Power Marketing with Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee interviews Will Critchlow, CEO at SearchPilot, a UK-based company that helps proprietors of very large websites prove the value of their SEO efforts through SEO A/B testing. Will recently presented at the Brighton SEO Conference in San Diego, an event that Kevin also attended.

Will and Kevin discuss the origin story and current elevator pitch for SearchPilot, how the software works, and the value it provides in terms of being able to accurately quantify the ROI of SEO efforts generally. They touch on the role that site traffic volume plays in terms of being a prerequisite for obtaining statistically valid results that can be relied upon for SEO optimization efforts, and chat about how Google has become more real-time in terms of its indexing and ranking, allowing for changes in search results to be noticed more quickly.

Kevin gets Will’s take on the most common SEO issues found on legacy sites, for example, poorly managed 404 errors, multiple 301 redirects, broken structured data, and other issues, and ask him about how his team works collaboratively with internal organizational stakeholders, for example, IT departments, which may formally or informally exert control over the site. As Will notes, “IT folks are often skeptical, so we need to bring them along in conversation and show how our product can help with their technical concerns.”

The discussion shifts to the issue of AI’s current and future influence on SEO, the degree to which bad actors will use AI to overwhelm search engines with artificially generated spam, and the likelihood that search engines will ever abandon their traditional, multiple-choice SERPs with a single, AI-generated, hyper-personalized answer (Will is skeptical that this will happen anytime soon given the self-interest of search engines in monetizing as many outbound clicks as possible).

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Kevin Lee interviews Ameet Khabra, founder of Hop Skip Media, a PPC agency based in Surrey, British Columbia where she oversees account strategy and execution for clients across various industry categories, including leisure, food delivery, automotive, and heavy equipment. She recently presented at the Brighton SEO Conference in San Diego, an event which I also attended.

Kevin chats with Ameet about her career journey and they trade notes on a number of issues germane to contemporary PPC advertising, including best practices for using Google’s Performance Max (the topic of Ameet’s talk at Brighton), a system which uses machine learning models to optimize bids and placements to drive conversions.

Kevin and Ameet agree that marketers should never regard automated systems such as Performance Max as autonomous “magic boxes.” As Ameet notes, “nothing in digital marketing should ever be “set and forget.” Furthermore, while Performance Max is “smart” in terms of being powered by AI, it must be “spoon fed” the correct kind of data for it to function effectively.

Furthermore, as she observes, getting acceptable results from systems such as Performance Max fully depends on supplying them with adequate information to optimize ad campaigns effectively, including audience signals, customer lists, and data feeds.

Ameet highlights the common mistakes she’s observed when conducting PPC account audits, including inadequate conversion tracking and overreliance on auto recommendations. Kevin and Ameet then discuss the importance of connecting backend CRM data to Google Ads to enable accurate bidding decisions.

Ameet reports on her experience with the GA4 migration from Universal Analytics that happened this year and how she’s handling GA4’s reduced functionality along with its navigational issues.

The conversation then turns to AI’s role in digital marketing, including its current prowess in terms of being able to generate content whose quality exceeds – or is at least on par with – that generated by human beings. Ameet notes that in all the tests she’s run, human-generated content has won every time, but this favorable result is no cause for complacency given the breakneck pace of development in the generative AI space.

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Kevin Lee interviews Mike Hauptman, CEO and Founder at Adlib, a company whose programmatic DSP (Demand-Side Platform), dubbed “The Adlib Meta DSP,” makes it easier for marketers to access premium audiences and publishers at scale while eliminating waste.

Mike and Kevin discuss the company’s origin story, the market needs met by its software, and the challenges of prioritizing features in product development, with Mike emphasizing the importance of listening to clients when contemplating the addition of new features and capabilities. Kevin queries Mike about specific client requests for integrations, and Mike mentions YouTube as an example of an integration that was added based on client demand.

Adlib differentiates itself from other self-serve DSPs by not maintaining its own supply connections and data marketplaces, instead using best-in-class connections through larger DSPs. This allows for head-to-head competition between DSPs to determine the best performer for a campaign. It’s also earned high marks for being easy to use and fast to set up.

Mike highlights the benefits of partnering with vendors for dynamic creative optimization and provides an anecdote about using Magic Ads, an Adlib product, to help a beauty brand create banners in just a few hours and achieve a 3-1 return on ad spend within 2-3 weeks.

Mike has high hopes for Adlib in 2024 and beyond, believing its capabilities and contract-free engagement model qualify it as a credible candidate to serve as the media buying system of record for agencies.

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Kevin Lee interviews Atiba de Souza, an organic video marketing expert who’s the CEO and Founder of Client Attraction Pros, a video marketing agency based in Rockville, Maryland. As Atiba’s website explains, his company “specializes in helping busy expert entrepreneurs get more of the right kind of videos out in the world so they can book more speaking engagements, become a recognized authority, and spend less time chasing clients.”

Kevin and Atiba share a lengthy background in SEO and Atiba’s success in getting favorable organic rankings for clients deeply informs his video marketing strategy today. Key to this approach is creating video content that precisely answers questions posed by the audience that one’s marketing efforts are targeting.

As Atiba notes, “it’s not about what you think is cool and what you want to say. It’s about what the audience is asking.” In other words, one needs to align one’s content — whether it’s short form or long form — with Google’s core purpose to favorably rank the best, most consumer-centric content in order to provide the best user experience.

Atiba and Kevin discuss the virtues of creating short-form “snackable” content, which today dominates video-centric platforms such as TikTok and has an increasingly influential presence on YouTube. We address the key role of “the hook” (that all-important introductory segment of any video which sets forth its theme and, therefore, user expectations as to what’s ahead) and explore the potential for customer testimonials and partner-created content.

Creating compelling video content for “boring” industries is a constant challenge for B2B marketers, and Atiba provides some great insights and excellent examples as to how this can be achieved.

They discuss the importance of focusing video marketing efforts on building relationships with customers rather than just pursuing it from a brand perspective, chat about best practices for repurposing, or “splintering” long-form content, and brainstorm ideas for future-proofing video marketing strategies against AI (which may profoundly change the way that search results are presented), including the use of digital PR and syndicated content.

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Kevin Lee interviews Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Branding at Wix. Mordy had some interesting conversations with fellow SEO professionals at the Brighton SEO Conference earlier this month concerning the continued viability of today’s generation of popular SEO tools. Are they ready to take on the optimization challenges posed by generative AI, semantic search, and hyper-personalized results?

As Mordy notes, “the general sense I got, talking both on stage but also talking to average SEOs, is that they’re not. The SEO tools were built, I’d say, 15 years ago. At this point, not much has changed about them. Yes, they’ve added all sorts of bells and whistles and reports and graphs and this and that. But they’re fundamentally built on a link building model, which is clearly not where SEO is anymore.” Mordy does acknowledge that today’s SEO tools do provide value in terms of their auditing capabilities but are far less useful when it comes to assessing issues relating to content gaps and content quality generally.

The discussion shifts to the topic of negative SEO and the potential for Google to accurately determine which links are toxic and require disavowing, with Mordy expressing skepticism about the need for the Disavow tool itself while noting that Bing’s Disavow tool has already disappeared. Mordy and Kevin then get into the issue of spam and low-quality sites which continue to pollute the web, despite the best efforts of search engines to ferret them out, and speculate as to whether AI will make an already dire situation measurably worse.

They trade notes on the issue of future-proofing SEO through content syndication and content co-creation and move on to a discussion about the importance of authenticity in influencer marketing. Then they tackle the issue of video SEO and the degree to which it is ignored by marketers.

Mordy and Kevin agree that SEO – which has historically been a moving, evolving target – may be about to undergo more radical changes in the next few years than it has in the past two decades. As he notes, “something is changing under the surface of everything. Something very fundamental is changing. And I think it’s the combination of AI, obviously, but also user content consumption trends, which are changing very rapidly, and they’re very powerful.”

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Kevin Lee interviews Ravi Mittal, Founder and CEO of Quizzly.ai, whose company allows publishers to deploy contextually relevant online quizzes that can be woven into a publisher’s content streams.

Ravi and Kevin explore Quizzly.ai’s origin story and he then explains how the company’s AI engine creates quizzes on demand by analyzing content and identifying relevant questions and answers. As he notes, the data shows that users love quizzes, which boast high completion and engagement rates. Publishers love them too, given that quizzes can be used to gather user data for targeted content creation and market research. Additionally, advertisers can use quizzes to educate users about a product’s features while gleaning valuable insights from prospects and consumers that can flow back into market research and product development.

Ravi has high hopes for the future of his company in 2024 and beyond, especially with respect to market research, a lucrative business that appears to be ripe for disruption. “We are very much focused on getting Brand Lift studies within the quiz widget. As you know, it’s an $80 billion industry — the market research industry — and most of the budgets are going into these surveys. But nobody knows who does these surveys — there are panels sitting somewhere in the cloud, probably. We want to bring those budgets those budgets to publishers. We want these surveys to become more quick and meaningful. So I feel that in the next three to six months, you’ll see some more disruption in the market research space as people discover our tool.”

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Kevin Lee interviews Ezra Doty, CEO of Quorum, a New York-based company whose products allow advertisers to target shoppers based on their real-world shopping behavior. Ezra discusses his background, and then a discussion begins concerning how mobile device data collection enables a kind of targeted advertising that’s proven to be extremely effective in practice.

Ezra explains that the data collected from mobile devices is limited to latitude, longitude, GPS coordinates, timestamp, and anonymous ID, regardless of whether the device is iOS or Android. He emphasizes that the company does not collect any personally identifiable information and maintains a strict separation between anonymous mobile data and personally identifiable information.

Kevin and Ezra discuss how the ad calls from browser-based devices are very different from SDK-delivered ad calls, with Ezra noting that “the difference really, with SDK based (ad calls) is that it is only as accurate as the blue dot on your phone… it’s not perfect. Sometimes you’re on the other side of the building, or whatever, but it’s pretty close. And that’s the degree of accuracy we have with SDK based (ad calls). “

One thing that’s fascinating about gathering and analyzing location data is that it provides the marketer with opportunities to discover unexpected insights, for example, the likelihood that individuals making multiple visits to a store such as Home Depot within a certain time range may also be in-market for other goods and services of interest to homeowners. Ezra and Kevin discuss the power of such correlations and other insights derived from studying cross-shopping behavior.

Ezra is a strong exponent of retargeting customers who have visited a brand’s physical stores, as they are more likely to convert than website visitors, and they trade notes on this, as well as how competitive conquesting, where a brand targets customers of competitors, can be achieved using location-based data. As Ezra notes, “conquesting is obviously big… lifestyle targeting, you know: I want to target somebody who was at a ski resort or a golf course or amusement park — you can think about a lot of use cases around that.”

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Kevin Lee interviews Damian Pelliccione, CEO and Co-Founder of Revry, an enterprise describing itself as “the LGBTQ-first streaming network with the latest in queer movies, series and music, available anytime and anywhere.”

Damian recounts Revry’s origin story and notes that the network has grown to 5 million monthly active viewers in over 140 countries, with viewers mainly consuming content on connected television platforms. He credits this growth to forging partnerships with TV manufacturers and conducting direct sales to big brands for scalable growth in LGBTQ content distribution.

Damian and Kevin discuss the role of branded content and sponsorships in Revry’s current programming, which relies on non-scripted content, such as reality TV shows and sports programs, where brands can easily integrate themselves into the content at different levels. Damian recounts the network’s experience working with Nike and Lexus on an awards show, highlighting the success of the event and the engagement of the audience.

Kevin and Damian chat about the particular strengths of free ad-supported streaming TV, which does not allow viewers to skip advertisements, and the purchasing power of the LGBTQ+ community, which has a disposable income of $1.7 trillion in the U.S. Then they tackle the issue of brand safety, which rose to the forefront in 2023 due to the Bud Lite controversy, and dive into how Revry is handling these concerns on its network.

They touch upon Revry’s marketing strategy, which involves a mix of leveraging relationships with editorial teams in CTV environments such as Samsung and Vizio while incorporating a paid component.

Damian has high hopes for the network, which has doubled its revenue for four consecutive years, and plans are in the works for a major announcement concerning Revry at the CES show which will happen early next year in Las Vegas.

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Kevin Lee interviews Jeffery Mayer, Head of Product and Managing Director at DanAds, a company providing a self-serve advertising platform providing direct access to publishers’ inventory. DanAds lowers the barriers to entry for small businesses while increasing operational efficiencies and sales opportunities for publishers.

As Jeffrey explains, “what this platform really does is democratize the ability for any advertiser — big or small — to book their media campaigns, set their targeting and audiences they want to reach, to add their creative, and create a campaign. So we’re kind of opening the door for anyone to buy media without the exorbitant costs they would typically get.”

Jeffrey explains how DanAds’ AI-enabled tools, such as video and audio builders, reduce production costs for small advertisers by creating clean and professional ads at a fraction of the cost of traditional production methods. He talks about how it’s possible for advertisers to connect their third-party ad tags directly to the DanAds platform for easier ad serving.

Kevin and Jeffrey trade notes on the continuing importance of automation in media transactions, with Jeffrey citing examples of successful campaigns run through DanAds.

The conversation then pivots to the subject of AI in media, with Jeffrey noting that he’s excited about its potential while recognizing that it may not live up to the hype. Finally, they chat about how platforms such as DanAds may acquire new relevance this year as the political advertising season heats up.

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Kevin Lee interviews Amanda Jordan, SEO Strategy Director at RicketyRoo, who shares her unique journey into the SEO industry, from initially wanting to be an engineer to discovering her passion for search marketing through a friend’s suggestion.

Amanda is an expert at local SEO and shares the most common challenges faced by businesses struggling to compete with larger competitors due to content quality and topical authority. She notes that one common mistake made is to focus too exclusively on the lower funnel. Other common mistakes include having too much “thin content” on their sites and failing to optimize their Google My Business profiles.

Additional issues typically include duplicate content, internal linking issues, poor navigation, and indexability issues. As she notes, issues such as these are often hard issues to overcome, given that most small businesses do not have the resources required to produce content whose quality is high enough to be ranked well by search engines.

Kevin and Amanda discuss the importance of businesses having a presence on secondary sites like directories and review platforms to improve local SEO, with Amanda opining that it’s sometimes worth it to paying for listings on some platforms to increase visibility.

The discussion pivots to video, and how employees can be effective content creators, especially in healthcare and related industries, as they may have more personal experience and knowledge to share than people at higher levels of the organization. Amanda acknowledges that there may be a learning curve for employees to become comfortable with creating content, but it can be a valuable way to personalize the brand and engage with customers.

Amanda shares her take on the GA4 migration, which has caused a good deal of frustration among marketers accustomed to the rich functionality of GA4’s predecessor, Universal Analytics.

Amanda sees big changes ahead in 2024 for SEO and believes that the best way to prepare for them is to put oneself in the shoes of searchers. “Don’t worry about Google. Do the right things for your customers, and you’ll likely be in the right side of whatever update comes.”

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