Google: Popups Will be Penalized

If you value SEO, remove popups from your website.

Google doesn't love them anymore.

This January, its bots began to penalize sites that include them.

“Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible,” Google's engineers proclaim.

Your site is toast if it displays a popup that covers content after the user lands on a page, or that appears while he's viewing it. 

You get doubly burned if the user has to kill the popup to view the content.

The only allowances Google makes are for helpful popups, like those seeking age verification or informing visitors about cookies.

First Cut

US advertisers last year spent 21 cents of every ad dollar targeting radio and print audiences; 38 targeting cable TV viewers; and 41 targeting mobile phone users, according to Kleiner Perkins.

No surprise here.

Americans over 65 still love their cable TV. In fact, they devote 58% of their waking hours to it, says the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But Americans under 65 don't—and they're cutting the cable for the ad-free TV streamed by Netflix and its competitors.

Where ads once enriched many companies, only two—Google and Facebook—are reaping cable cutting's windfall.

And it's Netflix's fault, media reporter Derek Thompson says.

Netflix launched subscription-based TV, robbing large screens of viewers—and advertisers of prospects. As a result, advertisers are targeting viewers under 65 on their phones, where Facebook and Google have a duopoly.

"If the dynamic tech duo could go back in time and design the perfect ally to push advertising from TV to mobile phones," Thompson says, "it would look exactly like Netflix."

E-mail: The Marketer's Trump Card

While e-mail marketers wish everyone had OCECD (Obsessive-Compulsive Email Checking Disorder), consumers indeed check their emails avidly, according to a new study by Mapp Digital.

Nearly all consumers (98%) check emails 3 times a day, the study shows; and over one-fourth (28%) check them 4 to 10 times.

That activity makes e-mail the marketer's trump card—particularly with Millennials—says Mapp Digital's CEO.

"The survey results suggest that this group of consumers are engaging with fewer brands on a more intimate level," says Mike Biwer.

"Millennials and Gen Y are strong audiences for email marketers, but now more than ever, the email marketing experience needs to cater to what they want and how they want it."

The study also shows smartphones are a driving force.

Eight of 10 Millennials (83%) check their emails on smartphones; and 7 of 10 consumers in every age group do so.

5 Big Tips for Better Mobile Marketing

Sophorn Chhay contributed today's post. He is the inbound marketer at Trumpia, a mobile content delivery service that lets users customize their one-to-one marketing.

Sure, you might have a mobile marketing plan. But is it innovative?

In 2016, run-of-the-mill approaches won't take you very far; and, although most mobile marketers follow year-long plans, the fact is effective mobile marketing requires constant innovation.

If you want to stay ahead, check out the following tips, guaranteed to boost your results.

Tip One: Get Tight with Video Ads

Today, 80 percent of Internet users carry smartphones, and buyers are responding to video ads at alarming rates. You can benefit massively from video advertising.

Tip Two: Get Automated with SMS

Did you know you can automate your own SMS campaigns? Better yet, you can segment your audience and shoot out customized text messages. To get automated with SMS, contact a trustworthy provider. Textpedite, among others, streamlines the process.

Tip Three: Distribute an App

Americans currently spend more time using mobile apps than they do watching television. By incorporating an app into your plans, you'll give your brand greater meaning. Marketers are already reworking their entire strategies around apps (airlines, for example, are offering “nearby eatery” apps to frequent flyers). But make your app count, if you want to see it used.

Tip Four: Gain Data from SMS Surveys

Feedback means a lot to customers, and it's easy to conduct business when you know your customers' wants, needs and buying habits. SMS surveys procure a wealth of data and can garner otherwise unobtainable feedback.

Tip Five: Create a Social Campaign

In today’s mobile world, antisocial companies drop like flies, while companies like Starbucks win big. The brand’s “Race Together” and “Create Jobs for the USA” campaigns proved that promoting altruistic causes works. Sure, goodwill is a byproduct of powerful business practices; but it’s also a byproduct of social outreach.

Micro Ads: Small is the New Big

Micro ads deliver macro results, according to a new study by IPG Media Lab.

When viewed on smartphones, micro ads—videos 5 to 15 seconds in length—yield better brand recall, preference and purchase intent than longer ads, the study found.

Micro ads also yield better results among Millennials than viewers of other ages.

Micro ads enjoy an advantage because they're bite-sized, the researchers say.

The ads enjoy an advantage when viewed on smartphones because they seem to dominate the tiny screens.

Millennials dig micro ads because they grew up with smartphones. They find micro ads more enjoyable and of higher quality than viewers of other ages.

The study also found micro ads work better when viewers are out and about, rather than home; and when the ads have voiceovers.

For a micro ad to drive more than just brand awareness, its minimum length should be 15 seconds, according to the study. 

A micro ad shorter than that is simply too micro.

Travel's Romance with Video

Travel brands will increasingly lean on video to seduce mobile-carrying customers, according to Skift.

As evidence, the newsletter cites the 25-minute reverie French Kiss, recently produced by Marriott.

"Instead of selling hotel rooms and airplane seats as commodities, brands are learning to tell stories using video that create an emotional connection with a specific audience," Skift says.

Leading the field, Marriott runs a full-scale, in-house studio that produces original shorts.

Containers of the Past

For nearly 200 years, Americans used stoneware to keep perishable food. It was, in fact, the predominant houseware of the 19th century.

The ceramic containers were heavy and expensive to ship, so stoneware potteries cropped up everywhere to serve local markets.

But after 1913, when refrigerators were introduced, the once-ubiquitous potteries sputtered and failed.

You could say, refrigerators had a chilling effect on the stoneware business.

Today's refrigerator is, of course, the smartphone, as this week's Mobile World Congress makes clear.

And, as the event makes clear, the business without a mobile strategy today is the stoneware pottery of tomorrow.

As ad agency exec Rishad Tobaccowala says, "The future doe not fit in the containers of the past."

What's your mobile strategy?

Plan 9

Attention ad planners: 9 seconds is the perfect period to expose a digital ad, according to a study by Sled.

The ad-platform provider found customers' brand awareness increased twice as much as it did when they viewed an ad for other lengths of time.

But that may be an eternity, in Earthlings' time.

According to Sled, customers viewed ads run recently by BioPharmX a mere 4.1 seconds, on average. 

And according to MediaPost, customers viewed recent ads from the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau for only 4.8 seconds.

Back to the drawing board.

Why Monkey with Your Brand?

Mathematician Émile Borel said a century ago, if you provided an infinite number of monkeys typewriters, eventually they'd produce Hamlet.

Today he might say, if you provided them smartphones, eventually they'd produce The Godfather.

Despite having limited time and money, marketers seem convinced amateurs can produce broadcast-quality videos.

Why do they monkey with their brands?

In his blog, Prathap Suthan, chief creative officer at agency Bang In The Middle, warns marketers of their folly.

"There are billions of sadly made films finding their way into the great social sewer. They comprise all kinds of trash. Including films made by big brands which they conveniently call web films. 

"Hello, your audience doesn’t realize the difference between a film made for the web versus television. For people, including all of us reading us, it’s a film. Most are badly made. Some are downright ugly. Very few are beautiful, and therefore shareable. 

"Now the thing is, take your eyes off quality and finesse, and you have a sad film representing your company, product, or brand. A social film has to be equivalent to a regular TV film. It’s not just a web film anymore. 

"Save yourself from the gutter and the clutter. Bad content is arsenic. It will eat your brand from inside."

I Tweet Dead People

To paraphrase Faulkner, the past isn't dead; in fact, it isn't even offline.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, devoted decades of his life to spiritualism, the art of communing with the dead.

He wrote 20 books on the subject; lectured about spiritualism throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and North America; and was an active member of the Society for Psychical Research for 37 years.

My medium for communing with the dead is Twitter.

Presently, I receive regular Tweets from Sir Arthur, Thomas Jefferson, the Ancient Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius, and the Victorian lawyer and diarist George Templeton Strong.

Tweets from the dead entertain and uplift me while I traverse the underworld (on Metro, not a raft) during my commute.

Indeed, communing with the dead is one of the very best uses of Twitter, which is otherwise largely wasteland. 

I recommend it wholeheartedly, and enjoy the fact the dead can Tweet and pay nothing for their mobile phones.

Woody Allen once wrote, “If man were immortal, do you realize what his meat bills would be?”

Your Content Marketing is Broken

Most marketers treat mobile as a poor cousin, even though 61% of online content gets viewed on mobile devices in the US, according to comScore.

Websites, blogs and ads are still designed by rote, looking swell on desktops and laptops, but broken on mobile devices.

The majority of marketers also ignore the fact that customers often switch throughout the day from mobile phones to tablets, designing content for just one of these devices.

By failing to design "adaptive" content, marketers are merely distracting chronically distracted customers.

Analysts call the right content marketing strategy for today a "mobile-first strategy."

Maybe it's time to get smart about your strategy.

If the shoe fits.

Big Brother is Watching You. But Not for Long.

Marketers' abuse of mobile data, long before it triggers government regulation, will destroy consumers' trust in many major brands, according to Thomas Husson, an analyst with Forrester.

"Mobility will change the nature of the data marketers can use and act upon," Husson writes. 

"Via sensors on wearables or smartphones, marketers will access data on our bodies and our whereabouts in real-time."

The almighty nature of mobile data, Husson believes, will tempt marketers to break consumers' anonymities—and their trust as well.

Marketers who think of privacy as just some "legal and compliance issue" are riding for a fall.

"Consumers are increasingly aware of the value of their data and expect brands to deliver clear benefits in exchange of the personal data they share," Husson says. 

"Moving forward, we believe consumers will increasingly take control of the brand relationship via mobile trusted agents. Brand trust will be built on mobile experiences. In fact, brands’ survival will depend on their ability to build trust."

Searchers Getting Wordy

Bloggers can take heart from a trend in the way customers are searching on line.

Searchers are increasingly using complete sentences and long phrases as search terms, according to software maker Hubspot.

They're realizing that simple search terms can no longer pinpoint useful Web content, given its enormity.

So, for example, instead of entering "sales training," a searcher might enter "two-day onsite sales training for a small insurance brokerage in Kentucky."

"As a result of these more complex searches, Google has actually changed its algorithm to better fit conversational questions from searchers," Hubspot says.

Google's change in its algorithm will help drive more traffic to blogs, "which are designed by nature to be educational, answer questions, and provide background info," Hubspot says.

Hole, Baby, Hole

Renowned marketing guru and Harvard professor Ted Levitt liked to tell students, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”

Pardon the pun, but it's surprising this decades-old saw has reentered everyday discussions of social media marketing.

It's not as if Levitt's insight doesn't deserve resurrection. It does.

That's because most marketers still believe they're selling drills.

How about you?

Is your head screwed on right?

Your motto should be, Hole, Baby, Hole.

Trust Busters

Without your Website visitors' trust, you're toast.

Writing for Copyblogger, Barry Feldman lists these nine ways to void visitors' trust:

You're doing all the talking. You offer visitors no opportunity to comment. "When your brand does all the talking on your Website, you’ve got a recipe for distrust," Feldman says.

You’re anti-social. You ignore social media.

You're writing for robots. "Keyword stuffing is a certain mistrust trigger," Feldman says. Write to motivate people, not to drive SEO.

You’re not helpful. Givers earn trust; the needy don't. "In the online world, the most fervent servants have the most loyal friends."

You're never home. Your Website omits contact information.
You’re never wrong. This is the cardinal sin of large companies and TV pundits. Don't commit it, too.

You're a mess. If your Website design stinks, "you’ll never even get the chance to develop trust," Feldman says.

You’re using bad words. Feldman doesn't mean profanities, but "spelling mistakes, poor grammar, blatant bastardizations of the language, clumsy sales pitches, clichés, and jargon-laden nonsense."

You're slimy. You're guilty of using the ultimate trust-busters: bait and switch tactics, fine print, aggressive cookies, fabricated testimonials, privacy policy violations, spam and missing unsubscribe protocols.

"You can’t beg, buy or borrow trust. If you want it, you have to build it one article, podcast, tweet, and headline at a time," Feldman says.

Learn more about building trust from my free white paper, Path of Persuasion.

Social Can't Sell

In The New York Times, tech journalist Stephen Baker recently asked, “Can Social Media Sell Soap?”

His short answer: nope.

Precision targeting, which generates ads "so timely and relevant that you welcome them," has "fueled a market frenzy around social networks," Baker writes.

But social networks are heading for a fall, because social can't sell.

As proof, Baker cites a chilly sales statistic (courtesy of IBM) from last year's Christmas season. 

"On the pivotal opening day of the season, Black Friday, a scant 0.68 percent of online purchases came directly from Facebook," Baker writes. "The number from Twitter was undetectable. Could it be that folks aren’t in a buying mood when hanging out digitally with their friends?"

I think Baker is on to something.

Social can't sell.

That's why the oxymoron "social media marketing" would make George Carlin's list.

Social is unlike traditional media.

When you consume traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio and TV), you willingly trade your attention for content. 

That means ads are—more or less—welcome.

But in social, ads aren't welcome. 

They're like a telemarketer's cold call in the middle of the family dinner.

NFC "Will Change Marketing Forever"

Firebrand has declared near-field communication (NFC) the "new transformative technology that will change marketing forever."

According to the firm, three applications will drive the transformation:

Tags. "This is where marketing can shine," Firebrand says. "You see a poster of the latest blockbuster Hollywood movie at a bus shelter. You then tap the NFC tag to view the movie trailer, download an app or game associated with the film, and buy the movie ticket instantly. Wow!"

Sharing. Consumers bumping their peers' smartphones "will be the way customers share branded information."

Payments. Bye, bye credit cards! You'll use your phone to pay for almost everything, "from purchasing a bus or train ticket, taxi fare, buying a Coke at a 7-11 or paying for your groceries at the checkout."

"NFC is going to make your advertising and marketing so much more effective, as it brings the digital world into the real world," the firm says.

Customers will walk into a retail store, tap an NFC tag on a product to open a price comparison Website, see real-time ratings and reviews of the product on social media, and buy it. 

"All marketing collateral will feature an NFC tag (replacing the cumbersome website URL or phone number) that prompts you to download more information," the firm predicts.

Don't Make These 4 Deadly Video Mistakes

Writing for Intuit’s Small Business Blog, videomaker C.J. Bruce warns marketers of four deadly Web video mistakes.

 

Not producing a video. "Using video for your business is no longer optional," Bruce writes. The availability of prosumer gear removes the age-old excuse "video is too expensive."

 

Producing a video. One video "isn't a content strategy," Bruce says. "After all, you wouldn’t send just one email, put up just one blog post, or have a TV commercial air just once." Bruce suggests producing a series of videos and releasing them weekly through the span of a quarter.

 

Believing you'll go viral. The chances your video will go viral are slim. "You need to have a plan for your videos that includes marketing them with social media and SEO tactics," Bruce says. Be sure to put your videos on your Website and send the link to your email list. Also consider placing ads on Google.

 

Counting views. Engagement is more important than viewership. Put in place systems to track YouTube likes, shares, comments and viewing times after your video goes live.

You Say You Want a Revolution?

Then get ready.

It's called NFC.
 
It will change the way attendees discover content at events.

NFC (the acronym for "Near Field Communication") is a form of short-range wireless that bridges the gap between the real and virtual worlds.

The technology allows anyone with an NFC-ready mobile phone or tablet to access content by touching the device to a comparable one—or to a "smart poster."

Thanks to the manufacturers, nearly one-third of new phones are NFC-ready right now. Two years hence, all will be.

With NFC, attendees will be able to touch salespeople's phones and instantly download anything now delivered on line. Videos. PowerPoint slides. Flyers. White papers. Discount coupons. You name it.

Salespeople not around? No worries. Attendees can do the same thing by touching a smart poster.

But wait, there's more.
 
Provided the nearest cash register is NFC-ready, attendees will be able to pay for purchases with a touch of their phones.

The revolution NFC will usher in isn't pie in the sky.

It's underway as we speak.

EXPO Magazine has said NFC "will change the face-to-face landscape."

Learn why "NFC will disrupt how things are done."

More on Mobile-Friendly Websites

"Is your Website changing with the mobile revolution, or is it remaining stagnant?" asks online marketer Sarah Tharp, writing for Biznology.

An unfriendly site costs your business dearly, Tharp insists.

 

"I cannot begin to tell you the number of times I’ve attempted to access a Website online, and because of glaring functionality and usability issues, have gone back to the search results and given my business to a competitor site," Tharp writes.

 

What's fundamental to a mobile-friendly site?

• Fast page-loading
• Navigation with tabs to information most needed by mobile users
• Pages that require little or no scrolling
• Large buttons that can be easily pressed
• An easily accessible search bar
• A phone number with a “click to call” option
• An address that can be clicked to automatically present directions

At a minimum, every business should know how its Website appears on mobile devices and how mobile users are experiencing it, Tharp says.