Monday 30 September 2019

Amazon Looks to Preempt Facial Recognition Legislation

Few technologies are more controversial and divisive as facial recognition. Customers have come to rely on it to log into their phones and tablets, police and government agencies are increasingly using it to identify suspects and privacy advocates decry it as an unconstitutional invasion of people’s rights.

Amazon has established itself as a leader in the field of facial recognition with its Rekognition software. While the software is widely used by police, as well as government agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), it has not escaped controversy. The ACLU has twice used Rekognition on photos of politicians, each time with dozens of false matches. In both instances, however, Amazon responded by pointing out that the ACLU left the confidence setting at the default 80 percent threshold, instead of the 99 percent threshold Amazon recommends for law enforcement.

Nonetheless, Amazon can see the writing on the wall and knows it’s only a matter of time before facial recognition is regulated. Needless to say, it’s in Amazon’s best interests for those regulations to favor companies who profit off of the technology. To that end, Vox is reporting that Amazon is drafting laws to regulate facial recognition, which they plan on pitching to lawmakers.

According to Vox, CEO Jeff Bezos told reporters that the company’s “public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations; it makes a lot of sense to regulate that.

“It’s a perfect example of something that has really positive uses, so you don’t want to put the brakes on it. But, at the same time, there’s also potential for abuses of that kind of technology, so you do want regulations. It’s a classic dual-use kind of technology.”

While skeptics are understandably concerned that Amazon’s foray into legislation may do little to nothing to protect the rights of everyday citizens, only time will tell if Amazon’s efforts are sincere or just another step toward a more Orwellian outcome.

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Blackberry Announces New Cybersecurity R&D Unit

Blackberry, once the de facto standard among smartphones, has struggled to remain relevant in the iPhone and Android era. A new initiative may help change that. According to a press release, the company is going back to its roots and doubling down on security.

Throughout its history, Blackberry’s security has been legendary, based on strong encryption algorithms that have given government agencies and hackers alike a run for their money. Now, Blackberry Limited has created the Blackberry Advanced Technology Development Labs (Blackberry Labs), a new business unit that will focus on cybersecurity R&D.

Company CTO Charles Eagan will head up Blackberry Labs and oversee a team of more than 120 software developers, researchers, architects, security experts and product leads. The team will focus on developing new technologies to help the Blackberry platform stay on the forefront of cybersecurity.

The team will use machine learning and data science to analyze threats companies face, especially at a time when the Internet of Things (IoT) has drastically changed the nature of cybersecurity and opened companies to entirely new risks.

“The establishment of BlackBerry Labs is the latest in a series of strategic moves we’ve taken to ensure our customers are protected across all endpoints and verticals in the new IoT,” said Charles Eagan, BlackBerry CTO. “Today’s cybersecurity industry is rapidly advancing and BlackBerry Labs will operate as its own business unit solely focused on innovating and developing the technologies of tomorrow that will be necessary for our sustained competitive success, from A to Z; Artificial Intelligence to Zero-Trust environments. We believe this highly experienced team will allow us to remain nimble, engaged and, above all else, proactive in our efforts to be the most trusted security software leader in the market.”

At a time when cybersecurity and privacy are at the forefront of the tech industry, with the latter increasingly being considered a fundamental human right, Blackberry Labs could help the company regain lost ground.

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Creative Content Marketing and Link Building for eCommerce Websites Podcast

Show Agenda & Timestamps

03:55: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what is link building? And what is the best way that you see it for an e-commerce company to get started doing it?

08:26: Is this something that can really be done internally by a business owner or somebody that’s in charge of their marketing? Or can it be outsourced? Or what is your take as far as getting started with link building?

11:42: In order to have content out there that’s really appealing and attractive and in order for people to link to your content, what are some creative ways that you can suggest to do content marketing?

14:53: How does a company determine what’s a good site to get a link on? Is there a criteria that you typically follow and what is it?

18:31: Is there a rule of thumb when it comes to the amount of links that let’s say a business should strive to get let’s say on a monthly basis and how do you determine this?

Full Transcript:

ARLENE ROBINSON

Welcome back to the eCommerce Marketing Podcast everyone. I am your host, Arlene Robinson. And today we have a very special guest, Venchito Tampon, who’s the Co-Founder and Marketing Director at SharpRocket – an agency focused on quality Linkbuilding, Outreach and Strategy.

He specializes in Linkbuilding, Content Marketing, and Client Acquisition. He and his local team works with different clients of different sizes and types – small to medium brands, SEO Agencies, and Fortune 500 Companies in the US, Australia, UK, and Canada.

Welcome to the podcast, Venchito.

VENCHITO TAMPON

Thank you, Arlene, for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here and wanting to really give value to your listeners.

ARLENE

Okay, great. I appreciate it, and it’s good talking to you as well. I’m glad you’re on Linkbuilding. It’s kind of an area that I may not have delve too deep into before this podcast. So I’m really excited to talk to you about that as well as content marketing. We’ve had various takes on content marketing, but I know you’re gonna really bring some real value to the conversation as far as Linkbuilding and content marketing goals.

But before we can get into the subject of today, why don’t you tell us a little about your background? And specifically, how you got into what you’re doing today?

VENCHITO

Right, sure. I got into the online marketing industry in the year 2011. So, I became a content writer for a publishing company. So, I started from that and then been involved in the SEO industry. So, I was hired by John Cooper – one of the best Linkbuilding experts in the world. And so, he hired me to be his link prospector.

So, he got into the – all of the inaudible and the Linkbuilding – from link prospecting, outreach down to the content creation. And so, I learned about it and what I did is I started my own SEO blog. It was digitalphilippines.net. And so, from that simply just posting all of the learnings, it became inaudible you know clients in the first year.

And in 2015, I started my Linkbuilding agency with my partner Joseph, who now handles the operation side. And so, we are here in Manila, Philippines (where) we are based.  We are a team of eighteen (18) linkbuilders, including all of our virtual assistants and our content writers.

ARLENE

Okay, great. That’s awesome. Well, you definitely got into the field I would say really a good time as many of our listeners know SEO, as you can probably The field I would say it really a good time as many of our listeners know SEO, and as you can probably testify to the fact that SEO has changed quite a bit and it continually will change.

And a lot of it is really spearheaded by Google and the changes that they make in their algorithm changes. All of that is really totally spawned by Google. These days link building is really – there’s really a huge focus on link building more so than ever I think because not only the – is link building important, but I do believe content is also really a big, you know, it’s pretty much where it’s at, you know content building and Link building really kind of go hand and hand these days.

So, I think you’re really on point is to where you are in your career. Now for all of the listeners out there that aren’t really too familiar with the process, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what is link building? And what is the best way that you see it for an e-commerce company to get started doing it?

VENCHITO

Basically, link building is a – just a discipline in marketing wherein you are based on the term, you just actually getting or earning links from other relevant websites that will inaudible whatever site that is and not just drive traffic, but also generate some assisted conversions, helping those visitors actually know more about your brand and hopefully buy your products or services.

And so, when it comes to, you know the best methodology, so I think there are a lot but I’ll just give you some of the techniques that we’ve been using as an Agency for most of our e-commerce clients.

Number one (1) would be to actually start with connections and partnerships because if you are a – whether you’re a retailer, a manufacturer or you’re a supplier of products, you would always find our to buy pages.

So, let’s say for example, you are a retailer, you can just make an inventory of all the products that you sell online and just check manually each manufacturer of those products. So simply by reaching out to those owners or those manufacturers and if you can actually see pages that are dedicated to listing down retailers, then you can actually get a link simply by doing that kind of outreach.

And so, you start with connections. You start with all of the partnerships that you had whether it’s an offline or online thing. And another thing is that I’ve seen this with all of the eCommerce sites. There are a lot of blogs or websites that might or that have mentioned your products or brand name, but then giving you the actual length, so if you can actually track those mentions and say simply just sending them pitches and saying “Hey, we’ve noticed that you mention us on your blog da, da, da”, and then from that you can actually inaudible link. From that simple pitch, you can actually gain a lot of links in the first few months, if you haven’t done that.

And probably one of the underrated and even forgotten methodology is the forum marketing because in 2009, I think in 2011, it’s been you know, many marketers have spammed all of the forum sites, and I’m looking forum marketing from early generation perspective and I’m just trying to spam the threads with links waiting to the sites. But basically, giving value by answering questions in forums, if you look at that, it’s not just getting a link but actually driving potential customer to your website. And I think those methodologies – those approaches will really help you get started with the inaudible.

ARLENE

That’s some really great advice, you know from one, the first thing that you mentioned as far as building relationships that’s really kind of where it all starts as forming these relationships and you talked about what you can do is there may be a lot of companies out there that are referencing your brand or your company, but not giving you a link or maybe they’re linking to an old piece of content or something that maybe is – not where you want to direct people maybe it’s older landing page.

And so yeah, one thing you can definitely do is reach out to them for sure. Another thing that I mentioned to companies that I deal with and I’m actually in the process of posting a video on this because we put out a lot of SEO videos here at inaudible to help enlighten our customers and recently launched the channel actually called the e-commerce Brothers channel on YouTube and they’ll be putting out a video where it talks about a little bit about what you said as far as forming these relationships.

And one thing that you can do also is to really try to get some of the heavy hitters pointing to you people that have a higher authority is you can link to them and then don’t ask for anything and just start forming relationships that way just link out to them and various articles and then just let him know I linked to you this is a great piece of content. We really appreciate it. And that’s one way to kind of get your – your foot in the doors.

So yeah, it’s just something else wanted to add to that which I think is very useful and something that an e-commerce business can take advantage of right away. Now, I know the listeners that are out there can be a variety of businesses – a variety e-commerce businesses or people that are working for e-commerce businesses on the marketing side, and one question that I typically get with regards to any type of marketing is and specifically with link-building is, is this something that can really be done internally by a business owner or somebody that’s in charge of their marketing? Or can it be outsourced? Or what is your take as far as getting started with link building?

VENCHITO

I think it really depends on the industry. If you are in a very competitive space, you might want to not just do it internally as you get all of the processes were trying to you know, hire someone or linkbuilding agencies to do that for you because the thing is when you are doing it internally, it will really require you to set up processes because sooner or later when the demand for links is increasing it will require you to just hire more members and make sure that the prospecting, the content creation, and outreach are all set up.

So, you can do it internally, but just make sure you already have some setup process documents for you to scale the entire process or the entire campaign. And inaudible, of course, for example, you can just simply you know, hire a freelance writer to do the content for you, graphic designer to create the formats and make sure the page is visually appealing to its targeted visitors and so on and so forth.

And so, there are just certain areas in linkbuilding where you can just simply outsource but make sure if you’re doing it internally you have to set up processes. The thing with outsourcing is that and I always get this a lot because they’re bad companies, especially link building agencies will simply just you know, send you all of the live links they’ve acquired for your website. And but if you look at the quality of those things it’s doing more harm than good. So, if you are trying to outsource it, make sure you do some research – the quality of the links.

I really recommend e-commerce site owners to get some recommendations, and referrals is a good indicator to really check if the agency has high reputation inaudible but if it’s can perfect in really give you the quality links that you’re looking for.

ARLENE

That’s really good. I appreciate that answer and I think one of the key things that you mentioned and I think not only internally do you need to have your own process documents, but I think for even for the outsourcing, I think that’s really a key thing because I think a lot of times especially these days, see it’s a lot easier these days to get freelancers and get people to do stuff remotely, but you can’t just hire somebody and just expect them to run with stuff.

You have to have things documented well, otherwise, you know, it’ll be frustrating not only for the remote worker, but also for yourself as far as you know hand-holding that you may have to do if you don’t have your process documents in place, so that’s really the main key thing, I think, no matter what.

The process has to be in play for both sides of it. Now, switching gears a little bit because I know you’re really – really an expert also on content marketing. These days you do have to be creative because I think as you can probably agree on the internet is really diluted, I think you could say almost with just a ton of just content some of it a lot of it is really no good.

And so, in order to have content out there that’s really appealing and attractive and in order for people to link to your content, what are some creative ways that you can suggest to do content marketing?

VENCHITO

The key is that it’s not just making your, you know, infographics or visually appealing – all of those things, but really trying to identify your audience or when getting you should actually create content assets that will not just give you first or initial set of links, but can actually, in the long run, can actually help your site earn links even without doing outreach.

And so, one of the key ways is to actually create a content that’s targeted to a linkable audience. So, this term linkable audience is – was coined by Garrett French of Citations Lab.

So, basically linkable audiences are groups of people or creators of pages that have their own resource pages. So, for example for the recycling or the disposal page, it’s simply lists down all of the references and resources of that given topic. And so how you can actually approach your content marketing by targeting linkable audiences, simply for example, if you’re selling batteries, if you’re an e-commerce site that sells batteries you can actually either target inaudible or to create a content about battery recycling or if you are targeting teachers or parents, for example, you can create a guide or a research guide about battery 101 for the kids.

The thing here is that you’re increasing the chances of your content to gain so much to links. And in the long run if the page is able to rank for keywords, then it will be referenced by other publishers once they find it to Google search. And so those things I think creating a content asset for a targeted audience is one thing.

Another methodology that I think will really – is very effective nowadays is creating an asset about data or statistics because this type of asset is mostly you know, reference by publishers and content creation. Our content creation teams or content creators and so the opportunity to get an inaudible rating is very high.

And the last thing is to recreate broken pages or dead pages. So, what you can do is to actually reverse engineer your competitors and see what are the pages that already given them links that have been shut down by them that you can actually recreate.

So, these are the pages that are broken, but if you look at this using a link analysis tools, you’ll find out that the – these pages have gotten a lot of links. And so, when you create that content make an improved version of it, what you can do is reach out all of the blogs or sites linking to the original content and then from that process you can actually get a lot of links through that.

ARLENE

Great. As far as you mentioned, of course creating this content that’s really the heart of it creating content that you want people to link to and kind of flipping it, then once you’ve got that content created and like you said if it is solid content people we want to link to it, but then on the other side of it is you want to get a link out there on these other sites.

And so, how does a company determine what’s a good site to get a link on? Is there a criteria that you typically follow and what is it?

VENCHITO

I think the basic thing is number one, it should be the site or the blog should be relevant to yours. And I think even if it’s common sense already, I think there are a lot of SEOs and link builders even marketers who (are) still trying to get links from irrelevant sites. And the key is that it’s not – again, the quantity of links that you’re after or looking for, but you’re also trying to you know, make sure that the site or blog is relevant to your search. that’s the first factor.

And the second one, I would say it’s the type of links that you’re getting because this type of link is something that people can click on and so they will be able to jump to your website and probably either you know, follow you or get to know more about your brand and hopefully buy your product or service. So, the thing the type of link is very crucial if you’re actually executing link building campaigns.

In terms of metrics, I think it really depends. I think there are companies who are very keen into you know DA, Ahrefs DA or you know Moz, but I think one thing that’s not been discussed over and over is the SEM Rush organic traffic.

So, the thing is when you’re trying to get a link from a website or blog, you want to know if that site is getting is ranking for multiple keywords and it has had it happen is it will drive you consistently traffic over and over once you get a link from that.

So, I think traffic, conversions, relevance and if you can actually get a link from brand to brand, you know context, I think those things will really matter if you do you want to you know, make sure that you maximize that your efforts in linkbuilding.

ARLENE

Yeah, you’re totally right. The key thing I think is the fact that it number one thing you should look at is if the site is relevant because I think really kind of on the early days of the internet and before Google was just as sophisticated as it is now as, SEOs I think we’re in agencies were out there just trying to get as many links as possible on sites that weren’t even relevant and that may have worked 10-15 years ago something like that. But these days the Google algorithm is really advanced. So, you know, I think back in those days, it was probably at in its infancy right now. I think Google is probably at the genius level that’s already a cruise through her college.

And so, it’s a big difference right now. So, you do have to be smart about what it is that you’re doing and just the main thing I think to think about is – is this something that is going to is this link that I’m going to put on this site first if it was irrelevant and does it add value to the context of the actual content.

So, you want to make sure that – that is always the case and that it makes sense for the reader because you know, that’s ultimately what Google says and I think that’s what they really stand behind is ultimately they just want to make sure that things that are indexed give people a great experience a user – a great user experience.

And so, if you’re searching for some particular keyword, whatever is returned, their whole bottom line, is that really what the person was looking for and is a good experience once they get there. So, that’s the key thing there.

Now, we’ve talked a lot about the link building and I know that process and it’s just something that I know you’re doing on an ongoing basis for those businesses that are let’s say they just getting started with it. Is there a rule of thumb when it comes to the amount of links that let’s say a business should strive to get let’s say on a monthly basis and how do you determine this?

VENCHITO

The answer is again, it depends, because we have experiences with clients were in you know, one client will – would like to you know, build 20 or 30 links at the maximum level. Some just wanting to you know, 4 to 6 links, but there are things that I really recommend for especially inaudible your end. So, if for example you ensure a coupon space, there are a lot of sites there are a lot of sites are actually engaging in the link building. So, they’re trying to you know, get 50-60 even more links per month.

So, in that case you got to keep up with the pace of the – of the link acquisition they’re doing so that would probably be your mark in a sense. But not just about the quantity, but make sure you know, you’re trying to achieve a higher quality level in terms of links.

Next is the only thing at the vertical but also checking your competitors. So, you can use link analysis tools like, you know Ahrefs or even SEM Rush just to see what they’re getting. There’s one – there’s one term and that is the link velocity. Basically, link velocity is the speed – the number of referring domains a site gets every month or week, whether it’s organic inaudible to outreach. There’s no really good number for every site, you really have to do your own research.

Either looking at the vertical or either looking at the order of the competitors that you’re trying to you know, dominate over and so yeah from those things you can actually estimate the number of ranges, let’s say 10 to 20 links from one.

ARLENE

Okay, great. Yeah, that is a great advice there and I’d appreciate your honesty and that it’s really hard to tell, but yeah, I think every business or industry is going to be a little bit different and it does really depend on the particular vertical a year in and what your end goal is with its link building. And so, that totally makes sense.

Well then, Venchito, I really appreciate you coming on here today for this episode of the e-commerce marketing podcast. You’ve definitely been very insightful with regards to the link building on that you’re doing day in and day out as well as you know content marketing.

And at this point, I like to always close things out with just one other quick question that I kind of switch gears. It’s my closing fun fact, so we learn a little bit more about you. What is one fun fact that our audience would be surprised to know about you?

VENCHITO

Fun fact, I think I don’t know how to ride a bicycle or motorcycle.

ARLENE

Okay. Okay. That is an interesting fact. Okay, so you don’t – don’t know how to ride a bicycle. Well, I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle myself. So, I think I can join you on that one. But do know how to ride a bike ride a bicycle and you guessed it really is never too late to learn. So yeah, definitely something I encourage you to do. I do hope I can occasionally here in the Orlando Florida area where I live in yeah, it’s a great – great exercise and it’s good to get to get out on a bike.

VENCHITO

Yeah.

ARLENE

Okay, great. Venchito, well finally, if our listeners would like to pick your brains anymore regarding link building a content marketing, what is the best way for them to get in touch with you?

VENCHITO

Sure, they can visit my website at www.sharprocket.com.ph that is S-H-A-R-P-R-O-C-K-E-T.com.ph or you can send me an email at venchitotampon@gmail.com that is V-E-N-C-H-I-T-O-T-A-M-P-O-N@gmail.com. And send any questions if you really want to, you know learn about linkbuilding, (or) if you want to invite me to speak at your event or even in your podcast. But I want to make sure – I really want to make sure we’ll give you some more value to your listeners margins. Yeah, that’s it.

ARLENE

Okay, great, Venchito. We appreciate that and I know our listeners will take advantage of that and reach out to you as well. And once again, thank you for joining us today on the e-commerce marketing podcast.

VENCHITO

Sure, thanks for having me, Arlene.

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September 2019 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

The mission of Practical Ecommerce is to publish articles, seminars, and podcasts to help ecommerce merchants. What follows are the 10 most popular articles (based on page views) that we published in September 2019.

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What’s inside WordPress 5.3 Beta 1

It’s been a busy week for WordPress. WordPress 5.3 finally saw its first beta released and it is jam-packed with great features and improvements. In this edition of WordPress Watch, I’ll highlight some of those features. And of course, I have a few bonus links for you as well. Let’s see what this new WordPress version is all about!

WordPress 5.3 Beta 1

The first beta of WordPress 5.3 has been released. And, it holds a lot of changes. I’ve covered quite a few of them in my WordPress Watch posts here, but I want to give you a short overview of what you can expect.

Block Editor

The Block Editor, or Gutenberg editor, has seen a steady output of releases every other week for the last couple of months. WordPress 5.3 will include the current state of Gutenberg, version 6.5, into core. And that’s a huge update. Just to give you an idea of all the changes, here’s an overview of the most interesting ones:

  • Group block and grouping interactions
  • Gallery block improvements (reordering inline, caption support)
  • Accessibility Navigation Mode, which will allow you to navigate with the keyboard between blocks without going into their content.
  • Columns block improvements (width support + patterns)

But that’s not all. With the inclusion of Gutenberg 6.5, the block editor will also see a significant bump in speed. Since WordPress 5.2, the team working on the block editor managed to shave off 1.5 seconds of loading time for a particularly sizeable post – think in the range of more than 35 thousand words.

No more unwanted time-traveling with WordPress

As mentioned here before, Andrey Savchenko took it upon himself to fix WordPress’ erratic behavior concerning how date and time are stored. Andrey’s fix made it into WordPress 5.3, so that makes for a lot more stability and no more unwanted ‘time-traveling’ with WordPress! Andrey wrote up exactly what was changed and how that may impact you.

New Admin Email Verification Screen

WordPress 5.3 will also introduce a new admin email verification screen that will be shown every six months after an administrator has logged in. WP Tavern covered this new feature recently and if you’d like to know more about it, I encourage you to read it.

Even more improvements and new features

You might think that the features mentioned above, combined with the inclusion of the new default Twenty Twenty theme, are already enough to constitute a new major WordPress release. And perhaps you’re right, but there’s more. A lot more actually. You can check out all the new features and improvements in the announcement post for WordPress 5.3 Beta 1.

Twenty Twenty

With the first beta of WordPress, we also got our hands on the new default theme Twenty Twenty. Justin Tadlock over at the WP Tavern wrote extensively about what it looks like and how it works, so do check it out if you’re curious what it will look like. I do have to say, Twenty Twenty is the first default theme in a very long time that has me excited about a default theme.

Bonus links

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How to Augment Site Search Data in Google Analytics

To put it simply, site search lets you see what users are searching for on your site. You can analyze exactly who’s searching, what terms they’re searching for, and compare engagement for those that use this feature versus those that don’t.…

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A Detailed Introduction to the Best WordPress eCommerce Plugins (2019)

The internet is the perfect vehicle for connecting hungry buyers with passionate sellers. If you can find (or create) the right products, you can make a good living by selling them online — in all kinds of niches. With impressively low start-up costs, eCommerce is one of the most accessible business models for would-be entrepreneurs.... View Article

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How to Create Compelling Text Ads on Google (with Examples)

Although video ad campaigns are extremely popular these days, particularly on Facebook and YouTube (although they're on pretty much all social platforms), you shouldn't discount the efficacy of text ads. They are very easy to produce, are one of the least expensive forms of digital ads, and are even easier to consume than video.

But writing effective PPC ads requires a good understanding of the Google Ads network and some creativity. In this article, I will discuss the specifics of a successful text ad and provide plenty of examples from various brands.

<b>Click here to download it for free right now!</b>

What Is a Text Ad?

In the words of Google:

A text ad is a form of marketing communication that advertisers can use to promote their product or service on the Google Network.

If you want to advertise your business on the Google Network – “all the places where your ads can appear, including Google sites, websites that partner with [them], and other placements like mobile phone apps” you can create text ads to run on the Search Network as well as the Display Network (explained in the below sections).

The major components of a text ad include:

  • A Headline: You can have 3 headlines in your ad of up to 30 characters each. Headlines are the first thing that people notice in your ad.
  • Display URL: This consists of your website address and an optional path field where you can give a name to your landing page URL in order to make it easier for your customers to understand what the page is about.
  • Ad Description: You can add all the details that related to your service or offer in the description field. It is recommended that you include your CTA in this field.

This table displays the length limits of all the fields used in text ads:

Fields-in-text-ads-1

*Path (2) in the table above mentions the length limit of the display URL. For example, if the display URL is https://ift.tt/2owSVgf then “kids-shirts” is the path 2. You can create a display URL of your choice.

Dive Deeper:

Search Network vs. Display Network

The Google Network is divided into groups to give you more control over where you'd like your ad to appear:

  • Search Network: Google search results pages, other Google sites like Maps and Shopping, and search sites that partner with Google to show ads.
  • Display Network: Google sites like YouTube, Blogger and Gmail, plus thousands of partnering websites across the Internet.

Google Network

Source

When Should You Opt for the Search Network?

Advertising on the Search Network means that your ads can appear on Google's SERPs as well as hundreds of non-Google websites that have partnered with Google to display search ads on their platform. Keep in mind that websites that wish to become a partner must apply first and receive a manual review to ensure that they are a good fit, so not just any ol' site can be a partner.

Choose the Search Network when you are looking to increase your sales because this option allows you to target customers who are proactively looking for services related to yours.

When Should You Opt for the Display Network?

Advertising on the Display Network means that your ads can appear on more than 2 million websites, videos and apps. The Display Network also allows you to target customers on a particular location or with particular buying habits.

Choose the Display Network when you are looking to increase traffic/branding to your website or when you are targeting keywords that have less searches. The Display Network will display your ad on web pages that have content related to your services, but the customers might not be proactively looking for those services.

Note: you can keep your Ad Quality Score the “estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords and landing pages. Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions.” – at (near) perfect levels by having tightly themed ad groups, creating keyword-specific landing pages and increasing your CTR.

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Best Practices for Creating Successful Text Ads on Google

1) Create Compelling and Genuine Ad Copy

Your ad copy must be able to bring customers to your business in a 100% genuine manner.

Many people make the mistake of preparing fake ad copy containing information that does not match the information on the landing page. This practice should be stopped immediately.

Here are some tips to prepare compelling and genuine ad copy:

  • Be as specific as possible and use the exact phrases in your ad copy that users might search for. For example, if the user queries “Adidas Yeezy 350 shoes for men” then you should use those exact words in your ad copy instead of just the more general “Adidas shoes for men”.
  • Your ad copy consists of a headline, display URL and ad description, so use your main keyword in all three places.
  • Always include a clear, action-oriented CTA and use psychology to compel users to try your products or services.

Dive Deeper:

2) Write Catchy Headlines that Work Across all Devices

The headline is the most important element of a PPC ad because that's the first – and, often, only – thing a person sees. Catchy, problem-solving, trustworthy and unique headlines have the power to increase CTRs and conversions.

Follow these suggestions to prepare awesome headlines for your PPC text ads:

  • Keep the headline simple and use the formula “Keyword + USP”. Use your main money keyword right at the beginning of the headline and follow it up with your USP (unique selling point).
  • Create separate ads for targeting different locations and keep the headlines super local. Mention the city and locality of your target area in the ads. For example, if you have a bakery shop in Dothan, Alabama then mention Dothan in your ads and run the ads for people searching for a bakery in Dothan.
  • Include numbers in the headline. In a test performed by WordStream, it was found that a numbered headline helps improve CTRs by 217%:

image11 1

  • Make sure your headline is easy to read on all devices.
  • Try to include your brand name in the headline because that will help improve your brand value. If people can remember your business name, they're more likely to recommend you to others.
  • You can even use a clickbait-type headline to compel users to click on your ads – but only if it's genuine (do not fool users into clicking on a headline when the landing page copy does not match!). This type of headline should be used to promote your content and not services.

image4 4

  • Create a unique, new offer that hasn't been seen before. Do not copy the headlines of your competitors, though you can (and should) study them and then create a better one.

Dive Deeper:

3) Leverage the Power of Ad Extensions

Ad Extensions allow you to add some extra information about your business that is relevant for users. Using a combination of extensions helps improve the performance of your ads.

The following are the 9 types of extensions that you can use in your text ads:

A) Sitelink Extensions

This type of extension allows you to take people to other pages on your site. Sitelinks might appear at the top or bottom of Google search results:

image2 4

For a full tutorial on how to create a sitelink, please visit this Google Ads tutorial.

B) Location Extensions

The location extension allows you to include your business address in the ad so that people can easily find it without having to do a separate search. An example of an Ads location extension is provided below in which a link to their Google My Business listing is included in the ad:

image7 3

You can even add the address of your affiliate stores in your ad if they sell your products. This type of extension is known as affiliate location extension and is particularly useful for sellers who do not have a physical store address of their own but sell their products via a chain of affiliates. An example of affiliate location extension is shown below:

image23

Dive Deeper: The Complete Guide to Google My Business

C) Structured Snippet Extensions

You can highlight specific aspects of your products or services by using structured snippet extensions, which are automatically shown by Google, depending on the keyword:

image22

You can show a header and provide values for it. For example, in the ad above, the header “Types” has some values in it – performance opportunities, music festival, master classes – for easier understanding of the ad.

The available headers are:

  • Amenities
  • Brands
  • Courses
  • Degree Programs
  • Destinations
  • Featured Hotels
  • Insurance Coverage
  • Models
  • Neighborhoods
  • Service Catalog
  • Shows
  • Styles
  • Types

You should include as many values as possible per header because this will increase your CTR and chances of conversion.

D) Call Extensions

Call extensions make it easier for people to call you directly from your ad, so include your business phone number and get the phone ringing. And don't worry – people clicking on your phone number are counted as a click by Google. You can even specify your business hours so that people know when to call you:

image21

Dive Deeper: How to Set Up Inbound Call Tracking in Google Ads

E) Message Extensions

Similar to call extensions, message extensions allow customers to send you direct messages after clicking on your ads. Messages are a simpler and more convenient way for people interested in your store to reach you. Hence, adding a message extension to your ad works wonders.

These ads are shown to people who are browsing the web via mobile device, so you can accompany your ads with a note like “text us to receive a quote” or “chat with us to know more”.

image8 2

F) App Extensions

These ads are shown to people browsing via mobile devices, and this extension allows them to link their mobile app to your text ads. The primary goal of such ads is to increase the number of downloads for your app.

Moreover, people browsing using Android devices will automatically see the Google Play link while those who see your ad on their iOS devices will see the Apple Store link of your app:

image16

G) Callout Extensions

The callout extension allows you to highlight incredible offers right in your ad. For example, if you offer free shipping and have over 50+ varieties in your stock, then you can use a call extension to highlight that offer in your text ads. These extensions are extremely useful for showcasing the USPs of your business:

image15

H) Price Extensions

These extensions allow you to add extra snippets of information related to pricing in your ads. People are more interested in services or products within a specified budget, so if you can highlight prices directly in your ads, this encourages highly relevant clicks, which lead to more conversions.:Price-Extension-GIF

I) Promotion Extensions

Promotion extensions are different from callout extensions in the sense that you can display a deal in your ad that is valid for a specific period of time. For example, if you are offering a 50% flat discount that is valid for the next two days, then you can use a promotion extension to highlight that deal:

image20

Dive Deeper:

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4) Test Your Ads for Success

The best PPC professionals in the industry always A/B test their ad creatives, especially the title, in order to improve CTR and conversions.

Here are some ways to optimally test your ads for success:

  • You can create campaign drafts to run a predefined experiment by applying changes to your campaign. If the results are positive, you can apply the changes to your original campaign. Campaign drafts let you make changes to your campaign and run the changes for a specified period of time. If you are not happy with the campaign draft results, your original campaign will run:

image19

  • You can create and test ad variations such as changing the CTA from “call now” to  “book now” or swapping title 2 with title 1. Google allows you to test ad variations and you can even compare the performance of the ad variants with the original ad. Once you are sure that the variant is performing better, you can apply the modified ads to your campaign:

image12

  • You can choose an ad rotation setting in your Google Ads dashboard, such as “Optimize” or “Rotate Indefinitely”. When you choose to “Optimize”, ads with a higher CTR are preferred. When you choose “Rotate Indefinitely”, all your ads rotate continuously.

The first option should be chosen when you have appropriate data that some of your ads are performing better than the rest of them. When you are unsure whether you have a clear winner among your ads, you should choose the second option:

image24

Dive Deeper:

Google Text Ads Best Practices

No matter whether you are new to Google Ads or a seasoned PPC expert, there are certain best practices that everyone needs to follow. Here are some of the Google Ads best practices for marketers:

1) Keep an Eye on the Ads of Your Closest Competitors

Compare the ad copy of your closest competitors. Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) is recommended because that will allow you to see ads specifically for the area you are targeting. Here are the best VPN services that you can trust.

You can select the location and search Google with specific keywords to see your competitors' ads. You can even SEMrush's Ad Copies Report to see the ad copy of the headlines, CTAs, keywords and landing pages of your competitors:

image17

2) Get a Seller Rating Extension for Your Ad

Try to get a seller rating extension for your ad. This will allow you to display your business rating right in your ads, thereby increasing trust and confidence among potential buyers.

The seller rating will show the average rating for a business, the number of ratings a business has received and a qualifier (if available) that shows why you got the rating. Here's an example of a seller rating:

image1 3

Google automatically displays the seller rating extension by collecting about 100 reviews for the business via third-party review sites.

Hence, you need to ensure that your business is reviewed and rated highly across an array of third-party review sites in order to let Google automatically display this extension. Needless to say, displaying excellent reviews for your business will allow you to get higher CTRs and conversions on your text ads.

<b>Click here to download it for free right now!</b>

3) Always Define Your Target Location Correctly

You must define your target country and areas within that country where you want to promote your business. If you do not choose this setting correctly then you will end up running ads on locations that makes no sense and all your budget will be drained in days or even hours (if you don’t have a daily budget set on your account).

image14 1

4) Add Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are phrases or words for which you do not want your ads to show up. For example, if you are a bakery shop owner looking to sell cakes, then you should display your ads for commercial intent queries only, like “Buy chocolate cake” or “order cakes online” and not for keywords like “how to prepare chocolate cake” or “chocolate cake mix”.

You can add negative keywords in your Google Ads account to prevent Google from displaying them. This will ensure that your ads show up only for relevant matches, leading to increased conversions.

image13

5) Improve Your Ad Quality Score

Quality score is a metric that decides the positioning of your ads and the prices that your business will pay to get more clicks. A higher ad quality score leads to lower costs and higher ad positioning.

Quality score is rated from 1-10 and this metric is dependent on factors like CTR, landing page experience, ad relevance, past history, etc.

You can get a perfect ad quality score if you know the right tactics. One of the best ways to improve your Google Ads quality score is to match the intent of the searcher when preparing your landing page and provide a smooth buying experience.

image18

Source

Taking the bakery example above, if you are running ads for commercial intent keywords related to chocolate cake, then you should create separate ad groups for varieties of chocolate cakes and create different ads for those ad groups.

For example, the keyword “Buy Mud Chocolate Cake” should have a different ad and a different landing page that takes the searcher to the mud chocolate page instead of the regular chocolate cake page. This will ensure that you are running ads that are super relevant, which, of course, leads to higher CTRs and a superb landing page experience.

Dive Deeper: How to Understand Searcher Intent and Use It to Boost SEO Rankings

6) Don’t Forget Ad Extensions and A/B Testing

You must always make the best use of ad extensions and never forget to run A/B tests for your ads. Choosing the right ad extensions will always increase the chances of clicks, which lead to higher CTRs, higher Ad Quality Scores and lower cost of conversions.

If you regularly run A/B tests, it will help you determine your best-performing ad combinations, again leading to higher CTRs and lower conversion costs.

Dive Deeper: 

Examples of Businesses that Are Running Excellent Text Ads Optimized for Users

Here are some examples of businesses who have mastered the art of preparing the best text ads:

1) Adventure Media Group

Adventure Media is a PPC/Adwords management company, which is a Google Premium partner for Google Ads. The company boasts the number of clients they've served so far right in the ad headline. Here is an example of the ad when searched for with the keyword “best PPC agency NYC”:

image3 1

Why the Ad Is Special

This ad forces the user to think twice before ignoring the ad because of the social proof of displaying their client numbers in a click-bait-type headline: 450+ clients can’t be wrong. This immediately builds trust because we humans are always more comfortable doing things that many other people have already done. Hence if 450 people have already used their services, we can confidently assume that the company is good.

2) SEMrush

SEMrush is one of the best SEO tools out there and they know how to market themselves well. Have a look at one of their ads:

image5 1

Why the Ad Is Special

The ad answers one of the biggest questions in the SEO community: “Will I save time by using this tool?” We all know that SEO is a time-consuming task and you need tools to speed up the work. Hence, SEMrush displays this as a question right in the headline of the ad: Want to Save Time on SEO?

Any SEOer searching on Google for a tool is desperately looking for one that can save time and therefore they are more inclined to click on an ad that immediately solves their pain point. In addition, the ad makes good use of sitelinks and the price extension.

3) Floweraura

Floweraura is an online gift shop that sells cakes, flowers, plants and personalized gift combos. They create some of the best text ads which truly compel users to buy their products. Here is an example of a text ad that is displayed when searched for with the keyword “cake online”:

image6 1

Why the Ad Is Special

This ad informs potential buyers of their USP right in the headline – that their cakes are fresh and the delivery will be within just 3 hours. The ad uses a combination of extensions, such as the call out extension and the price extension, which provides more information right in the ad without the need for viewers to visit the website, resulting in – you guessed it – higher CTRs and conversions.

Related Content – Best Ads:

4) Progressive Car Insurance

Progressive is one of the top insurance companies that offers both property and vehicle insurance. For an insurance company, the need to develop their brand is super important. Progressive creates ads that focus on improving their brand value and solves the customer's problem at the same time. Here is a screenshot of the text ad when searched for with the keyword “online car insurance”:

image9

Why the Ad Is Special

This ad focuses on improving the brand value of the business and helping the customer to solve their pain points. A person looking for a car insurance quote online is always looking to save money, and that's why Progressive smartly highlights their USP of helping people save up to $699 on average every year when they opt for car insurance from Progressive.

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Final Thoughts

Creating the best Google ads lies in your creativity and presentation skills. A keen knowledge of the latest Google Ads rules and the vast ad extensions are also required to make your ad offer the best ROI. Remember, text ads are all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right moment, so your ads should look less keyword stuffed and more user friendly.

The post How to Create Compelling Text Ads on Google (with Examples) appeared first on Single Grain.



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Instagram’s launch notifier alerts you the moment a product drops

Instagram head Adam Mosseri speaks at Samsung Unpacked at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California
Instagram now notifies users who opt in about upcoming product launches. The new feature is launching in beta with select brands.Read More

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13 Prototyping Tools to Create Web and Mobile Apps

Prototyping tools can help create a website or app with little cost and relative ease — from a rough design idea to a finished product.
Here is a list of prototyping ...

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From SEO to CMO: Self driving technology and the path to C-Suite

There is an incredibly exciting trend happening in the SEO community where more and more marketers are taking on more responsibility across multiple facets of digital marketing.

As digital marketing develops more nuanced and targeted execution, marketers see ways to diversify their skillsets and impacts on their organizations.

For search marketers, there has never been a better time to take advantage. According to BrightEdge data from CEO Jim Yu, more SEOs are taking on broader roles and having a bigger impact  – with 51 percent of customers expanding the role of SEO across all digital marketing and 23% become CMOs in recent years.

Last week at Share19, hundreds of digital marketers, SEOs, and content strategists gathered to collaborate towards a common goal – to driving growth and revenue to their businesses and progress their SEO and digital marketing careers. Attendees learned new and advanced techniques for keyword research, learned about the career journeys of chief marketing officers at Fortune 500 brands and were the first to hear the big news that BrightEdge is releasing technology that literally puts SEO on autopilot.

Self-driving SEO: Impossible or possible?

As marketers, we all get frustrated with lack of resources — not having enough time and people to have the impact we want. No doubt, right now you are competing for resources and fighting with barriers to communication with your web dev team, your IT team, and your paid search team. Doing the same thing day in and day out can get mundane – especially for those with a bias towards the creative.

Last year alone Google did 3,234 launches, 595,429 search quality tests, 44,155 side-by-side experiments, and 15,096 live traffic experiments. Simply, keeping up to date with change is a task unto itself. Add to that day-to-day content issues, broken links, algorithmic changes, and mobile issues, and you can see why sometimes progress is elusive.

What if it were possible for some parts of your SEO to run on autopilot? Just imagine if all those repetitive yet necessary tasks that are integral to SEO could be running in the background, freeing you up to focus on higher-impact initiatives?

With an average of  53.5% of website traffic coming from organic search, it is clear that there is a huge opportunity for marketers to automate and optimize their most important marketing channels with speed, precision, and scale.

Last week BrightEdge Autopilot was announced to tackle just that and automate SEO tasks so that they don’t require a human touch. Made possible through a series of technology investments and the recent acquisition of mobile technology developed by Trilibis, marketers can now auto-optimize mobile and fully automate the most critical and time-consuming of SEO tasks.

Within six months of deployment, over 1,000 brands are now using BrightEdge Autopilot to power Self-driving SEO.

Intelligent automation: Performance and scale

So, automation takes our jobs away right? This is a comment and objection we hear not just in this space but across the industry. Sure, if you are happy doing the same things day in and day out and have no desire to get the best results for you and your customer then fine, automation may not be for you.

For those who see the opportunity to spend more time on higher-level work, automation is here to help marketers do more with less and execute more quickly. Routine SEO and content tasks can be implemented with little effort, allowing you to focus on high-impact activities and accomplish more personal and professional objectives. In order to progress in a predominantly technically oriented space, you have to embrace technology.

Automated grammar and spelling checks may have eliminated a few proofreading jobs, but it improved the accuracy and quality of documents and allowed writers to invest more time in the research and articulation of their ideas. Assisted driving automation helps keep you safer on the roads and likewise, automated SEO keeps your site and content safer for Google and makes it more easily discoverable by your audience.

According to Yu, BrightEdge Autopilot technology is already delivering on automation performance promises with:

  • 60% increase in page views per visits​
  • 21% more keywords on page one rankings​
  • 2x increase in conversions​
  • PPC channel impact – 28% improvement in the “Ad Quality Score”​

Campbell’s Global SEO Manager, Amanda Ciktor was able to share the impact of automation with BrightEdge Autopilot showcasing a 204% traffic lift year-over-year.

With one day of implementation work Amanda and her team were able to compress 75,000 images and within a few weeks saw:

  • Move 4,000 keywords to page one
  • Improve faster mobile page load speed for 35% of pages
  • Improve overall load time by five seconds

In fact, brands across numerous industry verticals have seen dramatic performance improvement with up to 65%.

SEO and the CMO

According to Gartner’s CMO survey, SEO is one of the four digital workhorses that account for 25% of marketing investments. And, by 2023 autonomous marketing systems will issue 55% of multichannel marketing messages based on marketer criteria and real-time consumer behavior, resulting in a predicted 25% increase in response rates.

SEO, Automation, and the CMO were three themes that stood out at the launch of BrightEdge Autopilot at Share19 last week. The finale of the event was a roundtable discussion featuring marketing luminaries, including Kelly Hopping, Chief Marketing Officer for Gartner Digital Markets, Lauren Fyrefield, Chief Marketing Officer for WorldStrides and Armin Molavi, Vice President of Global Media Strategy of Hilton Brands.

As the CMO role becomes more results-focused and data-driven, we have seen a change in the skillset and perspective from one that is more brand and positioning-oriented to one that is more technical and technology stack-oriented. This draws on the natural skills SEOs use in generating profitable organic traffic. The problem for SEOs is that they can get buried in tactical execution. Automation allows them to free up time for planning, strategy, and relationship building that will help elevate their visibility and consideration for advancement.

From listening to everyone on the panel it was clear that was a linear progression path to the CMO position developing. A commitment to

1. Embracing technology innovation

2. Drives growth and revenue

3. Fuels digital career growth

As one CMO panelist put it “we are constantly looking at ways to get smarter, automate and scale. We manage everything in-house so if we are not automating, getting smarter then we can’t scale.”

Automation is definitely helping marketers, and especially those who want to unleash more creativity and, who knows, become the next CMO or CDO.

The underlying theme is to pursue opportunities and leverage technology to help you do that.

Andy Betts is a chief marketer, consultant, and digital hybrid with more than 20 years of experience in digital, technology and marketing working across London, Europe, New York, and San Francisco. He can be found on twitter @andybetts1.

The post From SEO to CMO: Self driving technology and the path to C-Suite appeared first on Search Engine Watch.



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Get More Traffic From Instagram With This Easy Content Plan

How do you get traffic from Instagram, which seems designed to keep users inside the platform forever? Follow the VALUE framework. And do it with your existing blog content. Here’s how to make the translation and grow your followers. Continue reading

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Sunday 29 September 2019

SEO Critique of 3 Ecommerce Blogs

Quality blog content can drive organic search traffic. Ecommerce marketers who reject blogging — or give up after a couple of months — miss out. In this post, I'll critique three ecommerce blogs for their SEO benefits.

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Saturday 28 September 2019

Netflix Really Understands What’s Going On In Media Right Now

“People like to say everything is a Netflix killer,” says REDEF CEO Jason Hirschhorn. “Netflix is the market leader and they’re the one to beat. I think the only difference is the hunter has become the hunted. Netflix really understands what’s going on in media right now. They foresaw that content would be pulled and that’s why they upped the number of originals they were doing. They have forgotten more about product and technology than these new services have built.”

Jason  Hirschhorn, CEO of REDEF, discusses on CNBC how Netflix is the one to beat in the streaming wars because they really understand what’s going on:

Netflix Really Understands What’s Going On In Media Right Now

People like to say everything is a Netflix killer. Netflix is the market leader and they’re the one to beat. I think the only difference is the hunter has become the hunted. Netflix really understands what’s going on in media right now. They foresaw that content would be pulled and that’s why they upped the number of originals they were doing. They have forgotten more about product and technology than these new services have built. The ATT’s of the world at Warner or some of these other companies, even Apple, have not done direct-to-consumer services before. I just think they have a leg up. 

I’d also say that there’s not a lot of talk about international. The amount of minutes that are lost in US television is not satiated by the amount of content that’s available today. Netflix still has a lot of growth in the US. But in addition to that, in Europe, they’re still only 5 percent of viewing. There’s a lot of upside there. I don’t think that’s priced into the stock. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has recently said that they’re going to up production and the amount of stuff that’s coming up in the UK. Catalog for these services breed engagement but it’s really the number of originals that get new subscribers. 

The Key Is the Velocity At Which Netflix Releases Stuff

We’re happy (as consumers) because let them kill each other and we get all this great programming. It is an arms race. Right now, specifically in the US, Netflix and Amazon Prime are really the bedrock of the home. On average, a cable home may have three services. Going forward though, depending on economic strata and the way the economy works out and frankly tastes, many homes will have four, five, six, and seven services. These businesses will also have a role. If you look at what Stars has done globally under the CEO of Jeff Hirsch, he’s built a really good OTT business and it’s a niche business. 

What they understand differently than some of the other new services and I think have to learn is the velocity at which Netflix releases stuff. You have it in your mind that I don’t want to let go of Netflix because during Christmas and in other places they’re just dumping a tremendous amount of things out there. Tonight I’m going to the premiere of the Irishman. That is a Netflix movie directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro and Pacino. They’re making moves in film. Media is is cyclical. I still think that they need to make moves against the movie theaters. What you’re seeing with Apple’s announcement today that they’re releasing movies in theaters is really about appeasing artists who still want that big-screen debut. 

You Have To Think Of Netflix As a Bundle Like Spectrum

Netflix has overpaid for things because they were playing a different game. They were going for a land grab, not for shows and not for networks, but for the entire video space. Just look at what happened. They were the first service that has 150 million subs worldwide. Ultimately, when they got to 50 million they have pricing power. Often when you’re building a show and you go to a production company and Netflix says we love what you have, they’ll say cost plus 15 or 20 percent. So it’s been capped for the creators. But there’s going to be a lot of people working in the media business in the next couple years as this arms race continues.

Disney and Apple services are different. Disney is super-serving specific genres and people. Netflix is video. They are building big shows like Stranger Things but also smaller shows that address smaller audiences. You have to think of Netflix (in cable terms) as a bundle like Spectrum. if you have to use the example of cable they are spectacularly is a bundle yeah it’s a bundle. It doesn’t have channels on it, they’re genres.

Netflix Really Understands What’s Going On In Media Right Now – Redef CEO Jason Hirschhorn

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