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Good morning, Search Marketer, and let's talk attribution. 

Attribution can be both a boon and pain for search marketers. We need to know where our marketing dollars are making the biggest impact and where we potentially need to cut our losses and redirect our strategies.

Multi-channel attribution is even more difficult as target audiences are hopping across channels and devices. Think about how you sometimes interact with multiple devices at the same time: jump on your tablet on commercial breaks or jump on your phone in between online meetings.

Many technology solutions have tried to solve this problem, but there's no 100% match to track users while also maintaining their privacy. As browsers are phasing out third-party cookies, there's potential for even more ambiguity. It's an important crux for the modern marketer to consider–especially with the news coming from Google's earnings call earlier this week.

Carolyn Lyden
Director of Search Content

 
 
 
Search Console
 

Google Search Console Discover performance report now includes all data

Publishers that rely on Google's Discover feed for traffic will gain more data insights over the next few months. The Discover performance report within Search Console will soon include all impression and click stats, including Chrome data.

This is noteworthy because there are now several ways for users to access their Discover feeds: the Google Search app, the Google.com homepage and when they open up a new tab in the Chrome app on Android or iOS. When these changes reach your Discover performance report, keep an eye out for the new referrer used for Discover traffic from Chrome: https://www.google.com/; it's replacing the previous www.googleapis.com/auth/chrome-content-suggestions referrer.

Read more here.

 

Search marketers! Take another at the Microsoft Search Network

Brands are always on the lookout for ways to reach new audiences, increase campaign effectiveness, and establish their online presence. But it can be tempting for digital advertisers to stick with what they know. Microsoft Advertising has made significant strides in reaching previously untapped audiences and smartly integrating itself into the growing voice search and home demand market. Download this white paper from Adtaxi to learn how your business can use Microsoft Advertising's latest innovations to add a new edge to your search efforts.

Check it out »

 
Earnings
 

Google is a money printing machine

Alphabet, Google's parent company, reported its Q4 2020 earnings the other day, and oh my does that company know how to make money. The company had a 23% increase in revenues year-over-year with $56.90 billion in revenue for the last quarter of 2020. Google credited a lot of this revenue to two streams: $31.90 billion to Google Search (an increase of 17% year-over-year) and $6.88 billion to YouTube advertising (an increase of 22% year-over-year). Yesterday the stock was up over 7% during the day, and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google, was in good spirits. 

Why we care. In the earnings call, which you can listen to on YouTube, Pichai mentioned an example of how the company's AI efforts are working. The example given was Google shipping BERT in search, he said it was one of Google's biggest quality improvements. In the call, they also spoke about a lot of the changes they made to Maps and other features to help businesses and searchers during COVID.

 

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Register for $99 »

 
Search Shorts
 

Groundhog day

Searching groundhog day on groundhog day. Tuesday was groundhog day and if you searched for [groundhog day] on groundhog day on Google Search you would have been in for a surprise.

Losing Search Console verification. Google's John Mueller said, "If a site loses verification for a longer period of time, we don't collect the data for Search Console, and we don't back-fill it afterwards. So this is, unfortunately, probably not going to show up."

 
Jobs
 

Looking for new talent? Let Search Engine Land help make the connection

We've seen a lot of interest in our new jobs section. Job-seekers and hiring companies are looking to connect, and we're happy to support the search marketing industry. If you're hiring, add your job listing to our registry at the link below, and we may include it in future newsletters.

Add your job listing here.

 
 
 
What We're Reading
 

We've curated our picks from across the web so you can retire your feed reader.

Alphabet Q4: revenue of $56.90B, up 23% YoY, Google Cloud revenue of $3.83B, up from $2.6B, and YouTube ads revenue of $6.89B, up from $4.7B; stock jumps 5%+ (Alphabet) – Techmeme

February key product updates – Microsoft Advertising

IndexWatch 2020 – SEO Losers in Google US – SISTRIX

New in Web Stories for WordPress: animations and ads – Google Blog

What Is Google's "Needs Met" Rating and Why Should You Care? – BruceClay