Good morning search marketers, letting go is hard.
Are you still holding on to standard text ads after all these years? Or has it really been two years since you last checked on your Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads) account? Whatever the reason, if you're running standard text ads in your Microsoft campaigns, they will remain active until March 31. Microsoft had originally said it would shut them off at the end of 2019, but apparently, there are enough advertisers who didn't get the memo that they have extended the standard text ads deadline by three months. If you don't have any extended text ads in your Microsoft campaigns, the easiest thing to do is to import them from your Google Ads accounts. Otherwise, start building out new ones in your campaigns now.
"Think about Google as a database of human intention and behavior," said longtime SEO and content marketer A.J. Ghergich in a chat with Barry Schwartz that ranged from Google algorithms to starting and scaling an agency. Ghergich added, "If it's a database of human intention, it's a database of customer intention."
Ghergich devises programs to mine and harvest that data with natural language processing software. But your process can be as simple as a Chrome plugin and a Google Sheet. "Start with the 'People Also Ask' Box," says Ghergich. The ultimate goal? To have more "empathy" or understanding for his customers than his competitors. Ghergich mines questions as much as possible and ties them to root keywords to understand customer intent. That then becomes content fodder: "These are the five things our customers are struggling with, help them." Watch the full interview with Barry and A.J. here.
Read on for a Pro Tip on YouTube bumper ads and more.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
