‘You got into Harvard Law?’ ‘What… like it’s hard?’ World Intellectual Property Day; Monday’s daily brief

Good morning, Marketers, and today is World Intellectual Property Day,

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, my first job out of college was as a legal assistant (I, in fact, did not graduate from Havard Law, but humor me). And when I wasn’t scanning every piece of paper that came into our office, I was researching patents. This meant a lot of my day was spent in Google’s patent search perusing industrial patents for particular materials (and then printing them out and scanning them again, I’m sure).

If you haven’t checked out this variation of Google’s search engine, it’s actually quite interesting (I say now as I am far removed from my legal assistant days). When you search for something (say, toilets), you can see the results by filing date (most toilet patents were filed between 2001 and 2004 — the heyday of toilet innovation). But you can also get an idea of the top assignees and inventors (the true visionaries in toilets, I’m looking at you, Kimberly-Clark).

So go search for something fun this morning on Google patent search and see the origins of some of your favorite things (and also check out the riveting names that engineers give for everyday things like Furby, — remember those? — aptly named “interactive animated character”). What better way to celebrate World Intellectual Property Day?

Carolyn Lyden,
Director of Search Content

How to gain value from broken backlinks

When many digital marketing professionals think of link building, their minds jump to the standard outreach process. These methodologies can be quite effective, yet the ROI is largely out of your control. Fortunately, there are some highly effective link-building tactics that give marketers more control and serve both users and website owners. These strategies rely specifically on broken backlinks.

Contributor Corey Patterson outlines his method for increasing organic traffic and ranked keywords for his travel/tourism-related client — even during the COVID-19 pandemic: “Ultimate Whale Watch and Snorkel saw a 171.2% increase in organic traffic and a 257.2% increase in organic keywords ranked year over year.”

How did he do it?

• Step 1: Analyze your site’s backlinks.
• Step 2: Organize your broken backlinks.
• Step 3: Choose the broken links to go after.
• Step 4: Regain the broken link value.

The broken backlink issues that affect virtually all sites at some point or another offer marketers creative link-building opportunities. Paying attention to these potential links could make a huge difference in your campaigns.

Read more here.

Facebook announces new tools for Business Suite Manager

According to an Ipsos study from last November, video viewers cited Instagram and Facebook as the most popular video platforms for connecting with brands. Last week Facebook announced In-Stream momentum stats, as well as topic targeting options within Facebook In-Stream video, testing of Instagram Reels Ads, and other ad experiences in Facebook Stories to increase opportunities for brands to better engage with relevant audiences. 

What’s new?

• Global test of In-Stream Video Topics: Lets advertisers place ads in certain video topics through Ads Manager. Powered by machine learning, over 20 Video Topics are available when you select the In-Stream Only placement and brand objectives for your campaign. This test gives advertisers more choice in the content they want their ads to appear in, and reach engaged video viewer audiences.
• Instagram Reels Ads: Instagram will also begin testing Reels ads in India, Brazil, Germany and Australia with tests expanding to more countries in the coming months. The ads will be mobile-first and full-screen, similar to ads in Stories. As with organic Reels content, ads can be up to 30 seconds and people can comment, like, view, save, share and skip Reels ads.
• Sticker Ads for Facebook Stories: In the coming weeks, Facebook will be testing custom Sticker Ads for Stories, announced in March, with select advertisers and creators. These ads allow creators to monetize their Facebook Stories with ads that look like stickers and receive a portion of the resulting revenue. Brands will create bespoke stickers and creators can proactively place these Sticker Ads in their Facebook Stories.

Brands will lose Gen-Z over poor UX

Gen Z is between 6 and 24 years old, and they are digital natives. As such, they have over $140 billion in spending power, and over 40% of Gen Zers purchase more than half of their clothing items online. Not only that, but a US-based DWW survey found that 70% of parents consult their Gen Z children in deciding what to buy.

How can e-commerce and advertisers capture and keep this growing audience of digital spenders? By investing in a seamless user experience from ad to landing page to checkout to delivery.

Gen Z shoppers are not brand loyal and will move on when they have a poor online shopping experience. “More than one-third (38%) of Gen Zers say they allow a brand just one second chance to fix a mistake before switching to a rival. About three quarters (74%) of survey respondents said they’ll find another retailer if an online store is out of stock, while 37% have abandoned a purchase or posted a negative review because of a poor digital shopping experience,” wrote Robert Williams for MarketingDive based on data from Sitecore.

What is a good UX for online shopping youths?

• 83% of Gen Zers said they view online shopping as an experience rather than a mere transaction. 
• 3/4 want new and exciting experiences when they shop online. 
• 71% of respondents want the experience to be personalized.
• 76% said their favorite brands should reward them for their business.

Other findings in the survey suggest that Gen Z shoppers want fast and free delivery and ecommerce experiences that work perfectly on a mobile device.

Argentina loses Google domain; Random citizen buys it for $5

It’s every SEO or website manager’s worst nightmare: forgetting to renew your domain. We all remember the hullabaloo when Marketo forgot to renew their domain and a kind citizen bought it for them (so bad guys couldn’t).

Well, apparently it happens to the best of us… even to Google. “On Wednesday night, an Argentinian purchased ownership of the country’s Google domain for a mere 540 Argentine Pesos which, according to today’s exchange rate, equates to $5.81 USD. The domain apparently became available after its previous ownership expired the same day. This caused a temporary closedown of the search engine google.com.ar,” wrote Utkarsha Laharia for Newsweek.

So, if you needed a quick reminder this Monday, go check to make sure your domains auto-renew.

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

Head of SEO Operations @ Builtvisible (London based w/ flexible working available)

• Lead the direction of the technical SEO department
• Work with Client Services and our Performance Director to ensure defined client strategies are being executed to specification

Associate Director, Paid Social @ Metric Theory (USA – remotely or in offices nationwide)

• Manage a team of 1-2 Senior Managers and their team members, including Account Managers and Analysts (total starting headcount 4-8)
• Grow your team via development and advancement of existing members as well as additional hiring

Senior SEO Strategy Manager @ LoveToKnow Media (remote)

• Build and own the roadmap for SEO (on- and off-page). Lead all SEO strategy, planning, execution, optimization, metrics and reporting.
• Analyze and identify SEO opportunities via keyword research, competitor analysis, content gap analysis, backlink monitoring, crawl logs, and infrastructure audits.

Paid Marketing Manager @ Remote (remote)

• Manage paid marketing channels including Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Marketing Platforms, affiliates, comparison sites and directories.
• Oversee our performance marketing agency by managing their day-to-day, ensuring execution of plans, monitoring campaign performance, recommending changes and optimizations, and reporting on results.

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

Organizing user data, Facebook’s News Feed changes and UX + SEO =  BFF

Ok, this is a long, not a short. But it’s worth the read. How do you organize the data you get from your users (searchers, website visitors, customers, etc.)? You can’t just amalgamate it all together in one blob — but have to analyze the nuances of each individually and use those pieces to paint a picture of your product or service. “If it were art, we’d be painting a picture with hundreds of subtle hues, not simply mixing every paint together to end up with a giant, toneless splodge of data.”

Facebook launches a series of tests to inform future changes to its News Feed algorithms. After being grilled by lawmakers about the role that Facebook played in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the company announced this morning it will be rolling out a series of News Feed ranking tests that will ask users to provide feedback about the posts they’re seeing, which will later be incorporated into Facebook’s News Feed ranking process.

UX and SEO: How UX design can help with SEO concerns. To rank against competitors, you need to ensure your site’s safety, mobile responsiveness, and navigation structure are addressing the human needs of your users. UX and SEO share a common goal: provide users with a satisfying response to their query, then convert that positive engagement into clicks, sales, and sign-ups (ideally at a high rate!).

The relationship between humor and curiosity

“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen,” wrote Mark Twain. 

Next time you’re working on a project and suffering from a severe lack of interest in it — try watching a funny video. It could help spark your inquisitiveness. In this newsletter piece from Hidden Brain, the authors make the connection between having a good laugh and curiosity.

“Laughter is seriously good for you. Yet the older we get, the less we do it. The average four-year-old kid laughs 300 times a day. ‘It takes the average 40-year-old two and a half months to laugh that many times,’ behavioral scientist Jennifer Aaker said.”

Somewhere along the way in our careers we decide to prioritize being buttoned up professionals and decide that humor has to hit the road. As a result, we become more predictable and more specialized — meaning we stop caring about things outside that specialization. More spontaneity = more humor and more humor = more curiosity beyond our comfort zones.

“Humor requires observation and a curious mind, yet our adult lives demand professionalism and focus. Maybe the key to scaling our way back up the humor cliff is to more deliberately approach life the way we did when we were kids – with more playfulness,” the author concludes.
So if you need a laugh this morning, please enjoy this oldie but goody from my hometown (it gets really good at about 1:42).