September closes out Q3 for most B2B companies which gets us thinking about our goals for Q4 and ultimately 2018. With B2B marketing consistently changing due to new technology, we want to start you off with an article from LinkedIn to inspire your 2018 goal planning.
B2B Marketing Trends
7 Key Trends Determining the Future of B2B Marketing
Summary: As the B2B Buyer’s journey becomes more complex as new channels of engagement are created each year, B2B marketers need to stay on the latest trends. LinkedIn provides 7 trends to help each of us B2B marketers stay ahead. One trend that sticks out is the “Universal View of the Customer” where companies unify “their databases, which can include customer data from websites, marketing automation software, CRM platforms, and customer service interactions.” By unifying these platforms, it can improve the customer experience and help you gain more insight into your targets as they move through the buyer’s journey.
Action: Obility Team Members have read this blog post and are working to integrate the recommendations on a client by client basis.
Google AdWords Updates
Google Changes the Number of Ads in Ad Groups
Summary: Google is moving from 2 ads per ad group to a minimum of 3 up to 5 max that will rotate evenly. The goal is to leverage their fully automated ad rotation provided by Google’s new AI technology and to help companies better test messaging.
Action: To increase performance and quality score, Obility is working with our client to increase the number of ads in each ad group to 3. Understanding that our client’s may need work with us to update more than just ad copy, we are conservatively approaching the update.
AMP Page Reporting Improves
Google Analytics add feature to unify AMP & Non-AMP
Summary: As more website’s move to AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) to improve mobile performance, Google is working to improve reporting. In the past, a visitor who visited a website’s AMP page and a non-AMP page was counted as two visitors. Now, GA allows tracking of visitors who view both AMP & Non-AMP content as a single visitor.
Action: For clients who have moved to AMP pages, Obility is including additional reporting in Monthly Reports to better track the performance of these pages. This is also one more argument to encourage all B2B businesses to transition their current mobile pages to AMP.
Calling All Link Builders!
Forbes, Entrepreneur & Inc Now Nofollow External Links
Summary: Three big major business publications, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Inc, all now have nofollow tags on their external links diminishing the value for links from those sites. In short, three websites with high value Domain Authority (DA) will no longer contribute to your website’s DA.
Action: Obility is keeping any eye out to see if more websites follow suite and we’re also tweaking our strategy for link building clients to ensure quality links from high value sites. Obility will watch MOZ’s link index to see if there is a decrease in link metrics that may cause a drop in Domain Authority.
