Diversity and inclusion in search marketing and advertising; Monday’s daily brief

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.

Good morning, Marketers, and let’s talk about analytics.

I was watching a talk from Andy Crestodina last week where he said that so many people forget the root of analytics is in “analysis.” We’re focused so much on reporting that we forget to really dig in and comb through the data.

With SMX Report next Tuesday, this sentiment really hit home for me. I’ve seen some sneak peeks of the topics and session takeaways, and I can’t wait for attendees to see all the tactical analysis that our speakers are bringing to this virtual event.

Sessions cover everything from competitive PPC analysis to what’s new in GA4 and proving your SEO success with data to reporting across your organization. Oh, plus you get a keynote featuring moi. 

I hope to see you there!

Carolyn Lyden
Director of Search Content

The onus of diversity should not fall to Black marketers

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) found in a 2020 survey that only 6% of its total members were Black, and, of all the CMO members, only 3% were Black. With reports continually proving that diversity in leadership improves profits, how can search marketers address the disparity in hiring?

Mentorship and promotion are two key areas, according to Jamar Ramos and Zenia Johnson, marketers who are both Black. Mentorship doesn’t always have to be a formal arrangement. ”Mentorship can be super helpful because having someone who is inviting you into rooms or spaces that you are not necessarily invited to, but who can be your advocate is huge,” said Johnson.

Promoting Black marketers into middle management and leadership roles also ensures that different voices are heard throughout the organization–and ensure your marketing is more comprehensive.

Read more here.

Google My Business adds messaging to desktop interface

GMB started allowing potential customers to message businesses through their listings in 2016, but the interface finally moved to desktop. Rolling out now, businesses will be able to chat with customers who message them through Google My Business on a desktop now–a feature previously only available through the GMB app.

Many companies have been responding to customer inquiries already through social media like Facebook messenger, which business owners could access on a desktop or mobile device. Google’s move to allow messaging on desktop makes the feature easier for many businesses to actually use.

The feature can be useful for customers to ask specific questions to businesses especially in COVID times. Companies that handle HIPAA-based data and other PII should make sure customers don’t transmit sensitive information as we’re not sure if messaging is HIPAA compliant.

Read more here.

A Google Ads setting allowed advertisers to exclude people of ‘unknown gender’

The Markup found a loophole in Google Ads’ targeting that allowed advertisers to exclude searchers who hadn’t been designated as male or female. This is a big deal for search marketers placing ads for housing, employment, and financial industries.

In 2019, the The Department of Housing and Urban Development sued Facebook for violating the Fair Housing Act when similar settings allowed advertisers to discriminate against certain groups.

“We will be implementing an update to our policy and enforcement in the coming weeks to restrict advertisers from targeting or excluding users on the basis of the ‘gender unknown’ category,” Elijah Lawal, a Google spokesperson told The Markup. 

Read more here.

On the hunt for something new in 2021? Here are the latest career opportunities in search

Digital Marketing eCommerce Manager @ Stand Steady (USA)

• Own and optimize digital advertising efforts for the Stand Steady brand
• Partner with Marketing Operations Manager to monitor campaign and page performance

Senior Director of Growth @ Flatiron School (remote, USA)

• Drive a data point of view on system architecture, data tables/schemas, and more
• Act as Growth Ops roadmap stakeholder for Marketing projects, timelines, and deadlines

SEO Program Manager @ REI (Seattle)

• Help define the strategic direction for the overall SEO program
• Determine on-page optimization and keyword strategy for REI’s ecommerce pages

SEO Strategist @ Victorious (remote)

• Execute on-page and off-page SEO strategies for customers 
• Deliver expert recommendations for keyword research, technical auditing, and more

Enter a job opening for an opportunity to be featured in this section.

Happy lunar new year!

Google Lunar Year Doodle. Check out this powerful Lunar Year Doodle from Google on Friday. Google said, “Take this year by the horns—here’s to this next lunar cycle being as strong as an ox!” 

Site changes for social action message. Are you changing your site, home page or a portion of your site for a social action message? If you don’t want it to impact your SEO, make sure to use 503 server status codes, John Mueller of Google said. 

Shorter is not better. Google’s John Mueller said that shorter domain names or URLs are not better for ranking or SEO purposes.

We’ve curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader.

• Bing Local Listings now Showing Facebook Reviews, Replaces Yelp – LocalU
• Google Search Adds Scroll To Text On Organic Product Results – Search Engine Roundtable
• Impactful SEO Audits for B2B – Moz
• New Personalized Advertising Policies Enforcement in Google Ads API and AdWords API – Google Ads Developer Blog
• Scholar Recommendations Reloaded! Fresher, More Relevant, Easier – Google Scholar Blog