May was undoubtedly busy for digital marketers across the globe, hence the reason our lengthy Digital Trends for May being released mid-June! If all we had to worry about was the GDPR-pocalypse, we would’ve had our hands full. Unfortunately, the rest of the marketing world didn’t stop just for GDPR. In case that was all you had time to focus on last month, here is the breakdown of what else you missed.
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My GDPR Compliance
Summary: As mentioned above, GDPR was top of mind for just about every digital marketer. This regulation in EU law went into effect on 5.25.18 and essentially required all marketers/companies to let users know if their data was being used for marketing purposes. This has been known about since 2016, but many companies still struggled to comply in time. Evidenced by the fact that Facebook & Google were with a combined $8.8 billion in lawsuits on day one.
Action: There are too many “actions” to be taken in order to list them all out here, but if you’re still struggling with GDPR compliance, read through the GDPR checklist that our own Kendra Macek put together. She does a great job of hitting the highlights, as well as including resources from across the industry.
The Continuing Story of Meta Description Length
Summary: Some of you might remember when Google confirmed they were officially increasing the length of their snippets in searches in December of last year. Many SEOs took this as an indicator that we could increase the meta descriptions, yay! In May, however, Google changed their minds and decided to decrease the length of these snippets, boo!
Action: At Obility we were already wary of the initial change in snippet sizes and didn’t go all in on increasing meta descriptions right away. Hopefully, you didn’t fall prey either, but if you did substantially increase your meta descriptions, you’ll want to make sure they are still compliant with current best practices. You can also use our SEO Snippet Optimizer Preview if you’re curious about changing up your current meta data.
Happiness is a Larger Indexing Profile – Apparently, Size Does Matter
Summary: In an effort to get a better representation of the internet, and to better understand backlink profiles, DA, PA, etc., Moz is officially increasing their indexing profile.
Action: There aren’t a lot of “action items” with this news, but in the long run it should be good for all marketers who use Moz. Having a better representation of the web will help with understanding your backlink profile, where you have room for growth, and where you have areas to fix. There is also some promise that this increase will lead to some new tools/metrics coming from Moz, so perhaps there’s still more to come.
Here, There, and In-Market Audiences Everywhere – Bing Brings New Tool Out of Beta
Summary: In Beta since July of last year, Bing announced in May that their In-Market Audiences are now live and cover more than 170 specific audiences to choose from, across industries. Bing claims their pilot subjects saw positive increases in both CTR and CVR, 28% and 48% increases respectively.
Action: Depending on the industry you’re serving, this could have some big implications. The theory behind these audiences is that they’re “more likely” to be in the market for buying given solutions, therefore they’re further down the funnel and are more likely to commit. If this ends up being true, and you are servicing an industry that’s provided within the Bing In-Market solution, this could be a great way to increase your targeting for BOFU content.
Marketo and Bizible Come Together
Summary: Technically this happened at the end of April, but chances are this got lost in the shuffle with everything else going on in May, i.e. GDPR. With Marketo acquiring Bizible, marketers now have an industry leader in CRM software and an industry leader in attribution software living under the same roof.
Action: Full disclosure, Marketo is a client of Obility, but it’s also a tool that most digital marketers (us included) have to live in for large chunks of our jobs. The more useful this software can be for our day-to-day, the easier our lives should get. With this acquisition, there’s a hope that we will get closer to the B2B holy grail; a perfect attribution software/integration with our marketing efforts. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…
Last, But Certainly Not Least, Love Is All You Need
Summary: Obility’s Marketing Loves Sales B2B conference is back for another year of aligning the ROI goals of sales and marketing departments alike! Our one-day event filled with incredible speakers will take place at The Armory right here in Portland, Oregon, on Monday, October 15th.
Action: Get your early bird tickets today! Clients can talk to their Customer Success Managers for their passes, and the rest of our readers can treat themselves to an additional 30% off discount with the code “obilitylovesdeals”. We’ll see you there!
