Good morning search marketers, happy Friday,
We're back from New York and still absorbing all we learned at SMX. Thanks to all who attended. There is certainly a lot to think about as the SERPs evolve, the customer journey gets increasingly complex and automation is infusing more aspects of campaigns.
"The prisoner's dilemma is 'Do I optimize for zero-click searches, for providing these answers, for marking my results the way Google wants them — and potentially losing traffic as a result?'" Rand Fishkin said during his keynote at SMX East this week. He says brands need to think differently about organic search marketing — from strictly driving traffic to your site to also thinking about what Rand refers to as "on-SERP SEO." Design content with rich results in mind to increase visibility on the search results page, he says, and come to terms with the reality that organic referral traffic is falling.
Remember when Microsoft announced it had acquired e-commerce advertising platform PromoteIQ in August? We got hints that more is in store for PromoteIQ and its integrations with the Microsoft Advertising platform from Microsoft Advertising evangelist Christi Olson at SMX. PromoteIQ enables brands to promote their products across a network of retailer sites. We'll stay tuned for more news on the developing capabilities. Christi also talked about how advertisers should be thinking about the customer journey in their campaigns, several roadmap updates for advertisers, including audiences, as well as the new interface rollout.
On the news front, reviews platform GatherUp, run by local search veterans Mike Blumenthal and Aaron Weiche, was acquired by martech holding company ASG this week.
Read on for a Pro Tip from a Xoogler on Google penalties and more.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
