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Bridging commentary on the art & science of content; content marketing, branded content, native advertising and the analytics, attribution and intelligence that powers it.

Content Marketing

How to make your content more helpful

The recent Google helpful content algorithm changes have hit many hard, with decreased rankings, traffic and then in turn business. Google has been seeking ways to ensure that search results are helpful, and genuinely helpful to the person searching at that point in time. “To this end, we’re launching what we’re calling the “helpful content update” that’s part of a broader effort to ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.” These… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 10, 2023
Content Marketing

Guide to Content Marketing

Content marketing is using content as a communications medium to deliver on a brands marketing goals. This post outlines an introduction to Content Marketing with links to resources to go deeper.   Table of contents Introduction Strategy Recent growth Pros and Cons Common Metrics FAQs   Introduction The reason it is so popular is that consumers can access content anywhere, and often prefer to engage with content (over other formats) to learn more. Then… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 8, 2023
Commentary

Capital Flows

Edition #399 We get the trailer for The Grand Train Tour, Lemon8, the end of content and Nativo + Cision news. I’ve been thinking about this, where capital flows and how when it changes, that has big impact. One is, the funding of companies that relied on app installs, or easy sales via Instagram. That funding is not really going into those companies any more. VC funding has plunged 50% in the last 12 months. But it… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
April 7, 2023
Commentary

Squashed Workloads

Edition #398 A grand train tour of Switzerland, squashed workloads, Substack lets you become an investor & BuzzFeed’s creator score. Always be growing, that is a foundational rule of the internet. If you’re not growing, someone else is, and taking your share. Sucks hey. That is the concern or nagging fear with AI. That others will get ahead, and get ahead a lot faster. Leaving you for dust. Loss aversion, or the fear of loss is greater… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 31, 2023
Analytics

How to optimize programmatic ads to quality

Buying programmatic traffic enables advertisers to get hyper targeted and tap into new audiences. However when it comes to optimizing these new sources to quality, that can be a bit harder. Optimizing programmatic buys to quality metrics is important, because it ensures that each part of the buy is doing its part. It means right audience, right time, right message and the right message. Advertisers often struggle to sort through the data in a timely manner. So Nudge devised a… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 30, 2023
Analytics, Analytics, Content Marketing

How to measure content marketing with Nudge

Measuring content marketing with Nudge is easy and takes only a few minutes to get set up. Nudge is a content analytics platform that is focused on how customers engage with your content. Think of it as like a traditional web analytics but focused for content. The platform brings in attention and other engagement metrics to see how customers are engaging.   Sign up to Nudge First you need to sign up to Nudge, click the sign up… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 29, 2023
Branded Content

Branded Content vs Content Marketing

The difference is that content marketing doesn’t have to have the brand present in the content. Branded content typically needs the brand present for it to exist. Branded content is defined as, content that is made for the express purpose of promoting a brand. If you took the brand out, the content couldn’t exist. Content marketing as, content created to educate, entertain or inform a brands potential and existing customers. The brand may or may not be essential in that… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 29, 2023
positive graph
positive graph
Analytics

Guide to Content Measurement

Content measurement is the process of collecting data around content marketing initiatives.  Brands create content because it will help inform, educate or provide utility to potential customers. And if a brand can achieve that, customers will reward them, with brand awareness, loyalty, purchase intent or purchase. Measurement should reflect these objectives. Before proceeding further, if you do not know enough about content measurement, I recommend the following articles. What are the best free content measurement tools?   What is… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 29, 2023
Analytics

Why is my conversion rate so low?

A low conversion rate means that less people are completing the conversion actions, compared to before. This could be a configuration issue, and/or a change in the dynamics of traffic. You need to diagnose this change, which is where your analytics system comes in helpful. Create a spreadsheet, for a date range, from before the conversion rate dropped and after. Then pull some of these metrics. Conversion by traffic source, and conversion by traffic source by device. Conversion by geography. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 28, 2023
Analytics

Guide to Engagement Analytics

Engagement analytics is the process of tracking, measuring and processing of engagement actions on a webpage. The data is then shown in an online dashboard.   Why are Engagement Analytics important? Seeing how audiences engage, rather than passively view, a webpage or piece of content, helps to understand what is going to drive demand. Audiences seek out & share engaging content. Thus companies want to be able to tell if their content is engaging. In 2023, Google Search algorithms have… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
March 25, 2023