SEO
How Do Retargeting Ads Work, Anyway?
![How Do Retargeting Ads Work, Anyway? How Do Retargeting Ads Work, Anyway?](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/1659364676_How-Do-Retargeting-Ads-Work-Anyway.png)
Since Google Ads first launched retargeting in 2010, the evolution of this tactic has shifted tenfold.
It’s no longer a question of whether you should use retargeting; it’s how you should use it.
Whether you’re new to the marketing industry or a seasoned pro looking to polish your retargeting skillset, this post will cover the recent ins and outs of creating retargeting campaigns.
The Value Of Retargeting Ads
Ecommerce conversion rates range from 0.7% to 4% globally.
Since consumers have a low attention span and are used to endless scrolling, retargeting ads should be an essential part of your marketing strategy.
If you’re struggling to understand why only a small percent of website visitors purchase from you, don’t fret (yet). In reality, most people aren’t in the buying stage when they first visit your site.
If, for example, only 3% of users are ready to buy, the other 97% are likely not prepared to convert.
Therefore, if your retargeting goal is simply to get people to buy or convert now, you may be setting yourself up for failure.
Why is that? Well, telling people to “Buy Now” when they’re not ready means your messaging is wrong for 96% of your audience.
Where does the value of retargeting come in here? Multiple factors make a successful retargeting ad:
- Segmented audience by behavior.
- Identifying the right platform for ads.
- Serving the right message to the right audience.
Take this retargeting ad I got, for example.
I had been researching places to take a solo health and wellness vacation in Arizona. After landing on this website, I received this retargeting ad within 24 hours of visiting.
The ad itself captured the most important aspects I was looking for in a vacation:
- Wellness activities.
- Healthy food.
- Hiking.
What Do Retargeting Ads Do?
Simply put, retargeting ads help lead users to the next step in their buyer journey. It’s not just an ad that gets users to “buy now.”
Your retargeting message should not be a rehash of your original marketing message.
Smart retargeting, however, focuses on understanding where your customers are at in their buyer journey and helping them take that next step.
For example, say you are a SaaS company where your goal is to get users to sign up for a free trial.
Your initial strategy is to bid on the terms such as “cloud software,” where you land users on a page that talks about your software and encourages them to create an account.
Unfortunately, only a small percentage of users will take that action. You may be tempted to retarget all non-converting web traffic with more information on your software.
Do you see the problem here? That message didn’t work the first time, so why would it now?
It is where you’ll need to switch up your remarketing strategy.
First Things First: Start With Tagging
The key to running retargeting ads starts with proper tagging. If you’re looking to target web or app users of any kind, pixels, and tags are necessary.
Each platform you want to run retargeting ads on has its specific pixel. Right now, it seems the options are endless. You can retarget on major platforms, including (but not limited to):
- Google Ads.
- Microsoft Ads.
- Meta (Facebook).
- Instagram.
- LinkedIn.
- Twitter.
- Snapchat.
- TikTok.
- Pinterest.
If you’re planning on testing out all these platforms, too many hard-coded pixels could slow down your website. Try using Google Tag Manager to simplify your tag/pixel management for a more straightforward implementation.
How Do These Tags Work?
These tags identify a user based on their website activity (anonymously), which are then collected into platforms where you can later target them.
Now, one major thing to consider is the deprecation of third-party cookies. It’s already been announced that Google is removing third-party cookies, and many others will likely follow.
This change to the consumer landscape leads us to the next core item of retargeting ads: audiences.
Create Meaningful Audiences
As mentioned above, third-party cookie deprecation may affect retargeting in the future. But, in what way?
The most significant shift will come from securing first-party data on your users – at the beginning of their user journey.
First-party data means consumers give you their information directly, such as submitting an email address on your website.
Once you have first-party data, the possibilities are endless for segmentation. For example, you could segment your users based on:
- How they first came to your website (organic, social media, referral, etc.).
- How long do they stay on your site.
- If a user completed (or didn’t complete) a particular action on your site.
- What categories or products they viewed.
- If a user is a previous buyer.
- The length of time they watched one of your videos.
- What type of offer do they claim on your site to give you their data.
- How they’ve interacted with your social pages.
Again, these are just a few examples of how you can remarket. You can get as creative as you want!
Now, if consumers provide specific user data, you can upload this information to many platforms to retarget them. This data is uploaded in a secure, hashed way to keep the user anonymous.
You’re able to upload data points such as:
- Email address.
- First and last name.
- Phone number.
- Address.
- Other data points are available by platform.
It works because if your user data matches the cross-reference data from the specific platform, you can retarget them.
Additionally, if you have pixels or tags set up, you can create specific behavior-like audiences and use them on those respective platforms.
For example, if you linked your YouTube channel to your Google Ads account, you can create remarketing lists of users who viewed a certain video as an ad.
These types of remarketing audiences are powerful at retargeting someone likely at the awareness stage.
Choose The Right Messaging
Now that you’ve identified your audience to retarget, it’s imperative you get the messaging right.
If your company has an average sales cycle of six to 12 months, can you expect someone to convert to that sale immediately?
I wouldn’t bet on it.
This is why segmenting your audiences is so important. You should not be giving everyone the same retargeting message, nor should you use the exact same messaging you’ve initially reached them with.
Let’s go back to the cloud security example.
Selling cloud security software to a company is likely a long sales cycle with multiple decision makers.
If this is the first page you see as a new user, would you want to take action immediately?
![How Do Retargeting Ads Work, Anyway? An example of a cloud security landing page.](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/1659364676_443_How-Do-Retargeting-Ads-Work-Anyway.png)
Probably not.
What if you landed on the same page from a retargeting ad the second time with no differentiation in ad copy?
Again, probably not.
The idea is so simple, yet so many companies get it wrong. Everyone is looking for that final sale without giving a user a reason why they should trust their brand.
Now, what would be an ideal scenario?
- Create awareness of your product to your ideal audience → Lead them to an informative page about what it does.
- Create a retargeting audience based on qualifying factors of that page → Encourage them to download an informative whitepaper.
- Segment that audience further if they completed that action → Start introducing them to a stronger offer (such as a demo or trial, if it’s an easy user experience).
This very simplified scenario should likely include more steps to warm the user up to you. But hopefully, this gives you an understanding of why your messaging or offer should differ each time.
More importantly: Don’t expect them to go to the final desired action you want them to take!
Reach Your User On The Right Platform
We’ve discussed the tags, audiences, and messaging for retargeting ads. Now it’s time to pick the right platform.
We already touched on just a few platforms you could retarget on. So, because there are myriad options, does that mean you should use all retargeting options?
Not necessarily!
The key to identifying your retargeting platforms is to do your audience research. Ask yourself questions like:
- What are the key demographics of my audience?
- Where does my audience spend time?
- Am I collecting mainly business user information or personal information?
- What message am I sending to my audience?
Dive deeper into your audience behavior to help influence your retargeting platform decision.
For example, if you’re trying to get ahold of business decision-makers and collecting work emails, you may want to try LinkedIn or Quora as a retargeting option.
Personal social platforms such as Facebook or Instagram may not be your best option.
The messaging should also influence which retargeting platform to use.
If you’re trying to get someone to sign up for a demo or start a free trial, you may not want to use platforms that are more used for awareness, such as YouTube.
Conclusion
While retargeting options have changed dramatically since their inception, the premise hasn’t necessarily changed.
Retargeting and users’ brand expectations have become more sophisticated.
Keeping up to date on the industry changes and how they affect your retargeting strategy is a must in today’s age.
Use these tips above to help amplify your retargeting strategy for a better conversion rate and user experience.
More Resources:
Featured Image: eamesBot/Shutterstock
SEO
WordPress Insiders Discuss WordPress Stagnation
![WordPress Insiders Discuss WordPress Stagnation WordPress Insiders Discuss WordPress Stagnation](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/WordPress-Insiders-Discuss-WordPress-Stagnation.jpg)
A recent webinar featuring WordPress executives from Automattic and Elementor, along with developers and Joost de Valk, discussed the stagnation in WordPress growth, exploring the causes and potential solutions.
Stagnation Was The Webinar Topic
The webinar, “Is WordPress’ Market share Declining? And What Should Product Businesses Do About it?” was a frank discussion about what can be done to increase the market share of new users that are choosing a web publishing platform.
Yet something that came up is that there are some areas that WordPress is doing exceptionally well so it’s not all doom and gloom. As will be seen later on, the fact that the WordPress core isn’t progressing in terms of specific technological adoption isn’t necessarily a sign that WordPress is falling behind, it’s actually a feature.
Yet there is a stagnation as mentioned at the 17:07 minute mark:
“…Basically you’re saying it’s not necessarily declining, but it’s not increasing and the energy is lagging. “
The response to the above statement acknowledged that while there are areas of growth like in the education and government sectors, the rest was “up for grabs.”
Joost de Valk spoke directly and unambiguously acknowledged the stagnation at the 18:09 minute mark:
“I agree with Noel. I think it’s stagnant.”
That said, Joost also saw opportunities with ecommerce, with the performance of WooCommerce. WooCommerce, by the way, outperformed WordPress as a whole with a 6.80% year over year growth rate, so there’s a good reason that Joost was optimistic of the ecommerce sector.
A general sense that WordPress was entering a stall however was not in dispute, as shown in remarks at the 31:45 minute mark:
“… the WordPress product market share is not decreasing, but it is stagnating…”
Facing Reality Is Productive
Humans have two ways to deal with a problem:
- Acknowledge the problem and seek solutions
- Pretend it’s not there and proceed as if everything is okay
WordPress is a publishing platform that’s loved around the world and has literally created countless jobs, careers, powered online commerce as well as helped establish new industries in developing applications that extend WordPress.
Many people have a stake in WordPress’ continued survival so any talk about WordPress entering a stall and descent phase like an airplane that reached the maximum altitude is frightening and some people would prefer to shout it down to make it go away.
Acknowledging facts and not brushing them aside is what this webinar achieved as a step toward identifying solutions. Everyone in the discussion has a stake in the continued growth of WordPress and their goal was to put it out there for the community to also get involved.
The live webinar featured:
- Miriam Schwab, Elementor’s Head of WP Relations
- Rich Tabor, Automattic Product Manager
- Joost de Valk, founder of Yoast SEO
- Co-hosts Matt Cromwell and Amber Hinds, both members of the WordPress developer community moderated the discussion.
WordPress Market Share Stagnation
The webinar acknowledged that WordPress market share, the percentage of websites online that use WordPress, was stagnating. Stagnation is a state at which something is neither moving forward nor backwards, it is simply stuck at an in between point. And that’s what was openly acknowledged and the main point of the discussion was understanding the reasons why and what could be done about it.
Statistics gathered by the HTTPArchive and published on Joost de Valk’s blog show that WordPress experienced a year over year growth of 1.85%, having spent the year growing and contracting its market share. For example, over the latest month over month period the market share dropped by -0.28%.
Crowing about the WordPress 1.85% growth rate as evidence that everything is fine is to ignore that a large percentage of new businesses and websites coming online are increasingly going to other platforms, with year over year growth rates of other platforms outpacing the rate of growth of WordPress.
Out of the top 10 Content Management Systems, only six experienced year over year (YoY) growth.
CMS YoY Growth
- Webflow: 25.00%
- Shopify: 15.61%
- Wix: 10.71%
- Squarespace: 9.04%
- Duda: 8.89%
- WordPress: 1.85%
Why Stagnation Is A Problem
An important point made in the webinar is that stagnation can have a negative trickle-down effect on the business ecosystem by reducing growth opportunities and customer acquisition. If fewer of the new businesses coming online are opting in for WordPress are clients that will never come looking for a theme, plugin, development or SEO service.
It was noted at the 4:18 minute mark by Joost de Valk:
“…when you’re investing and when you’re building a product in the WordPress space, the market share or whether WordPress is growing or not has a deep impact on how easy it is to well to get people to, to buy the software that you want to sell them.”
Perception Of Innovation
One of the potential reasons for the struggle to achieve significant growth is the perception of a lack of innovation, pointed out at the 16:51 minute mark that there’s still no integration with popular technologies like Next JS, an open-source web development platform that is optimized for fast rollout of scalable and search-friendly websites.
It was observed at the 16:51 minute mark:
“…and still today we have no integration with next JS or anything like that…”
Someone else agreed but also expressed at the 41:52 minute mark, that the lack of innovation in the WordPress core can also be seen as a deliberate effort to make WordPress extensible so that if users find a gap a developer can step in and make a plugin to make WordPress be whatever users and developers want it to be.
“It’s not trying to be everything for everyone because it’s extensible. So if WordPress has a… let’s say a weakness for a particular segment or could be doing better in some way. Then you can come along and develop a plug in for it and that is one of the beautiful things about WordPress.”
Is Improved Marketing A Solution
One of the things that was identified as an area of improvement is marketing. They didn’t say it would solve all problems. It was simply noted that competitors are actively advertising and promoting but WordPress is by comparison not really proactively there. I think to extend that idea, which wasn’t expressed in the webinar, is to consider that if WordPress isn’t out there putting out a positive marketing message then the only thing consumers might be exposed to is the daily news of another vulnerability.
Someone commented in the 16:21 minute mark:
“I’m missing the excitement of WordPress and I’m not feeling that in the market. …I think a lot of that is around the product marketing and how we repackage WordPress for certain verticals because this one-size-fits-all means that in every single vertical we’re being displaced by campaigns that have paid or, you know, have received a a certain amount of funding and can go after us, right?”
This idea of marketing being a shortcoming of WordPress was raised earlier in the webinar at the 18:27 minute mark where it was acknowledged that growth was in some respects driven by the WordPress ecosystem with associated products like Elementor driving the growth in adoption of WordPress by new businesses.
They said:
“…the only logical conclusion is that the fact that marketing of WordPress itself is has actually always been a pain point, is now starting to actually hurt us.”
Future Of WordPress
This webinar is important because it features the voices of people who are actively involved at every level of WordPress, from development, marketing, accessibility, WordPress security, to plugin development. These are insiders with a deep interest in the continued evolution of WordPress as a viable platform for getting online.
The fact that they’re talking about the stagnation of WordPress should be of concern to everybody and that they are talking about solutions shows that the WordPress community is not in denial but is directly confronting situations, which is how a thriving ecosystem should be responding.
Watch the webinar:
Is WordPress’ Market share Declining? And What Should Product Businesses Do About it?
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Krakenimages.com
SEO
Google’s New Support For AVIF Images May Boost SEO
![Google's New Support For AVIF Images May Boost SEO Google's New Support For AVIF Images May Boost SEO](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Googles-New-Support-For-AVIF-Images-May-Boost-SEO.jpg)
Google announced that images in the AVIF file format will now be eligible to be shown in Google Search and Google Images, including all platforms that surface Google Search data. AVIF will dramatically lower image sizes and improve Core Web Vitals scores, particularly Largest Contentful Paint.
How AVIF Can Improve SEO
Getting pages crawled and indexed are the first step of effective SEO. Anything that lowers file size and speeds up web page rendering will help search crawlers get to the content faster and improve the amount of pages crawled.
Google’s crawl budget documentation recommends increasing the speeds of page loading and rendering as a way to avoid receiving “Hostload exceeded” warnings.
It also says that faster loading times enables Googlebot to crawl more pages:
Improve your site’s crawl efficiency
Increase your page loading speed
Google’s crawling is limited by bandwidth, time, and availability of Googlebot instances. If your server responds to requests quicker, we might be able to crawl more pages on your site.
What Is AVIF?
AVIF (AVI Image File Format) is a next generation open source image file format that combines the best of JPEG, PNG, and GIF image file formats but in a more compressed format for smaller image files (by 50% for JPEG format).
AVIF supports transparency like PNG and photographic images like JPEG does but does but with a higher level of dynamic range, deeper blacks, and better compression (meaning smaller file sizes). AVIF even supports animation like GIF does.
AVIF Versus WebP
AVIF is generally a better file format than WebP in terms of smaller files size (compression) and image quality. WebP is better for lossless images, where maintaining high quality regardless of file size is more important. But for everyday web usage, AVIF is the better choice.
See also: 12 Important Image SEO Tips You Need To Know
Is AVIF Supported?
AVIF is currently supported by Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari browsers. Not all content management systems support AVIF. However, both WordPress and Joomla support AVIF. In terms of CDN, Cloudflare also already supports AVIF.
I couldn’t at this time ascertain whether Bing supports AVIF files and will update this article once I find out.
Current website usage of AVIF stands at 0.2% but now that it’s available to surfaced in Google Search, expect that percentage to grow. AVIF images will probably become a standard image format because of its high compression will help sites perform far better than they currently do with JPEG and PNG formats.
Research conducted in July 2024 by Joost de Valk (founder of Yoast, ) discovered that social media platforms don’t all support AVIF files. He found that LinkedIn, Mastodon, Slack, and Twitter/X do not currently support AVIF but that Facebook, Pinterest, Threads and WhatsApp do support it.
AVIF Images Are Automatically Indexable By Google
According to Google’s announcement there is nothing special that needs to be done to make AVIF image files indexable.
“Over the recent years, AVIF has become one of the most commonly used image formats on the web. We’re happy to announce that AVIF is now a supported file type in Google Search, for Google Images as well as any place that uses images in Google Search. You don’t need to do anything special to have your AVIF files indexed by Google.”
Read Google’s announcement:
Supporting AVIF in Google Search
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands
SEO
CMOs Called Out For Reliance On AI Content For SEO
![CMOs Called Out For Reliance On AI Content For SEO CMOs Called Out For Reliance On AI Content For SEO](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CMOs-Called-Out-For-Reliance-On-AI-Content-For-SEO.jpg)
Eli Schwartz, Author of Product-Led SEO, started a discussion on LinkedIn about there being too many CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) who believe that AI written content is an SEO strategy. He predicted that there will be reckoning on the way after their strategies end in failure.
This is what Eli had to say:
“Too many CMOs think that AI-written content is an SEO strategy that will replace actual SEO.
This mistake is going to lead to an explosion in demand for SEO strategists to help them fix their traffic when they find out they might have been wrong.”
Everyone in the discussion, which received 54 comments, strongly agreed with Eli, except for one guy.
What Is Google’s Policy On AI Generated Content?
Google’s policy hasn’t changed although they did update their guidance and spam policies on March 5, 2024 at the same time as the rollout of the March 2024 Core Algorithm Update. Many publishers who used AI to create content subsequently reported losing rankings.
Yet it’s not said that using AI is enough to merit poor rankings, it’s content that is created for ranking purposes.
Google wrote these guidelines specifically for autogenerated content, including AI generated content (Wayback machine copy dated March 6, 2024)
“Our long-standing spam policy has been that use of automation, including generative AI, is spam if the primary purpose is manipulating ranking in Search results. The updated policy is in the same spirit of our previous policy and based on the same principle. It’s been expanded to account for more sophisticated scaled content creation methods where it isn’t always clear whether low quality content was created purely through automation.
Our new policy is meant to help people focus more clearly on the idea that producing content at scale is abusive if done for the purpose of manipulating search rankings and that this applies whether automation or humans are involved.”
Many in Eli’s discussion were in agreement that reliance on AI by some organizations may come to haunt them, except for that one guy in the discussion
Read the discussion on LinkedIn:
Too many CMOs think that AI-written content is an SEO strategy that will replace actual SEO
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands
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