Bluefin Strategy heading to MozCon 2017 in Seattle

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On July 17 through July 19th, Bluefin Strategy will be attending MozCon 2017 in Seattle.   We’re excited to get to see some talented speakers, meet with fellow marketers, meet face to face with clients (both current and potential) and most importantly, take in a bit of charming Seattle.

If you’ll be attending MozCon, let us know as we’d love to buy you a coffee (Seattle joke) and talk shop.  More importantly, we’ll be doing an exciting giveaway just for MozCon so track us down if you’re in attendance or follow us on Twitter (@bluefinstrategy) or #mozcon to find out the details between July 16th through July 19th.

Bluefin is attending MozCon 2017 in Seattle Washington

 

Choose a Path & Move Forward

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There are probably more Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising companies out there than there are fast food joints. It makes sense because search marketing is a highly competitive and sought after medium. Add in email and display vendors and you’ve got quite the group. The problem we often see is that with so many cooks int he kitchen the recipe never turns into a finished cake. The reason, lack of a cohesive strategy. One vendor says ‘do this’ and another vendor says ‘do that’. Marketing teams often let vendors decide the direction, because after all they are the ‘experts’. Bonus reason, you can always blame the vendor! But in this environment digital strategy efforts fall short because of conflicting or muddled visions.

Build Your Own Strategy & Path

Don’t allow the vendors to dictate what your vision should be! Come to a new vendor with you 1) Your Goals 2) Your Targets and 3) Your Messaging to allow them to be more effective. Let them build off of that vision and devise a tactical plan that drives it forward. Need help with 1, 2 or 3? This is where Bluefin Strategy comes in so give us a shout.

Take the Path Towards Goals

At the outset of any engagement with a new vendor make sure the focus is on your goals. Let them know that they will be graded on whether the traffic they drive achieves the goals and don’t let them tell you otherwise. Many vendors will him and haw about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and give you excuses as to why they might not be met. It’s your advertising dollars, it’s your vision, they are there to implement it.

You have the power to select your path. Choose wisely and push forward to digital strategy optimization!

3 Free High Quality Stock Video Sites We Love

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Using online video has become the rage over the last few years whether you’re looking to add some excitement to your homepage, social or search campaigns.

Yet, one of the biggest hurdles in creating video content compared to image and text content is the heavy-lifting required to either create or purchase high-quality video content.

Mazwai

Website: http://mazwai.com

Pros: Mazwai offers a long list of short-duration high-definition stock videos ranging from aerial landscape to city life which are organized in a stunning and modern layout.  The majority of videos Mazwai offers have a modern and non-typical cinematography compared to other more typical, corporate stock video catalogs.

Cons: Currently, Mazwai lacks a search component making it difficult to find videos by keyword.

Pexels Videos

Website: https://videos.pexels.com

Pros: A large catalog of high quality stock video that hits on nearly every keyword and theme possible.

Cons: Their search results intermingle paid Shutterstock videos and can be confusing when trying to find free stock videos using their search.

Coverr

Website: http://www.coverr.co/

Pros: These videos are specifically designed to act as background videos for your homepage or landing page and while they can be used for other purposes, Coverr is a great resource if you’re looking for a high quality background video.

Cons: With new videos every week, it can be a bit difficult to find specific video themes due to a lack of search function.

What are you favorite free stock video sites?

As more marketers begin to rely on video for their content while struggling to increase their content budgets, there seems to be wave of free stock video sites trying to fill that gap.

What are some of your favorite stock video sites or resources?  Do you rely more on in-house video creation or have you found a better way to make quick video content on the fly?

 

Google Adwords adds historic quality score reporting

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As anyone fluent in Google AdWords knows, Quality Score is the great and powerful Wizard behind the curtain.

Google AdWords has added seven new Quality Score related data columns for reporting, including:

  • Expected CTR
  • Ad Relevance
  • Landing Page Experience
  • Quality Score (Historic)
  • Landing Page Experience (Historic)
  • Ad Relevance (Historic)
  • Expected Click Through Rate (Historic)
google adwords historical quality score menu

7 new options for Quality Score now available in  AdWords

Until this week, there were a number of ways to ascertain if a change to keywords, ads or a landing page impacted your Quality Score directly. However, these were 3rd party workarounds and prone to error.

How does this help my AdWords campaigns?

As stated by Google in their official announcement, this data allows marketers to understand how changes to ad relevance, landing page experience and keyword optimization directly impacts Quality Score.

Being able to tie account changes directly to changes in Quality Score will allow a great efficiency in split testing and vastly increase data-supported best practices across the board.

While historical data for Quality Score will only be available from January 22nd, 2016 forward, this gives marketers a chance to begin to tie specific optimization efforts to AdWords Quality Score and understand at a deeper level what elements (ad relevance, landing page experience, etc) of Quality Score are holding back select keywords.

Until now, trial and error had been the main tactic in improving Quality Score and while the relationship between keywords, ad relevance and landing page experience isn’t a new theory, the ability to view historic impact from these optimizations has been a gaping hole in the process.

You can learn more about this update below:

Google’s official announcement on improved Quality Score reporting

Let us know how you’ve improved your AdWords campaigns based on this new update in the comments below.