SEO
8 Types of Marketing Campaigns (With Examples)
A marketing campaign is a series of organized, strategized efforts used to achieve a marketing goal.
Planning a campaign instead of firing ad hoc messages at your audience helps you improve performance and better control the outcomes of your marketing efforts. That’s why it’s worth knowing these eight types of marketing campaigns used successfully by big and small brands alike:
Product marketing campaigns are used by companies to introduce a product (or a product feature) into the market.
They are one of the most important and complex campaigns in the life cycle of a product. This is because a newly introduced product (or service) needs effective marketing communication to impact sales. It also requires cooperation between different departments to make sure every part of the user experience is covered.
This kind of campaign should stem from your go-to market strategy.
But besides the typical process of bringing a product to the market, there are also agile methods often used by startups, such as a minimum viable product (MVP).
Example
Product launch campaigns tend to be costly and bloated with all kinds of tactics and channels that big money can buy. But that doesn’t mean you have to dedicate $200M to a product launch of Windows 95 proportions.
While the marketing communication aspect is important when launching a product, what matters most is how well your product fits the market. To achieve product-market fit, you don’t need to operate on a colossal budget or have 20 years of experience in the field.
Among many inspirational product-market fit case studies, there’s one that stands out: Buffer. Its product marketing campaign was designed to verify the value hypothesis of its MVP. It didn’t even have to build a product to achieve that.
To verify its MVP, Buffer used a landing page that explained the soon-to-be product and collected emails for a waiting list. Afterward, it used the waiting list to gather feedback on what features to build.
Sales promotion campaigns are short-term initiatives used to stimulate demand for a product or service.
Most often, the goal of a sales promotion campaign is to increase sales. Think flash sales, limited-time offers, coupons, etc. The idea is to decrease the friction of making a purchase (price, shipping costs, etc.) and speed up the decision process by creating a sense of urgency.
As temporary discounts often bring fast results, it may be tempting for marketers to use these campaigns on many occasions. This is especially when the company doesn’t meet its sales quota. Yet running these campaigns too often has its downsides. Namely, discounts can devalue a brand and make it harder to sell products/services at regular prices in the future.
An alternative to offering discounts is increasing the value of a product. For example, you can add more products to make a bundle, offer some freebies, or provide free shipping.
Example
Toyotathon is Toyota’s annual sales event (since 1969). It takes place in the U.S. at the end of each year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_41DogSxlAA
It’s a really big event. In December 2020, “toyotathon” was searched for an estimated 35K times in Google. That month, Toyota sold 211,378 vehicles (about 11.5% of its total annual sales).
Car manufacturers and dealers hold these kinds of events because when the current year passes, that year’s car stock becomes less valuable (customers prefer newer models). So they try to sell as many cars as possible before the cars lose their value.
As I’ve already mentioned, discounts can undermine the perceived value of the brand and, in this case, the cars. To solve this problem, Toyota has created a brand for discounted cars. That way, customers are not just buying a discounted Toyota. They’re taking part in a Toyotathon. This is a win-win for all parties.
Sidenote.
These types of regular sales promotions (including Black Friday and Cyber Monday) can block sales for months, as many people will simply wait for the event to come.
Brand awareness campaigns highlight the brand and what it stands for to improve its recognizability among the target audience.
Essentially, brand awareness campaigns are more subtle, often indirect ways that impact sales. So instead of offering discounts, marketers will remind their audience that their brand is climate-neutral, designed for people who aren’t afraid to “think different,” etc.
Price is not the only factor that motivates consumer behavior. Sometimes, we buy things because they make us feel good. Or maybe it’s because a company shares our values. Or perhaps the product makes us feel like we joined an elite club. Other times, it’s an emotion we just can’t explain.
Brands are these emotional and cognitive triggers that are used to evoke those various purchase factors. And the more consumers are aware of a given brand, the more likely they are to recall it when shopping.
Another thing about building brand awareness is it works best when it’s a systematic effort. The cost of “forgetting” a brand can be high. But there are ways to save a brand from oblivion even when the timing isn’t ideal for consumers to make a purchase.
Example
Nobody promotes cold drinks in the cold season better than Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Santa, the truck, the polar bears—these are the brand codes consumers have been exposed to for decades.
There is even a dedicated page on the brand’s website that answers the question: “Did Coca-Cola create Santa Claus?” Amazingly enough, this page gets an estimated 900 monthly organic visits in the U.S. alone.
During those multimillion-dollar campaigns, Coca-Cola doesn’t do hard selling. Instead, it tries to find its way to our tables by introducing its brand.
With the Christmas campaigns, Coca-Cola tries to create a mental association between the brand and the Christmas season. Let’s oversimplify it a bit: If Coke can be associated with Christmas, it can be associated with the emotions this holiday evokes.
And those typically are the joy, warmth, and safety of a community. These emotions are important parts of Coca-Cola’s brand positioning.
SEO campaigns are a course of coordinated actions to improve the search engine ranking of a website.
By improving the search engine ranking, your website can get to the first page of the search engine results page (SERP) and take advantage of the organic traffic potential (and that’s over 99% of searchers’ clicks, according to this study).
To illustrate, ranking number #1 for the keyword “backlink checker” and related keywords (like “check backlinks” or “free backlinks checker”) can drive an estimated 14K visits monthly from organic search alone.
Because search engines like Google use many ranking factors, SEO campaigns can target one or multiple factors to achieve their goal.
Here are some of the known ranking factors:
- Backlinks
- Search intent
- Topical authority
- Page speed
Example
An example of an SEO campaign goal is building links. Links (aka backlinks) are one of the most important ranking factors for search engines like Google. That’s why building links can improve your rankings on the SERPs. And the higher you rank, the more organic traffic you get (generally).
Plus, you can use your links to pass link equity to other pages. SEOs call it the middleman method.
In 2020, Ahrefs ran such a campaign. We created a list of 63 SEO statistics by featuring “link worthy” statistics and then asked other site owners to link to our article.
Once the article was ready, we sent 515 emails and got 36 backlinks from 32 websites. On top of that, our curated list of statistics ranks #1 for “seo statistics” in the U.S. and remains in the top five for related keywords.
We explain the whole process of this SEO link building campaign in this three-part video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTF6OBwidhc
Email marketing campaigns are simply marketing campaigns that are disseminated through the email channel.
This type of campaign is often used for the following:
- User onboarding
- Generating traffic
- Lead nurturing
- Sales promotion
- Newsletters
- Cart abandonment (example shown below)
The great thing about email marketing is it uses an owned marketing channel to communicate with a “qualified” audience (i.e., people who know your brand and gave permission for direct communication).
Another great thing about email marketing is you can fully automate it by creating workflows that are automatically engaged (or stopped) based on specified triggers. For example, clicking a link in the email or putting together a list of clients who abandoned their carts. So an email workflow can look something like this:
Example
Cart abandonment emails can help regain 8% of abandoned carts and drive 4% more sales.
Tuft & Needle, a bed products brand, shows us how to do a cart abandonment campaign without being too salesy. It sends a three-part email campaign to shoppers who have put products into their cart but left without buying.
The first email empathizes with the customer on the problem of buying the right mattress. The company knows that “mattress shopping sucks” and that it’s OK to take even a few weeks to decide—but not without reading “The 12 answers to your top fears of buying a mattress online” first.
The second email highlights the company’s “value for money” mattresses and introduces an innovative mattress foam. Next, it invites customers to another landing page where it compares Tuft & Needle to other companies.
Finally, in the third email, Tuft & Needle reassures that if the customer doesn’t like the mattress during the first 100 nights, the company will pick it up and reimburse the customer.
Surely, there isn’t much more you can do to win a customer back. If a customer gets “cold feet” in the buying process, there must have been some objections. And if you address those objections and provide reassurance that the purchase is truly risk-free, that may be enough to get that customer back on the purchase path.
While we’re at it, here’s a word of caution for offering discounts in cart abandonment emails. Follow Tuft & Needles’ example and don’t offer discounts at this point, as this may quickly backfire. Imagine your customers discovering this way of getting discounts and abandoning carts on purpose.
Just like with email campaigns, what sets social media campaigns apart from other types is that they employ social media platforms to reach the target audience.
Also like email marketing, social media allows you to interact directly with an audience who follows your brand. But unlike email, messages on social media can spread quickly beyond your followers to reach a huge audience organically. (Note: Organic reach has been decreasing over the years, especially on Facebook and Instagram.)
What’s more, you can (and often should) amplify your message with paid advertising on social media. To do that, you can take advantage of targeting based on many factors, such as location, age, or interest.
Social media offers many possibilities, making it a great fit for different kinds of goals, including:
- Generating traffic.
- Building a community.
- Building brand awareness.
- Generating revenue.
- Encouraging user-generated content.
Example
Apple started its Instagram account in 2017 with the #shotoniphone campaign. In this campaign (still ongoing), the company has been posting quality photos and videos taken on iPhones. It’s a great way to promote those crucial selling points of its products.
Additionally, Apple encourages Instagram users to share their iPhone-made photography under the same hashtag.
Launching this campaign, which centers on user-generated content, has engaged iPhone users, given the campaign additional organic reach on Instagram, and given Apple a never-ending stream of free content to use. To this day, the #shotoniphone campaign has featured over 23 million posts.
Public relations (PR) campaigns are used to positively influence the way a brand is perceived by managing communications with the media and the general public.
Whether PR can be deemed as part of marketing is debatable. But what is certain is that PR campaigns, just like marketing campaigns, can affect the demand for a product and, hence, significantly impact sales.
What is unique about PR, though, is it uses a different type of communication compared to marketing. For instance, while marketing campaigns are notorious for generating demand directly via discounts and all sorts of “special deals,” PR campaigns are never about that.
Instead, a PR campaign will generate demand by sending out press releases about how a product is valuable to its target users (e.g., product introduces a new kind of technology while still being affordable).
PR campaigns are especially effective for:
- Promoting an idea important to the brand.
- Building brand image.
- Increasing brand credibility and status.
- Providing added value.
- Inspiring word of mouth.
- Getting attention from the media (and taking advantage of their reach).
Example
“Dumb Ways to Die” was a 2012 PR campaign promoting railway safety in Australia. According to the creative director of the campaign, “The aim of this campaign is to engage an audience that really doesn’t want to hear any kind of safety message, and we think dumb ways to die will.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw
As you can see, the campaign is a creative and humorous approach to the problem of railroad accidents. It makes you think about death in a way that is, let’s say, bearable. This is so you could actually imagine how dumb it would be to die in one of the depicted ways.
While this campaign has been criticized by some for the risk of causing the opposite effect, “Dumb Ways to Die” gained a lot of industry acclaim (most awarded campaign in Cannes Lions ever) and went viral on the internet.
What’s more, the campaign is said to have reduced “near-miss” railroad accidents by 30% in Australia.
The so-called 360 marketing campaigns are about promoting a product or service using a cohesive message through multiple marketing channels.
To compare, while social media and email campaigns use one channel, 360 marketing campaigns use both of these channels and more to get the message across. Furthermore, some other types of campaigns, such as the product marketing campaigns discussed earlier, can become 360 campaigns as long as they use multiple channels and have a unified message.
Multiple channels and a cohesive message. These may sound quite trivial. But campaigns designed this way have two advantages over their single-channel alternatives:
- More marketing channels mean more people reached during the campaign and more convenience for your potential clients to contact you.
- One cohesive message repeated multiple times is easier to understand, remember, and act upon.
These two advantages make 360 campaigns ideal candidates for rebranding, introducing a new product, or simply maximizing the reach and impact of your message.
Example
At Ahrefs, one of the things we promote most often is our free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools. We promote it through an always-on, integrated campaign, spanning all of our marketing channels. Here are a few examples of the campaign’s components.
Starting from organic search, we can see Ahrefs Webmaster Tools’ landing page gets an estimated 1.7K organic search visits. This is passive, almost free traffic without additional promotion.
Furthermore, content marketing is one of the pillars of our marketing efforts. And since we mostly focus on SEO-related topics, we have all sorts of occasions to feature this tool.
To illustrate, this article on SEO for startups provided an opportunity to mention Ahrefs Webmaster Tools as an easy, beginner-friendly way to tackle technical SEO problems.
Naturally, there is also content dedicated to this product, such as this video explaining how to use it to improve SEO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipTk-qGrNlc
In addition to organic channels, we also promote the tool via various paid channels. One of them is sponsorship. Here’s an excerpt of a sponsored newsletter sent by one of the biggest magazines in the SEO industry, Search Engine Journal.
This kind of message can result in more sign-ups for Ahrefs Webmaster Tools because:
- Search Engine Journal is a highly qualified audience for a product like ours.
- Our call to action is focused on getting people to try out a free product. The act of asking someone (who’s not even on our subscriber list) to commit to a paid subscription just because we sent them an email causes a lot more friction.
Final thoughts
I hope the examples discussed in this article will give you an idea of which type of marketing campaign you should use next.
Above all, think about the goal you want to achieve with your campaign, as no marketing campaign is a panacea on its own. For instance, if you want to give your sales a quick boost, a sales promotion campaign will offer better results in a shorter time than, let’s say, a brand awareness campaign.
If you’re confused about what goals to prioritize, start with a marketing strategy. And if you need more inspiration, hone in on choosing the right marketing goals.
Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.
SEO
Reddit Makes Game-Changing Updates to Keyword Targeting
In a big move for digital advertisers, Reddit has just introduced a new Keyword Targeting feature, changing the game for how marketers reach their target audiences.
This addition brings fresh potential for PPC marketers looking to tap into Reddit’s highly engaged user base.
With millions of communities and conversations happening every day, Reddit is now offering advertisers a more precise way to get in front of users at the perfect moment.
The best part? They’re leveraging AI to make the process even more powerful.
Let’s break down why this is such an exciting development for digital advertisers.
Keyword Targeting for Conversation and Feed Placements
Reddit has always been about its vibrant communities, or “subreddits,” where users connect over shared interests and discuss a wide range of topics.
Until now, keyword targeting has only been available on conversation placements. Starting today, advertisers can use keyword targeting in both feed and conversation placements.
The targeting update allows advertisers to place ads directly within these conversations, ensuring they reach people when they’re actively engaged with content that’s related to their products or services.
For PPC marketers, this level of targeting means a higher chance of delivering ads to users who are in the right mindset.
Instead of serving ads to users scrolling passively through a general feed, Reddit is giving you the tools to place your ads into specific conversations, where users are already discussing topics related to your industry.
According to Reddit, advertisers who use keyword targeting have seen a 30% increase in conversion volumes. This is a significant lift for marketers focused on performance metrics, such as conversion rates and cost per acquisition.
Scaling Performance with AI-Powered Optimization
While precision is key, Reddit knows that advertisers also need scale.
Reddit mentioned two AI-powered solutions to help balance keyword targeting and scalability within the platform:
- Dynamic Audience Expansion
- Placement Expansion
Dynamic Audience Expansion
This feature works in tandem with keyword targeting to help advertisers broaden their reach, without sacrificing relevance.
Reddit’s AI does the heavy lifting by analyzing signals like user behavior and ad creative performance to identify additional users who are likely to engage with your ad. In essence, it’s expanding your audience in a smart, data-driven way.
For PPC marketers, this means more exposure without having to rely solely on manually selecting every keyword or interest.
You set the initial parameters, and Reddit’s AI expands from there. This not only saves time but also ensures that your ads reach a broader audience that’s still relevant to your goals.
Reddit claims campaigns using Dynamic Audience Expansion have seen a 30% reduction in cost per action (CPA), making it a must-have for marketers focused on efficiency and budget optimization.
Placement Expansion
Another standout feature is Reddit’s multi-placement optimization. This feature uses machine learning to determine the most effective places to show your ads, whether in the feed or within specific conversation threads.
This multi-placement strategy ensures your ads are delivered in the right context to maximize user engagement and conversions.
For PPC marketers, ad placement is a critical factor in campaign success. With Reddit’s AI optimizing these placements, you can trust that your ads will appear where they have the highest likelihood of driving action—whether that’s getting users to click, convert, or engage.
Introducing AI Keyword Suggestions
Reddit’s new AI Keyword Suggestions tool helps with this by analyzing Reddit’s vast conversation data to recommend keywords you might not have thought of.
It allows you to discover new, high-performing keywords related to your campaign, expanding your reach to conversations you might not have considered. And because it’s powered by AI, the suggestions are always based on real-time data and trends happening within Reddit’s communities.
This can be particularly helpful for marketers trying to stay ahead of trending topics or those who want to ensure they’re tapping into conversations with high engagement potential.
As conversations on Reddit shift, so do the keywords that drive those discussions. Reddit’s AI Keyword Suggestions help keep your targeting fresh and relevant, ensuring you don’t miss out on key opportunities.
New Streamlined Campaign Management
Reddit has also made strides in simplifying the campaign setup and management process. They’ve introduced a unified flow that allows advertisers to combine multiple targeting options within a single ad group.
You can now mix keywords, communities, and interests in one campaign, expanding your reach without overcomplicating your structure.
From a PPC perspective, this is huge. Simplifying campaign structure means you can test more variations, optimize faster, and reduce time spent on manual adjustments.
In addition, Reddit has enhanced its reporting capabilities with keyword-level insights, allowing you to drill down into what’s working and what’s not, giving you more control over your campaigns.
The Takeaway for PPC Marketers
For marketers working with Google Ads, Facebook, or Microsoft Advertising, this new update from Reddit should be on your radar.
The combination of keyword targeting, AI-driven audience expansion, and multi-placement optimization makes Reddit a serious contender in the digital advertising space.
If you’re looking to diversify your PPC campaigns, drive higher conversions, and optimize costs, Reddit’s new offerings provide a unique opportunity.
You can read the full announcement from Reddit here.
SEO
What The Google Antitrust Verdict Could Mean For The Future Of SEO
In August 2024, Google lost its first major antitrust case in the U.S. Department of Justice vs. Google.
While we all gained some interesting insights about how Google’s algorithm works (hello, NavBoost!), understanding the implications of this loss for Google as a business is not the easiest to unravel. Hence, this article.
There’s still plenty we don’t know about Google’s future as a result of this trial, but it’s clear there will be consequences ahead.
Even though Google representatives have said they will appeal the decision, both sides are already working on proposals for how to restore competition, which will be decided by August 2025.
My significant other is a corporate lawyer, and this trial has been a frequent topic at the dinner table over the course of the last year.
We come from different professional backgrounds, but we have been equally invested in the outcome – both for our respective careers and industries. His perspective has helped me better grasp the potential legal and business outcomes that could be ahead for Google.
I will break that down for you in this article, along with what that could mean for the SEO industry and Search at-large.
Background: The Case Against Google
In August 2024, Federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google violated the U.S. antitrust law by maintaining an illegal monopoly through exclusive agreements it had with companies like Apple to be the world’s default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.
During the case, we learned that Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be the default search engine on its Safari browser, thus making it impossible for other search engines like DuckDuckGo or Bing to compete.
This case ruling also found Google guilty of monopolizing general search text advertising because Google was able to raise prices on ad products higher than what would have been possible in a free market.
Those ads are sold via Google Ads (formerly AdWords) and allow marketers to run ads against search keywords related to their business.
Note: There is a second antitrust case still underway about whether Google has created illegal monopolies with open web display ad technology as well. Closing arguments will be heard for that in November 2024 with a verdict to follow
Remedies Proposed By The DOJ
On Oct. 8, 2024, the DOJ filed proposed antitrust remedies for Google. Until this point, there has been plenty of speculation about potential solutions.
Now, we know that the DOJ will be seeking remedies in four “categories of harm”:
- Search Distribution and Revenue Sharing.
- Accumulation and Use of Data.
- Generation and Display of Search Results.
- Advertising Scale and Monetization.
The following sections highlight potential remedies the DOJ proposed in that filing.
Ban On Exclusive Contracts
In order to address Google’s search distribution and revenue sharing, it is likely that we will see a ban on exclusive contracts going forward for Google.
In the Oct. 8 filing, the DOJ outlined exploring limiting or prohibiting default agreements, pre-installation agreements, and other revenue-sharing agreements related to search and search-related products.
Given this is what the case was centered around, it seems most likely that we will see some flavor of this outcome, and that could provide new incentives for innovation around search at Apple.
Apple Search Engine?
Judge Mehta noted in his judgment that Apple had periodically considered building its own search technology, but decided against it when an analysis in 2018 concluded Apple would lose more than $12 billion in revenue during the first five years if they broke up with Google.
If Google were no longer able to have agreements of this nature, we may finally see Apple emerge with a search engine of its own.
According to a Bloomberg report in October 2023, Apple has been “tinkering” with search technology for years.
It has a large search team dedicated to a next-generation search engine for Apple’s apps called “Pegasus,” which has already rolled out in some apps.
And its development of Spotlight to help users find things across their devices has started adding web results to this tool pointing users to sites that answer search queries.
Apple already has a web crawler called Applebot that finds sites it can provide users in Siri and Spotlight. It has also built its own search engines for some of its services like the App Store, Maps, Apple TV, and News.
Apple purchased a company called Laserlike in 2019, which is an AI-based search engine founded by former Google employees. Apple’s machine learning team has been seeking new engineers to work on search technologies as well.
All of these could be important infrastructure for a new search engine.
Implications For SEO
If users are given more choices in their default search engine, some may stray away from Google, which could cut its market share.
However, as of now, Google is still thought of as the leader in search quality, so it’s hard to gauge how much would realistically change if exclusive contracts were banned.
A new search engine from Apple would obviously be an interesting development. It would be a new algorithm to test, understand, and optimize for.
Knowing that users are hungry for another quality option, people would likely embrace Apple in this space, and it could generate a significant amount of users, if the results are high enough quality. Quality is really key.
Search is the most used tool on smartphones, tablets, and computers. Apple has the users that Google needs.
Without Apple’s partnership with Google, Apple has the potential to disrupt this space. It can offer a more integrated search experience than any other company out there. And its commitment to privacy is appealing to many long-time Google users.
The DOJ would likely view this as a win as well because Apple is one of the few companies large enough to fully compete across the search space with Google.
Required Sharing Of Data To Competitors
Related to the accumulation and use of data harm Google has caused, the DOJ is considering a remedy that forces Google to license its data to competitors like Bing or DuckDuckGo.
The antitrust ruling found that Google’s contracts ensure that Google gets the most user data, and that data streams also keep its competitors from improving their search results to compete better.
In the Oct. 8 filing, the DOJ is considering forcing Google to make: 1) the indexes, data, fees, and models used for Google search, including those used in AI-assisted search features, and 2) Google search results, features, and ads, including the underlying ranking signals available via API.
Believe it or not, this solution has precedent, although certainly not at the same scale as what is being proposed for Google.
The DOJ required AT&T to provide royalty-free licenses to its patents in 1956, and required Microsoft to make some of its APIs available to third parties for free after they lost an antitrust case in 1999.
Google has argued that there are user privacy concerns related to data sharing. The DOJ’s response is that it is considering prohibiting Google from using or retaining data that cannot be shared with others because of privacy concerns.
Implications For SEO
Should Google be required to do any of this, it would be an unprecedented victory for the open web. It is overwhelming to think of the possibilities if any of these repercussions were to come to fruition.
We would finally be able to see behind the curtain of the algorithm and ranking signals at play. There would be a true open competition to build rival search engines.
If Google were no longer to use personalized data, we might see the end of personalized search results based on your search history, which has pros and cons.
I would also be curious what would happen to Google Discover since that product provides content based on your browsing history.
The flip side of this potential outcome is that it will be easier than ever to gamify search results again, at least in the short term.
If everyone knew what makes pages rank in Google, we would be back in the early days of SEO, when we could easily manipulate rank.
But if others take the search algorithm and build upon it in different ways, maybe that wouldn’t be as big of a concern in the long term.
Opting Out Of SERP Features
The DOJ filing briefly touched on one intriguing remedy for the harm Google has caused regarding the generation and display of search results.
The DOJ lawyers are proposing that website publishers receive the ability to opt out of Google features or products they wish to.
This would include Google’s AI Overviews, which they give as an example, but it could also include all other SERP features where Google relies on websites and other content created by third parties – in other words, all of them.
Because Google has held this monopoly, publishers have had virtually no bargaining power with Google in regards to being included in SERP features without risking complete exclusion from Google.
This solution would help publishers have more control over how they show up in the search results.
Implications For SEO
This could be potentially huge for SEO if the DOJ does indeed move forward with requiring Google to allow publishers to opt out of any and all features and products they wish without exclusion in Google’s results altogether.
There are plenty of website publishers who do not want Google to be able to use their content to train its AI products, and wish to opt out of AI Overviews.
When featured snippets first came about, there was a similar reaction to those.
Based on the query, featured snippets and AI Overviews have the ability to help or harm website traffic numbers, but it’s intriguing to think there could be a choice in the matter of inclusion.
Licensing Of Ad Feeds
To address advertising scale and monetization harm caused by Google, the DOJ filing provided a few half-baked solutions related to search text advertising.
Because Google holds a 91% market share of search in the U.S., other search engines have struggled to monetize through advertising.
One solution is to require Google to license or syndicate its ad feed independent of its search results. This way, other search engines could better monetize by utilizing Google’s advertising feed.
It is also looking at remedies to provide more transparent and detailed reporting to advertisers about search text ad auctions and monetization, and the ability to opt out of Google search features like keyword expansion and broad match that advertisers don’t want to partake in.
Implications For SEO
I don’t see obvious implications for SEO, but there are plenty for our friends in PPC.
While licensing the Google ad feed is intriguing in order to help other search engines monetize, it doesn’t get at the issue of Google overcharging advertisers in their auctions.
More thought and creativity might be needed here to find a solution that would make sense for both creating more competition in search and fairness for advertisers.
They are certainly on the right track with more transparency in reporting and allowing advertisers to opt out of programs they don’t want to be part of.
Breaking Up Of Google
The DOJ lawyers are also considering “structural remedies” like forcing Google to sell off parts of its business, like the Chrome browser or the Android operating system.
Divesting Android is the remedy that has been discussed the most. It would be another way to prevent Google from having a position of power over device makers and requiring them to enter into agreements for access to other Google product apps like Gmail or Google Play.
If the DOJ forced Google to sell Chrome, that would just be another way to force them to stop using the data from it to inform the search algorithm.
There are behavioral remedies already mentioned that could arguably accomplish the same thing, and without the stock market-shattering impact of a forced breakup.
That said, depending on the outcome of the U.S. election, we could see a DOJ that feels empowered to take bigger swings, so this may still be on the table.
The primary issue with this remedy is that Google’s revenue largely comes from search advertising. So, if the goal is to reduce its market share, would breaking up smaller areas of the business really accomplish that?
Implications For SEO
If Android became a stand-alone business, I don’t see implications for SEO because it isn’t directly related to search.
Also, Apple controls so much of the relevant mobile market that spinning Android off would have little to no effect in regards to addressing monopolistic practices.
If Chrome were sold, Google would lose the valuable user signals that inform Navboost in the algorithm.
That would have some larger implications for the quality of its results since we know, through trial testimony, that those Chrome user signals are heavily weighted in the algorithm.
How much of an impact that would have on the results may only be known inside Google, or maybe not even there, but it could be material.
Final Thoughts
There is so much to be decided in the year (potentially years) to come regarding Google’s fate.
While all of the recent headlines focus on the possibility of Google being broken up, I think this is a less likely outcome.
While divesting Chrome may be on the table, it seems like there are easier ways to accomplish the government’s goals.
And Android and Google Play are both free to customers and rely on open-source code, so mandating changes to them doesn’t seem the most logical way to solve monopolistic practices.
I suspect we’ll see some creative behavioral remedies instead. The banning of exclusive contracts feels like a no-brainer.
Of all the solutions out there, requiring Google to provide APIs of Google search results, ranking signals, etc. is by far the most intriguing idea.
I cannot even imagine a world where we have access to that information right now. And I can only hope that we do see the emergence of an Apple search engine. It feels long overdue for it to enter this space and start disrupting.
Even with Google appealing Mehta’s decision, the remedy proposals will continue ahead.
In November, the DOJ will file a more refined framework, and then Google will propose its own remedies in December.
More resources:
Featured Image: David Gyung/Shutterstock
SEO
Snapchat Is Testing 2 New Advertising Placements
The Snapchat ad ecosystem just expanded with two new placement options.
On Tuesday, Snap announced they started testing on two new placements:
- Sponsored Snaps
- Promoted Places
While not available to the general public yet, Snap provided information on the test, including their launch partners and more about the ad placements.
The goal of these placements are for brands to expand their reach across some of the most widely adopted parts of the platform.
Sponsored Snaps Ad Placement
Snapchat is testing a new Sponsored Snaps placement with Disney, in the announcement from October 8th.
The Sponsored Snaps placement shows a full-screen vertical video to users on Snapchat.
Users can then opt-in to opening the Snap, with options to engage with the advertiser in one of two ways:
- Sending a direct message to the advertiser by replying
- Use the call-to-action to open the link chosen by the advertiser.
Sponsored Snaps aren’t delivered via a push notification and will appear differently than other Snaps in a user’s inbox.
After a certain amount of time, any unopened Sponsored Snaps disappear from a user’s inbox.
Promoted Places Ad Placement
Snap partnered with two other brands for their Promoted Places ad placement test: McDonalds and Taco Bell.
This new ad placement shows on the Snap Map, which is meant to help users discover new places they may want to visit.
Promoted Places will highlight sponsored placements of interest within the Snap Map.
In early testing, Snap said they’ve found adding places as “Top Picks” drives a typical visitation lift of 17.6% for frequent Snapchat users.
They also mentioned the possibility of exploring ideas around customer loyalty on the Snap Map in future phases.
Summary
Snap hasn’t yet announced how long these ad placement tests will run, or when they’ll be available for broader advertisers.
Snap said the Sponsored Snaps and Promoted Places placements will evolve from feedback within the Snapchat community and the brands partnered with them at launch.
In the future, there’s possibility of integrating features like CRM systems and AI chatbot support to make communication more streamlined between brands and Snapchat users.
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