-time high.


TopRank Marketing’s Top 6 SEO Predictions & Trends for 2019
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Lee Odden

B2B Marketers: Is Your Influencer Marketing Mechanical or Meaningful?

Lee Odden on Dec 11th, 2018     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing

influencer marketing

If they don’t care, they won’t share.

With the need to scale and drive efficient performance, many B2B marketers work hard to operationalize their efforts. While process brings efficiency, a transactional approach to a relationship-centric discipline can reduce effectiveness significantly.

The effect of a mechanical vs. meaningful relationship is particularly impactful when it comes to influencer marketing. This is why many in the field call it influencer relations – it’s a relationship business, not just an advertising buy.

Now that is not to say that paying B2B influencers is out of the question. In fact, it makes sense to clearly outline the situations where payment is appropriate and where it is not. For example, if you ask an influencer to attend an event and emcee a track or co-author an ebook, payment for that expertise and time is definitely appropriate. If you invite an influencer to share a quote for an article or be a guest on a podcast, then payment is less likely to be involved.


B2B Marketers: Is Your Influencer Marketing Mechanical or Meaningful?
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Alexis Hall

5 Common Digital Marketing Data & Analytics Challenges and How to Start Solving Them

Alexis Hall on Dec 10th, 2018     Digital Marketing

The volume and velocity of the data at our fingertips today has the power to transform the way we do marketing. Armed with the right data about our target audience, we can reach them at the right time, in the right place, with the best tailored messages. Given the deluge of marketing messages inundating consumers and B2B buyers at every moment, it’s critical that your marketing messages be the most relevant in order to break through the clutter.

However, many of us still aren’t using data to its full potential. Only 30% of B2B marketers use data to inform decision-making. That’s because harnessing data is hard. Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every day, across so many different people, channels, devices, and technologies. And nearly 50% of marketers say they don’t have the the right people, processes, and technologies in place to make use all of that data to make an impact.


5 Common Digital Marketing Data & Analytics Challenges and How to Start Solving Them
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Facebook’s Keyword Alerts For Groups, YouTube’s Stories, B2B Budget Study, & Social Transparency

Lane Ellis on Dec 7th, 2018     Online Marketing News

2018 December 7 Outgrow Image

Facebook’s Testing New ‘Keyword Alerts’ for Groups
Facebook has begun testing a Groups feature allowing administrators to receive alerts for keywords, an especially welcome addition for those managing large Facebook Groups, and a new opportunity for digital marketers to monitor relevant subjects. Social Media Today

10 Things Cyber Week Reveals About U.S. Consumers
Mobile and click-to-collect online orders in the U.S. were up 40 percent from 2017, while 23 percent haven’t begun holiday shopping yet, two of the numerous recent revelations from the National Retail Federation. AdWeek

What Consumers Want From Brands: Transparency on Social Media
Social media transparency tops the list of what U.S. consumers want most from brands, according to recent Sprout Social survey data. Admitting mistakes and providing honest responses to customer inquiries led the list of methods customers feel demonstrate brand transparency.MarketingProfs


Digital Marketing News: Facebook’s Keyword Alerts For Groups, YouTube’s Stories, B2B Budget Study, & Social Transparency
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Lane Ellis

Spicy Twists and Tactics For Unique Content Promotion

Lane Ellis on Dec 6th, 2018     Content Marketing

A variety of spice powders on a cooking slate image.

Previously in our “Collective Wisdom” series, we’ve covered pre-planning for content marketing success, the art of crafting powerful content, enduring and often-overlooked content creation best practices, and how to use a number of tried and true content promotion tactics.

Now let’s dig into several spicy ways to take existing content promotion tactics and make them uniquely your own, including a smattering of flavorful insight from some of the best in the business when it comes to the art of promoting your content.

Innovate With Your Own Unique Promotion Twists & Tactics

Regardless of how many fine lists, guides, articles, or books you read about the art of promotion, if you don’t take the initiative to innovate and create something unique your marketing success will generally be limited.


Spicy Twists and Tactics For Unique Content Promotion
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Caitlin Burgess

TopRank Marketing’s Top 10 B2B Content Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2019

Caitlin Burgess on Dec 5th, 2018     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

It’s that time of year, B2B marketers. As the holiday seasons kicks into high gear and the countdown to a new year accelerates, we all find ourselves looking into our figurative crystal balls to gauge what the new year will bring, and how we’ll improve ourselves and our content marketing strategies, capitalize on opportunities, and adapt or side-step new challenges as they come.

2018 was a big year for content marketers—from the implementation of new data privacy and security regulations like GDPR to the rise of promising new tools and technologies to enhance personalization, measurement, and data analyzation. And from our perspective, 2019 is on track to bring even bigger changes, presenting both opportunities and challenges for B2B marketers.


TopRank Marketing’s Top 10 B2B Content Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2019
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Nick Nelson

Flipping the B2B Marketing Script: 7 Brands That Talk to Consumers, Not Companies

Nick Nelson on Dec 4th, 2018     B2B Marketing, Content Marketing

Examples of B2B Brands Marketing to People

“It feels like I’m talking to a wall.”

This is the utterance you might hear from a person whose counterpart in a conversation is not particularly engaged. If you’ve been there, then you know it’s not a great feeling.

But one of the biggest issues in B2B content marketing is actually the reverse: people tend to feel like the brands marketing to them are the ones talking to walls – as in, speaking to them as if they were an intangible corporate entity rather than a human being.

For this reason, “business to business” can be a troubling misnomer. In this discipline, we’re not really marketing to businesses – buildings with walls and stairs and desks and chairs – but the people who inhabit those buildings.


Flipping the B2B Marketing Script: 7 Brands That Talk to Consumers, Not Companies
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Debbie Friez

A Taste of Social and Influencer Marketing: What B2B Can Learn from B2C #SMBMSP

Debbie Friez on Dec 3rd, 2018     B2B Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Social Media

B2B Influencer Marketing Takeways from B2C Influencers

B2C brands pioneered the use of influential voices to boost their brand appeal, sales, and campaigns. And as more and more B2B brands and marketers dive into the world of influencer marketing, the question is: How can we leverage the knowledge, insights and tips B2C marketers have to share for our marketing efforts?

Last week, a panel of foodie influencers and bloggers provided some insights that can help answer that question. My TopRank Marketing colleague Jack Fitzpatrick and I attended Social Media Breakfast – Minneapolis St. Paul’s (SMBMSP) panel moderated by Michele Phillips, a food blogger, writer, photographer and content creator, which included food personality Lindsay Greene, tweeting BBQ enthusiast The Product Poet, and Eat.Drink.Dish MPLS founder Golnaz Yamoutpour.


A Taste of Social and Influencer Marketing: What B2B Can Learn from B2C #SMBMSP
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Joshua Nite

Next-Gen Lead Gen: How to Refine Your Marketing to Get More B2B Leads

Joshua Nite on Dec 3rd, 2018     Content Marketing, Digital Marketing

How to Refine Your Marketing to Get More Leads

A few days ago, I was watching a 2005 episode of Doctor Who with my nine-year-old. He saw a strange artifact in a character’s hand. “What’s that thing?” he asked.

“An iPod,” I responded. “It’s like a smartphone, but it could only play music and had a black-and-white screen. No, no touchscreen. It held a LOT of music, though! Like hundreds of CDs! Okay, so a CD is…”

The point being: You kids need to get off my lawn.

Okay, the actual point being: Technology has changed fast in the past decade, and what used to be mind-blowing is now laughably obsolete. That’s doubly true in B2B marketing. We have the tools and tech to do amazing, iPhone-XS-Max-quality B2B lead generation.


Next-Gen Lead Gen: How to Refine Your Marketing to Get More B2B Leads
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Lane Ellis

Digital Marketing News: Google Updates Search Console & Map Hashtags, MarTech’s Growth, Blogging Trends & Color Psychology

Lane Ellis on Nov 30th, 2018     Online Marketing News

2018 November 30 DesignAdvisor Image

Google Search Console To Replace Search Analytics With Performance Report
Google has given notice that a new performance report will soon replace the existing search analytics collection of data in its popular Google Search Console tool. Search Engine Roundtable

40 Facts About How Color Psychology Can Boost Your Website Conversions [Infographic]
Color has long been known for playing a role in how we feel about marketing campaigns, and a new infographic explores a slew of information about the psychology of colors. Social Media Today

Blogging Statistics and Trends: The 2018 Survey of 1000+ Bloggers
What works well among successful bloggers was examined in a recent survey, revealing numerous fascinating trends and statistics relevant to digital marketers. Orbit Media Studios


Digital Marketing News: Google Updates Search Console & Map Hashtags, MarTech’s Growth, Blogging Trends & Color Psychology
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