Field Tips: Make Your Marketing Metrics Work Harder

Field Tips is a biweekly email series bringing you the latest marketing trends and topics directly to your inbox. Covering everything from digital marketing and social media to content strategy and more, we curate the industry’s top stories and present them as easily digestible insights. The content contained within this post comes directly from our September 6, 2024 issue. If you’d like to receive Field Tips, subscribe here.

I hope you had a relaxing Labor Day. As we get back to the grind, it’s a good time to think about making our marketing efforts work harder for us. Here are a few key metrics that can help you do just that:

• Conversion Rates: Are your campaigns turning clicks into customers? Optimizing conversion rates ensures your marketing dollars are well spent.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Knowing the long-term value of your customers helps you focus on what really drives profitability.
• Engagement Metrics: How is your audience responding to your content? Fine-tune your messaging based on real-time engagement data.
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Track where your ad dollars are delivering the most impact, and invest in what’s working.

Let’s use these metrics to keep the momentum going for the remainder of 2024. If you need a hand with optimizing your campaigns, my team is here to help.

WHAT’S HAPPENING.Yelp is suing Google, claiming the tech giant is unfairly using its power in search to dominate local search results. Yelp argues that Google’s practices hurt competition and limit choices for users by prioritizing its own services over others.

WHY IT MATTERS.For marketers, this lawsuit could shake up how local search works, especially if it leads to changes in how Google displays search results. Staying on top of this could be key for local SEO strategies moving forward.

WHAT’S HAPPENING. WordPress is rolling out stronger security for all plugins and themes. By October 2024, developers will need to use two-factor authentication (2FA) and a more secure password system (SVN passwords) to protect their accounts. This move comes after some security issues where hackers took advantage of weak passwords to change plugin code.

WHY IT MATTERS. As a WordPress-focused web development shop, this is great news. A safer WordPress environment means less risk for our clients—and us! Fewer security risks mean smoother site operations and better user trust, both key for SEO and online growth.

WHAT’S HAPPENING. Google is removing Auction Insights metrics from its Looker Studio starting September 23. These competitive metrics, including Impression Share and Outranking Share, will only be accessible through Google Ads moving forward.

WHY IT MATTERS. We’re results-driven and measurement minded, so we put a lot of time and attention into delivering accurate, usable reporting. Quite frankly, Google’s decision is annoying and inconvenient. Short term, this means marketers will need to adjust their Looker Studio reports to avoid broken data sources. Long term, this change adds more steps (and potential for error) to analyze competitive performance.

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