Search Industry News Q4 2016

1| C O N F I D E N T I A L & P R O P R I E T A R Y
RANKCRANKERS
Search Industry News | Q4 2016

What we’ll cover:
• SEM
• SEO
• Analytics
• Social
• Industry News

SEM

• The new mobile ad format was created for home services and
currently supports locksmiths, plumbers, handymen, HVAC
services and electricians.
• The ad format displays as a carousel, similar to AMP results
and prominently feature a service area map.
• Google has also implemented a “Google Guaranteed” tag
which means advertisers are licensed, insured, and pre-
screened.
• According to Google, “Any job you book with them is
guaranteed to be done right or your money back.”
• To participate in the Home Services Ads program,
advertisers must go through a background check and
verification process.
G O O G L E R E L E A S E S N E W M O B I L E A D S F O R
H O M E S E R V I C E S
RC’s take:
Google monetized home services by creating a consumer-friendly paid result. The new
carousel pushes local organic results below the scroll. This move forces local home
service providers to participate in paid search to stay competitive.

• The new ad customizers significantly expand the flexibility and scalability
of ad customizers. Much of the improvement comes from the support of
IF statements.
• IF statements can be used to do different things depending on
certain conditions, like the device from which a user is searching, or
if that user is a member of a specific audience list.
• As of 12/9/16, AdWords announced they would be rolling the various new
features out over “the next few months” meaning, advertisers should
have access to all features by mid-2017.
G O O G L E A D C U S T O M I Z E R S G E T A
P O W E R F U L O V E R H A U L
New Features:
- Default Text
- Countdown Timer
- Device Preference
- Audience Preference
- Location-specific
- Scheduled business
data uploads
- Ad Scheduling (time of
day)RC’s take:
Ad customizers provide SEM’s with flexibility. This expansion greatly enhances ad customizer flexibility.
Advertisers can maintain clean account structure while delivering hyper-relevant ad text to customers
based on multiple data sets.

• Prior to the 2016 holidays, Google released some
extremely valuable insights into peak dates during
the holidays where mobile conversion rates increase
– peaking on Cyber Monday.
• Key 2016/17 dates:
• November 11 — Veterans Day
• November 25 — Black Friday
• November 28 — Cyber Monday
• December 12 — Green Monday
• January 7 and 8 — The first weekend after
the holidays
F O R E C A S T I N G M O B I L E C O N V E R S I O N
R A T E S D U R I N G T H E H O L I D A Y S
RC’s take:
E-commerce advertisers struggle to get Mobile conversion rates to meet
those of desktop devices. If you adhere to a strict ROAS goal,
understanding mobile conversion rate spikes can be critical to driving
incremental revenue during the holidays.
Mobile Conversion Rates Nov. 2015 – Jan. 2016
Source: Google Analytics, shopping category data, U.S., Nov. 1, 2015–Jan. 30,
2016. Data includes only accounts whose owners have authorized Google to
share website data in an anonymous way.

SEO

Google is responding to the increase in mobile searches by prioritizing
rank based on mobile content.
• Mobile sites with limited content can have a negative impact on their
desktop counterpart. To combat this issue Google recommends a
responsive site.
• Hidden content on mobile sites will not have the same negative impacts in
mobile first indexing. According to Google, hidden tabs, accordions and
expandable boxes make sense in a mobile environment.
• If you only have a desktop version of your site Google will continue to index
that version.
P R E P A R E F O R A M O B I L E F I R S T I N D E X
“Page speed of your mobile
site will determine the
rankings of your mobile site
and desktop site.”
- Google
RC’s take:
Marketers can no longer avoid providing consumers with a high quality mobile experience. Slow mobile
sites with limited content will now have a greater impact on your bottom line.

Google has entered the “smart speaker” market with Google Home.
These devices function as a source of entertainment, a personal
assistant, and a smart home controller once integrated into our homes.
• Google Home uses featured snippets to fulfill voice search queries.
• Google is programmatically determining whether pages contain
likely answers then displays those results as featured snippets.
• Featured snippets are used to answer informational queries and
questions.
• Branded properties can be featured snippets even if they are not
household terms or high volume searches.
• For Video SEO, titles need to mirror the question asked. A voice
transcript is vital to becoming a featured snippet.
S E R P F R E E S E A R C H I N G ?
O P T I M I Z I N G F O R G O O G L E V O I C E S E A R C H
“…companies need
to optimize with
robust ‘How to’ and
FAQ pages.”
- Ann Smarty, Brand and Community
manager at InternetMarketingNinjas.com
RC’s take:
Voice search is on a fast trajectory (Google reported 20% of android app searches are voice in May 2016).
With speech recognition accuracy improving, coupled with in-home devices, understanding how to
develop and optimize content that can be surfaced in voice query results will be a focus for the future.

While speed is unquestionably improved by adopting Accelerated Mobile
Pages (AMP), some publishers are uneasy about presentation and
functionality of their content:
• Site links are obscured, displaying the URL as google.com rather than the
domain at which content was published.
• Sharing content can be difficult, as the content is cached and links copied from
AMP content rely on a 302 redirect.
• In “early 2017,” Google plans to make it easier for publishers to offer their own
links for readers to navigate back to their site.
• This will help publishers struggling to monetize AMP pages.
P U B L I S H E R S M E E T A M P W I T H A M B I V A L E N C E
RC’s take:
While balancing reach and control of content is not a new challenge for publishers, Google’s shift towards AMP
results complicates the decision in a unique way. Google has seen a lot of success from AMP results and we
expect them to continue to encourage adoption while they attempt to address publisher concerns around content
presentation and functionality.
“We want to drive the
ecosystem forward, but
obviously these things
don’t happen overnight.
The objective of AMP is
to have it drive more
revenue for publishers
than non-AMP pages.
We’re not there yet.”
- - Richard Gingras, VP of News, Google

Google has expanded their rich card feature to
include two new verticals: local restaurants and online
courses (movies and recipes launched in May ’16).
• “With rich cards, results are presented in new UIs, like
carousels that are easy to browse by scrolling left and
right, or a vertical three-pack.” - Google
You can also use AMP HTML for rich cards, which
Google says will create an even faster user
experience.
• AMP is not currently required but is recommended by
Google.
G O O G L E E X P A N D S R I C H C A R D S T O
R E S T A U R A N T S A N D O N L I N E C O U R S E S
RC’s take:
Google is constantly trying to preview more valuable information based on the intent of the
search query. Rich cards offer another option for advertisers to attract searchers to visit
their content.

Google is testing a ‘back to top’ button on
mobile SERPs. The button follows the scroll
providing a quick alternative to scrolling back to
the top of the page.
R I S E O F T H E “ B A C K T O T O P ” B U T T O N
RC’s take:
We’ll have to wait to see if the button makes it past beta, however the test does support the direction
Google has been pushing mobile SERPs:
1. Does the button help push users back toward AMP results at the top?
2. With essentially a second impression for top paid results, will we see more advertisers bidding to top
positions on mobile devices?
3. Is this another step toward deprioritizing organic results on mobile devices?

Bing announced “My Saves,” a search capability allowing
users to save video, image and shopping search results.
• For signed in users, they can access their saved content
under ‘My Saves” without having to re-search Bing.
• Users can not save any paid ads (search, shopping or
video) at this time.
• For shopping results, there is a banner allowing users to
filter by items for purchase, effectively allowing users to
save shopping results.
S E A R C H A N D S A V E F O R L A T E R O N B I N G
RC’s take:
Bing doesn’t tend to lead the search industry in innovations, and “My Saves” won’t change that. The
feature may impact organic conversions. A more likely scenario is that marketers find shifts in cross-
device conversions.

ANALYTICS

Measurement solutions for AMP pages have been around for
a while, but beyond a basic pageview it was cumbersome to
implement.
• To help marketers, Google has released more than 20 tag
types out of the box in GTM, including a variety of 3rd party
vendor tags for AMP pages.
• Google also made sure that firing your tags is a breeze with
great coverage of AMP’s triggers as readily available built-
in Tag Manager triggers:
G O O G L E T A G M A N A G E R B O O S T S
S U P P O R T F O R A M P P A G E S
RC’s take:
This is a great first step for measuring AMP pages. While the updates still do not address
tracking users across AMP and non-AMP pages, implementation is now streamlined
providing marketers with meaningful AMP page user data.

G O O G L E A N A L Y T I C S
C A N N O W M O V E P R O P E R T I E S
For as long as GA has been around (10+ years) if initial
account set up was done poorly, or your business
simply outgrew the initial setup, it could cause major
headaches with managing your GA structure.
Google’s new Property Moving feature is exactly as
described:
• GA users have the ability to move properties from
one account to another without losing any historical
data.
• This means that GA can keep up and reorganize as
your company reorganizes and grows.
RC’s take:
GA can now keep up and reorganize as your company grows and reorganizes. The
seemingly straightforward feature is a very welcome update.

T H E S E C R E T T O G R O W T H I N A
M O B I L E - F I R S T W O R L D
We all know mobile has passed desktop. It happened a
while ago, actually. Despite this common knowledge, has
your organization taken any steps to rethink your
measurement strategies?
Google is on a crusade to get marketers to rethink
measurement and attribution in a mobile-first world.
• They studied leading marketers to analyze their mindset –
that which allows them to adapt and take action better than
others and released the findings:
• Start with business objectives first.
• Recognize gaps and work to bridge them.
• Answer questions with big bet experiments.
RC’s take:
Rethinking attribution is a difficult exercise for many companies. As the consumer
journey adapts to new connected devices, we as marketers need to be prepared to
change how we evaluate brand interactions and marketing tactics.

SOCIAL

• Facebook announced numerous reporting miscalculations and detailed
their resolution to those errors:
• Organic reach, video completion rates, instant articles time spent,
analytics for apps referrals and interest lists.
• Within these metrics, Facebook is renaming calculations to be more
clear for advertisers.
• Announced third-party verification for display ads.
• All ads can now be measured by viewable impressions.
• Introduced a Measurement Council to develop measurement products and
standards.
• Launched Metrics FYI – a blog to share metrics updates, bug reports and
fixes and other measurement announcements.
F A C E B O O K O V E R H A U L S M E T R I C S ,
M A K E S C O R R E C T I O N S , A D D S V I E W A B I L I T Y
“Facebook is taking
steps to make its wide
array of metrics more
clear to advertisers…
That will definitely
help marketers make
better decisions and
hopefully drive more
ad spending on the
platform.”
- - Debra Williamson, Principal
Analyst at eMarketer
RC’s take:
Third party validation was a big win for advertisers. These efforts should ensure appropriate measurement data
for users of Facebook’s advertising platform going forward.

• Facebook’s advertising policies will be updated to be more blatant
about advertisers not discriminating within their ad targeting.
• Advertisers will still have the option to exclude their ads from
being shown to people with ‘affinities’ to certain ethnicities.
• To enforce the policy, Facebook will rely heavily on users to identify
and flag ads as discriminatory.
• FB created a series of warnings for advertisers as they create
ads, based on the content they see on ad landing pages. But
those warnings don’t stop advertisers from moving forward.
F A C E B O O K P U T S L I M I T S O N
C O N T R O V E R S I A L A D T A R G E T I N G
RC’s take:
The actions taken by Facebook are light and should not limit non-discriminatory advertisers in these
categories. Relying on users to flag ads will not eliminate discriminatory ad targeting, but we hope this
initial step is one of many in the right direction.
Facebook will
reject housing-,
employment- and
credit-related
ads from being
targeted based
on people's
'ethnic affinities.'

• Facebook Messenger has been testing sponsored messages
since April 2016, and will be opening up the format to all
brands using Messenger’s developer tools to manage their
Messenger conversations.
• Sponsored messages can only be shown to people who
“have an open, existing conversation with” a brand.
• Sponsored messages will contain one link and one photo.
• Campaigns will not have the ability to be modified to
simultaneously run on Facebook or Instagram.
• Facebook will charge advertisers every time an ad appears on
screen in a Messenger user’s inbox, even if the user never
opens the sponsored message.
F A C E B O O K M E S S E N G E R A D S H A V E A R R I V E D
RC’s take:
Brands with a focus on customer service have a new opportunity to reach users post-engagement. Most
chat-based customer service support is now automated, so it will be interesting to see how brands
integrate advertising opportunities into that automated experience.

• Instagram will add shoppable, clickable product tags to convert a
brand’s followers into paying customers.
• Brands will be able to tag their images, which when clicked,
direct users to a separate IG page with information on the
product and a ‘shop now’ link taking users directly to a
seller’s storefront.
• IG is currently working with 20 retail partners to test the new
features, with plans to expand soon.
• “Instead of having to transition over to the Jack Threads
app, our customers will be able to shop seamlessly from
their social media feeds—allowing us to reach guys where
they’re already hunting for what’s new.”
- Ryan McIntyre, CMO, Jack Threads
I N S T A G R A M W I L L P R O V I D E S H O P P I N G
W I T H I N T H E A P P
of smartphone users in the
US browse, research or
compare products via a web
browser or mobile app.
- eMarketer US Mobile Time and
Activities StatPack, July 2016
84%
RC’s take:
A unique revenue-driving opportunity for a social channel. Instagram becomes appealing for e-
commerce advertisers looking to test new revenue-driving tactics. It’s important that brands looking to
succeed have a clear visual communication strategy and appropriate imagery to post.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Online shopping is supporting offline sales, but are
retailers having the conversations with their marketing
teams and agency partners to understand the impact
of their digital initiatives on offline sales?
• Online sales in 2016 will reach about $394 billion.
• 12% of the $3.4 trillion in total retail sales.
• Web-influenced sales in physical stores are
expected to account for $1.3 trillion or 38% of
total retail sales in 2016.
O F F L I N E R E T A I L A T T R I B U T I O N I S A
N E C E S S I T Y F O R D I G I T A L M A R K E T E R S
RC’s take:
It is imperative for online retailers to understand and attribute the offline impact of digital
marketing. These are difficult conversations for many organizations, but a requirement to stay
competitive and reach consumers in meaningful ways.

FB was accused of helping spread misinformation and fake news stories.
• They may have contributed to a “filter bubble” among users who largely
interact with people sharing similar beliefs.
• Facebook’s top executives deny the social platform held much influence
at all, as many current and former employees believe it is “unbiased”
and provides a “blank canvas to give people a voice”.
Facebook and Google take action against fake news sites:
• Facebook announced they would no longer place Facebook-powered
ads on fake news websites following Google’s announcement earlier
the same day that fake news sites could no longer use its ad placement
network (ad sense).
F A C E B O O K A N D T H E D I G I T A L V I R U S , F A K E N E W S
“[Facebook is] just one of
many ways people
received their
information—and was one
of the many ways people
connected with their
leaders, engaged in the
political process and
shared their views.”
- - Facebook, on the platform’s
influence in the 2016 electionRC’s take:
The influence of fake news shared over social media is a global issue brought to prominence here in
America during this past presidential election. While FB has the ability to influence their algorithm
directly, they have opted to take a smaller step in cutting off ad-revenue from spammers.

Native Programmatic ads could be the answer.
• The New York Times recently launched a suite of native ad
formats called "Flex Frames.“ Results were very favorable:
• Greater user engagement, with a 6X increase in
CTRs.
• Higher viewability, with 4X more viewable
impressions.
• Another benefit is that publishers can also layer first party
data to adapt the ad format based on user data.
C A N D I S P L AY A D V E R T I S I N G F O R M A T S M E E T
M O B I L E A N D A P P E X P E R I E N C E S ?
“Native ads can fit the form and
function of nearly any publisher's
content on any screen.”
- Think with Google, 2016
RC’s take:
Publishers are utilizing this new format to create better branded experiences for mobile
site visitors. How quickly publishers can support the format will be the biggest question
moving forward.

THANKYOU
New business inquiries contact: info@rankcrankers.com
RANK CRANKERS
411 Washington Ave N, Suite #208
Minneapolis, MN 55401

Slide 04: http://searchengineland.com/google-home-services-ads-mobile-263821
Slide 05: http://searchengineland.com/ad-customizers-just-got-whole-lot-powerful-263774
Slide 05: https://googleadsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2016/11/customize-adwords-ads-with-ad.html
Slide 06: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/mobile-conversion-rate-holiday-season.html
Slide 08: http://searchengineland.com/faq-google-mobile-first-index-262751
Slide 09: https://moz.com/blog/how-to-rank-on-google-home
Slide 09: https://www.ducttapemarketing.com/optimize-googles-featured-snippets/
Slide 09: http://searchengineland.com/google-reveals-20-percent-queries-voice-queries-249917
Slide 10: http://searchengineland.com/google-amp-display-publishers-urls-265945
Slide 10: http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-amp-gets-mixed-reviews-from-publishers-1477648838
Slide 11: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/11/rich-cards-expands-to-more-verticals.html
Slide 11: http://searchengineland.com/google-rich-cards-expand-local-restaurants-online-courses-263860
Slide 12: http://searchengineland.com/google-tests-back-top-button-mobile-search-interface-262553
Slide 13: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/search-save-later-new-bing-update/178880/
Slide 13: https://blogs.bing.com/search/November-2016/find-and-save-for-later-on-bing
Slide 15: https://analytics.googleblog.com/2016/10/google-tag-manager-giving-mobile.html
Slide 15: https://www.simoahava.com/analytics/accelerated-mobile-pages-via-google-tag-manager/
Slide 16: https://analytics.googleblog.com/2016/09/improved-analytics-administration-via.html
Slide 16: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2016/11/10/how-to-move-a-property-in-google-analytics/
Slide 16: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6370521
Slide 17: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/measurement-growth-mobile-first-world.html
Slide 19: http://marketingland.com/facebook-measurement-update-metrics-viewability-verification-198304
Slide 20: http://marketingland.com/facebook-puts-limits-controversial-quasi-racial-ad-targeting-option-197955
Slide 21: http://marketingland.com/ads-facebook-messenger-officially-197619
Slide 22: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2016/11/01/instagram-shopping/
Slide 22: http://blog.business.instagram.com/post/152598788716/shopping-coming-to-instagram
Slide 24: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/style/clicks-to-bricks-online-retailers-find-the-lure-of-a-store.html
Slide 25: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/facebook-and-the-digital-virus-called-fake-news.html
Slide 26: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/programmatic-native-advertising-mobile.html
Slide 26: https://www.doubleclickbygoogle.com/articles/new-york-times-native-ads-case-study/
C O N T E N T C R E D I T S

Slide 04: http://searchengineland.com/google-home-services-ads-mobile-263821
Slide 06: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/mobile-conversion-rate-holiday-season.html
Slide 08: https://www.snyxius.com/blog/how-to-create-a-mobile-first-strategy-for-your-business/#.WHfz7BsrK00
Slide 09: http://www.techhive.com/article/3137718/smart-appliance/google-home-review-google-puts-its-awesome-ai-on-a-nightstand-and-wins.html
Slide 11: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rich-cards-local-restaurants-online-courses-23030.html
Slide 12: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-tests-basic-back-to-top-23061.html
Slide 13: https://blogs.bing.com/search/November-2016/find-and-save-for-later-on-bing
Slide 15: https://analytics.googleblog.com/2016/10/google-tag-manager-giving-mobile.html
Slide 16: https://analytics.googleblog.com/2016/09/improved-analytics-administration-via.html
Slide 17: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/measurement-growth-mobile-first-world.html
Slide 21: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebook-messenger-buy/173513/
Slide 24: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/style/clicks-to-bricks-online-retailers-find-the-lure-of-a-store.html
Slide 26: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/programmatic-native-advertising-mobile.html
I M A G E C R E D I T S

Search Industry News Q4 2016

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