April 10, 2014

Google Adwords “Not Provided” Change Does NOT Impact BringShare

Google announced yesterday that they will begin encrypting search query data for Adwords clicks.

“We’ve long worked to keep your searches on Google secure. We provided SSL encryption for signed-in searches in 2011 and have rolled that out to searches from the omnibox in the Chrome browser. Today, we are extending our efforts to keep search secure by removing the query from the referer on ad clicks originating from SSL searches on Google.com.

Advertisers will continue to have access to useful data to optimize and improve their campaigns and landing pages. For example, you can access detailed information in the AdWords search terms report and the Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries report.”

To understand what is happening, we must first understand the difference between keywords and search queries.

Keywords are the words an advertiser bids on in Google Adwords.

Search queries are the words used by the searcher to find something.

Here’s an example of how they work together:

Keyword = “Widget” which I loaded into Adwords and set a bid of $1.75 per click.

Search Query = “Best widgets of 2014” which was searched by a potential customer.

The search query, “Best Widgets of 2014”  was similar enough to the keyword “Widget” to trigger the ad.

The data now being encrypted and thus inaccessible in Google is the search query. This will not affect your ability to access search query data in Google Adwords as has always been the case.

BringShare only uses keyword data for reporting so this change will not impact your reports.

Overall, the information provided by Google about this change is pretty vague. Use the links below for some additional information.

If you have any questions, let us know. We’re happy to help.

Subscribe to our blog for updates.

Additional Resources:
Google Announcement

Great explanation from SearchEngineLand.com 

Productivity Tool #2: Bring Teams Together On Projects Using Wedoist

At Bringshare, our MO is that we save you time and free you up to be more effective. It’s under that mantra that we are going to be presenting four of our favorite productivity tools in a four-part series on our blog.

Dun-dun-dunnnn.

Odds are, at one point or another, you’ve felt that sinking feeling when you realize a project or important task fell through the cracks. In the agency world, staying organized and on top of projects is a bit of an art – and the ones who do it well are the ones who will continually impress and retain clients.

So how do we stay organized and stay on top of the deadlines that fill our world? We use a crazy-helpful task management tool called Wedoist. This web app gives us a single place to organize tasks, files and project status messages by client.

Sounds awesome, right?!

Check out these 6 features of Wedoist that take the dun-dun-dunn out of your world. 

Manage multiple clients and multiple teams in one place

By creating a project and adding your team members to specific projects, you’ll create a home base for every step of your workflow. Once added to a project, each person will be notified and will instantly have the ability to add documents, files, create tasks, and add comments. This feature makes it easy for project management and overall organization.

View status updates from team members surrounding each project

Each member that has access to a project can enter status updates letting everyone else know of any updates, set backs, or important information that needs to be conveyed. No need to send out multiple emails and making sure everyone is up to date individually, this makes it easy for everyone to view project statuses at once.

Assign tasks to other team members surrounding each project

Make sure that each person is held responsible for certain tasks by assigning them due dates and assignments. This is a great way to make sure deadlines are being met and each member of the team is delivering on their assignments.

Email reminders of tasks due

In Wedoist you can schedule reminders to alert you that a due date is approaching so you can be sure to complete the task or project on time. You’ll never have to fret about forgetting a deadline when life gets hectic – this is one of the features we love most!

View all tasks across all projects with a global dashboard

Wedoist makes it easy to view all tasks, projects, and status updates you are assigned to on one simple dashboard. You can even add and create new projects straight from the home dashboard. No need to go searching for hours trying to find certain projects or documents; everything is in one place and easy to find saving you tons of time.

File storage for easy document tracking and sharing associated with each project

Have a project that requires a word document, excel spreadsheet, or some other form of attachment? No worries, in Wedoist it is easy to upload those files for sharing and tracking right in the comment section. Each file is stored in a “files” section of your project, giving you a simple place to find any document related to your client or project.

Avoiding the dun-dun-dunn doesn’t have to be complicated.

Wedoist really can help make sure your team tames the chaos and maximizes your ability to deliver meaningful work on schedule. Don’t ignore the power of Wedoist for your agency any longer.

And now, time to check “post Wedoist blog” off our Wedoist for today. 

April 4, 2014

The Weekly Top 3 Must Read Digital Marketing Articles

1) AdWords Retiring Regular PLA Campaigns in Favor of Shopping Campaigns – Search Engine Watch

Google AdWords announced that they would be retiring regular Product Listing Ads (PLAs). However, they will be replaced with the newly released Shopping Campaigns. The new shopping campaigns provide additional features along with being able to manage PLAs. Read this article to learn more about the changes and what will not change. Read the article here

2) 9 Insanely Simple Ways to Optimize your PPC Landing Page – Visual Website Optimizer

PPC campaigns are created to convert customers and landing pages are there to help accomplish this. However, having the wrong landing page could be preventing these customers from converting. There are several elements of a landing page that need to be reviewed and considered in order to draw the customer in. This article provides nine great ways you can ensure that your landing page is fully optimized. Read the article here

3) 6 Objectives When Creating New Content Assets – Search Engine Watch

When creating content for your site, you should  have an objective in mind. These objectives will help you ensure that the content created is achieving what is was set out to do. These 6 objectives can help guide you as you create content for your site and ensure that your content is built to meet your goals. Read the article here

 

 

April 1, 2014

A VERY OFFICIAL CORPORATE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE SUITS AT BRINGSHARE

 

If a company is to continue to grow, drastic changes must sometimes be made.

Did you know that the key to skyrocketing success lies in a simple name change? Our super exhausting – er, exhaustive - research proves that changing a company’s name will absolutely generate a 550.3% increase in traffic to its site via really awesome press releases, a bombarding series of emails, and paid for guest posts.

We were so impressed with our completely un-validated research; we decided that it was time to make a change ourselves. So, we got together in a fancy boardroom with really big leather chairs, and made some drastic improvements to our name.

But at the end of the day, we couldn’t decide on which new name we liked the most. We were at the proverbial stalemate. In another stroke of brilliance, we decided to crowd-source the decision process (crowd-sourcing is what all the cool kids do, we’ve heard). That’s right! YOU get to help determine the new BringShare name!

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE OUR THREE NEW NAMES. WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE?

 

 

Juuuust kidding!

Of course, we aren’t changing our BringShare name because we’ve grown quite fond of it. And please disregard any of our “research” cited above – it’s definitely not conclusive.

We just thought that today, April Fools, would be a fun day to bring to light some of the names we’ve been called over the past two years. These are 100% real, and 100% hilarious.

  • Brain Share
  • Green Chair
  • BrimCare
  • Train Share
  • Bling Share
  • Bring Chair
  • Grain Share
  • Ring Share
  • Bing Share
  • Bream Share
  • Dream Share
  • Brain Trust
  • Brain Surge
  • Brim Chair
  • Bring Shed

So to be super clear, we aren’t going to be blingshare, or greenchair, or Grain Share (seriously?!). We feel pretty good about the BringShare name we’re building day in and day out. We think we’ll keep it.

March 28, 2014

The Weekly Top 3 Must Read Digital Marketing Articles

1) 4 Steps To The Perfect AdWords Audit – Search Engine Land

Having an understanding of your AdWords performance is crucial to ensuring you are providing the best results. An AdWords campaign audit can help you reveal any areas for improvement as well as provide insight into features and more that could help you reach your goals . Read the advice provided here to help guide you through auditing your AdWords campaigns. Read the article here

2) SEO 101: Google Keyword Planner, A Content Marketer’s Secret Weapon – Search Engine Journal

Being aware of which keywords have the most impact on your site is important for not only SEO, but for content marketing as well. The Google AdWords keyword planner allows you to discover  large volume keywords that could help bring traffic to your site. This provides great insight into planning the direction of your content. Read this article to learn how to get started and how the keyword planner can help your content marketing strategy. Read the article here

3) Bing Product Ads Now Open to All U.S. Advertisers – Search Engine Watch

The new Bing Product Ads provide the ability for advertisers to include images to be displayed alongside the product and company information. The Product Ads, having been in beta, were made available to U.S. advertisers and will be running on Yahoo and Bing.  Learn more about these product ads and how to get started in this article. Read the article here

March 25, 2014

Productivity Tool #1: How to Use Feedly to Never Miss Out on Digital Marketing News


 

At Bringshare, our MO is that we save you time and free you up to be more effective. It’s under that mantra that we are going to be presenting four of our favorite productivity tools in a four-part series on our blog.

We’ve all been there – that awkward moment when a client corners you to get your thoughts on an SEO change that’s sent the Internet buzzing, or to get your advice on a hot digital marketing trend that’s making it’s rounds on twitter. In our world, it’s not enough to simply know about these issues – our clients and yours depend on us to sift the trends and provide valuable insight.

So how do you make time for that in your fast-paced, one-project-after-the-next workflow? Enter a handy little app named Feedly.

Get friendly with Feedly – 4 reasons that we use the app ourselves

1. Supercharge your down time. Feedly was made to make your waiting moments productive. Whether waiting for your latte or for your doctor’s appointment, quickly scan titles from your favorite industry sources and bookmark articles you want to come back to later.

2. All your sources, in one app. Keep track of every article on every blog and website you trust, in one intuitively designed app. Goodbye 10 open tabs, and hello one swipe of the finger.

3. Fill your pocket. Find an article but don’t have time to finish it quite yet? Want to save it so that you can reference it down the line? With the touch of a button, Feedly lets you import your favorite articles right into your Pocket app.

4. Share the knowledge efficiently. Great teams are built on the sharing of valuable information. Feedly lets you quickly share an article with your email contacts, ensuring that your whole team is on board with your thought process.

We think that you’ll love this app – whether you use the desktop, mobile or tablet version.

To get you started, here are the sites that you’ll find saved in our Feedly accounts:

Google News:

Business News:

Content Marketing News:

SEO Marketing News:

Technology and Start-up News

With Feedly, you can be sure that you don’t miss a beat as the industry continually evolves, ensuring that you emerge from that next out-of-the-blue question a champion in your client’s eyes.

March 21, 2014

The Weekly Top 3 Must Read Digital Marketing Articles

1) Video Helps Persuade 73% of People to Buy a Product or Service [Survey] – Search Engine Watch

Engaging with your customers is important. Videos can be a strong way to introduce your company to customers as a valuable source of information. The survey shows that more customers are relying on videos to gain information to make their buying decisions. Read this article to learn more about the findings of this survey on video usage. Read the article here

2) How to do SEO for Local Business, WITHOUT Content Marketing – Search Engine Watch

Content marketing is growing and becoming a larger part of SEO strategy, but you can still make SEO progress without content. There are certainly ways to tackle improving your SEO position, even as a local business without solely focusing on including content. This article provides good direction to follow to do this with a number of ways to improve, such as finding an alternative to content that can still engage your customers. Read the article here

3) The Incomplete Google Ranking Signals, Part 1 – SEO by the Sea

Having an understanding of how Google determines rankings is necessary in developing a strong SEO campaign strategy. The article provides great signals for Google rankings as well as compiled patents and papers surrounding Google ranking strategy. Read the article to see what SEO ranking knowledge you can learn. Read the article here

March 14, 2014

The Weekly Top 3 Must Read Digital Marketing Articles

1) Improve PPC Performance Now: How to Take Advantage of Seasonality – Search Engine Watch

Learning which seasons and holidays affect your campaigns is crucial. Success can come from understanding how to improve and grow to make the seasons work for you.  Tailoring a campaign ad to a specific season or holiday that speaks to the customer can improve your chances of success. Read this article to learn more about how to use seasonality to your advantage. Read the article here

2) You’re not crazy: Google search results do look different – Bennington Banner

Google has rolled out changes to users, bringing a new look to their search results. These recent changes to users desktops will now provide a similar feel to that of Google’s mobile search design. One change users will experience is the new design of targeted Ads within the search results. Read the article here

3) Reach More Customers Across Search and Display with Search Network with Display Select – Inside AdWords

Google’s “Search Network with Display Select” is proving to be helpful for advertisers. They are noticing increased results driven from the new AdWords campaign type, which are reaching a great number of customers. This article shows the results some users are experiencing and how to get started. Read the article here

March 11, 2014

5 Proven Steps To EARN and KEEP Your Client’s Trust

 

You may have been hired, but are you trusted?

We believe that one of the most important tasks of a marketing company is to consistently win the trust of those who invest their marketing dollars in your hands. Earn the trust of your clients, and you’ll have the permission to execute comprehensive (even bold) campaigns that drive results for your clients. Lose that trust, and you’re dead in the waters.

For those of us who work to create and employ digital marketing strategies on behalf of businesses and brands, earning and keeping the trust of our clients must be one of our most important priorities.

With this in mind, here are our 5 proven steps to earn and keep your client’s trust:

1) Be thoughtful, not reactionary.

Sometimes, good marketing requires acting on a hunch in the moment. Always, great marketing requires a well thought-out and educated strategy. Do your homework, define the strategy, document it, and hold yourself accountable to each deliverable along the way. 

Own It: Provide written documentation of your strategy and deliverables to your client. Putting it in writing will ensure accountability, which builds trust over time.

2) Be realistic.

When we set unrealistic timelines, we rush projects and present less-than-desirable work. That work is easily questioned and rightfully so. Producing beautiful work requires time – there’s simply no way around it. Be honest and reasonable when discussing project timelines with your clients. If you need more time than they are asking for, communicate the necessity of the extended lead time.

Own It: Rather than simply setting dates, communicate about timelines with your clients. Educate them on the necessity of the lead time you’ve allotted, and set up a touch-base in the interim to communicate about the project and ensure that you’re on the right track.

3) Minimalize hype.

It’s no secret that those of us in the marketing business tend to lean toward the type-A personality type.

As such, we can easily fall into the trap of over-promising at every point of contact. It’s just our nature to think aggressively. However, lofty thinking can quickly sour the relationship with clients if we struggle to deliver on our own hype.

Own It: Rather than focusing on large goals, dedicate yourself to the sequential smaller goals that will build momentum toward the outcome you’ve communicated. For each large goal, set three to four small goals that you can use to communicate momentum to your client.

4) Listen more.

Negative feedback is a bruise to the ego. When a client returns our work with less than satisfactory comments, it can be tough to pull yourself together. However, smart marketers use negative feedback as a listening device – hearing beyond the words to further understand the values and priorities of the client and what matters most to them.

Own it:  Move beyond negative feedback to identify constructive steps for improvement. Ask the client what they specifically didn’t like with the project, and use those answers to build your approach moving forward. The client will respect your attention to their concerns.

5) Always follow up.

The absolute quickest way to earn a client’s allegiance is through a tenacious commitment to following up. Following up shows that you’re attentive to the details, and exudes confidence that you’ll effectively tackle the next steps desired by the client.

Own It: After each meeting, follow up with a summary of the discussion and clearly outlined next steps complete with realistic timelines for delivery.

Trust takes time to build, and only a moment to destroy.

Be tenacious in your commitment to earn your client’s trust. Communicate effectively about realistic goals and timelines, listen aggressively, and always follow up with meaningful summaries and clear next steps. Beautiful and compelling work starts with building trust.

March 7, 2014

The Weekly Top 3 Must Read Digital Marketing Articles

1) How Content Marketing is Changing & What We Can Do to Be Ready – Search Engine Watch

As content marketing continues to evolve, marketers will continue to adjust as well. The latest direction of content marketing brings more attention to the stages of the consumers. Content marketers will begin to focus on how to better understand their contents ROI along focusing on increased targeting of the different stages of the consumer. The article provides background on where content has been and where it’s going. Read the article here

2) A True Integrated Marketing Framework – Search Engine Watch

For an integrated marketing campaign to succeed, everyone team should be on the same page.  An individual department shouldn’t focus solely on their results. As an agency the goal should be to create an environment where collectively your team is sharing ideas, metrics and tools to reach the desired results. Read the article here

3) 7 Common Pitfalls of Google Display Network Campaign Management – Search Engine Land

Running Google Display Network campaigns involves a lot of time and focus. Understanding what to look out for and areas to avoid can be helpful in preventing mistakes in your campaigns. Review some of these common mistakes to ensure your time is being spent managing campaigns and not fixing them. Read the article here

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