Marketing Technology 5

Marketing Technology Stories you might have missed

MT5 Edition:  #31

Stories This Week: SEO basics, social ad spending is growing, Microsoft will lose desktop space to Apple & Google, improving email deliverability, interview with a uber-Marketing Technologist and boosting CTR through personalized offers.

1. 24 Ways To Make Life Hard For Your SEO Team

[SearchEngineLand] While the industry is maturing, SEO still remains a largely misunderstood discipline. There are three main reasons for this:

1. The search engines keep the details of their ranking algorithms private.
2. There is a lot of bad information and misperceptions presented as SEO wisdom online.
3. The algorithms search engines use are frequently changing.

My Take: SEO is a marketing discipline unlike no other. It requires expertise and experience and it’s one of the few places where I avoid learning by trial and error. If you aren’t investing in SEO or aren’t getting the results you expect, partner with someone who lives and breathes SEO.

Change In Online Ad Spending

2. Marketers Accelerate Social Display Ad Spending

[eMarketer] Marketers, agencies to spend more display ad budget on social networks than with publishers this year.

My Take: I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t know what a demand-side platform is. Nor do I have the slightest idea where to find an Agency Trading desk at Ikea. However, it’s no surprise that Marketers are following the eyeballs and investing in social ad spending.

3. Windows PCs to decline as Android, Apple devices rise

[cNet] Windows will be eclipsed by Android in 2016, according to market researcher IDC. Expect Apple’s iOS to see an uptick too.

My Take: I’ve always viewed the world as Apple versus Microsoft, but as the device platforms change you really need to focus on manufacturers that have demonstrated strong mobile capabilities – enter Apple and Google.  For my money, Motorola is showing us the future of devices with their Altrix [link]

4. Six Tactics To Improve Email Deliverability

[MarketingSherpa] Read on for six tactics from two email deliverability experts. They cover tactics on reputation, testing, domain distribution reports, mediation and more.

My Take: Having spent years futzing with email deliverability, I know what a pain it is. I wish I had this article years ago! Throttling has always worked best for me in a B2B situation where the email volume is low.  My other tip is to work with your top recipient domains to get whitelisted in their spam filters. Doing so gives you a free pass through their filtering system.

5. Technology in Marketing, An Interview with Autodesk’s Jack Androvich

[ForresterBlog] Jack has made some revolutionary moves to empower Autodesk’s marketing through technology. Jack established a vision and built a framework for accomplishing his organizational goals.

My Take: Jack is an interesting guy. In addition to being a Marketing Technology visionary, he’s also very much into fine art photography. He’s got great stories and is a fantastic person to share a meal with.

[BONUS] Dynamic Email Marketing: How Savings.com boosted CTR 88% with offers chosen by data, not instinct

[MarketingSherpa] If you’re doing direct to consumer marketing, this case study shows you how you can get better response rates to your email/web campaigns. The bottom of the article has links to sample content Savings.com used.

My Take: I liked this quote on relevance:

Relevance: often sought, never attained

Relevance is a theory, not a location. You can’t “get there,” but you can run toward it. The team works to improve its algorithm to make better offers, but it will never be perfect.