Marketing today is often fragmented, AI-fueled, and increasingly privacy-restricted. GA4 still feels like a puzzle. Cookies are fading like the Thin Mints I just bought from the Girl Scouts. Journeys span platforms, devices, and timelines in ways no dashboard can fully capture. And while executives still want clean charts and tidy ROI breakdowns, most marketers are stuck cobbling together partial data and calling it insight.

So let’s just say it: attribution, as we’ve known it, is broken.

But here’s the good news: smart marketing teams have stopped chasing perfect attribution. Instead, they’re building smarter systems that create confident decisions without needing perfect visibility.

Here’s how they’re doing it, and what you should be doing, too.

1. Stop Chasing Precision. Start Building Decision Confidence.

Old-school marketing attribution models (first touch, last touch, linear, position-based) were designed for a world where we believed we could track everything. But customers don’t move that way. And trying to reduce complex, multi-channel journeys into a neat pie chart? That’s not analysis, it’s a control fantasy.

The most innovative teams have shifted their mindset. They’re not asking “Which channel gets the credit?” They’re asking “What inputs consistently correlate with outcomes, even if I can’t prove causation?”

They’re making confident decisions based on directional signals, not obsessing over retroactive accounting.

2. In Paid Media, Lift Beats Attribution

Let’s talk about the part everyone secretly cares about: paid ads.

For a long time, we relied on pixel tracking to tell us what worked. Facebook says this ad drove 42 conversions. Google says their ad drove 58. But what happens when those platforms stop sharing data? Or take credit for the same lead? Or when your actual backend numbers tell a different story? In 2025, performance marketers are shifting from attribution to lift.

Instead of obsessing over what platform says it drove the conversion, they’re asking:

• What happens when we run this campaign vs. when we don’t?
• Did branded search, direct traffic, or conversion rates go up during the run?
• Are we seeing meaningful downstream activity (like pipeline or revenue), even if attribution is murky?

Some are even returning to good old-fashioned geographic testing to turn spend off in one market and measure real-world impact in another. It’s not shiny, but it works.

3. Design for Measurability, Not Just Visibility

You don’t need to track everything. You just need to track what matters. The smartest marketers aren’t trying to retroactively piece together attribution. They’re designing campaigns and customer journeys that are measurable by design.

That means:

• Clear, gated content offers tied to specific stages
• UTM hygiene that actually makes sense
• Conversion events that map to business goals, not vanity metrics
• Sales systems that connect to marketing systems (no more “we don’t know where this came from”)

It’s about intentional structure. Marketing attribution is easier when the system is built to support it from the start. The takeaway? Treat attribution data from ad platforms as directional, not definitive. And focus on measuring lift, not just clicks.

4. Embrace the Gray: Dark Social, Brand Halo, and Untrackable Influence

Not everything that moves the needle shows up in your analytics platform. Believe me, we wish it did. Someone sees a LinkedIn post, then talks to a colleague in Slack. Weeks later, they Google your brand, click an ad, and fill out a demo form. You’re only going to see the last two activities. The ad gets the credit. But was it the real driver?

Influence is everywhere and often untraceable. Rather than pretending this doesn’t exist, smart marketers are building systems that account for it:

• Monitoring branded search and direct traffic as proxies for brand awareness
• Watching for halo effects around major campaigns (even if they’re not directly attributed)
• Asking customers directly how they heard about you and actually logging the answer
• Tracking time-to-close or deal velocity to spot patterns even when source is unclear

In a world of dark social and influencer drift, marketing attribution is about detecting momentum.

5. The New Goal: Make Better Decisions, Faster

The marketers who are thriving right now are chasing clarity. They’re running smarter experiments and building feedback-rich funnels. They’re creating processes that combine insight with intuition and training leadership to stop asking, “What’s the ROI of social?” Instead, they’re asking “Are we moving in the right direction, and how do we know?”

AI tools are helping surface patterns faster, but even the best AI can’t fix a broken strategy. What it can do is spot signals sooner and help marketers act with more confidence, even in a noisy environment.

You Don’t Need Perfect Attribution. You Need a Smarter System.

The marketing attribution models of the past were built for a digital world that no longer exists. The marketers of today and tomorrow are thriving not because they’ve figured out a perfect formula, but because they’ve learned how to navigate imperfection with intention.

At &Marketing, this is exactly where we live. We help growing companies build systems that align strategy, execution, and measurement so you’re not just making noise. You’re making progress.

Let’s stop spinning in circles trying to assign credit. Let’s build something that works with the pairing of an fCMO to guide the strategy and a group of subject matter experts to do the work.

The post Marketing Attribution Is Broken. Here’s What Smart Marketers Are Doing Instead. appeared first on &Marketing.

As digital marketers, we’re immersed in an area where artificial intelligence (AI) is the driving force behind digital advertising innovation. With its astonishing pace of growth, AI continues to revolutionize how brands engage with consumers, predict trends, and optimize campaigns.

While some may worry about AI ‘taking over the world,’ ignoring its existence and sticking with the old routines will leave companies in the dust. The marketing industry continues to evolve its approaches to incorporating AI and SEO, especially since the tool has shown a remarkable ability to enhance efficiency and performance.

How is AI used in SEO?

Imagine having a tireless assistant who can analyze mountains of data, identify keyword trends, and suggest content improvements — that’s the magic of AI in SEO. Here’s how this tech is transforming the SEO game.

• Keyword research on steroids. Gone are the days of pouring over endless keyword lists. AI tools can analyze search trends, identify long-tail keywords (more specific, niche keywords), and even predict user intent, ensuring your content targets the right audience with the right information.
• Laser-focused content optimization. AI analyzes existing high-performing content to understand what resonates with users. It can then suggest improvements to your content, like optimizing titles, headings, and meta descriptions for better search engine visibility.
• Uncovering content gaps. AI crawls your website and identifies topics your competitors are ranking for — but you’re not — helping you fill content gaps and reach a wider audience.
• Predictive analytics for smarter strategies. AI can analyze user behavior data and predict how your content will perform, allowing you to tailor your content strategy and optimize for future search engine algorithms.

Will AI take over SEO?

Not quite. While AI excels at automation and data analysis, SEO will always rely heavily on creativity and human expertise for:

• Understanding user intent. AI can identify keywords, but it can’t fully grasp the nuances of user intent. You still need your human touch to craft content that resonates with audiences, conveys empathy and understanding about their pain points, and answers their specific questions.
• Strategic content planning. Sure, AI can suggest topics — but you need to decide which topics align with your overall marketing goals and brand message. AI doesn’t live in your brain (thank goodness!), so it can’t make those intuitive leaps between two seemingly unconnected ideas. We humans, however, benefit from those “Aha!” moments that can lead to pretty amazing campaigns and content.
• High-quality content creation. AI simply cannot replace the power of well-written, engaging content. Our human expertise in storytelling, humor, and unique brand voice remains irreplaceable.

There’s no need to feel threatened by AI. It’s a tool to augment your SEO efforts, not replace your strategic thinking and creativity.

Is AI-generated content SEO-friendly?

The short answer? Yes. But here’s the caveat: AI excels in creating factual, informative content. It can churn out well-structured articles jam-packed with relevant keywords — a great boon for marketing departments tasked with writing regular basic blog posts or product descriptions.

However (and it’s a big one!), AI sometimes confuses its facts (often called “hallucinations”, and it doesn’t always follow the brief. Think of it as a really smart kindergartener you’ve asked to do a job. You can send said kindergartener off to do her thing, knowing you’ll double-check when she finishes her chore. Or you can supervise more closely. Maybe you hold the bag of dog food open while she scoops out the kibble (and then show her where the dustpan and brush live after she’s spilled half the bag — and teach her how to use those cleaning tools).

AI’s like that, too. “Setting it loose” to do its thing unsupervised can lead to unintended (and negative) results. We’ve all seen the articles decrying the law firm that used AI to write briefs, citing the law cases it invented.

AI also simply can’t keep up with creative storytelling, humor, or in-depth analysis that resonates with readers. Relying solely on AI to generate content without human input and editing won’t consistently produce high-quality, SEO-friendly material.

Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo constantly update their algorithms to detect and penalize low-quality or spammy content (including AI-generated content that lacks human oversight and editing). However, Google is simultaneously hard-launching (perhaps a little too soon) its own AI Overview in search results. Hopefully not too many folks put glue on their pizza or tried to eat rocks because AI suggested it.

Want a workaround? Use AI as an assistive tool, leveraging its research, ideation, and drafting capabilities. Employ it to create product descriptions or data-driven reports. Then, bring in human experts to review, edit, and refine the content to ensure quality, accuracy, and relevance.

How generative AI affects SEO

Generative AI (GenAI) can create entirely new content, such as text, audio, or images, and it significantly impacts SEO in several ways. First, if you’re struggling with topics, GenAI can help you brainstorm new content ideas based on the information you feed it about your target audience and industry trends. GenAI also shines by:

• Generating faster content creation. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and DALL-E have the potential to pump out content at breakneck speed. While automating content creation tasks and producing more content in a shorter time sounds wonderful, it could also make it more challenging for human-created content to stand out and rank well as search engines grapple with filtering out the low-quality AI-generated material.
• Going global and multimedia. GenAI speaks multiple languages and can create content in various formats, opening the doors for global content marketing and expansion into new frontiers in multimedia SEO. But remember, successful messaging needs quality and cultural relevance across languages and media types to resonate with your target audiences.
• Enabling real-time personalization. Imagine content that morphs and adapts to each user’s unique interests and search queries — that’s one benefit of using GenAI. This tool could revolutionize our approaches to keyword targeting and content optimization.

A word to the wise: as GenAI tools become more user-friendly and ubiquitous, the risk of bad actors churning out low-quality, duplicate, or even malicious content increases. This probability will create a real headache for search engines trying to filter out the junk. We must stay vigilant and develop strategies to ensure our high-quality, human-edited content provides genuine value and cuts through the AI-generated clutter.

How is AI used in digital advertising?

Which of the following is an example of AI use in digital advertising?

1. Dynamic ad creative optimization (DCO) based on user data.
2. Automated bidding and ad placement in programmatic platforms.
3. Chatbots programmed to answer questions and provide recommendations.

All of the above.

The correct answer is D! These strategies rely on AI technologies like machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and data analysis. AI can analyze mountains of user data, including demographics, interests, and online behavior, to inform hyper-targeted campaigns to reach the target audience most likely interested in a company’s product or service.

Bidding on ad placements is a complicated dance, but AI steps in as a strategic partner, analyzing campaign performance and user behavior in real time. Then, it automatically adjusts your bids for optimal performance and to maximize your ROI.

Want to personalize ad content based on a user’s browsing history, location, and time of day? AI can do that, too, to generate highly relevant, engaging ad experiences more likely to convert. Think of it as crafting ads that speak directly to each user’s needs (and wants), making them feel like you’re reading their mind (in a good way!).

AI improves chatbots’ ability to understand natural language, personalize recommendations with machine learning, maintain context in conversations, and analyze user sentiment. With AI, chatbots have more natural interactions, offer more appropriate suggestions, provide better customer service — and know when to escalate complex issues to a human agent.

AI won’t replace digital marketing

AI is revolutionizing digital marketing. It won’t steal your job as long as you’re willing to work with it rather than ignore it. The technology excels at number-crunching, task automation, and insight generation. The human touch remains irreplaceable in crafting strategy, building brands, and understanding human complexities. AI is also going to automate enough tasks that you can expect to be asked to embrace ways to drive efficiency.

Yes, digital marketing will keep getting smarter, and ongoing advancements in AI, particularly in NLP and sentiment analysis, will propel ad strategies beyond what we’ve seen so far. Stay future-proof by learning about emerging technologies and evolving ethical practices in AI. Position yourself to thrive in the digital marketing landscape by embracing the AI revolution. Want to chat with our team about where to lean into AI and where to get our help? Just reach out.

The post How AI is Disrupting SEO and Digital Advertising appeared first on &Marketing.

Maybe your revenue won’t take a big hit! Maybe it’s the right move. But more than likely, turning off your digital advertising will only negatively impact your business, despite your instinct to pull the plug.

Your Competitors Will Probably Turn Off Digital Ads During a Recession

Let’s face it—most businesses, especially smaller ones, will probably turn off digital advertising during a recession. After all, they’re having the same thoughts and anxieties we mentioned at the beginning of this article. Guess what that leaves?

1. a less competitive landscape for you to maintain your online presence
2. lower costs to advertise because there are fewer people in the space
3. opportunities to increase your brand awareness

Even if people aren’t ready to convert on the spot, guess whose name they’ll remember when they are?

We recommend taking advantage of the cheaper ad costs. With fewer advertisers in the mix, the cost-per-click (CPC) will be far lower than usual. It’s a great opportunity to actually reduce your cost-per-acquisition and further your overall brand awareness.

Digital Ads Will Still Make Money During a Recession

In 2008 and 2009 during the last recession this country experienced, Google Ads still made money. While their profits didn’t grow exponentially, they left the recession in a good place. Why? Because people will always use Google and therefore Google Ads, and people will always need to advertise online. Google also dominated during the pandemic as users flooded the internet during the stay-at-home orders. You can see a similar pattern in Facebook Advertising.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s longest serving chief operating officer, stated in July 2022, “Despite the current challenges, I’m very confident for the long term,” Sandberg said. “We’re facing a cyclical downturn, but over the long run the digital ad market will continue to grow. Advertisers will go where they get the highest return on investment and ability to drive their business.”

Digital ads, whether on Google, Facebook, Bing, or elsewhere, is a consistently growing business and isn’t going anywhere any time soon. As far as anyone can tell, people will always use Google to find the products and services they need.

Recessions Aren’t Forever

The average length of a recession is 17.5 months. While it may be a miserable 17 months, it will come to an end. Following a recession, the economy and markets return to normal at minimum, and often turn into a period of huge growth and opportunity. If you keep running your Google Ads during a recession, you’re bound to collect qualified leads to follow up on when the economy improves. You want to be there when that happens— with an already established, well-oiled digital advertising campaign that keeps you at the forefront of your audience’s mind when they’re ready to buy.

Acquisition Channels Are Directly Connected to Your Conversion Channels

It seems so simple to turn off the channels that aren’t directly connected to your revenue. Why keep spending money on the channel that doesn’t immediately convert? But if you turn off your acquisition channels, your conversion channels will suffer later. In most circumstances, your path to conversion isn’t as simple as 1-click to purchase. Your marketing funnel more than likely involves multiple touchpoints, and your acquisition channels shouldn’t be undervalued just because you can’t see the immediate purchase.

Advanced digital marketing experts are always watching what is referred to as assisted conversions. These are ways marketing channels contribute to a sale on other channels. A simple example is when someone clicks on an ad, browses and leaves, then later goes directly to the website and converts. “Direct” (traffic that goes straight to the website’s URL) may get the credit in your analytics platform, but it may not have happened without those ads. Turning off your ads may hurt your other channels because of assisted conversions.

What to Do With Your Google Ads During a Recession

While we don’t recommend immediately pausing your ad campaigns as the quick fix to save money, it is a good time to evaluate your spending and campaign types. Keep your pay-per-click (PPC) running, but be more efficient and mindful about what you’re spending.

You also need to be thinking long-term. In a recession, it may be tempting to start running ads for the first time in hopes that it becomes a quick revenue fix. This rushed approach often leads to dashed hopes and inflated expectations. Many campaigns take months to get into an optimized groove, so most of the time those won’t turn a profit quickly.

If you aren’t sure whether to stop, start, or adjust your Google Ads during a recession, we have good news! To help businesses during this time, we are offering a complimentary digital ads audit to help you make the most of your marketing money right now. Spaces are limited, so grab your spot today. Just fill out the form below and we’ll reach out to connect.

The post Should You Turn Off Digital Advertising During Economic Uncertainty? appeared first on &Marketing.

RB Solutions is a B2B point of sale software service, focusing on the pool and spa and chimney and hearth industries. In late 2019, RB began looking to further its overall awareness in the marketplace and generate leads to advance new business initiatives. More specifically, RB wanted to improve their SEO and develop a longer-term content strategy. At the time, RB already had a blog in place, but they believed those posts were not being leveraged effectively or seen by enough target decision-makers to drive leads. They needed to drive more brand awareness and get more eyes on their content and unique industry offering.

The &Marketing team worked with BUDDI AI to quickly understand our technology platform and develop messaging based on data and Business Intelligence. During this time of rapid growth for our company, they found a way to harness the power of our own data and leverage it to get in front of the right audiences and decision-makers. This directly impacted our ability to more than double our lead generation goals in less than three months.

Solution

&Marketing’s SaaS Marketing Approach

Based on the challenge of an insufficient SEO and keyword strategy, &Marketing provided a full Business Intelligence Analysis in order to create a detailed roadmap that would lead them to gain more traction and recognition online within their industry. This analysis outlined the following:

• Competitive keyword strategy for SEO, content, digital advertising, and social media
• SEO/keyword analysis to identify words and phrases for focus and to:
  • Identify technical SEO opportunities (i.e. page level SEO)
  • Inform SEO opportunities for content (long tail keywords or ‘people also ask’)
• Digital competitive landscape for key terms (traditional and nontraditional competitors)
• Opportunities to differentiate within the competitive landscape
• Monthly reporting and analytics set up with Google Data Studio and Search Console for monthly analysis and tracking (focused on traffic, SEO, and goal completions)

Based on our Business Intelligence Analysis, we created a monthly content distribution strategy, mapping it on one central calendar, to help grow their brand awareness. The calendar featured SEO optimized content, including thought leadership articles, testimonials, an eBook, a microsite, infographics, etc. to be created and distributed through multiple channels.

We enabled them to lean in on thought leadership, positioning themselves as experts in their field through the use of various pieces of content. Each month we provided two blogs and an email in order to help increase consumer engagement and awareness. This allowed them to compete better against online retailers sharing similar keyword search markets, creating an opportunity for RB to take a bigger share of the online share of voice within their industry.

Results

As a result of these actions, RB saw significant increases in their digital presence, awareness, and overall goal completions. We saw the following outcomes:

• Goal completions increased from 235% in entirety
• 2019 to 2021 – 235% growth in lead gen
• 2019 to 2021 – 100% increase in organic traffic
• 2020 —> 2019 – 25% increase in traffic
• 2020 —> 2019 – 6% increase in organic traffic
• 2020 —> 2019 – 204% growth in lead gen
• 2021 —> 2020 – 27% increase in traffic
• 2021 —> 2020 – 88% increase in organic traffic
• 2021 —> 2020 – 10% growth in lead gen

Are you facing challenges of your own in your SaaS marketing?

&Marketing can help improve your organic SEO strategy and increase your brand awareness through a combination of a comprehensive Business Intelligence (BI) Analysis and robust content marketing plan.

BI helps us get smarter about the strategies and tactics we choose, and how we execute them. It also enables us to demonstrate marketing ROI. Contact us to learn more.

The post Using Organic SEO to Increase Brand Awareness in Saas Marketing appeared first on &Marketing.

The options businesses can incorporate into a paid search strategy are limited only by the team’s creativity. Google is the most widely known and used, but don’t limit your thinking to just one approach (or search engine!). Below are some tips for implementing the most effective paid search strategy.

Paid Search Strategy Step 1: Determine Your Values

Don’t do anything until you spend time determining the following for your business:

1. Average lifetime value of your customer
2. Percentage of actions on your website that turn into a customer
3. The value of those actions

Knowing these three critical pieces of information about your business will drive everything you do. Paid ads should improve the profitability of your business. No one wants to spend more money than they’re making, and your business should know what they’re willing to spend to gain new customers. Then, while running your paid strategy, you can quickly determine your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) and whether or not the ads are paying off.

Paid Search Strategy Step 2: Identify Your Target Audience

Before you decide how to attract new customers, you first need to know who your customers are and where they spend time online. This is the first step in driving your paid search strategy. If you don’t know who they are and what internet spaces they hang out in, you will likely make a mistake in choosing a paid strategy focus.

Paid Search Strategy Step 3: Consider Google Ads

Google Ads is often the clear choice for a paid search investment. They handle over 3.8 million searches every minute with over 270 million unique visitors. More than likely, your prospects use Google for something. But are they using Google for what you need, and is it affordable? For eCommerce products, it’s frequently the right move. But other businesses may not want Google Ads as part of their strategy.

For example, showing ads for “personal injury lawyer” can easily cost over $100 per click (it’s a popular, therefore expensive term to target). Researching the cost of your keywords is an essential part of determining your strategy.

Paid Search Strategy Step 4: Match Your Audience to Other Platforms

Google is undoubtedly the Goliath in the room. But there are many other platforms available, and your prospects may be there waiting to be enticed into your sales funnel. After researching your target audience, you can decide which platform makes the most sense. Here are just a few of the advertising platforms you can consider, depending on the demographics of your target audience:

1. Facebook/Instagram
2. YouTube (part of Google Ads)
3. TikTok
4. LinkedIn
5. Reddit
6. Quora
7. Microsoft Ads (also includes DuckDuckGo)
8. Amazon
9. Pinterest
10. Twitter

If you sell fashion items to girls ages 13-25, TikTok may be a no-brainer, while LinkedIn would be an epic fail. If you sell IT services, LinkedIn has your customer, while Pinterest would be a swing and a miss for you.

No matter who you’re trying to reach, what your offer is, and the depth of your ad spend pockets, make sure you target the right people in the right places with the right message.

If you’re interested in knowing more about &Marketing’s approach to paid advertising as an outsourced marketing department, contact us and we’re happy to discuss your business goals and how ads can help you reach them.

&Marketing leverages the power of Business Intelligence to gain insights on paid search performance and help our clients make informed decisions. To learn more about our BI and analytics process, download our eBook below.

The post How To Implement an Effective Paid Search Strategy appeared first on &Marketing.

After purchasing a local franchise of a nationwide professional cleaning company, our client was disappointed at the quality and quantity of leads she was getting. When it came to figuring out how to promote a cleaning business, her goals were clear; however, she wasn’t sure how to get there. She enlisted the help of &Marketing to figure out how to stretch her digital advertising budget to successfully market a cleaning business in a way that generated qualified leads that turn into recurring business.

Prior to working with &Marketing, all ads were managed through the national head office. This over generalized approach led to sub optimal corporate-managed landing pages. Additionally, because they were managing at a national level, the ads were extremely broad and not necessarily in line with the needs of the local market. Unfortunately, local optimizations were impossible because the corporate office did not enable franchisees to access their Google Ads account, nor were they willing to segment their approach to be more inline with local markets. This meant our client had no control over the messaging being served to her target audience on behalf of her franchise. This resulted in a frustrated franchisee who knew her ads could be performing better but didn’t know how to work around the limited options.

The &Marketing team worked with BUDDI AI to quickly understand our technology platform and develop messaging based on data and Business Intelligence. During this time of rapid growth for our company, they found a way to harness the power of our own data and leverage it to get in front of the right audiences and decision-makers. This directly impacted our ability to more than double our lead generation goals in less than three months.

Solution

&Marketing’s Cleaning Business Marketing Approach

We started by transferring all the franchise’s Google Ads accounts to one our client could access. We then recreated and optimized the ads by building an SEO-optimized landing page with clear CTAs, along with the addition of implementing a call tracking system to make it possible to see which ads were resulting in leads. We then created ROI/ROAS models to track clicks, leads, conversions, and close rates.

We used these metrics to drive recommendations for:

• Weekly optimization of Google Ads based on local performance
• SEO optimization for landing pages
• SEO optimization for franchise landing pages (to be delivered by each franchise to franchise corporate marketing)

&Marketing’s analysis of the existing corporate-managed Google Ads account and historical data revealed significant opportunity to optimize the franchise’s Google Ads and local SEO performance by implementing the following on an ongoing basis:

• Reducing or re-allocating ineffective Google Ads spend
• Implementing a call tracking system to eliminate incoming SPAM or wrong-number calls
• Improving technical SEO
• Model and optimize Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) to ensure the total spend is leading to inbound leads and incremental revenue by optimizing cost per click, conversion rates, and close rates.

After pouring over the data and figuring out a way to work around the initial limitations, the answer was clear – the best way to market a cleaning business is to run targeted Google Ads with locally-optimized SEO. The results speak for themselves.

Results

As a result of these actions, our client saw significant increases in lead generation quantity and quality and reduced wasted ad spend. Results included:

• Overall positive Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
• 34% increase in form fill-outs
• 57% increase in conversion rate
• 28% increase in calls
• 80% increase in non-branded conversions

Wondering how well your ads are optimized for the best return on spend or concerned you might be missing opportunities for new leads? We’d love to walk through your approach to learn more about your challenges to identify how we may be able to offer concrete recommendations to guide your ad strategy.

Are you facing challenges of your own in your food and beverage marketing?

We’d love to learn more about your challenges and how a coordinated marketing approach might help take your organization to the next level.

The post &Marketing Case Study: How to Market a Cleaning Business to Generate Leads appeared first on &Marketing.

Cello Cheese is a growing brand of specialty cheese that strives to make the category of specialty and artisanal cheeses exciting and accessible to all. In the summer of 2020, Cello Cheese underwent a brand repositioning with the goals of increasing in-store sales, growing brand awareness, and increasing their distribution via an enhanced digital presence.

Cello Cheese had a clear vision of what they wanted for a new and improved website, but they needed food and beverage digital marketing experts to develop and implement an integrated digital marketing strategy that included an upgraded website, focus on SEO, better content, and consistent email marketing.

The &Marketing team worked with BUDDI AI to quickly understand our technology platform and develop messaging based on data and Business Intelligence. During this time of rapid growth for our company, they found a way to harness the power of our own data and leverage it to get in front of the right audiences and decision-makers. This directly impacted our ability to more than double our lead generation goals in less than three months.

Solution

&Marketing’s Food & Beverage Marketing Approach

Based on these challenges, &Marketing proposed a two-phase approach to accomplish these objectives:

1) Move all content to a modern WordPress site, with a chatbot functionally and a front end builder to allow future content updates to be made internally by Cello employees. This also included updating the messaging and layout by applying our Storytelling & Branding framework to provide a strong foundation, improve navigation and consumer experience, raise engagement levels, and improve SEO.

2) Create new content targeting Cello Cheese’s target audiences via a
monthly content distribution strategy (accompanied by a content calendar) to grow an active
online community based on data, audience, and market research.

After successfully migrating Cello Cheese’s website from SquareSpace to WordPress, we started phase two with a full Business Intelligence analysis. This work included:

• Recommendations for adding keywords to web page titles, descriptions, URLs, and on-page content to improve SEO.
• Identifying highly searched non-branded keywords to incorporate in new content.
• Identifying opportunities to differentiate Cello Cheese within the highly competitive digital landscape.
• Setting up monthly reporting with Google Data Studio and Search Console for monthly analysis and results tracking.

Based on our Business Intelligence analysis, we created a monthly content distribution strategy, mapping it onto one central calendar. The calendar featured SEO optimized content recommendations as well as content topics to highlight Cello’s expertise and position them as category thought leaders. This included creating SEO-optimized blogs and sharing them with their target consumers via email to increase consumer engagement and awareness, which served to also make Cello Cheese more competitive against online retailers sharing similar target keywords.

Results

As a result of these actions, Cello Cheese saw significant increases in their digital presence, awareness, and overall goal completions. Results included:

• 215% increase in organic traffic
• 214% increase in goal conversion rates
• 98% increase in goal completions
• 262% increase in where to buy goal conversion rate
• 128% increase in where to buy goal completions
• 48% goal conversion rate for email marketing
• 14% increase in pages per session
• 69% increase in average session duration

We built on this foundational work with ongoing support that included quarterly content calendar updates, drafting and publishing recurring content that touched all levels of the sales funnel, writing and designing a downloaded eBook, sending a monthly consumer email newsletter, providing content to update social media channels, and a sharing a monthly analytics report with insights and recommendations on how to improve and achieve their goals on a rolling basis.

Are you facing challenges of your own in your food and beverage marketing?

Want to learn how &Marketing can help you with your organic SEO strategy and overall website enhancements?? Contact us today to chat or download our simple go-live website checklist to support your DIY efforts.

The post &Marketing Case Study: Using Organic SEO to Increase Brand Awareness for Cello Cheese appeared first on &Marketing.

In an age of instant gratification, folks often immediately make cuts to the efforts that have slowburn success because they don’t see enough quick wins and immediate return on investments. Hitting all the right touch points and building relationships takes time, but when time equals money, business often make knee-jerk decisions to slash marketing budgets first.

Because marketing is an investment, not an expense, you can’t realize its full value based on short-term tactics and quick wins. But as we approach the end of the year, many companies are looking more at inbound marketing and trying to decide how to best invest their dollars for longterm success (spoiler alert: content is still king as 70% of marketers are actively investing in it). If you are working with minimal resources but know some of those resources need to be invested in marketing efforts, we have some low-budget ways you can improve your current marketing lead generation strategy. These three ways include: honing your strategy, leveraging content, and optimization through data.

1. Hone Your Strategy

Companies under a tight budget and timeline often make the mistake of skipping strategy and rushing right into tactics in their marketing lead generation efforts. Although perfection is the enemy of progress, preparation and thoughtfulness are not. Whether you’re trying to move quickly, do the bare minimum to preserve your budget, or a combination of the two, diving in blindly can lead to haphazard decision-making and will likely cost you more time and money down the road when you see minimal results and return. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it, and everyone would be winning!

When you’re re-examining your strategy, take a closer look at who you’re trying to reach and how you can get in front of your ideal, target customer or client. A few things to consider when doing this are:

Conducting audience research

The more you know about your audience, the more you can grow it and convert it. Market and competitor research can help you understand what pains your target decision makers are experiencing and what solutions they’re currently looking for to help ease those pains. Use free tools like SEMRush and UberSuggest to help you identify actual terms your audience is looking for on Google, and poll your existing audience or survey your current customers to find out what’s on their mind. A short and scrappy Google Form can work wonders and doesn’t cost a thing.

Identifying where your audience spends the most time online

Knowing what to say to your audience is only half the battle. The other half is figuring out where to reach them. With a tight budget you may need to prioritize just one or two marketing channels to test, so it’s important to do a bit of research to make an informed decision on which channels will yield the best results. Does your existing content get more engagement via email or social media? Does your target audience use one social media platform more than another? You can use your own native analytics and data to help answer these questions (more on that later). For example, when doing this for one of our clients, we uncovered that they had a high email conversation rate despite only sending out occasional emails. By increasing their email cadence, we quickly increased conversions.

If you want to take this a step further, consider a tool we love called SparkToro, which dives deeper into demographic data and shows you:

• the companies your target audience follows on social media
• the articles they’re reading and where they get their news
• the podcasts they listen to
• their interests and skill-sets
• their education
• and much more!

If you want to go to the very next level, check out &Marketing’s Business Intelligence and Analytics (B.I.) projects. Our B.I. projects are designed to identify where your audience is most likely to discover information about and related to your business and then create a marketing roadmap  

2. Leverage messaging and content marketing

Now that you’ve zeroed in on your most engaged audience, their pain points and interests, and where they get their information, it’s time to start applying that knowledge. Here’s how:

Refresh your value proposition and key messaging

Hone in on your value proposition and key messaging specific to the audience you identified as most engaged. By referring to the patterns you identified above, rework your value prop and your brand messaging based on the pain points most relevant to them. This will ensure your message to them is relevant and consistent across all of your marketing materials and the channels you use. Make sure your brand persona and identity aligns with the kind of voice your audience is most likely to seek and trust—you can learn more about that here.

Repurpose old content

Before creating new content, consider what you already have. Do you have old blogs, eBooks, or landing pages that speak to trending topics in your industry and the priority pain points you uncovered? Start repromoting this content via the channels you identified earlier. For blog posts in particular, ensure you optimize them for marketing lead generation by adding a clear call-to-action. Readers need to be directed to make a move once they finish consuming your content. Make sure your calls to action make sense, and provide both a primary and transitional option for each content piece.

Create a new content cadence

Use your research to identify topics that would resonate most with your audience. Be strategic about the content you create and give your audience a pathway that leads them on a journey straight to your services or products as their solution. You can do this using the traditional marketing funnel, which categorizes content as:

• Top Funnel: This is the awareness building stage and where you engage your audience using empathy and acknowledge their problem.
• Mid Funnel: This is where you focus on helping your audience figure out how to actually solve their problem. Most “how to” content falls here, and the middle of the funnel is the perfect place to offer value-packed content that’s gated. Essentially, that means there’s a gate, aka an entry fee to get the content, like an email address. You’re giving them tremendous value, so they’re willing to give you their content information and access to their inbox to grow the relationship.
• Bottom Funnel: This is the closest your audience gets to buying from you and where you can start to make the direct ask. They just want proof you can provide results at this point, so case studies, statistics, and detailed sell sheets fall under this category. 64% of marketers who launch case studies find them to be effective in generating leads because the increase credibility.

We’ve put together a robust eBook on exactly how to be intentional about creating continue that actually helps you grow your business. See how we’re practicing what we preach here?

3. Optimize through data

From there, you can identify valuable patterns. Does your most engaged audience share similar demographic information? Are certain pages of your website receiving the most traffic? Is your audience clicking primarily on top-funnel content (content focused more broadly on a pain point versus your company)? Or are they actively engaged with bottom-funnel content (case studies, free demos, company video tutorials, etc)?

Sometimes you have to throw marketing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, but at a certain point you need to study what stuck and what didn’t to figure out where to continue to spend your limited resources. Rely on your data to tell you a story, let it speak to you, and listen. Then shuffle your dollars around to learn into what’s working and step back from what isn’t.

Ready to implement some of these low-cost strategies for marketing lead generation in the new year? Grab our marketing planning workbook below to help you get started.

We also recently held a webinar with an expert panel where we discuss how you can develop a marketing strategy that directly aligns with your business goals. You can watch the replay here

Want to talk to someone on our team about how you can put all of these ideas into practice? Just fill out the form below.

The post Marketing Lead Generation: Low-Budget Ways to Get Qualified Leads appeared first on &Marketing.

A cutting-edge healthcare technology company (BUDDI.AI), whose target audience includes C-level healthcare executives, was poised for major growth in 2021. However, they were playing in a fragmented competitive landscape that would require them to creatively “break through the noise” in order to build and maintain brand awareness, drive lead generation, and achieve tangible results. To become a true thought leader and partner of choice in the industry, they needed to enhance their digital presence.

Like many growing businesses, this client had neither the time nor the resources to hire an internal team to drive the level of marketing strategy and execution needed in order to achieve success. They also struggled with bringing an unknown concept to market and helping potential customers understand the value that it brings to their companies.

&Marketing’s Approach

Internal Discovery & Immersion

Due to the complexity and newness of the company and its product, a foundational “reset” was first needed, to create consistency and alignment within the company itself and ensure their positioning and messaging was delivered in a way that would resonate with their target audience. This discovery phase consisted of:

• A comprehensive review of backgrounding documents from the client
• Several internal stakeholder interviews and exercises
• Supplemental secondary customer research
• A high-level audit of competitor websites and messaging

&Marketing used this as fuel to build the following foundational outputs:

• Audience segmentation, customer research, and identification of pain points
• Brand voice and tonality/personality for each audience segment
• Value proposition and key message document, using our storytelling & branding framework
• The customer journey
• Alignment on success goals and KPIs (metrics)

Marketing Analytics

To identify digital marketing opportunities and create the building blocks for a comprehensive strategy and execution plan, &Marketing needed to first understand A) the target audience’s behavior online and B) the competitive digital landscape. To do this, we completed a full marketing analysis for this client to review and assess the digital online landscape:

• Keyword Striking Distance Analysis: Identifying top keyword opportunities based on current rankings
• Enhanced Competitive Analysis: Identifying competitor strengths and opportunities in which Buddi could steal their online market share
• Nontraditional Competitor Analysis: understanding where our target audience is going to consume information about our product/service that are NOT competitors.
• “People Also Ask” Research: Related online searches that may provide less expensive opportunities to rank or advertise for that reach our audience at each stage of the sales funnel

This research served as the building blocks for a future comprehensive strategy and execution plan that would include content, digital advertising, website enhancements, and SEO optimization.

Execution & Reporting

Discovery and Immersion combined with Business Intelligence data allowed &Marketing to create sophisticated, yet engaging content, automated email campaigns and highly targeted paid advertising on Google and LinkedIn helped to drive website traffic, lead generation efforts, and overall brand awareness.

Results

In four and half months, we helped BUDDI.AI generate 253 qualified leads at cost per lead of $121 – more than double their goal and all within their budget!

Additionally, we helped increase website traffic 434% compared to the previous period, furthering BUDDI.AI’s presence amongst the marketplace.

We continued to support this client as their business expanded with new products and audiences.A comprehensive marketing strategy was developed that included digital marketing, social media exposure, website and SEO enhancements, content creation, sales enablement, email automation, and a lead generation plan that expanded their brand awareness and accelerated their sales efforts.

The post &Marketing Case Study: Healthcare Digital Marketing Strategy Simplified appeared first on &Marketing.

Our client is an addiction recovery center dedicated to improving the delivery of vital services which include drug and alcohol rehabilitation and treatment. Before engaging &Marketing (pre-pandemic), the center wanted to enhance its online presence and messaging to more closely connect with its audience and simplify the process of seeking help as much as possible. Driving more consistent leads would also reduce fluctuations in staff workload to provide a better overall patient experience.

The center’s website was already optimized well for SEO but was outdated in terms of user experience and engagement. In addition to updating the site, the client wanted the capability to monitor their automated Google Ads and use that data to make incremental improvements. They also wanted to create and execute a clear plan of action to retain close connections with past graduates, so they began searching for a partner that could help them reach these goals.

Additionally, the pandemic accelerated the already growing mental health crisis in the United States. Those populations at highest risk for addiction grew as rates of stress, alcoholism, and drug abuse soared. According to the American Medical Association, in December 2020 more than 40 U.S. states saw increases in opioid-related mortality along with ongoing concerns for those with substance use disorders. A reporting system called ODMAP shows that the early months of the pandemic brought an 18% increase nationwide in overdoses compared with those same months in 2019. It’s also likely that the total impact of the pandemic has on this industry will not be known for decades to come.

Major life events are often triggering for those coping with substance use issues. Through our discovery work with the center, we learned that these events often drive one of two parties to take action: either the person facing addiction or a loved one seeking help on their behalf. Each group has unique needs, so it was important to create campaigns that are helpful to each.

Because of the high urgency of need paired with growing search volume, it’s also important to top the first page of Google search results to reach audiences that need assistance. With only ten spaces available on the first page, this can be challenging. We took a 3-prong approach, including:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Google Ads
• Google My Business / Google Maps (especially helpful to this industry because most searches are focused on a localized area)

&Marketing’s Approach

&Marketing guided the client toward improving their results in five steps:

1. We conducted a Market Analysis of their current SEO, digital advertising, social media, and content marketing practices.
2. We implemented the strategy and tools required to continuously improve Google Ads paid search campaigns, offering a more dependable way to reach the client’s audience.
3. Using that data, the team generated comprehensive messaging and value propositions to provide a strong foundation for building marketing assets. We helped the center update its website with improved visuals and messaging, applying our Storytelling & Branding framework and letting the data guide further optimizations.
4. We also recognized the opportunity to improve local SEO and organic reach by improving the client’s Google My Business reputation. The center had positive but infrequent reviews, so the team ran campaigns to encourage alumni to add new Google reviews and made review requests part of the graduation process.
5. To build on relationships with potential patients and alumni, we developed a content calendar and email marketing campaign with two blogs and one email per month. Email content focuses on driving traffic to the blogs, highlighting employees to offer their expert insights into the recovery process, and driving awareness for upcoming events or newsworthy items.

Results

1. Putting a strong foundation in place for building marketing assets, the process is less daunting and more repeatable and reliable.
2. With Google Ads monitoring and optimization in place, the client now has guideposts to help them set and reach progressively higher goals.
3. The freshly updated website puts a working tool in their hands that allows them to become a better resource for their audience.
4. Improved engagement with alumni through content and a clear call to action to leave reviews has created a better Google My Business reputation and increased their organic reach, which is the primary source of their traffic. The positive reception to review requests was a pleasant surprise that the center didn’t expect.
5. The client has benefited from an overall incoming traffic increase of 96%.

By the numbers:

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Inbound Phone Inquiries: Now reaching more of the right audience with a 363% increase in inbound phone calls. Up from 19 in 2019 to 88 in 2020

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Organic Search Traffic: This is their biggest driver of traffic and has increased from 48% of their overall traffic in 2019 to 55% in 2020

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Local SEO: Positive calls generated from Google My Business have increased 153%. Up from 76 in 2019 to 192 in 2020.

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Website Traffic: Average time on page increased by 15%. Bounce rate decreased by 12%. Pages per session increased by 18%.

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Email Marketing: Open rate ~23%. Click-through rate ~1.5%.

The post Case Study: Marketing for a Drug & Alcohol Addiction Recovery Facility through the Pandemic appeared first on &Marketing.

On top of this, you aren’t exactly sure how Google Ads work or how to develop an email nurturing program. Then a pandemic hits and all of a sudden it’s been five months since you’ve done any marketing and your lead generation programs are in serious need of revival.

We’ve certainly heard this story before and it led us to develop a quick hit, six-step rescue marketing strategy plan to help businesses bring their lead generation efforts back to life. We’ve broken it down into five steps:

• Analyze Data
• Uncover Insights
• Develop & Implement Recommendations
• Measure Results
• Develop Long-term Plan

&Marketing’s Marketing Strategy Rescue Plan Approach

We had the opportunity to test out our process on a client who needed to kickstart their lead generation efforts after being derailed by the pandemic chaos. Let’s break it down step by step.

Step 1: Analyze data

We went straight for the data first to understand what has been done, identify gaps, assess results from current activity, and identify what is driving those results. We utilized all data platforms the client could provide including:

• Google Analytics
• Google Ads
• Social Advertising
• Search Console
• CRM Data

Additionally, we interviewed current customers to get greater insight into the user experience. This helped frame how we looked at the data to develop actionable insights we could apply to marketing tactics.

Step 2: Uncover Insights

After mining and analyzing the data, we began forming insights to fuel our rescue testing efforts. This means we looked holistically at data to determine overall trends and potential areas of improvement.

In the example of this client, we identified they were not effectively utilizing their data to update their marketing channels or adhering to best practices in Google Ads or LinkedIn. They also weren’t consistently communicating with their prospects.

Step 3: Develop & Implement Recommendations

Using the data and insights gathered, we pulled together a recommended “testing plan.” In order to gain quick results and re-evaluate, we recommend developing a four to six week plan backed by data insights that’s designed to help meet a specific and agreed upon goal.

In this example, our goal was to generate leads. With this information in mind, we laid out a four-step plan to generate leads. Here’s what that looked like:

• Utilize LinkedIn Advertising. We decided to try LinkedIn ads because our client has some high quality downloadable pieces of content that weren’t being fully leveraged. Plus, their audience spends a good deal of time on LinkedIn. We built ads with a call to action to download the content.
• Launch Google Ads.The client had tried running paid search before on Google Ads, but due to competing priorities, they had trouble keeping up. Without a hands-on approach, it’s nearly impossible to adhere to best practices. Our team decided to revamp the account so the client’s site would be included in related search results.
• Test Email Marketing.Email marketing had been done in the past, but with little consistency. Initial results were encouraging, but follow-up was nonexistent. &Marketing put together an email marketing calendar to repurpose existing content. We also created a reporting structure for the sales team to follow up with anyone who engaged with the emails.
• Focus on Content. Though they already had a strong content library, their organic results have been lacking. &Marketing put together a data-backed content calendar to hone in on terms and topics we know their target audience is searching for on Google.

Step 4: Measure Results

As with all things marketing (and business), what matters most are the results. Developing ways to measure the tactics against your goal makes it possible to know how things are performing. If you aren’t tracking toward your goal, don’t panic. That simply means you need to try something new. This is why we measure–so we know what works and what doesn’t. The key is testing it for a bit before deciding to invest a great deal of time and money. That way, when you do invest, you will know you aren’t just shooting in the dark.

For this project it was all about lead generation, so our metrics were pretty standard:

• Number of leads broken down by source
• Cost per lead broken down by source
• Meetings booked
• Sales closed

Step 5: Create a Long-term Action Plan

After running the tests and analyzing the metrics in relation to the goals, we had a much better understanding of what performed well and what didn’t, what can be optimized, and what should be scrapped or added. Then we developed an action plan based on the results to best fit the client’s overall business goals.

The Results of Our Marketing Strategy Rescue Plan

In this case we discovered that while LinkedIn was producing leads, data showed the best leads were attributed to the email lead nurturing campaigns. So our recommended plan of action was to focus efforts on email marketing and stop investing in digital ads. This empowered the client to take back the reins on their marketing with an increased confidence that they are using their precious time wisely.

Rescue projects like the one above present opportunities to reset, revise, or restart marketing efforts with the confidence of knowing you are investing your resources wisely to achieve overall business goals. Need help rescuing your marketing for 2021? Contact us and we’ll be happy to put together a rescue project for you to get your marketing back on track.

The post How to Rescue Your Marketing Strategy In 5 Steps appeared first on &Marketing.

Why is This Change to Google BMM Match Type Important?

The BMM match type has been the cornerstone of the account structure for many advertisers, and for some, this is a pretty big deal that will require an account structure overhaul. Instead of focusing on word order combinations, advertisers have been able to use the BMM type to capture traffic with queries containing specific words, but not specific to word order or intent. It has allowed more control over the advertiser’s interpretation of user intent and didn’t rely on Google’s interpretation, which often brought in traffic the advertiser didn’t find relevant. Google is letting us know this change is going to reduce the irrelevant traffic and improve both the user and advertiser experience. They will no longer blindly match a search query to a keyword without consideration of the intent of the search.

To understand this better, let’s take a look at the example below. Of course an advertiser for accounting services isn’t going to want to show “What services do accounting firms offer?” But once the advertiser sees this query, they can add it as a negative keyword and not worry about that search again, while also still capturing impressions for “services for accounting nearby” — which may not have shown with a phrase match type.

So What Does &Marketing Think of This Change?

This will definitely have an impact on how we structure our keywords and accounts, but overall, we are looking forward to the change! While there may be an adjustment period, we are here for it and rolling with the updates. Google is an always-changing goliath, and a successful one at that. Their goal is to deliver relevant search results and ads to their users. If they don’t provide that, people won’t want to use their site or pay for their advertising, and they will lose money.

After this update, Google’s direction is crystal clear. Google is focusing on user intent and website experience. How can we tell?

Here are a few of Google’s biggest and most recent moves:

1. GA4: the new Google Analytics Property that focuses almost entirely on user engagement on a website.
2. Removing a large volume of search query visibility, making it more difficult to see what queries were triggering the ads and keywords.
3. Using the user’s page experience as a stronger part of their ranking algorithms.

While some advertisers are frustrated by this steady loss of granular control, &Marketing is looking forward to helping our clients better understand their customer’s search intent and website performance, which will avoid any negative repercussions with this ever-changing Google Ads landscape.

This may all make you wonder, is it possible that you’re been wasting money on ad spend this entire time? Find out with our no-obligation and free Paid Search Inefficiencies Audit and find out where you’re wasting your ad spend.

Interested in learning more? Contact Us Below!

The post Google is Phasing Out the Broad Match Modifier Match Type appeared first on &Marketing.