A BrightEdger

M Posted 10 years 9 months ago

t 9 min read

Search marketing continues to be an extremely competitive industry. Countless businesses compete on the SERPs for customers’ attention, meaning that brands have little room for mistakes. Given the high stakes, it is clear why search marketers have many concerns about their efforts. Some pressing issues include how to expand their campaigns to other languages and regions, how their sites appear in SERPs and how to create a culture of mature SEO production in their own companies.

At Share15 we brought in representatives from major brands including Microsoft, VMware, Hilton, Motorola and Schneider Electric to discuss these issues. The talks they gave were enlightening and engaging. Here are some of the highlights.

International Search & Localization

Search optimization can be a major driver of leads and revenue for companies, but for those who want to take their brands overseas, questions about how to effectively use search in other countries can abound. Not only are their other search engines that might dominate the country, but you also have to think about issues such as cultural differences, translations and understanding the local people well enough to effectively motivate them to make a purchase. These problems can make conquering international search marketing an intimidating endeavor.

At Share15, we heard from representatives of global brands including Marco Muijsert of Philips, David Fisher of Schneider Electric, Michael Velasco of Motorola Solutions and Melissa Walner of Hilton Worldwide. These talks explored critical ideas about international search. They discussed creating regionally-accurate translations, global sites versus microsites and creating a global team to make the entire project a success. Here are some of the key points from their talks:

• search should tie together all of the teams involved in localization
• scale towards local markets
• reach global audience through localization not translation
• remember regional differences (English in the US vs. the UK)
• when not executed well, microsites can have issues, such as competition, in SERPs

Universal SERPs

As a search marketer, you know that SERPs seem to change on a regular basis-- such as the local carousel, the 3-pack and Google Quick Answers. Each of these changes can have an enormous impact on the visibility and traffic that sites receive. Since there is little warning that these changes are about to take place, however, sites often struggle to optimize their pages for the new layout after it has already been implemented. During this presentation session, attendees heard from industry experts about how to optimize their sites so that they can be ready for any future SERP display changes. By optimizing multiple types of content, websites can help enhance and strengthen their position in the rankings and make sure their site is ready for any changes that the future might bring. For this presentation we heard from Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting, Duy Vu of Assurant and Vincent Wehren of Bing. They provided some fantastic content that we wanted to share:

• focus on identifying key questions that customers ask and providing value-added answers
• use visuals, like infographics, to communicate a compelling narrative
• remember that voice/speech queries and longer, more complex queries increasing, so search engines are looking to really understand web pages and their content

Scaling In-House

The importance of organic search for the amount of traffic a website receives cannot be underestimated. According to our own research at BrightEdge, organic traffic is single-handedly responsible for 51 percent of traffic to websites. SEO cannot be confined to a single silo. Instead, it must integrated into all the content produced (learn more about integrated marketing). This content is then used to fuel the marketing ventures across the entire brand. For brands to effectively market to their audience, they have to be able to optimize their content production at scale. This requires growth and maturity as a brand to create a culture where SEO is viewed as a critical part of operations and can be effectively utilized for marketing success.

At Share15 we heard from experienced marketers Adam Souza of VMware, Alex Volk of Microsoft and Danielle Yuthas of Wellbiz. During their talks there was some great information shared including:

• the need to break down silos
• create ‘quick wins’ for the team when beginning to transform marketing culture to boost morale
• use education to get new team members onboard
• do not overlook the importance of data
• do not be afraid to take risks in areas that have the most promise
• there is a maturity curve that describes businesses and departments as they get onboard with SEO

For brands to succeed in search marketing they must explore their organizational maturity and how they optimize their content for SERPs. Brands that are interested in going overseas also have many considerations for successful international optimization. The search marketing segment of Share15 did a fantastic job of exploring these ideas and leaving all attendees feeling ready to conquer the competitive field of search marketing.

A BrightEdger

M Posted 10 years 9 months ago

t 9 min read

Search marketing continues to change at a rapid pace, leaving many marketers feeling intimidated and unsure about where to begin. Technology and customers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and brands must adopt new strategies to keep up.

At Share15, we explored the future of search marketing. We dove into the trends and our presenters provided incredible insights about how to face the future. Our presenters covered subjects related to hot topics such as mobile, understanding the ever-changing algorithm and data learning.

Mobile Friendly

With each passing year, mobile devices have only grown in importance for customers, and Google’s 2015 mobile update cemented their role in search. People use their smartphones and tablets to access the Internet, research products and make purchases. Our own research here at BrightEdge found that by Q3 of 2014, the size of purchases made on mobile devices was within 10 percent of those made on desktops. Customers are not shying away from making purchases of all sizes on-the-go. Brands need to be able to keep up with these customers, who want websites that are fully accessible on their mobile devices. It is not enough to just make the website fit on the screen.

A mobile-friendly site takes into account common behaviors of mobile customers and is optimized to meet those needs. For example, people who are on-the-go are not likely to be too interested in reading multiple articles on the main page. Instead, they want to have easy access to your contact information or a click-to-call button. The site should be prioritized to reflect mobile behavior. We had the pleasure of hearing from Sean Kainec of The Home Depot, Denis Scott of OpenTable and Dave Lloyd of Adobe during this presentation. All three represent major brands that understand the demands of mobile. Their talks offered all attendees an incredible amount of insight. Here were some of the highlights:

• instead of thinking about mobile as a device, think of it as a lifestyle - focus on the person
• mobile is about fulfilling a customer’s need when they are in the moment
• focus on cooperation between the mobile team and the SEO team
• do not automatically go to responsive design -  many retail brands find that other designs work better
• remember when measuring progress that behavior and intent can be different on mobile
• develop apps that are keyword optimized and have local translations for targeted regions

Beyond the Algorithm

Google’s algorithm updates that have focused on rewarding relevancy and quality as well as the mobile update have made it clear that the user experience is the highest priority for the search engine giant. When you build your content with the end-goal of a positive customer experience, you will naturally develop the same priorities as the search engines themselves. This will give you the ability to get beyond the algorithm so that you can see progress in your SERP goals without as much worrying about the next algorithm update.

Optimizing for the user means going beyond outstanding content. It also requires making sure that the site structure is developed to provide the optimal user experience. Reviewing case studies and best practices can be incredible resources for those learning how to maximize their potential in this area. At Share15, we heard from brilliant minds, experienced in the art of optimizing for the end user. Jacqueline Urick of Sears PartsDirect, Binti Pawa of Time Inc, Adam Audette of Merkle RKG and Dawna Olsen of Epicor each added some great insights that helped our attendees feel empowered to see beyond the algorithm. Here were some of the main points the highlighted during the conference:

• there are two key pillars of SEO, technical and the audience
• technical SEO is critical for performance
• Google can read JavaScript, which includes redirects, and can render dynamic content
• it is important to create reports before and after each stage of a content migration to monitor performance
• use keyword research to optimize content organization
• always do a thorough audit after a content migration launch to make sure everything is working as expected
• expect surprises after a migration and fix problems immediately
• regularly run a crawl budget to answer key questions like how easily strategically important pages are accessed by bots

Data Learning and Decision Making

Personalization has become increasingly critical in a successful marketing strategy. Customers want to see brands that recognize their needs as individuals and respond appropriately. The amount of data available for marketers, however, is beyond what people can compute. According to the IDC, by 2020 there will be an estimated 44 trillion gigabytes of data, but the human mind is only capable of holding a million gigabytes of memory (source: American Scientist). Humans cannot keep up with the amount of data being produced alone - we will need the help of machines. This does not mean replacing humans with machines.

Machines will not be able to produce the creative elements of human marketing. What machines will be able to do is help humans interpret the data so that they can maximize their opportunities with their visitors. Data learning and decision making can help websites track customers’ visits to the site and display the most relevant information. It can also interpret information about the visitor’s personal situation, such as location and weather, to further personalize the page. The data can help you create a personalized journey for each visitor from the first time they land on the website through their purchase and into the post-purchase period. This will help you exceed customer expectations and create loyal brand customers. This topic was explored by Jay King of Ben & Jerry’s, Sudhir Sharma of Motovo and Stefan Zechner of Western Union. Each of the talks provided some great points about the ideas at hand. Here were some of the highlights that our attendees appreciated:

• make sure that SEO is employed as a cross-departmental effort
• have a strong monitoring process in place to gauge progress
• we have the data we need at hand, we just learn to leverage it to identify what customers are looking for - which is where tools like the BrightEdge Data Cube come into play
• listening to customers can provide valuable insights into the types of campaigns and content that would be appreciated
• gather data through a variety of sources such as social listening and A/B testing

Search marketing continues to evolve quickly and savvy marketers are seizing hold of the technology and techniques that will be the way of the future. By touching upon hot topics such as mobile, the algorithm and data learning, our Share15 presenters did a fantastic job of making sure our attendees were prepared for whatever the future might bring.

A BrightEdger

M Posted 10 years 9 months ago

t 9 min read

Often, when people discuss digital marketing, they spend most of their time speaking about factors such as search rankings and Share of Voice. They end up neglecting the most important factor in the success of a marketing campaign: people. It is too easy to regard a top three ranking for a particular keyword as the end-goal itself, rather than seeing it as a vehicle to genuine marketing success. At Share15 two weeks ago, we had two outstanding presentations that explored the importance of the human factor in digital marketing. They looked at the importance of cultivating brand advocates and influencers who can help spread your message and extend your reach. They also looked at the engagement of customers on an intimate level through automation and personalization. Here are some of the enlightening insights they had to share with us and the attendees.

Content, Influence and Human Capital

For brands to effectively influence buyers, they must have a strong reputation. According to this Influencer Marketing Agency, reputation is built by continually being a good resource for customers when they go online to learn more about a particular topic. This reputation also develops when you have credible brand advocates who are willing to tell others about the positive experience they had with your company. The importance of brand advocates cannot be understated. According to Nielsen, third-party reviews from friends and family continue to be the most trusted source of information for customers.

Consumers generally question the credibility of the advertising that brands put out about themselves, but they will often listen to those that they view as being objective. Cultivating a positive reputation begins by understanding the intended customer. This goes beyond having a basic idea of whether you are selling to large or small businesses. You want to understand psychological and behavioral best practices to comprehend what your consumers are looking for and what has the power to motivate them to purchase. You then create the optimized content that will help answer the needs put forth by the customer. The mission does not end with engaging content, however.

You must continue to place the needs and desires of the customers at the forefront of the business practices. Brand influencers, people who already have a strong personal reputation within your intended audience, can also be valuable advocates. When you find influencers who can reach thousands of people the impact can be incredible. Cultivating these relationships requires time and effort to demonstrate that you have something of value to offer the influencer and their audience. Mel Carson of Delightful Communications and Majestic, Peter Krmpotic of Adobe and Travis Low of Revana Digital offered some great insights into how brands can achieve these goals. Here were some of their intriguing ideas that they shared with us:

• just 15 percent of people will trust the messages they hear from brands
• you can find influencers through surveys, programmatic tools, cross referencing data and luck
• when speaking with potential influencers, have a plan and goal in mind and be able to explain what they can receive through the partnership
• when trying to target influencers, make sure you have content they can use and appreciate
• efforts to improve marketing campaigns are often side-lined by people’s opinions and fears, so have clear KPIs that can be used to measure progress

From the Majestic presentation

Email and Marketing Automation

Email continues to be a valuable tool for marketers, with well over half saying that email marketing generates ROI for their brand. It is also estimated that by 2017 there will be 206 billion emails sent every day to 4.9 billion accounts. Email is an efficient means to reach customers because of its popularity. By personalizing the messages that customers receive, you can maximize this impact and take your success even further.

Digital marketers also have to be aware of how customer expectations are beginning to change. Customers value individualized interaction with brands and they want to know that their interests and needs are being addressed personally. Marketing automation and email give marketers the tools to respond to customers in real-time based upon their behavior when interacting with the company's web properties. For example, a visitor who has visited the website a few times and visits the pricing page without making a purchase might receive an automatic email that provides them with a free trial or a discount.

As brands communicate more effectively with their page visitors through their understanding of behavioral marketing and automation, they can increase engagement and conversions. Dave Lawson of IgnitionOne, Tyler Altrup of Oracle/Eloqua and Rodrigo Fuentes of Listenloop explored this topic and provided attendees with an in-depth look at the power of automation. Here were a few of the incredible tips with which attendees walked away:

• email continues to have a positive revenue impact and is the channel of choice for 69.7 percent of Internet users
• email provides opportunity for lift across channels and across devices-- it is a linchpin
• marketers are slowed down in their automation efforts by a division between digital and offline interactions with the brand and a lack of cross-channel data consistency
• marketers must learn to adapt customer journeys to actual behavior
• to meet customers, brands must adopt hybrid or holistic approaches-- silos must be taken down

​Digital marketing continues to evolve at a rapid pace. The technological capabilities and the influence of algorithm updates power much of this change, but marketers cannot neglect the human factor. Customers are the end-goal for companies, not rankings. By keeping people at the forefront through maximizing the customer experience and empowering automation and personalization features, brands can better serve their customers and improve their digital marketing success. Take our digital marketing quiz to test your knowledge.

A BrightEdger

M Posted 10 years 9 months ago

t 9 min read

As digital marketing becomes increasingly sophisticated, the silos that once separated channels, campaigns and even the skills of marketers themselves have come crashing down. This was a message clearly delivered to our attendees at our Share15 conference last week. We had the pleasure of hearing from representatives from a variety of major brands, like Best Buy, IgnitionOne, Oracle/Eloqua, Marriott, Monster Energy and Adobe. These speakers deeply explored key topics, offering valuable insights and inspiring great conversations. Here were some of the conversations and presentations that dominated the digital marketing track.

Talent Management

As the digital marketing world becomes more complex, so does the role of the marketers themselves. Marketers can no longer succeed when they remain confined to a single, specialized role in digital marketing. The content marketer needs to be able to interpret analytics that tells him whether or not he is engaging the intended audience. The paid advertising specialist must also know how to draft content that will engage the people who click on her ads. Many marketers are beginning to see the value in branching out beyond their specialities. According to Adobe, an estimated 40 percent want to reinvent themselves, but only 14 know how to go about it. Jay Middleton of Adobe, Dan Mooney of John Wiley & Sons and Michelle Rife of BrightEdge offered some fantastic insights into this topic. The presentation included highlights such as:

• the importance of providing training for everyone in areas such as digital analytics and social marketing
• the biggest talent gaps are in areas such as analytics, mobile, content marketing, social media, email, marketing automation and SEO
• valuable hybrid marketers also need fantastic interpersonal and communication skills to drive projects forward.

Integrated Campaigns

Customers themselves are also becoming increasingly sophisticated. They are no longer interacting with brands on a single platform. Instead, they are journeying between websites, social pages, paid advertising and reading reviews, all before they make a purchase. To meet this need, campaigns need to be similarly integrated. Failing to provide these customers with a strong, consistent brand image across the platforms will make the intended message much weaker, which can impact conversions and brand reputation. Mark Fiske of Ancestry.com, Alok Jain and Deepak Goyal of eZedia and Allan Price of Monster Energy addressed this topic, leaving attendees with new inspiration for leading the integrated campaigns back at their own businesses. Their talks touched upon highlights such as:

• measuring success and distributing content through different channels tend to be among the chief challenges for marketers
• content is the foundation of all integrated marketing
• the value of content intelligence and effectively scaling content to drive success
• it is possible for attribution models to change as you gain more insight or realize errors-- do not wait for the perfect model to get started

Paid, Owned & Earned

Paid, owned and earned media are an integral aspect of any digital marketing strategy. The intersection of these three has become increasingly apparent as businesses are able to see how they influence each other. For example, high-quality owned media, such as website content, will impact the success of a paid marketing campaign as well as the cultivation of earned media. A successful digital marketing campaign, therefore, requires a keen understanding of how these areas work together and how to design successful, engaging campaigns that appropriately use each specialty. Cindy Phan of VMware, Charmaine Madamba of Citrix, Michael Thomas of Noble Studios and Alex Edlund of the Marriott offered several case studies and intriguing examples that helped attendees see how these three intersect. They covered important topics such as:

• The importance of data when determining strategy and success
• The value of collaboration and cross-functional teams working together to take advantage of insights and best practices
• In the end, the most important criteria of a digital marketing campaign is the revenue and profit it drives, so measure ROI

Cross-Channel Marketing

Successful marketing means looking at far more than different aspects of online marketing--there must also be recognition that consumers are not just interacting with brands while online. Interest might be sparked when seeing a commercial on TV or hearing one on the radio, for example. With successful cross-channel marketing, brands will keep their messages consistent across these various channels and understand how to integrate their analytics and attribute revenue to both on and offline conversions. John Hensel of Best Buy, Jennifer Day of Tableau and Ujjwal Bhattarai of Brady Corp explored best practices with our audience and had everyone leave feeling confident in their understanding of cross-channel marketing. They discussed key insights including:

• the importance of using facts instead of opinions to drive marketing decisions
• choosing and using metrics wisely-- do not go for flashy, go for valuable
• the insights gathered when looking at the customer journey, such as from an email to making a phone call
• cross-channel marketing means acknowledging that customers want to use more than one channel, such as searching for information online while in store
• the value of understanding customers and the paths they take to purchases

Digital marketing continues to evolve as marketing techniques, and the customers themselves, become more sophisticated. The silos between different aspects of marketing and the roles of marketers are no longer enough to succeed in this rapidly advancing industry. At Share15, our speakers sought to explore these changes through engaging presentations that enlightened attendees, sparked excellent conversations and helped establish the conference as one of the most valuable events to attend all year. Take our digital marketing quiz to test your knowledge.

Lennon Liao

M Posted 10 years 9 months ago

t 9 min read

The world of content development is becoming increasingly competitive. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 86 percent of B2B marketers report that their organizations are using content marketing and 70 percent of them are creating more content than before. Businesses are recognizing the value of online marketing, which means that the space will become even more saturated. The saturation will also be coming in the form of high-quality content.

The past year has also seen several algorithm updates that have been aimed at raising the bar of the content available online. As brands respond to these updates, it will be even more of a challenge to rank well and reach more audiences. The key to overcoming these challenges is to use data to monitor each phase of the customer journey. You want to look carefully at your content strategy and gauge how well customers are finding your content and how they are responding to what you have to say. Just looking at page views will not give you the strategic insight you need about how you compete with others in your industry. You will also not be able to see the contribution of specific content investments in terms of revenue and engagement.

Bridging the gap between raw data and real-business context

Telling a data-driven story is not always easy, however. First, as marketing technologies evolve and reach more audiences online, more information is being generated across the different channels. This includes data such as rank, share of voice, revenue, revenue per visit, conversions, visits, conversion rate, bounce rates, average time spent on site, page views, backlinks, indexed pages, viewability, interaction rates and video completion rates.

With BrightEdge StoryBuilder, you can analyze nearly any metric that might be valuable to your brand. This includes metrics from BrightEdge, along with other metrics from your Web Analytics and third-party systems. Rather than trying to make sense of the raw data or metrics derived from your campaigns, StoryBuilder helps to elevate the value of your story by translating the data into metrics that matter for your business, told in a way that is relevant. For example, instead of analyzing “visits” or “rank,” StoryBuilder helps to uncover the value of this data by linking it to questions in context of the brand’s marketing goals and desired business outcomes. So if you are in retail, where your business is highly seasonal, your goal could be something like: "I want to grow revenue by 30% year-over-year for a product category through organic, paid and social channels."

Instead of looking at revenue data, you might ask more probing questions, such as:

• How well has revenue been performing this season vs. same time last year?
• Are we following the same cyclical performance trends, or are we under performing?
• Which are the key channels that drove the most revenue per visit?

And if there is a shortfall in revenue, you might investigate and ask: “Was there a decline in visits?” And if engagement and conversion are higher than a prior period, you might ask:

• Where are people visiting, and where are they most engaged throughout their customer journey?
• What were the compelling offers used in high-converting pages?

If your marketing strategy is to increase brand awareness but you have a smaller budget, you could look into organic channels and investigate:

• How well am I competing for market share in organic search?
• Which product categories have the highest market share on organic search, and which have the lowest?
• What can you do to increase your market share?

With BrightEdge StoryBuilder, you no longer need a data science degree or data analytics expertise. Instead, BrightEdge integrates data from the various digital marketing channels and translates the data into questions that map to a business context. So rather than pulling data into Excel and analyze offline, you now have the answers you need immediately.

 The Scope of StoryBuilder Capabilities

We have assembled a Questions Library that was developed based upon our experience working with over 1200 customers and brands worldwide. It is now available to help you accomplish your goals. Say you wanted to increase your brand reach and traffic. You can use the StoryBuilder to find the answer to insightful questions such as:

• Which organic search engines are driving the most traffic?
• How well is my content reaching consumers on mobile?
• How efficient are we at acquiring customers through my paid and organic channels? Where should I reallocate budget?
• How well is my content competing on page one of Google? Who am I competing with?
• How well am I showing up in the top three positions on mobile?
• What is my overall Share of Voice and did it improve? Who is edging up and how?
• If your goal was customer acquisition or revenue YoY growth then find answers to:
• How well am I performing this year compared to the same time last year?
• Which content pages are top movers & shakers?
• How is revenue trending across our top product categories?
• How efficient are we at acquiring customers through these channels?
• What is the revenue mix by channel?

If your goal is to understand content relevancy and engagement you can check:

• How well is mobile driving people to my site?
• How efficient are we at converting customers?
• Which content is driving the most engagement?
  • How engaged are mobile consumers with my brand?
  • Where are we seeing the most drop-off in site engagement?

Regardless of the questions you might have, StoryBuilder can help you find the answer quickly. Create charts and graphs to make your digital narrative visual and engaging to fully grasp your online performance and where you have room to improve. You can get answers to “how well are you performing this year compared to last year?” You can create new tables where you can compare valuable data points such as this week to last week, this week to the same week last year, week over week and year over year. For example, you might notice that while your current week is performing poorly compared to last week, your revenue compared to the same week last year has gone up.  

The ability to apply numeric filters to cross tabs has also been added. If you wanted to compare keywords between two domains and see if a drop out of the top five slots meant that a competitor moved into the spot, you now can. These are just some examples that showcase how content marketers can elevate the value of their marketing outreach and results. With the StoryBuilder platform, we are continually looking for ways to improve the available capabilities so that you have access to the information you need to make sure your content succeeds in the increasingly competitive world of search and content marketing.

StoryBuilder can help you understand your brand reach, engagement and acquisition by providing you with the answers and insights you need to direct your marketing investments and remain one step ahead of the competition.  

A BrightEdger

M Posted 10 years 9 months ago

t 9 min read

It’s hard to believe that another Share conference has come to an end. Wednesday was the final day of the event and it definitely ended on a high note. Attendees started the day at opening sponsor labs with Jumpshot and Majestic carrying the enthusiasm and energy over from Tuesday night. The hotel was buzzing with excitement as people moved into the day’s opening general session Digital Elevation: Transformation.

Woodson Martin, SVP Marketing Cloud Operations for Salesforce and Clay Stobaugh, EVP and CMO of Wiley, took the stage to share how today’s leading organizations are taking advantage of data-driven marketing.

The rest of the day flew by in a flurry of insights, case studies, and rich discussions — everything from Adobe and Wiley’s take on the Hybrid Digital Marketer to a discussion about Data Learning and Decision Making with Ben & Jerry’s, HP, Movoto, and Western Union (during which Ben & Jerry’s surprised the audience with a very sweet treat!)

We also saw more great news coverage of Share15 from publications like AdWeek’s SocialTimes and Martech Advisor. Social engagement around #Share15 continued its momentum from Tuesday, with tons of feedback, insightful thoughts, and photos making their way to the ongoing social conversation.

Thanks to all of our amazing attendees, speakers, sponsors and organizers who helped make Share15 a success. We can’t wait to see everybody next year at Share16. Check out some content from Wednesday’s sessions below to continue the learning!

Digital Marketing

The digital marketers dove deeply into the human factor in digital marketing. Although algorithms and computers can help elevate your content and display it to users, it is only when those users click and engage with your content that you are on your way to success.

Content, Influence and Human Capital

Presenters: Mel Carson, US Brand Ambassador for Majestic Delightful Communications Peter Krmpotic, Sr. Product Manager for the Adobe Experience Manager Travis Low, Vice President of SEO and Organic for Revana Digital Attendees were treated to three exciting talks that explored how to incorporate people into digital strategy. This included creating brand advocates, personalizing customer experiences and influencing industry experts. This session focused on having a better understanding of human psychology and behavior to grow the brand.

The Hybrid Digital Marketing - Talent Management

Presenters: Jay Middleton, Director of Global Search Marketing for Adobe Dan Mooney, Director of Digital Analytics for John Wiley & Sons, Inc Michelle Rife, Senior Director Global Talent Acquisition for BrightEdge Hybrid marketers are becoming highly desirable as the marketing world becomes increasingly complex. Marketing silos are being broken down as roles become intermingled and techniques become more sophisticated. The need for hybrid marketers, who can work in more than one area, are becoming increasingly apparent and talent gaps are forming. These sessions focused on closing the gaps, learning how to build assets and how marketers can build their careers for the exciting future ahead. 

Integrated Campaign Management

Presenters: Mark Fiske, Vice President of Channel Marketing for Ancestry.com Operations, Inc Alok Jain, Co-CEO and CMO and Padmini Murti, Co-CEO for eZdia Allan Price, Global Director of Digital Marketing for Monster Energy To engage with customers online, brands need to broadcast a consistent image across all platforms. Customers have now largely abandoned content silos and instead engage with brands in a variety of different ways before they make a purchase. For brands to successfully meet these needs, they need to have consistent marketing messages wherever the customer might be. This means taking a holistic look at marketing efforts, but a large gap remains between those who say they prioritize cross-channel marketing integration (67 percent) versus those who have an accurate understanding of their customers so that they can adapt accordingly (43 percent). This session addressed these challenges.

Content Marketing

Success in content marketing means knowing how to leverage content to work for you. It is not enough to just have countless pages of content on the website, that content must serve a purpose. Wednesday presentations worked to help attendees see how to make that happen.

Content & Competition: Creation & Curation

Presenters: Brad Beiter, VP of Performance Content for Performics Scott Lavelle, Director of Global SEO for OpenTable Felipe Carreras, Director of Ecommerce for Best Western For content marketers to see return from their content investments, they must produce material that outperforms the competition. You can only accomplish this goal when you take the time to understand who your competition is and where their strengths and weaknesses lie. This session looked at ways to size up the competition and gain an edge.

Content Convergence: Search, Social & Content

Presenters: Richard Mastriani, Director of SEO for Wyndham Hotels Michael DeHaven, Product Management and SEO for Bazaar Voice Susanne Szostak, Brand Solutions and Content Merchandising lead for Google/YouTube Deborah Carver, Content Marketing Manager for Nina Hale Content can no longer be confined to one silo. Instead, it needs to be present and ready to engage customers wherever they might be. This session explored how content, search and social work together and why this is important for marketers.

Content Measurement Metrics; Pages & Performance

Presenters: Chris Bennett, CEO and Founder of 97th Floor| Kirill Kronrod, Senior Global SEO Manager for Adobe Cade Burk, Search Manager for The Container Store Metrics are critical for content to succeed. WIthout metrics, you will just be guessing about the types of content to which customers will respond best. You will not have the insights you need to know how you compare to your competition and what new avenues you can pursue to expand content reach. These presenters explored how to use these metrics and leverage the information for content success.

Search

Once you have all the other factors in place, visibility all comes down to search. You can have the best content in the world, but if no one can find it, then it will do you brand little good. Our Search sessions on Wednesday explored how to take search optimization efforts to the next level.

Scaling In-House - The Search Org Maturity Curve

Presenters: Adam Souza, Senior Web Marketing Manager for VMware Danielle Paske, Senior Digital Media Manager for Wellbiz Brands Alex Volk, Director of Search Marketing for Microsoft Organic search consistently remains the chief driver of traffic towards websites. As brands develop and cultivate the content they need to fuel this attention, they often find themselves encountering problems of scale. These presenters helped marketers see how to mature their production to meet search demand.

Data learning & Decision Making - Crawl, Walk & Run

Presenters: Jay King, Senior Interactive Manager for Ben & Jerry’s Sudhir Sharma, Director of SEO for Movoto Stefan Zechner, Global SEO Manager for Western Union By 2020, the digital universe is expected to contain an estimated 44 trillion gigabytes of data according to the IDC. This is beyond the capacity of the human brain to understand and compute. The data produced can hold tremendous insights for companies, but they must learn how to leverage it.

These sessions explored hot topics like machine learning, how to use data to guide content production and how to better understand the intentions of the target audience. 

Universal SERPs - Question, Quick Answers & Finding the Right Blend

Presenters: Duy Vu, Global SEO Manager for Assurant Vincent Wehren, Senior Product Lead for Bing Eric Enge, CEO of Stone Temple SERPs perpetually change as the developers try to find better ways to meet the needs of the users. The 3-pack, Google quick answers, the local carousel and other changes have greatly impacted brands’ visibility.

This session focused on helping businesses see how to use a variety of different types of content to ensure that the site will show up well on SERPs regardless of future adjustments.

The day ended with our final general session, Digital Entrepreneurship and Leadership. It was an excellent way to conclude the conference, with some of the best minds from Silicon Valley providing key insights about the importance of innovation and how to find your path to success.

Attendees were able to say their goodbyes filled with inspiration about what they can do with their own brands when they walk into the office on Thursday morning-- and that is the impact we wanted to achieve.

We all had a fantastic time at Share15 this year, and we believe that the attendees enjoyed themselves as well. We already are throwing around ideas about how we could possibly top this year’s experience at Share16, but based on the feedback that is going to be very hard to do. Know that we will spend the next year planning Share16 to make it the most valuable and invigorating conference you attend all year.