SEO

Why Your Agency’s Growth Is Limited & How To Fix It

Published

2 years ago

June 21, 2022

Why Your Agency’s Growth Is Limited & How To Fix It

If you’re looking for sustainable growth opportunities and meet the following criteria, you’re in the right place.

Your agency has not reached the multi-million dollar mark yet.
Your agency is directly responsible for PPC fulfillment.
PPC is not your agency’s most lucrative offering.

Those are the primary factors contributing to The PPC Dilemma, creating the untapped potential for digital marketing companies.

Below is an explanation of The PPC Dilemma and its remedy so you’ll have an effective means for scaling your agency.

The PPC Dilemma Explained

Digital marketing agencies must deliver high-quality PPC to attract and retain the right clients. However, resources are limited, and PPC is typically not the most significant profit driver.

Agencies must provide it, which inevitably diverts resources from more valuable activities.

That’s The PPC Dilemma.

The Economics Behind The Dilemma

There is no need to be alarmed or try to skip class.

This is not a lecture on economics.

That being said, the link between The PPC Dilemma and this well-trusted social science will help you implement this solution with confidence.

Thankfully the connection is pretty straightforward, so this will just take a minute.

Economies Of Scale

The “multi-million dollar mark” qualifier referenced above is based on an understanding of economies of scale.

According to Will Kenton’s article in Investopedia,

“Economies of scale are an important concept for any business in any industry and represent the cost-savings and competitive advantages larger businesses have over smaller ones.”

Multi-million dollar agencies who enjoy economies of scale are likely not suffering from The PPC (pay per click) Dilemma described below and won’t qualify for the corresponding growth opportunity.

Translation: If you are not an Inc 5000 agency, keep reading.

Diminishing Returns

To understand The PPC Dilemma is to understand the law of diminishing returns, which observes that output suffers when factors of production increase.

Key Terms Defined & Personalized:

Output: These are your deliverables, which generate revenue for your agency.
FOP (factors of production): Any resource you use to produce your services.

Your FOP includes all of the resources required to fulfill each of your agency’s offerings, e.g., SEO, web design, PPC, etc.

What Did I Say?

I told you that would be painless.

The bottom line (so far) is this: Your factors of production should include PPC fulfillment if PPC is your most lucrative offering; otherwise, it’s hindering your growth. That may be current or future growth, depending on when you reach optimal capacity.

Either way, you will grow if you can mitigate PPC fulfillment from your agency’s production factors while continuing to profit from its output/deliverables.

Now that I have demonstrated the “what” of The PPC Dilemma, I will get into the practical side of how to fix it.

The Big Four PPC Fulfillment Options

So how do agencies deliver high-caliber PPC while keeping its associated factors of production lean?

Below is a list of the most viable PPC fulfillment options with pros and cons.

Determine which one enables you to eliminate PPC fulfillment as an FOP while continuing to profit from its deliverables in your output.

Existing In-House Talent

This fulfillment method tasks existing staff (current employees with additional responsibilities) with managing PPC accounts.

Pros:

Accountability – Employees have a high degree of liability to their employers, resulting in a strong motivation to do a great job.
Control – The ability to determine your PPC manager’s schedule, bandwidth, etc.
Communication – Internal staff typically have quick response times.
Fluidity – Internal teams fully integrate with existing tools and processes.
Commitment – Employers enjoy loyalty from staff, assuming a healthy work culture is in place.

Cons:

Disruption – According to a recent study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employee turnover is historically high. Employee churn will create a lot of turbulence in this eggs-in-one-basket model.
Demand – You are responsible for developing and maintaining the infrastructure necessary to execute PPC fulfillment effectively.
Limited Results – Existing staff have additional responsibilities beyond PPC management. They also have less experience than dedicated talent who concentrate strictly on PPC. Performance suffers as a result.
Burnout – The more hats employees must wear, the more prone they are to experience burnout.

Dedicated In-House Talent

This option refers to hiring full-time specialists specifically for managing paid media.

Pros:

All the benefits listed in “existing in-house talent,” plus:
Performance – You’ll experience better results when leveraging a dedicated specialist because they will have more experience and be able to focus all of their time on that one area.
Bandwidth – The bandwidth of this model excels both existing in-house talent and contractors.

Cons:

The disadvantages listed in the first model (except for burnout), plus:
Recruiting – Headhunting is challenging, especially in today’s competitive market. It is time-consuming, and there are also a lot of uncertainties when onboarding a brand new employee.
Obligation – With salaried employees (vs. project-based), you are committed to a high monthly operational cost regardless of the workload of the individual. Similarly, you are committed to that cost indefinitely, irrespective of the term of their projects.
Limitations – Unless you have $12,000 to $13,000 per month to spend on multiple specialists, you will have to settle for someone who handles both paid search and paid social. This results in a reduction in skills compared to channel-specific specialists who are laser-focused on one channel.

Hiring Contractors

This fulfillment method involves independent individuals who do not work exclusively for one person or business.

Pros:

Economical – This is a cost-effective method because 1. You only pay for specific projects (accounts), and 2. Contractors typically have limited overhead costs.
Control – While the level of control in this model can’t compete with the in-house models, there will be more flexibility here than working with an organization.
Flexibility – Contractors do not come with long-term obligations.
Talent – This economical option enables you to hire channel-specific specialists versus a generalist who manages paid search and paid social.

Cons:

Risk – There is an inherent vulnerability with hiring contractors due to the independent nature of their position.
Lack of commitment – This is the other side of the flexibility coin, e.g., you have an individual servicing multiple agencies.
Communication – Communication gaps are inevitable when one individual manages multiple clients (agencies), each with their accounts.
Accountability – Independent contractors have the least amount of accountability.
Mediocrity – Innovation is uncommon in this model due to the natural constraints of a single individual.
Disruption – Like either of the in-house scenarios, it is disruptive when this person exists stage left. Remember that contract work does not carry the same unspoken expectation of a two-week notice.

White-Label PPC

With this fulfillment method, your agency purchases a white label company’s services and offers them to your clients under your brand.

Pros:

Cost-effective – Hiring an outsourcing partner eliminates payroll and reduces costs associated with recruiting, infrastructure, workspaces, and resources.
Performance – A reputable white label PPC vendor will provide optimal performance. The reason for this is two-fold: 1. Given that they manage millions of ad spend at scale, they will have a lot of data, automation, etc. 2. They will have channel-specific specialists vs. paid media generalists.
Stability – This is the only model that provides immediate, alternative specialists during churn. They have other acclimated specialists who can step in to minimize the impact during transitional phases.
Low commitment – Like contractors, you never have to worry about idle, paid staff when a project ends as you only pay for active services.
Accountability – White-label PPC companies come with their brand and upper management, which means specialists are held to high standards.
State of the art – In addition to the specialists managing your accounts, a white-label provider will have leadership dedicated to continually improving their service.
Turnkey – I know of one vendor that empowers agencies to efficiently white-label PPC management at scale across the entire client journey through one dynamic interface. A robust client portal that isn’t limited to simple functions like submitting a support ticket is a big deal if you have multiple accounts.

Cons:

Additional tools – You can’t expect an organization dedicated to white label PPC to integrate with your systems. You will need to acclimate to additional tools.
Minimal control – White label providers already have their service level agreements in place. The result is that you can’t dictate or amend their processes.
Communication – There is simply no way to replicate the responsiveness of in-house staff.

Note: The disadvantages here could easily be longer depending on your chosen vendor. I assume that the white label provider 1. has full-time W2 employees who reside in your country; 2. does not take over ownership of your assets (ad accounts, landing pages, etc.), and 3. has channel-specific specialists, e.g., paid search specialists and paid social specialists.

Four Tips For Success

These are the most common PPC fulfillment options available to agencies.

You’ll want to identify which one will provide your agency with the most potential for scalability.

I’ve provided four tips to help you identify the most effective model to resolve The PPC Dilemma.

1. Properly Weight Your FOPs

The most effective option will be the one weighed toward your agency’s most lucrative offerings.

In other words, when it is all said and done, your FOPs should be dominated by activity related to your wheelhouse/flagship offering.

Consider asking yourself, “Which model will minimize PPC fulfillment’s production factors while still allowing us to profit from its output/deliverables?”

2. Be Proactive

When confronted with opportunities like this, it is easy to be ruled by the tyranny of the urgent.

Don’t limit yourself to thinking about what would help you now; consider your potential 6 – 12 months from now.

To flesh this out, imagine yourself 12 months from now saying, “I wish I would have __________,” and then take measures to avoid that regret.

3. Don’t Underestimate PPC

Many aspects of an agency are evaluated, but few are as important as PPC.

Consider the number of users on Google and Facebook, the high level of intent associated with PPC, and the unmatched control over marketing dollars available to advertisers.

This is not a facet of digital marketing that you want to take lightly.

4. Remember Opportunity Cost

Instead of looking strictly at direct costs, remember to respect and factor in opportunity costs when making strategic decisions.

When we emphasize secondary priorities, we miss opportunities to zero in on what most contributes to our success.

This can be likened to the inverse of diminishing returns.

Make A Confident Decision

In his book, “From Good to Great,” Jim Collins observed that you need to confront the facts to make good decisions.

There are fewer effective ways to do this than basing decisions on proven scientific laws.

You can relax and make a call that economists back.

If appropriately executed, you can look back 12 months from now with a strong sense of satisfaction, knowing you made a wise move.

Here’s toward your future, sustainable growth!

More resources:

Featured Image: Golubovy/Shutterstock

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Related Topics:Agencys Fix Growth limited

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SEO

Stop Overcomplicating Things. Entity SEO is Just SEO

Published

14 hours ago

September 11, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

“Entity SEO”.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Not only does the word “entity” sound foreign, it feels like yet another thing to add to your never-ending SEO to-do list. You’re barely afloat when it comes to SEO, but ohgawd here comes one more new thing to dedicate your scarce resources.

I have good news for you though: You don’t have to do entity SEO.

Why? Because you’re probably already doing it.

Let’s start from the beginning.

In 2012, Google announced the Knowledge Graph. The Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base of entities and the relationships between them.

An entity is any object or concept that can be distinctly identified. This includes tangibles like people, places, and organizations, and intangibles like colors, concepts, and feelings.

For example, the footballer Federico Chiesa is an entity:

So is the famous British-Indian restaurant Dishoom:

The British-Indian restaurant Dishoom is an entity

Entities are connected by edges, which describe the relationships between them.

Introducing the Knowledge Graph helped improve Google’s search results because:

Google could better understand search intent — People search for the same thing but describe it in different ways. Google can now understand this and serve the same results.
It reduced reliance on keyword matching — Matching the number of keywords on a page doesn’t guarantee relevance; also it prevents crafty SEOs from keyword stuffing.
It reduced Google’s computational load — The Internet is virtually infinite and Google simply cannot understand the meaning of every word, paragraph, webpage, and website. Entities provide a structure where Google can improve understanding while minimizing load.

For example, even though we didn’t mention the actor’s name, Google can understand we’re looking for Harrison Ford and therefore shows his filmography:

Google understands Harrison Ford as an entity and can show us his filmography

That’s because Hans Solo and Harrison Ford are closely connected entities in the Knowledge Graph. Google shows Knowledge Graph data in SERP features like Knowledge Panels and Knowledge Cards.

Google shows a knowledge panel for Apple, the technology company

With this knowledge, we can then define entity SEO as optimizing your website or webpages for such entities.

If Google has moved to entity-oriented search, then entity SEO is just SEO. As my colleague Patrick Stox says, “The entity identification part is more on Google’s end than on our end.”

I mean, if you look at the ‘entity SEO’ tactics you find in blog posts, you’ll discover that they’re mostly just SEO tactics:

Earn a Wikipedia page
Create a Google Business Profile
Add internal links
Create all digital assets Google is representing on the page (e.g., videos, images, Twitter)
Develop topical authority
Include semantically related words on a page
Add schema markup

Let’s be honest. If you’re serious about SEO and are investing in it, then it’s likely you’re already doing most of the above.

Regardless of entities, wouldn’t you want a Wikipedia page? After all, it confers benefits beyond “entity SEO”. Brand recognition, backlinks from one of the world’s most authoritative sites (albeit nofollow)—any company would want that.

If you’re a local business, you’ve probably created a Google Business Profile. Adding internal links is just SEO 101.

And billions of blistering barnacles, creating all digital assets Google wants to see, like images and videos, is practically marketing 101. If you’re a Korean recipe site and want to be associated with the kimchi jjigae entity, wouldn’t you already know you need to make a video and have photos of the cooking process?

Google shows images in the knowledge panel for the entity kimchi jjigae

When I started my breakdance site years ago, I knew nothing about SEO and content marketing but I still knew I needed to make YouTube videos. Because guess what? It’s hard to learn breakdancing from words. I don’t think I needed an entity SEO to tell me that.

Topical authority is an SEO concept where a website aims to become the go-to authority on one or more topics. Call me crazy, but it feels like blogging 101. Read most guides on how to start a blog and I’m sure you’ll find a subheading called “niche down”. And once you niche down, it’s inevitable you’ll create content surrounding that one topic.

If I start a breakdance site, what are the chances I’ll write about contemporary dance or pop art? Pretty low.

In fact, topical authority is similar to the Wiki Strategy, which Nat Eliason wrote about in 2017. There wasn’t a single mention of entities. It was just the right way to make content for the Internet.

I think the biggest problem here isn’t entities versus keywords or that topical authority is a brand-new strategy. It’s simply that many SEOs are driven by short-sightedness or the wrong incentives.

You can target a whole bunch of unrelated keywords that have high search volume, gain incredible amounts of search traffic, and brag about how successful you are as an SEO.

Some of the pages sending HubSpot the most search traffic has barely anything to do with their core product. A page on how to type the shrug emoji? The most famous quotes?

HubSpot's top pages that sends them the most search traffic

This is not to single out HubSpot—I’m sure they have their reasons, as explored by Ryan here—but to illustrate that many companies do the exact same thing. And when Google stops rewarding this behavior, all of a sudden companies realise they do need to write about their core competencies. They need to “build topical authority”.

I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater because I do see value in the last two ‘entity SEO tactics’. But again, if you’re doing something similar to the Wiki Strategy for your site, chances are you would have naturally included entities or semantically relevant words without thinking too much about it. It’s difficult to create content about kimchi jjigae without mentioning kimchi, pork, or gochujang.

However, to prevent the curse of knowledge or simply to avoid blindspots, checking for important subtopics you might have missed is useful. At Ahrefs, we run a page-level content gap analysis and look out for subtopics:

Open in Content gap feature in Keywords Explorer

For example, if we ran a content gap analysis on “inbound marketing” for the top three ranking pages, we see that we might need to include these subtopics:

What is inbound marketing
Inbound marketing strategy
Inbound marketing examples
Inbound marketing tools

Content gap report for inbound marketing

Finally, adding schema markup makes the most sense because it’s how Google recognizes entities and better understands the content of web pages. But if it’s just one new tactic—which I believe is already part of ‘standard’ SEO and you might already be doing it—then there’s no need to create a category to define the “new era” (voice SEO, where art thou?)

Final thoughts

Two years ago, someone on Reddit asked for an SEO workflow that utilized super advanced SEO methodologies:

The top answer: None of the above.

When our Chief Marketing Officer Tim Soulo tweeted about this Reddit thread, he got similar replies too:

And even though I don’t know him, this is a person after my own heart:

A tweet agreeing that entity SEO is a fad

You don’t have to worry about entity SEO. If you have passion for a topic and are creating high-quality content that fulfills what people are looking for, then you’re likely already doing “entity SEO”.

Just follow this meme: Make stuff people like.

Midwit meme showing you just need to make stuff people like

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SEO

Assigning The Right Conversion Values To Make Value-Based Bidding Work For Lead Gen

Published

23 hours ago

September 11, 2024

Max

Assigning The Right Conversion Values To Make Value-Based Bidding Work For Lead Gen

Last week, we tackled setting your data strategy for value-based bidding.

The next key is to assign the right values for the conversion actions that are important to your business.

We know this step is often seen as trickier for lead gen-focused businesses than, say, ecommerce businesses.

How much is a whitepaper download, newsletter signup, or online quote request worth to your business? While you may not have exact figures, that’s OK. What you do know is they aren’t all valued equally.

Check out the quick 2-minute video in our series below, and then keep reading as we dive deeper into assigning conversion values to optimize your value-based bidding strategy.

Understanding Conversion Values

First, let’s get on the same page about what “conversion value” means.

A conversion refers to a desired action taken by a user, such as filling out a lead form, making a purchase, or signing up for a newsletter.

Conversion value is simply a numerical representation of how much each of these conversions is worth to your business.

Estimating The Value Of Each Conversion

Ideally, you’d have a precise understanding of how much revenue each conversion generates.

However, we understand that this is not always feasible.

In such cases, it’s perfectly acceptable to use “proxy values” – estimations that align with your business priorities.

The important thing is to ensure that these proxy values reflect the relative importance of different conversions to your business.

For example, a whitepaper download may indicate less “value” than a product demo registration based on what you understand about your past customer acquisition efforts.

Establishing Proxy Values

Let’s explore some scenarios to illustrate how you might establish proxy values.

Take the event florist example mentioned in the video. You’ve seen that clients who provide larger guest counts or budgets in their online quote requests tend to result in more lucrative events.

Knowing this, you can assign higher proxy values to these leads compared to those with smaller guest counts or budgets.

Similarly, if you’re an auto insurance advertiser, you might leverage your existing lead scoring system as a basis for proxy values. Leads with higher scores, indicating a greater likelihood of a sale, would naturally be assigned higher values.

You don’t need to have exact value figures to make value-based bidding effective. Work with your sales and finance teams to help identify the key factors that influence lead quality and value.

This will help you understand which conversion actions indicate a higher likelihood of becoming a customer – and even which actions indicate the likelihood of becoming a higher-value customer for your business.

Sharing Conversion Values With Google Ads

Once you’ve determined the proxy values for your conversion actions, you’ll need to share that information with Google Ads. This enables the system to prioritize actions that drive the most value for your business.

To do this, go to the Summary tab on the Conversions page (under the Goals icon) in your account. From there, you can edit your conversion actions settings to input the value for each. More here.

As I noted in the last episode, strive for daily uploads of your conversion data, if possible, to ensure Google Ads has the most up-to-date information by connecting your sources via Google Ads Data Manager or the Google Ads API.

Fine-Tuning With Conversion Value Rules

To add another layer of precision, you can utilize conversion value rules.

Conversion value rules allow you to adjust the value assigned to a conversion based on specific attributes or conditions that aren’t already indicated in your account. For example, you may have different margins for different types of customers.

Instead of every lead form submission having the same static value you’ve assigned, you can tell Google Ads which leads are more valuable to your business based on three factors:

Location: You might adjust conversion values based on the geographical location of the user. For example, if users in a particular region tend to convert at a higher rate or generate more revenue.
Audience: You can tailor conversion values based on specific audience segments, such as first-party data or Google audience lists.
Device: Consider adjusting conversion values based on the device the user is using. Perhaps users on mobile devices convert at a higher rate – you could increase their conversion value to reflect that.

When implementing these rules, your value-based bidding strategies (maximize conversion value with an optional target ROAS) will take them into account and optimize accordingly.

Conversion value rules can be set at the account or campaign levels. They are supported in Search, Shopping, Display, and Performance Max campaigns.

Google Ads will prioritize showing your ads to users predicted to be more likely to generate those leads you value more.

Conversion Value Rules And Reporting

These rules also impact how you report conversion value in your account.

For example, you may value a lead at $5, but know that these leads from Californian users are typically worth twice as much. With conversion value rules, you could specify this, and Google Ads would multiply values for users from California by two and report that accordingly in the conversion volume column in your account.

Additionally, you can segment your conversion value rules in Campaigns reporting to see the impact by selecting Conversions, then Value rule adjustment.

There are three segment options:

Original value (rule applied): Total original value of conversions, which then had a value rule applied.
Original value (no rule applied): Total recorded value of conversions that did not have a value rule applied.
Audience, Location, Device, or No Condition: The net adjustment when value rules were applied.

You can add the conversion value rules column to your reporting as well. These columns are called “All value adjustment” and “Value adjustment.”

Also note that reporting for conversion value rules applies to all conversions, not just the ones in the ‘conversions’ column.

Conversion Value Rule Considerations

You can also create more complex rules by combining conditions.

For example, if you observe that users from Texas who have also subscribed to your newsletter are exceptionally valuable, you could create a rule that increases their conversion value even further.

When using conversion value rules, keep in mind:

Start Simple: Begin by implementing a few basic conversion value rules based on your most critical lead attributes.
Additive Nature of Rules: Conversion value rules are additive. If multiple rules apply to the same user, their effects will be combined.
Impact on Reporting: The same adjusted value that’s determined at bidding time is also used for reporting.
Regular Review for Adjustment: As your business evolves and you gather more data, revisit your conversion values and rules to ensure they remain aligned with your goals.

Putting The Pieces Together

Assigning the right values to your conversions is a crucial step in maximizing the effectiveness of your value-based bidding strategies.

By providing Google Ads with accurate and nuanced conversion data, you empower the system to make smarter decisions, optimize your bids, and ultimately drive more valuable outcomes for your business.

Up next, we’ll talk about determining which bid strategy is right for you. Stay tuned!

More resources:

Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

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SEO

Expert Embedding Techniques for SEO Success

Published

2 days ago

September 10, 2024

Max

Expert Embedding Techniques for SEO Success

AI Overviews are here, and they’re making a big impact in the world of SEO. Are you up to speed on how to maximize their impact?

Watch on-demand as we dive into the fascinating world of Google AI Overviews and their functionality, exploring the concept of embeddings and demystifying the complex processes behind them.

We covered which measures play a crucial role in how Google AI assesses the relevance of different pieces of content, helping to rank and select the most pertinent information for AI-generated responses.

You’ll see:

An understanding of the technical side of embeddings & how they work, enabling efficient information retrieval and comparison.
Insights into AI Content curation, including the criteria and algorithms used to rank and choose the most relevant snippets for AI-generated overviews.
A visualization of the step-by-step process of how AI overviews are constructed, with a clear perspective on the decision-making process behind AI-generated content.

With Scott Stouffer from Market Brew, we explored their AI Overviews Visualizer, a tool that deconstructs AI Overviews and provides an inside look at how Snippets and AI Overviews are curated.

If you’re looking to clarify misconceptions around AI, or looking to face the challenge of optimizing your own content for the AI Overview revolution, then be sure to watch this webinar.

View the slides below, or check out the full presentation for all the details.