Meta is rolling out ad platform upgrades for Facebook and Instagram.

The updates, coming in the next few months, focus on boosting performance and customization through AI-powered campaign optimization.

New Features For Precise Value Definition

Meta is rolling out a new “Conversion Value Rules” tool to give advertisers more flexibility.

This feature lets you adjust the value of different customer actions or groups to your business within a single campaign.

Let’s say you know some customers tend to spend way more over time. Now, you can tell the system to bid higher for those folks without setting up a separate campaign.

Incremental Attribution Model

Meta plans to introduce a new optional attribution setting later this year. This feature will focus on what it terms “incremental conversions.”

Instead of maximizing the total number of attributed conversions, this new model aims to optimize ad delivery for conversions likely to occur only because of ad exposure.

In other words, the model identifies and targets potential customers who wouldn’t have converted without seeing the advertisement.

Initial tests of this feature have yielded positive results. Advertisers participating in these trials have observed an average increase of over 20% in incremental conversions.

Enhanced Analytics Integration

Meta is launching direct connections with external analytics platforms, starting now and continuing through 2025. They’re kicking off with Google Analytics and Northbeam and plan to add Triple Whale and Adobe later.

These connections let businesses share combined campaign data from different channels with Meta’s ad system. The goal is to give advertisers a complete picture of how their campaigns perform across various platforms.

By getting this broader data set, Meta expects to fine-tune its AI models and help advertisers run more effective campaigns.

Cross-Publisher Journey Optimization

Meta is using what it’s learned from its early connections with analytics tools to update its ad system. These changes consider how customers interact with ads across different platforms before purchasing.

Early tests of this update have been positive. On average, third-party analytics tools show a 30% increase in conversions attributed to Meta ads. However, advertisers might see higher costs per thousand impressions (CPMs).

Right now, this update is being applied to campaigns that aim to increase the number or value of conversions under the sales objective. Meta plans to extend this to other campaign objectives soon.

Google Analytics Integration: What It Means

The Google Analytics connection is big news for industry folks, as it could offer the following benefits:

• Unified view of Meta ads and overall site performance
• Better multi-touch attribution
• Insights to refine SEO strategy based on paid social impact
• Smarter budget decisions between paid social and SEO
• Easier reporting
• Cross-channel optimization opportunities

This integration blurs the lines between paid social, organic social, and SEO, offering a more holistic view of digital marketing efforts.

Why This Matters

As privacy changes shake up digital advertising, Meta’s updates address the need for more accurate, valuable insights.

The move towards AI-driven features and cross-channel integration marks a new era in ad sophistication.

To make the most of these updates, review your Meta ad strategy and clearly define your customer journey and value metrics.

Stay tuned for the rollout, and be ready to test these new features as they become available.

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Featured Image: Cristian Valderas/Shutterstock

We analyzed the organic traffic growth of 1,600 SaaS companies to discover the SEO strategies that work best in 2024.

In this article, we’re focusing on bootstrapped software companies—those who have never raised external funding. All SEO data featured here comes piping hot from the Ahrefs API.

This is a list of bootstrapped SaaS companies ordered by estimated monthly organic traffic growth from August 2023 to August 2024. Did you make the cut?

Rank	Company	Traffic 2023	Traffic 2024	Traffic Growth	Change	Estimated Revenue
1	Smallpdf	41,145,810	55,455,141	14,309,331	35%	$17.5M
2	BuiltWith	526,880	3,149,986	2,623,106	498%	$31.0M
3	Ahrefs	2,171,168	4,271,413	2,100,245	97%	$100.0M
4	Surfshark	992,020	1,510,739	518,719	52%	$20.0M
5	IPQS	1,194,124	1,660,482	466,358	39%	$32.0M
6	ExpressVPN	1,620,815	1,927,577	306,762	19%	$14.9M
7	OpenWeather	203,917	470,687	266,770	131%	$5.5M
8	Clockify	600,071	859,005	258,934	43%	$5.5M
9	BambooHR	652,833	808,660	155,827	24%	$237.8M
10	Surfer	45,197	189,261	144,064	319%	$37.5M
11	Doofinder	55,317	184,746	129,429	234%	$75.0M
12	Oxylabs.io	92,671	207,640	114,969	124%	$375.0M
13	Todoist	545,900	639,398	93,498	17%	$20.3M
14	Toggl	295,570	388,062	92,492	31%	$14.7M
15	JetBrains	2,712,320	2,796,818	84,498	3%	$252.1M
16	Zadarma	130,940	214,538	83,598	64%	$175.0M
17	MXToolbox	738,595	802,633	64,038	9%	$9.0M
18	TeamGantt	120,783	176,899	56,116	46%	$5.0M
19	Mailtrap	103,564	156,873	53,309	51%	$5.5M
20	GetResponse	192,850	243,514	50,664	26%	$129.2M
21	DeviceAtlas	59,267	109,341	50,074	84%	$19.0M
22	Elfsight	65,359	104,938	39,579	61%	$8.0M
23	Vector Magic	169,389	199,343	29,954	18%	$10.0M
24	Referral Factory	943	27,591	26,648	2826%	$5.5M
25	Crowdin	17,602	43,155	25,553	145%	$17.5M
26	Kaspr	10,476	33,515	23,039	220%	$5.5M
27	Wisepops	13,698	36,295	22,597	165%	$3.0M
28	SavyCal	11,926	33,984	22,058	185%	$5.5M
29	Voucherify	37,111	58,832	21,721	59%	$5.5M
30	Buzzsprout	97,961	118,040	20,079	21%	$617K
31	Meeting Room 365	5,738	25,637	19,899	347%	$500K
32	vFairs	18,175	37,812	19,637	108%	$75.0M
33	Helpjuice	73,249	92,177	18,928	26%	$6.0M
34	Yardi	64,177	81,896	17,719	28%	$5.5B
35	SpyFu	62,410	79,361	16,951	27%	$2.0M
36	Wappalyzer	61,561	78,303	16,742	27%	$500K
37	Filemail	142,226	158,133	15,907	11%	$1.0M
38	Float.com	29,088	44,737	15,649	54%	$5.5M
39	Free online HTML editor	29,523	44,269	14,746	50%	–
40	BrightLocal 🇺🇦	52,853	66,876	14,023	27%	$10.3M
41	ShortPixel	6,192	20,006	13,814	223%	$10.0M
42	GetMyInvoices	10,880	23,767	12,887	118%	$5.5M
43	Mangools	67,615	80,324	12,709	19%	$5.5M
44	La Growth Machine	13,668	26,321	12,653	93%	$5.5M
45	Aha!	135,156	147,570	12,414	9%	$100.0M
46	GTranslate Inc.	7,739	20,125	12,386	160%	$5.3M
47	Slickplan	13,270	24,857	11,587	87%	$1.0M
48	Uptime.com	28,164	39,394	11,230	40%	$5.5M
49	Homerun	23,049	33,883	10,834	47%	$38.4M
50	Glassnode	13,321	24,111	10,790	81%	$5.5M

Top 5 bootstrapped SaaS companies

For each of the top five companies, I ran a five-minute analysis using Ahrefs Site Explorer to understand the SEO strategies driving their growth.

In a nutshell: free tools, programmatic content, and content localization feature heavily.

Smallpdf offers free tools for editing and converting PDF files. They have an estimated annual revenue of $17,500,000.

Smallpdf	2023	2024	Absolute change	Percent change
Organic traffic	41,145,810	55,455,141	14,309,331	34.78%
Organic pages	3,367	3,506	139	4.13%
Organic keywords	466,048	416,115	-49,933	-10.71%
Keywords in top 3	54,933	69,359	14,426	26.26%

Smallpdf’s traffic growth comes entirely from—you guessed it—free PDF tools. Conversion tools (converting from PDF to Word Doc, from JPG to PDF, and so on) drive the majority of the site’s traffic:

These free tools target extremely high volume keywords, like pdf to word with an estimated 3.9M searches in Indonesia alone. Here’s the actual page that ranks so well:

These tools have also been localized to different languages, with the Spanish-, Indonesian- and Portuguese-targeted subfolders generating a large portion of the website’s traffic growth:

BuiltWith is a tool for discovering the technologies companies use to use to build their websites. BuiltWith has an estimated annual revenue of $31,000,000.

BuiltWith	2023	2024	Absolute change	Percent change
Organic traffic	526,880	3,149,986	2,623,106	497.86%
Organic pages	81,615	93,716	12,101	14.83%
Organic keywords	126,541	111,371	-15,170	-11.99%
Keywords in top 3	4,538	4,307	-231	-5.09%

The biggest single driver of BuiltWith’s growth is the addition of a Korean language subfolder, builtwith.com/ko, housing localized versions of 191 website pages:

Other language subfolders (particularly /de, /es, and /fr) also generate a decent amount of traffic:

Oh hey, that’s us! Ahrefs is a powerful all-in-one SEO toolset, and the source of all the SEO data in this article.

Ahrefs	2023	2024	Absolute change	Percent change
Organic traffic	2,171,168	4,271,413	2,100,245	96.73%
Organic pages	4,522	18,982	14,460	319.77%
Organic keywords	225,855	231,761	5,906	2.61%
Keywords in top 3	14,291	20,618	6,327	44.27%

We don’t need conjecture here. Our free AI writing tools are responsible for a big part of our organic traffic growth:

Our paragraph rewriter (113k visits per month), paraphrasing tool (99k), and instagram caption generator (73k) are particularly popular:

Try them out for yourselves here: https://ahrefs.com/writing-tools.

We also launched a programmatic SEO campaign, using Ahrefs data to rank the world’s most popular websites:

The localized versions of these pages—particularly Swedish and French—account for the majority of the traffic:

Surfshark is a VPN tool with an estimated annual revenue of $20,000,000.

Surfshark	2023	2024	Absolute change	Percent change
Organic traffic	992,020	1,510,739	518,719	52.29%
Organic pages	2,610	3,964	1,354	51.88%
Organic keywords	205,194	248,267	43,073	20.99%
Keywords in top 3	5,359	9,390	4,031	75.22%

One of Surfshark’s fastest-growing pages is a free IP address checking tool:

But interestingly, most of the company’s organic growth has come from branded keywords, like surfshark discount code, surfshark deals, and surfshark login:

This is a good indication that the company has been investing heavily in brand marketing, increasing branded search queries as a byproduct.

Looking at the Paid search reports in Ahrefs, we can see that the company launched a substantial advertising campaign in the last couple of months (we’ve logged 876 separate ads):

Big, expensive brand advertising campaigns are not common for bootstrapped companies.

Although the fundraising data suggests that Surfshark has never raised outside capital, their website shares that “In 2022, Surfshark and Nord Security merged under one holding company to form a cybersecurity powerhouse while still operating independently.”

This suggests that Surfshark may not be bootstrapped in the truest sense (but I’ve left it in because it showcases an interesting—and expensive—way to grow organic traffic).

IPQS is a fraud, bot detection, and IP validation tool with an estimated annual revenue of $32,000,000.

IPQS	2023	2024	Absolute change	Percent change
Organic traffic	1,194,124	1,660,482	466,358	39.05%
Organic pages	22,378	31,350	8,972	40.09%
Organic keywords	72,181	75,390	3,209	4.45%
Keywords in top 3	5,092	7,065	1,973	38.75%

All of IPQS’ traffic growth (and in fact, 57% of their total estimated organic traffic) comes from a single page, a free tool for looking up phone numbers:

This page manages to rank in first place for keywords like phone number lookup (353K monthly searches in the US), phone lookup (48K), and check this phone (35K):

This, despite just 84 referring domains and a design that probably looked good circa 2005:

Final thoughts

We’ll share more of these analyses in the coming weeks. Want us to include your company in the next round? Just fill out this short Google Form.

Small businesses face the ongoing challenge of standing out in crowded marketplaces, both online and off.

One strategy that has gained significant traction in recent years is leveraging prominent, trusted local influencers to help boost online authority and visibility and grow the business.

This approach enables businesses to tap into established community voices, build trust, and reach specific local audiences through value-added partnerships.

Understanding Local Influencer Marketing

Local influencer marketing involves partnering with people who have significant followings and/or influence within a specific geographic area or community.

These influencers may not have millions of followers like national or global influencers, but their impact on local consumers’ searching and buying decisions can be substantial.

According to a 2023 study by Influencer Marketing Hub, 82% of marketers plan to dedicate a budget to influencer marketing. While this statistic covers influencer marketing in general, the trend is increasingly relevant for local businesses as well.

Why Local Influencers Matter For Your Local Businesses

Targeted Local Reach

Local influencers have an audience that is likely to be in the same area as your business.

This means your marketing efforts are focused on potential customers who can actually visit your physical location or use your local services.

It reduces wasted exposure to audiences outside your service area, making your marketing much more efficient and cost-effective.

Authenticity

Local influencers are often seen as more relatable and trustworthy by their followers. They’re part of the community and understand local challenges, needs, preferences, and culture.

This authenticity can lead to higher engagement rates and more genuine interest in your business.

Their recommendations often come across as personal endorsements rather than paid advertisements, though their support should be clearly indicated as paid/sponsored if this is the case.

Cost-Effectiveness

Partnering with local influencers is generally more affordable than working with larger, national-level influencers, who are used to charging a premium.

Most small businesses have limited marketing budgets, putting those larger influencers out of reach. You can often negotiate deals with locals involving product exchanges or experiences rather than large cash payments.

As noted, the ROI of these types of “paid” relationships can be higher due to the targeted nature of the audience and the influencer’s local credibility.

Increased Local Visibility

Local influencer partnerships can boost a business’s presence in local search results and social media.

When influencers provide backlinks to your content, tag your business on social media, or use location-based hashtags, it can improve your local SEO by transferring some of their established authority and “localness” to you.

This increased visibility can lead to more foot traffic, website or social media visits, and, ultimately, sales.

Timely Communications

Local influencers are often the first to know about and share local trends because part of their job includes being engaged and aware.

Partnering with them can help small businesses quickly adapt their offerings or marketing to new trends and customer needs.

Community Engagement

Local influencers can help businesses connect more deeply with the local community.

They can facilitate meaningful interactions, promote local events, and help your business become a more integral part of the community fabric.

This can lead to increased customer loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing, both online and off, beyond just the influencer’s followers.

Cross-Promotion Opportunities

A local influencer may already have existing relationships with like-minded businesses and be able to make valuable, trust-backed introductions for cross-promotion.

These types of relationships can be positioned as a win-win for all local parties and the community in general.

Further, local community engagement is another signal to Google of your business’s localness and can influence your online authority relative to your competitors, who may not be as engaged.

This trust factor is pronounced at the local level, where influencers are naturally viewed as neighbors and contributing members of the community.

Identifying The Right Local Influencers

Finding the right local influencers is crucial for the success of your campaign. Here are some best practices:

• Define your target audience: Understand who your ideal customers are (demographics and psychographics), what types of local influencers they’re likely to follow, and in which channels. Many influencers appeal to specific niches, so be sure to determine whether or not they will reach your target.
• Use social listening tools: Utilize social media listening tools or hire someone to identify local hashtags and active influencer voices in your community.
• Check engagement rates: Look beyond follower counts and pay attention to how active an influencer’s accounts are. An influencer with 500-1000 engaged local followers is likely more valuable than one with 50,000 passive followers. A Rock Content study quoted by TechJury.net found micro-influencers account for 91% of engagement posts. Much higher than their larger counterparts.
• Assess content quality: Ensure the influencer’s content style and values align with your business and brand. Be sure to research the influencer’s past activity and other local relationships they may have maintained.
• Verify local presence: Confirm the influencer is genuinely active and influential in your specific locale. Review the influencer’s follower list, looking for friends you may have in common. Ask a few of your customers if they are familiar with the influencer.

Approaching Local Influencers

Once you’ve identified potential local influencers, the next step is to approach them to propose a partnership:

• Engage authentically: You can start by following them on social media, liking/sharing their content, leaving thoughtful comments, and tagging them in your relevant posts. In other words, try to build a relationship before pitching a collaboration.
• Personalize your outreach: When you do reach out, make it clear why you chose them specifically. Reference specific content you feel would resonate with your audience, and be sure to highlight the importance of local involvement.
• Offer value: Clearly articulate what’s in the proposed relationship for them. This could be monetary compensation, free products/services, or exclusive experiences your business can offer.
• Be clear about expectations: Outline what you’re looking for in the collaboration, but also be open to their ideas; this should be a mutually beneficial relationship, after all.
• Start small: Consider starting with a small project to test the waters before committing to a larger campaign.
• Ask for references and/or results: Professional influencers should be able to provide references to other local businesses they’ve worked with. You can also ask them to provide details on results they’ve delivered to other businesses in terms of new followers, website traffic, or actual sales.
• Respect their audience: Remember, local influencers have likely taken significant time to build trust with their followers, which is why you should want to work with them. Be sure to respect this relationship and avoid pushing for them to endorse overly promotional content. They will likely let you know in any case, but it’s better not to start off a relationship on the wrong foot.

Case Studies: Local Influencer Success Stories

A Gardening Supply Company Partners With A Local Gardener

A local family-owned gardening store collaborates with a prominent local gardener with 5,000 followers across Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for a series of DIY gardening tutorial videos featuring their products and services.

Results:

• Increase in website traffic from social media and organic search to key product and service pages.
• Growth in email newsletter sign-ups.
• Boost in sales of products featured in tutorials.

Key Takeaway: Educational content from a trusted local source drives both engagement and sales.

A Butcher Partners With A Local Foodie On A Charity BBQ

A new local butcher with three well-established competitors partners with a local food influencer with 15,000+ highly engaged followers on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to promote and host a charity BBQ at his location.

The event is very well attended and the butcher receives positive feedback from several attendees, as well as charity organizers.

Results:

• Increase in website traffic and online purchases originating from social media and organic search.
• Significant growth of the butcher’s social media following.
• Single-day in-store sales record.
• A new partnership formed with the local charity, and a link to the butcher’s website from the charity’s site.

Key Takeaway: Community engagement via a known and trusted influencer boosts visibility, traffic, and sales.

Best Practices For Local Influencer Campaigns

Having identified influencers, here are some recommendations for running a successful campaign.

Set Clear Goals

Define what success looks like for your campaign. Is it increased foot traffic, online sales, or brand awareness? Setting specific, measurable goals is critical for evaluating the success of your campaign.

For example, a local bookstore might set a goal to increase website traffic by 20% and online sales by 5% during a three-month-long campaign with a local book reviewer. This can easily be tracked via Google Analytics.

Allow Creative Freedom

While it’s important to have guidelines, you should enable influencers to have some creative control. Their authentic, trusted voice and approach are what resonates with their audience. Overly scripted content can come across as contrived and may not perform as well.

Example: A local yoga studio partnering with a fitness influencer might provide key points about their classes and facilities but allow the influencer to create content in their own style, whether that’s a day-in-the-life TikTok video or a series of yoga and personal wellness stories on Instagram.

Tip: Consider providing a creative brief with your key messages and any mandatory elements, but encourage the influencer to present these in a way that feels natural to them.

Leverage Multiple Platforms

Don’t limit yourself or your influencer to just one social media platform. A multi-channel and content-type approach can maximize reach and cater to different audience preferences.

Tip: Consider each platform’s strengths and how they align with the goals you’ve defined. Instagram or TikTok might be great for entertaining/visual impact, while YouTube could be better for more detailed product demos and information.

Foster Long-Term Relationships

Instead of one-off posts, consider ongoing partnerships with influencers who truly align with your brand messaging. This can lead to more authentic content and stronger audience trust over time.

Example: A local pet store might partner with a popular dog trainer for a monthly “Ask the Trainer” Instagram series, creating an ongoing valuable resource for local pet owners.

Tip: Start with a smaller project and, if it’s successful, propose a longer-term and more involved campaign. This approach will enable both sides to ensure there’s a good fit before committing to a lengthy partnership.

Measure And Adjust

Use unique tracking links, promo codes, and analytics tools to measure the impact of your campaigns and adjust your strategy accordingly. Unique links and codes are particularly important if you start working with more than one influencer, as you’ll want to understand which is delivering the best results.

This data-driven approach will enable you to refine your campaigns over time. Set up regular check-ins to review campaign performance with your partner.

Be prepared to pivot your strategy if certain approaches aren’t yielding the desired results. Taking a data-driven approach will no doubt impress your partner and solidify your relationship.

Comply With Regulations

Ensure all sponsored content is clearly disclosed according to FTC or other regulatory guidelines. This maintains trust with the audience and avoids potential legal issues. Provide your influencer partners with clear guidelines on how to disclose partnerships within the context of campaigns.

The FTC recommends disclosures are clear, conspicuous, and not buried in a string of hashtags. Example: An influencer posting about a local fitness apparel store should include clear language like “#ad” or “Sponsored by [Store Name]” in a prominent place in their post.

Remember, the key is to balance authenticity while also achieving your desired marketing goals. Regular evaluation and adjustment of your strategy will help ensure long-term success in your local influencer marketing efforts.

Challenges And How To Overcome Them

All digital marketing campaigns come with some challenges and there are some which will be specific to local businesses.

These should not, however, deter business owners from testing this potentially powerful approach.

• Limited pool of influencers: In smaller locales, you might find a limited number of available or suitable influencers. If this is the case, expand your definition of influence to include local community leaders, business owners, or even enthusiastic customers. This may mean results will take a little longer to achieve.
• Measuring ROI: It can be challenging to directly attribute sales and revenue to influencer campaigns. As noted, use unique promo codes and tracked links, custom landing pages, or in-store surveys to track your partner’s impact. You may also ask them to share the stats they obtain from social media or their website.
• Maintaining authenticity: There’s a risk of the partnership feeling forced or inauthentic. Always focus on building genuine relationships with influencers and enable them, wherever possible, to speak in their own voice.
• Budget constraints: Small businesses often have limited marketing budgets. Many small influencers are well aware and will consider non-monetary compensation like product exchanges or exclusive experiences. For others, this is actually their preference and perhaps why they became an influencer in the first place; to get cool stuff for free.

The Future Of Local Influencer Marketing

Local influencer marketing is likely to grow as a potentially lucrative option for local business owners.

EMARKETER’s July 2023 forecast predicts influencer marketing spending will reach $5.89 billion in the US by 2024, with a significant portion of this growth happening at the local level.

As consumers increasingly seek authentic, trusted, community-based reviews and recommendations, local influencers are positioned to play an even more crucial role in small business marketing strategies.

Conclusion

Utilizing local influencers for digital marketing success offers small businesses a powerful way to connect with their community, build trust, and drive growth.

By carefully identifying the right influencers, approaching them thoughtfully, and creating authentic partnerships, businesses can tap into the power of local influence to achieve key marketing goals.

Remember, success lies in authenticity, mutually realized value, and a solid understanding of your local market/audience.

Start small, measure your results, and be prepared to adapt your strategy as you learn what works best for your unique business and community.

More resources: 

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Featured Image: Chay_Tee/Shutterstock