Curt del Principe – The Blog Pros

November 19, 2024

How Brands Can Act Responsibly During a Crisis

It’s been 53 days since Hurricane Helene devastated my hometown of Asheville, but I’m going to level with you: I showered in a FEMA trailer this morning, so it’s still really hard to care about send rates and conversion optimization.

Lucky for you and me (and my editorial calendar), I found a story that I do care about. And my sense of humor is still (mostly) intact.

It’s a story of cleverness and kindness. A story about how one business owner used her clout to help her community. And a story about how your brand can do the same, should you find yourself in the middle of a crisis.

And don’t worry: we’ll also check out examples of how businesses of different sizes chipped in, so there’s plenty for you SMBs and enterprise marketers, too.

Making Magic in a Time of Trouble

Charla Schlueter sits in front of me meticulously shuffling a deck of Magic the Gathering cards. Yet each time the door beside us opens, she greets each newcomer with a smile and their first name.

Schlueter’s the owner and operator of Gamers’ Haunt, a little game shop in Asheville, North Carolina. Since the hurricane hit, my son and I have been visiting weekly in search of something the shop gives away for free: normalcy.

But we’re not actually in Gamers’ Haunt. Not properly. We’re seated in the two-room kung fu studio that’s graciously allowed Schlueter to host a makeshift shop after a maple tree rudely inserted itself into her roof during the hurricane.

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Despite the change in venue, the studio is packed wall-to-wall with Schlueter’s regular customers. It’s game night and the turnout is high. They’re here for a bit of normalcy, too, but they’re also here to support Schlueter and her team.

This is the kind of community your social media director would commit crimes to have. It’s fiercely loyal and consistently engaged. And it’s anchored by Schlueter’s unflagging friendliness.

Her friendliness is belied by only two things: The way she absolutely annihilates my 9-year-old kid in Magic. And the shrewdness with which she leverages her business influence to help this community.

A Stormy Surprise

We each draw seven cards and begin trading stories about how the hurricane flipped everything on its head.

“After the storm, I did my best to try to track down as many customers as I could to see how they were doing and make sure that they were good,” Schlueter tells me while arranging her hand.

During one such check-in, she and her crew helped a customer clear wreckage from his flooded home.

“We go to his room, and it’s all covered in mud because the whole house was submerged,” she says. Yet among the silt and sludge, there was a surprise: The cards he’d bought from Gamers’ Haunt had survived. The boxes they were stored in, designed to protect against casual wear and tear, were apparently also disaster-proof.

“Sure enough, we open up the Boulder boxes, and they’re totally fine.”

To spread a bit of levity during a tough time, Schlueter shared the discovery on the Gamers’ Haunt Facebook page. That’s when the brand behind the boxes took notice.

Schlueter lays down a card.

“Once I posted about it, Ultimate Guard reached out to me and was like ‘Oh, that’s incredible. Do you mind if we share this?’ And I said ‘Absolutely!’”

She turns the card sideways to signal her attack.

“As long as you’ll share my customer’s GoFundMe with it,” she grins.

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If I have enough, I’m good.

Ultimate Guard agreed to share the customer’s GoFundMe with their audience — about 10 times the people that Gamers’ Haunt could otherwise reach. (As a bonus, they also sent some free swag to both the customer and the shop.)

I asked Schlueter why she didn’t request that they share her own GoFundMe. After all, the shop had to be gutted after the tree hole let the hurricane in without asking.

“I’ve always had this motto, ‘If I have enough, I’m good,’” Schlueter says. “At this point, the community had risen up and done a lot of wonderful stuff for my business.”

To that end, the shop’s own GoFundMe had reached its original goal in just over two days. And the community gave her more than just financial support.

“It was unbelievable. Six people brought tables and chairs. I had hordes of people come help me get inventory out of the shop when it was still flooding. I can’t even name the number of customers who came and helped me.”

So, why did the community rise up for them? Maybe it’s because all of the employees know them by name. Maybe it’s because the shop is run by the kind of people who shovel mud for casual acquaintances.

Schlueter thinks it’s something deeper.

“It sounds corny, but I very strongly believe that if you take care of a community, it will take care of you. And the hurricane proved me right.”

Takeaways from a Typhoon

I recognize that building a community is a different exercise for a mom-and-pop shop, but if you zoom out, there are lessons here for brands of any size.

I sincerely hope you never need these lessons, but you should consider them before a crisis hits.

1. Take care of your community.

When disaster strikes, it’s okay to worry about your own business. Put your own oxygen mask on first. But once you’re safe, your next thought should be your community.

Following the storm, Schlueter and her team created free decks of Magic cards for people who lost theirs during the storm.

And while that’s a kind thing to do on an individual level, it isn’t just about replacing material goods. Without their cards, community members can’t join in on the weekly games.

“If you lose your Magic deck, you lose your community. So I think there’s a lot more tied to it than just belongings.”

2. Use what you have at hand.

As a business owner, Schlueter had the attention of a supplier, which she leveraged to bring wider awareness to her community’s needs.

That’s what she happened to have at hand. Your business may have different resources.

When local restaurants Blunt Pretzels and Bear’s Smokehouse had to shut down normal operations following the storm, they could have just closed their doors. Instead, they partnered with World Central Kitchen to use their kitchen space to offer free hot meals to the community.

Highland Brewing’s main resource was an abundance of space, which they offered up to relief organizations like Beloved Asheville, World Central Kitchen, and Wine To Water. These organizations used the brewery as both a central hub and a storage area for the massive amount of supplies needed.

3. Patronage is a resource, too.

Don’t forget that the money you spend (on daily operations, relief efforts, or even your own recovery) can also be a form of relief.

When Red Fiddle Vittles and Mother Earth Food began offering fresh-cooked meals to shelters, they sourced the ingredients from local farmers. That support means the world to small businesses that may have lost their ability to support themselves.

4. You don’t have to fix it all.

In the aftermath of a crisis, the scope of what needs to be addressed can feel overwhelming to those who want to help.

Take a deep breath. You don’t have to fix everything. Find an area that you can address and focus on that.

When our schools were shut down for several weeks, kids needed something to occupy their time. (Keep in mind, we also had no electricity during those weeks.)

Comic Envy, a local favorite comic shop, responded by offering a sale on children’s books and comics.

As the parent of a 9-year-old, I can tell you that the sale was deeply appreciated.

5. Don’t treat it like a campaign.

Throughout October, a community care station with showers, laundry machines, and potable water was set up in the parking lot of a nearby grocery store.

It was quietly paid for by Pratt & Whitney, an aerospace company with a manufacturing plant in Asheville. There were no signs announcing this. No banners stating that it was proudly sponsored. No brand awareness was being generated.

But word gets around. And locals remember these things.

How You Can Help

While Western North Carolina has fallen out of the news cycle, we’re still very much in need of your attention.

In the days and weeks immediately following the hurricane, an outpouring of food, water, clothing, medicine, and love helped us to simply survive.

But as we transition from survival to recovery, the kind of help we need is transitioning, too.

The resource I happen to have at hand is a newsletter and a blog, with a big audience full of beautiful people like you. So I’ve loaded this article with links to incredible local brands that could use your support. If you find yourself moved to help, consider clicking a link and checking out what they’ve got to offer.

October 16, 2024

How to Nail First-Party Data Strategy According to a Google Director of Product Management [+ New Data]

Between shifts in technology, the economy, and consumer behavior, 2024 has brought marketers a new level of uncertainty. I’m right there with you, and I’ve bought stock in Pepto Bismal.

So when I got the chance to chat with Christophe Combette, a director of product management at Google, I wanted to know what there is to be excited about in marketing.

His surprising answer? Data privacy and first-party data.

I know, I know. Mentioning those things to marketers right now is like kicking a hornet’s nest. Core updates. iOS changes. GDPR and CCPA. The unknown future of 3rd-party cookies. It’s like a wild, marketing-themed cover of that one Billy Joel song.

But Combette shared how these changes are making marketing better for consumers AND marketers alike — if you start soon and play your cards thoughtfully.

And guess what? I’ve got some data-backed tips on how to do just that.

Below, you’ll learn Combette’s perspective on how first-party data will help you crush your marketing goals while earning your customers’ trust by preserving their privacy. But first, let’s jump back to what first-party data even means.

“First-party data is the data your customers are knowingly sharing with your business,” Combette explained.

When I hear from marketers that haven’t tried a first-party approach, it’s usually because they don’t truly know what it is. And, consequently, they worry that they can’t leverage it for the kinds of strategies they’re used to.

Close your eyes and imagine building a high-performance campaign using all of the following, while still respecting your customers’ consent and privacy:

Demographics
Firmographics
Website behavior
App behavior
Social media engagement
Purchase history
Feedback and survey insights
Customer service interactions
Loyalty and rewards program data
Email engagement
Etc.

Chances are, you’ve already got some good ideas in mind (you rockstar, you), and it wouldn’t take that much to get started.

With that data you could build a lookalike audience, run a re-engagement email, or create all sorts of clever segmentation or personalization. Since it’s all consentfully given, it respects your audience’s privacy. And since it comes from the source, you know it’s accurate.

And that isn’t even close to an exhaustive list.

(Side note: You’ll sometimes see a distinction made where data you gather is considered first-party, while data you’re given by customers is called “zero-party data.” To be honest, I find little value in separating the two. You should be using both and you’ll be combining them anyway.)

“You have this wealth of insights from your customers that’s aligned to your business outcomes,” Combette said. “And that combination together is one of the most powerful constructs.”

Let’s take a look at just how powerful.

4 Ways First-Party Data is Helping Marketers

When I referred to switching to first-party data as a challenge, Combette took a moment to gently correct me.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it a challenge as much as it is a big shift in the industry,” He told me, adding with a grin, “Which comes with a big opportunity, and a competitive differentiator, if you nail it.”

And, in truth, that shift is more one of focus, rather than application. First-party data has been there all along, and many marketing teams are already using it to drive deep growth.

What’s shifting is that more businesses are getting on board.

“Some marketers have been very successful in building marketing strategies based on third-party identifiers, and first-party data is a shift for them,” he goes on. “But it’s an important one because you can derive a lot more insights from it.”

And chances are, you’ve already got the ingredients. All you need to unlock their insights are the right tools and a plan.

“It’s the data you’re already using to drive the business outcomes you want.”

Whether you’re switching strategies, or just getting started for the first time, here are some data-backed reasons to believe:

1. First-party data is more accurate and more relevant.

Marketers using first-party data are 93% more likely to say their team is outperforming their goals in 2024 than those who don’t use it, according to HubSpot research.

And 77% of marketers who use first-party data say it results in more personalized content and performs better than external data.

Combette counts off some use cases that really illustrate the value:

“You want to drive new customer acquisition? That information is one you can only see from first-party insights. You want to optimize towards lifetime value? It requires deep analysis of your first-party data. It’s not something you could do with third-party identifiers.”

2. First-party data fills in the gaps most marketers have.

It turns out most marketers are missing critical information on their audience—just 42% know their basic demographic information, and even fewer know their shopping habits, purchase history, and which channels they consume content/media on.

First-party data like that can be used to gain high-quality insights and deliver a highly personalized experience to your customers.

And since it's collected directly from your customers, first-party data is highly accurate and unique to your company while still respecting privacy.

But for customers to give you their personal information, they need to trust you first.

3. First-party data fosters trust from consumers.

It’s no secret that folks are tired of seeing ads on every platform for something they casually looked up once.

Our Consumer Trends survey shows that close to half (45%) of consumers distrust companies with their website behavior and cookie data.

Using first-party data can make consumers feel safer sharing their personal information because it’s gathered with both their knowledge and consent — and used only by those they’ve shared it with.

Leveraging first-party sources will allow marketers to get higher-quality data while respecting consumers’ privacy, mutually benefiting both parties.

4. Marketing budgets are increasing to accommodate data privacy changes.

Both government regulators and consumers are demanding data privacy changes, and marketers are getting tossed around in the waves.

Luckily, execs are paying attention and giving marketers the budget they need to explore alternative measuring and advertising solutions.

Almost half (48%) of marketers say their budget has changed this year to compensate for data privacy, with 71% reporting an increase in their marketing budget.

But, to paraphrase the wise old sage, Uncle Ben: With great budget comes great responsibility. And sometimes, a few challenges.

The Challenges of Using First-Party Data

“Building and deploying your data across environments has not always been easy or seamless,” Combette admits.

Oftentimes, marketers have to gather data with one set of tools, analyze it with another set, and then actually use those insights in yet a third set of tools.

So perhaps it's no surprise that our research shows:

60% of marketers say gathering and tracking visitor data is becoming more difficult.
Nearly half (48%) of marketers cite increased data privacy changes/regulations as the biggest challenge to understanding their audience.
On the flip side, only half (56%) of marketers say the data they have on their audience is high quality.
Just 16% have all the data they need to reach their audience.
Meanwhile, 47% report that consumers are less trusting with their personal data.

So, while marketers are looking to gather high-quality data, their audiences are less likely to give it. And even when marketers find it, it lives in 10 places, and they’re not sure what to do with it.

Thankfully, we’ve got a roadmap — laid out by Christophe Combette and our own data — for how to make gathering and utilizing first-party data fast, powerful, and easy-peasy. (Lemon squeazy optional, but encouraged.)

7 Steps to Build a Privacy-Focused First-Party Data Strategy

1. Start by asking what data you actually need.

Don’t scroll past this. This isn’t filler. This is the most important step.

If you’re familiar with using third-party identifiers to guide your marketing, you know you don’t just gather them in the hopes that you’ll somehow know what to do later. You had a use case in mind when you started.

Maybe it was targeted social ads. Maybe it was cross-platform tracking. But the data you collected was informed by a goal.

Why should first-party data be any different just because it’s freely available?

In fact, if you gather all of the first-party data you can without regard for use case, you’re more likely to overstep on privacy issues. And you’ll end up with a data puke that helps nobody.

Instead, start with your business outcomes in mind, and work backward to what data you’ll actually need.

2. Audit your data sources.

Now that you know what data you need, it’s time to consider where it’s coming from.

“We’re all consumers ourselves. We use the app, the web, we call, we text. I do online chat sometimes,” Combette says. “We have this wealth of online touchpoints.”

And each touchpoint represents something unique about your prospect or customer.

“So the key is to have a tech stack that has a 360-view of the customer.”

That means gathering data from multiple high-quality sources. Here are the touchpoints that marketers in our survey agree are the highest quality sources of first-party data:

Customers registering/creating accounts with your company (signing up for content, discounts, newsletters, etc.) (36%)
Information gathered during the purchasing process (28%)
Customer interactions with customer support channels (20%)
Social media interactions (likes, shares, etc.) (16%)

You’ll notice the highest-quality sources tend to come with the highest level of buy-in. That means you’ve got some convincing to do. Which brings me to …

3. Consider the value you’re offering in return for data.

“One of the rarest commodities out there for any of us is time. We’re constantly trying to get stuff done, and that comes with a lot of touchpoints, too,” Combette says.

Most marketers will see “touchpoints” as the subject of that sentence, and start thinking about the value they can extract. But value isn’t a one-way street. If your content isn’t worth your audiences’ limited time, then it isn’t worth their data, and those touchpoints will dry up quickly.

At HubSpot, we find a lot of success with templates, calculators, and free tools. Other businesses may choose whitepapers or webinars. For a B2C business, it may look like coupons and giveaways.

The exact offer will depend on what your particular audience values, but it absolutely must offer value.

Here’s what marketers in our survey reported as the most effective ways to incentivize customers to share data:

Offering discounts/promotions/loyalty programs (40%)
Creating content on social media (e.g. posts, videos, giveaways) (28%)
Creating content on your website (e.g. blog posts) (18%)
Creating an email newsletter (12%)

4. Know where your data goes.

So now you know what data you need, you’ve identified high-quality sources, and you’ve convinced your customers to share it. Great! Now where do you put it?

In a CRM? A CDP? GGT? WQE? If you don’t know which of those acronyms I just made up on the spot, then it’s time to brush up on the different types of data platform software.

The type of software you need will depend heavily on your business model, but every business needs a single source of truth.

Our research shows that marketers with a single source of truth are 94% more likely to say their team is outperforming their goals.

Yet, only 60% of marketers have a single source of truth for all marketing data.

5. Map your customer journey.

Collecting the data is point A, and your business goal is point B. Now the trick is: How do you get your customers from point A to point B?

You just run an ad, and then they buy, right? If you build it, they will come? Unfortunately, it’s rarely that simple.

“All of our customer journeys are becoming more complicated and fragmented. We see it on our end, too, so it’s not the purchase channel,” Combette shares. “Consumers are using five or more online sources before they buy. That could be a search, a video, going to Google maps.”

And each of those steps is a decision point where your customers could choose you… or someone else.

Only 16% of marketers have full visibility into their customer journey, yet those who do are 200% more likely to say their team is outperforming their goals.

So, if you’re looking for the competitive differentiator that Combette mentioned, you just found it. Take time to learn about customer journey analytics.

6. Connect your data directly to that customer journey.

One of the biggest challenges with first-party data is using it to thoughtfully measure those five or more touchpoints Combette mentioned.

If, for example, you take an audience you built in your CRM and manually rebuild it in Google Ads, you’re going to lose a lot of time to busywork. (Time that would be more productive, say, watching paint dry.) And you’ll do it every time that audience is updated.

And that’s just one channel.

Instead, look for software solutions that automate the integration with your marketing tools.

Pro tip: Marketing Hub+ users can automatically integrate their smart CRM data straight into Google Ads Data Manager.

That means you can instantly find your audience on Search, Shopping, Youtube, Display, and more. And it works in the other direction, too, so you can instantly sync new leads back into your CRM.

And since the sync respects user preference, your advertising is automatically both privacy-compliant and consent-driven.

I took a moment to geek out with Combette about the integration, because how often do you get a chance to geek out with a Google exec?

“Our aim was to make the integration easy,” he says. “Easy to build first-party data in HubSpot and put it to use in Google Ads. Advertisers don’t have to worry about moving data and can focus on the business outcomes and strategies they want to deploy.”

And if I can humblebrag for a moment, marketers who use HubSpot and Google Ads together see an average increase of 31% more leads.

“And those leads are also cheaper. We see a 12% decrease in cost per lead within the first 90 days of linking those two products,” he adds.

7. Use that data more than once.

To make your data truly work for you, you’ll want to apply it to as many of your marketing efforts as you can.

The trade-off for that has historically been that it requires a lot of repeat labor. (Hellooooo, building the same audiences in Facebook, LinkedIn, Display, etc., etc.)

No matter what tools you use to gather or store your data, putting it to work is where the new Google Ads Data Manager really shines.

“We want to make sure advertisers can bring in data once, and power a number of downstream use cases,” Combette says.

Through one point-and-click interface, you’re able to leverage a number of Google Ads tools and features, such as Enhanced Conversions and Customer Match—with even more coming down the pipeline.

And if you’re not familiar with those tools, Data Manager will actually walk you through setting up workflows.

“Just through 5 or 6 clicks, you can start bringing in that data for use cases we’ve guided you through,” he says. “We built Data Manager for busy marketers that want to rely on first-party data but aren’t necessarily experts in data. They don’t have a developer to write custom code.”

Then Combette smiled excitedly as he gave me a sneak peek of something Google was just getting ready to launch. A brand-new feature that ensures privacy is at the very core of the marketing process:

“We’re building confidential matching, which uses special software and hardware known as confidential computing, which enables advertisers to control their data before it even hits any Google environment. This is the first use of the technology in our Ads products, and we plan to bring this privacy-enhancing tech to more products over time.”

Which translates to more data in more use cases without worries about overstepping privacy boundaries.

What’s Next for First-Party Data

Adapting to first-party data can be challenging because regulations and public opinion around data privacy are actively developing.

But if you follow these steps, you’ll be ahead of the curve on nailing a first-party data strategy that crushes your goals and delights your customers.

The most important thing marketers can do is to get started with first-party data now, and explore new marketing solutions so they are ready to adapt their data strategy when the time comes.

September 24, 2024

How Cutting Distribution Boosted Our YouTube Views by 420% [Expert Interview]

When I first heard how HubSpot’s YouTube team bumped one channel’s views up by over 400%, I begged for permission to share the story. (I’m not above debasing myself on your behalf.)

It’s a lesson that applies to nearly all content marketing — and one I promise you’re not going to hear anywhere else.

Are you ready for it? Not all distribution is good distribution. And that includes your own.

Below, I chat with our head of YouTube about how and why cutting off all external distribution actually increased our YT performance. And his advice for when you should consider picking up the axe, too.

The Road to the Chopping Block

When Carl Mueller joined us as HubSpot’s head of YouTube earlier this year, he noticed that one of our YT channels had a problem the others didn’t. If a video was six minutes long, most viewers were dropping off after only a minute or two.

Though, to be fair, that’s still longer than my kid made it through Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Carl’s been producing video for over 10 years for names like Business Insider and Morning Brew. Which is to say, where media and marketing mash up, Carl knows his s***.

So when he says the content wasn’t the problem, I know he’s not just trying to avoid hurt feelings.

“I got here in late February, and the first thing I did was watch our content from a quality perspective,” he says. “But then I looked at the metrics, and the numbers were surprisingly low. I don’t think the metrics reflected the quality of the videos.”

But if the content wasn’t the problem, what was?

The call is coming from inside the house.

As Carl investigated the problem, he noticed that around 90% of the views for this particular channel were coming from external sources. That includes Facebook, Instagram, blogs, newsletters — everything except YouTube.

“What I’ve noticed is that when you’re asking someone to jump from another platform to YouTube, you’re asking them to change their consumption behavior,” he explains. “Is that person sitting down with time to spare to watch a 10-minute video?”

The answer to that depends heavily on what platform they’re jumping from.

And about 90% of those external views were coming from The Hustle newsletter.

“Which, at first glance, makes a lot of sense. It seemed like good, targeted distribution. But it meant that most of our total viewership was coming from the newsletter.”

That seems like the opposite of a problem, right? As I’ve not-so-subtly mentioned before, The Hustle has an audience of over 2.5M and above-industry-average engagement rates. It’s the kind of audience most marketers would trade a body part to get in front of. (And I mean a useful body part. Not just a pinky toe.)

And in the vast majority of cases, they’d be right. The Hustle is an absolute catapult for content, often driving thousands and thousands of views to blogs, short-form videos, and content offers. So why didn’t that work here?

Carl lays it out:

“The newsletter goes out at, what, 5:30 in the morning? People open it in bed.” They click on a video, “watch a few minutes, and then leave.”

Or they save it for later and then forget about it in a sea of tabs. (Guiltyyyyy!)

“If you were in their shoes, are you going to watch that whole video? For me, the answer is probably not,” Carl laughs. “Maybe sometimes if I’m laying on my couch. But if the average newsletter reader is not in a position to watch a long-form video, then that is a lot of bad retention metrics.”

For this otherwise highly engaged audience, that was about a 20-30% retention rate.

Let’s do some quick math. What does it equal when 90% of your audience has a 20% retention rate? An unhappy algorithm.

As Carl puts it: “YouTube won’t promote your content if your own viewers aren’t watching it.”

We needed surgery, stat.

Making the Cut

“We decided as an experiment to pause all direct external distribution,” Carl says.

But why all distribution, and not just the mismatched audience?

“We wanted to first see if we had a core audience on YouTube. We wanted to serve the videos only to our subscriber base and see if they liked them.”

And it worked. Better even than Carl predicted.

“I was warning everyone that we were going to perform worse before we performed better. A few thousand guaranteed views were going away,” Carl recalls. “But it was pretty immediate. The first video after the shift got 27,000 views. A couple of videos later we had one hit 300,000. Then after that 450,000.”

About 90 days after pausing distribution, the channel’s average views and average watch time both rose by 420%, and our subscriber count jumped 257%.

This goes against everything I’ve learned about content marketing, where more distribution equals more views. What gives, Carl?

“It’s compounding success. If something performs great, YouTube is more likely to promote the following video.”

An audience built on YouTube is ready to watch a YouTube video. And if the majority of your viewers are watching the majority of your content, it sends positive signals to the YT algorithm. YouTube then serves your videos to a wider audience, and a virtuous cycle is born.

“Not all distribution is good distribution,” Carl says. “That’s a universal takeaway for all channels and all content. Make sure you’re targeting the right audience at the right time.”

Ask your doctor if pausing distribution is right for you.

Here’s where I hit the pause button, because I can sense that some of you are getting antsy to DIY.

I asked Carl what he would say to readers who are now thinking about axing their own distribution.

“Make sure your channel is in the same circumstances as our channel. It had a heavy reliance on external distribution and low watch times. If you have that combination, then likely those unengaged external views are impacting your performance.”

So, to be clear: If you don’t have low engagement, your distribution is likely doing its job, and axing it will not help you grow further.

Similarly, if the majority of your views aren’t coming from external distribution, then it’s probably not the cause of any low metrics.

But Carl’s not letting the rest of you walk away empty-handed. Here are some takeaways for everyone:

1. Consider behavior patterns when sharing with a potential audience.

This is sound advice for any kind of marketing, not just video marketing.

Before you distribute your content through any channel, consider the consumption habits of that audience.

Are they in the right place to share a social media post? Download a PDF? Listen to a podcast?

“There is value in external distribution, but you have to make sure that it’s to the right people at the right time, and at the right stage in the content’s lifespan.”

2. Seek on-platform distribution.

“On YouTube, I would always prioritize on-platform partnerships, video swaps, or call-outs. Targeting people on YouTube is the best place to get people to watch your video on YouTube.”

And that generally holds true for most kinds of content. Consider, for example, that you’re most likely to find TikTok viewers on TikTok. Or that newsletter readers are often willing to be blog readers. (And, like magic, here you are.)

3. Optimize for the platform, not the distribution channel.

“Let YouTube do its thing for a little while,” Carl advises. “If that’s not working, change thumbnails, change titles. Do everything you can to optimize for YouTube.”

Not to be a broken record but, again, that applies to any kind of content or platform. Optimize first for search, social, or wherever your audience primarily finds your content.

“And if that’s not working, then it might be worth taking the risk of putting it somewhere else.”

4. Set clear expectations.

If your audience clicks a link without knowing it leads to a video, a lot more people are going to abandon ship. Same for long-form written content.

To avoid this, you need to set the expectations for what they’re about to encounter.

“If we do share — because there is value in sharing videos with the newsletter audience — we make it very clear that it is a video,” then he switches to a mock-stern voice. “All caps. WATCH VIDEO. You are leaving. ARE YOU PREPARED?”

Now you are.

How to See YouTube Reports in HubSpot

Marketing Hub Enterprise users can actually pull their YouTube performance data straight into HubSpot so you can see all of your glorious success in one place.

You can check out custom reports on watch time, views, shares, subscriber counts, engagement, etc. — allowing you to be the Carl Mueller of your company.

First, you’ll need to connect your YT account to HubSpot.

In HubSpot, click on the settings icon in the top navigation bar.
Choose Marketing then Social.
Click on Connect account in the top right.
Select YouTube Reports in the box that pops up.
Select the YouTube account to connect.
Review permissions and click Allow.

Now that you’re all connected, here’s how to access your reports:

Navigate back to Marketing and then Social. (Unless you’re already there from the first part. Then skip this part.)
Click the tab that says Analyze.
Click the dropdown menu that says All accounts and make sure YouTube is selected.
Apply filters for date range, campaign, etc. to your heart’s content.

September 9, 2024

The Oops That Proves SEO Basics Still Matter

When I asked today’s HubSpotter to share an SEO tactic, he asked if he could share a cautionary tale instead.

And I accepted because his story proves that technical SEO basics still matter — even in the face of major search changes.

It’s the scary story of how we lost, and then recovered, 41% of targeted organic traffic and conversions.

Presented for the approval of you masters in marketing, I bring you a story I call … The Tell-Tale Tag. (The Cask of the Canonical? I’ll find the joke eventually.)

A Scary Day in Search

Our story begins with a call over to France, and a coworker whose technical skills are outmatched only by his wicked Gallic accent.

(To get the most out of this post, I suggest you read his lines aloud in your very best French.)

Sylvain Charbit, our senior technical SEO strategist, has been in SEO/content marketing for 15 years, so it takes a lot to rattle him — an 82% drop in daily organic traffic is just such a thing.

“We discovered the problem in the most common way possible,” Sylvain laughs. “Conversion and traffic were in freefall all of a sudden.”

As you can see from the graph above, pants were soiled on or around July 25th. The drop was first noted by our conversion optimization team, who immediately called over to SEO. (I like to imagine it like a disaster movie, where the ragtag scientists inexplicably have a direct line to some high-ranking general.)

The timeline matched closely with the start of a new CRO test.

The affected URLS matched perfectly to those being tested.

But there was no reason why this test—a minor content change—should completely annihilate those pages from the search results.

With no obvious culprit, the SEO team began an audit of the technical basics.

“Do we have that tag here? Yes. Did the title tag change? No,” Sylvain ticks off a mental list. “But when I checked the canonical tag? That’s when I saw that they were duplicates, and they were giving crawl bots different instructions.”

If it’s been a hot minute since you took SEO 101, here’s what that means: whenever you have multiple versions of the same page you add a canonical tag—a bit of HTML code that tells search engines which page is the “real” one.

The test required two versions of each page and each pair had a canonical tag that referenced each other.

If that’s still confusing, imagine each page pointed to the other like the Spider-Man meme.

The result? Complete removal of all test URLs from the search results.

Sylvain explains: “When Google has a doubt, it will decide to just drop the URL altogether. Saying, ‘Hey, that doesn’t make sense at all. Just in case, I will remove it because that doesn’t sound like a result I want to present to visitors.’”

In other words, even if your overall brand is as trusted as HubSpot, messing up the basics can make individual pages look untrustworthy.

“Something that could seem as trivial as a duplicate tag could have a really devastating impact.”

Technical Takeaways

So how did a simple content test impact our underlying HTML code?

The rogue tags were created when we activated a third-party A/B testing tool, which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent.

Seriously, they’re innocent this time. Turns out, we were using an old version of a software integration.

Once the problem was identified, and the duplicate tags fixed, it took several days for the pages to return to their rightful place in the search results.

By that time, the damage averaged up to a 41% loss in traffic and leads.

But that fast recovery time isn’t something that everyone can count on. Search engine crawl bots tend to visit large sites like ours often. That means small brands are likely to recover more slowly.

Which makes it that much more important to be cautious with your technical basics.

I asked Sylvain if that’s the main lesson of this story. Is it “SEO basics still matter?” Is it “Keep your software up to date?”

He offers this: “Let’s not wait for a problem to surge before doing the regular checks.”

And that manifests in three ways:

1. QA tests and software-integrations before launch.

“Before I would say ‘keeping your software up to date’—yes, this is something you definitely should be doing—but first is not launching a test before reviewing everything is fine.”

Any time you’re planning a test on your existing website, be sure to give time to quality assurance.

If you can, loop your SEO and conversion teams together to make sure each interest is represented.

And while you’re at it …

2. Regularly audit sample pages for SEO basics.

SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it game, unfortunately.

“Regularly test or review samples of your website,” Sylain recommends. “Like a few blog posts, a couple of category pages.”

But that doesn’t have to be an overwhelmingly deep task. It really can be a quick survey of the foundational basics.

“There’s a tendency of saying you need to dive into fine analysis, you need to check all the lines of code that are deep in the system, but sometimes the most common things are forgotten, because, well, you know, SEOs get accustomed to it.”

3. Consider an SEO auditing tool.

“Or even easier,” he adds. “Have a tool like Content King that will check for you and flag right away if something is out of the ordinary.”

SEO auditing tools regularly audit your site for you, and many will track changes to the underlying content or code.

“Because even if the testing software was up to date, you don’t know what kind of conflicts can occur with whatever third-party tool or extension you’re using,” Sylvain adds.

But if that’s not in the budget, you’re not out of luck. Below, I’ll run through how HubSpot users can check their canonical tags in just a few seconds.

How to Check Canonical Tags in HubSpot

By default, most pages and posts are automatically set as canonical in HubSpot. (The exception is blog listing pages, but the reason for that could be a post in itself. For now, just trust that it’s a good thing.)

If you want to change that, or if you’re concerned that something has already changed… well… ask your own Sylvain before you go messing around.

If they say it’s okay, here’s what you do:

1. Navigate to Content and then Website Pages, Landing Pages, or Blog depending on the type of page you’re checking.

2. Hover over the existing page and then click Edit.

3. In the editor, click Settings > Advanced.

4. If the canonical tag is set to anything other than the original page, you’ll see it displayed under “Customize Canonical URL.”

If that field is blank, chances are that your canonical tag is set to the original page, and you’re good to go.

August 27, 2024

The Losing Test That Led to 4% More Leads (We Took the L so You Don’t Have To)

Today, I’ve got a special treat for you, something most companies won’t share: a peek at one of our losses.

A “best practice” that failed so hard we had to pause part of the test early. And, if I can wax clickbait-y for a moment, it’s a tactic you may be using in your calls-to-action as we speak.

So come for the trainwreck, but stick around for the lesson, because what we learned led to 4% more leads from our CTAs.

And I’m going to show you how to recreate it. (The improvement, that is. Not the trainwreck.)

The Best Practice That Wasn’t

I turn to AJ Beltis, principal marketing manager of conversion strategy, when I need absolute authority on two things: 1) pop-culture movie references, and 2) content conversion.

So when I read an internal brief where a supposed best practice caused a 14% loss in conversion rate, I ran to him like Luke flying back to Obi-Wan.

It all started with a test of the wording on our CTA buttons. Long-time readers may remember that our anchor texts were once a grab-bag of different styles.

“It was up to the bloggers’ discretion because each of those CTAs was individually placed,” AJ explains. “So sometimes it was ‘Get the template,’ sometimes it was ‘Download now.’”

And because we test everything, when we set out to make our CTAs more consistent, we started by testing different language options. The test variants were:

The Control: “Get the [Product Type]”
Cut and dry. Straight to the point. A great example of our old anchor text strategy.
Example: “Get the Template”
The Best Practice: “Get the Free [Product Type]”

Same as above, only now we add “free” as an enticement. A pretty non-controversial tactic you’ll see in every CTA guide.
Example: “Get the Free Template”

The Wildcard: “Get the Free [Specific Product]”

Here we add a description of the offer to the button itself. At the time, this felt redundant because there was already a description above the button, but hey, let’s try it.
Example: “Get the Free Social Media Calendar Template”

We were so confident in the results that we put our money where our mouse was and slapped the test on 25 of our highest lead-driving blogs.

“We felt pretty comfortable with the risk because we weren’t removing anything or changing anything drastic,” AJ says. “So it was a reasonably safe way to test something.”

John Hammond felt the same way in Jurassic Park.

What Went Wrong (and What Went Right)

Within two weeks, Variant B cratered our conversion rate by 14%, until we finally paused that branch to mitigate losses to our heavy-hitting lead generators.

So, why didn’t the best practice work?

“One theory is that whenever you see something labeled as ‘free’ on the internet, it might have a spammy connotation.”

In other words, like Pavlov’s dogs, we’ve all been trained to see “Free Download” and immediately scroll past what is surely a scam and/or an ED cure.

Ah, but what about Variant C? The one we dismissed as redundant?

That one actually boosted our conversion rate by 4% overall, and by 7% among new visitors.

So, why did this variant work where the other failed?

AJ believes it’s all about using visual cues to highlight keywords the reader is looking for.

“When people are reading a blog post, they’re often just kind of skimming as quickly as possible to get an answer,” he says with a shrug and a sideways smile. “I’ve been a blogger and it sucks to say, but no one is typically reading all 1,200 words that you put your time and effort into.”

(But not you, dear reader. Not you … Right?)

Say a visitor is skimming to learn about social media content calendars. Suddenly they see a big orange button that offers a social media content calendar template.

“This is the specific thing that I want and it’s free? I’ll get it.”

The Takeaways About CTAs

To see the biggest takeaway, scroll back up and check out the CTA button right beneath the title of this very blog. You’ll see that we no longer include descriptive text above the button, and instead use the description on the button itself.

Some of AJ’s other insights:

1. Test Every-freaking-thing. (Or “Don’t take best practices at face value.”)

Trusting best practice alone would have damaged our conversion rate, and we might have never known why.

Similarly, if we hadn’t tested what we assumed was the redundant option, we would never have found a win.

“If we had just tested ‘free’ versus the control, the test wouldn’t have worked,” AJ points out. “But because we tested ‘free’ versus the control versus ‘free [specific thing]’, that extra layer worked.”

2. Use Keywords in Your Anchor Text

“If you can use those buzzwords they’re looking for, that’s going to be more successful. Using the words ‘content calendar template’ or ‘planning template’ when they’re reading a blog about social media content calendars … they’re already thinking about that word, so psychologically, it might hook them a little faster.”

Placing keywords in your anchor text is also a win for accessibility, as it helps folks who use screen readers to know what they’re clicking on.

3. DO Test on Your Biggest Lead Drivers

After getting beat worse than Rocky by Apollo, you might think we switched to testing on less important pages, but that’s not the case.

As Rocky says: “It ain‘t about how hard you’re hit, it's about how you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

As AJ says: “When we look at testing our top pages, that’s also where the biggest opportunity for growth is. If we were to be a little safer by testing pages that don’t convert as well, we might not have been able to detect the magnitude of how successful or unsuccessful a tactic might be.”

4. Trust your audience above authority.

And that includes me, AJ, and Obi-Wan.

Always trust your audience’s reaction over what you find in any guide.

“Respond to your audience,” AJ says. “Some audiences might find a test that we ran to not be a good match. Whereas, we might look for inspiration from other companies, run it on the HubSpot blog audience, and find that their test doesn’t work for us.”

5. Test your offers, too.

Amid all this talk about CTAs, AJ drives one final point home: Your CTA is only as good as what it’s offering.

So test what you’re offering, too.

“We use templates because templates work for us. We don’t do webinars because webinars don’t work for us. Some companies, all they do is webinars, because that’s what works for their content sphere.”

How to Test Your CTA Button Text and Offers

Unlike in Rebecca’s test of paid ad landing pages, for this one you do want to test one element at a time. So be sure to test your anchor text and content offers separately.

You’ll also want to use a tool that evenly splits your traffic across the variants—something like Convert, VWO, or, hey, Content Hub!

Navigate to the test page.
Click on the file menu and then choose “New,” then “Run A/B Test.”
Enter a name for each variation.

This should be something descriptive that will be easy to remember. If you look at the first screenshot, you’ll see we simply used “Original Page,” “Variant B - Free,” and “Variant C - Free + Description.”

Click “Create variation.”
Edit the anchor text or the destination of the link (but not both!)

For this time of optimization, you’ll get better results by testing one change at a time. (Though you can certainly test multiple variations on that one change.)

To recreate AJ’s test, try out a description of the offer within the anchor text. Heck, you may even want to try using “free.”

Click “Publish” in the upper right corner, then “Publish now.”

No matter what you decide to test, be sure to keep an eye on the results over time. Be ready to pull that emergency brake so you can avoid your own trainwreck.