SearchLove San Diego 2017 | Larry Kim | Content Marketing Moneyball

Content Marketing MONEYBALL

Data-Backed Content Marketing Strategies for 2017 & Beyond

Larry Kim, Feb. 23, 2017

#searchlove @larrykim

Content Marketing in 2017



Enormous Volume

of Content Being

Produced

99.9% of Your Content Goes Nowhere

50% OF Content Gets ZERO Social Shares<0.1% Gets +1000 Shares


Buffer Social’s Kevan Lee:“We’ve Lost Half our Organic Social Media Traffic in the Last Year”


Organic Social Media Reach Stinks!

PPC Ad Costs at All Time High!

Source: Approx. 2500 WordStream Customers(Not official Google Data.)

Desktop

Tablet

Mobile


Typical Conversion Rate from Content

Marketing < 1%


How to make Content Marketing:• Work More

Predictably• Create More Leads &

Sales• Higher Conversion

Rates• Lower Costs

Big Changes Needed! 5-10x improvements not just 5-10%!

Unicorn Rainbow Inversion Therapy

Cures All Your Marketing Issues



New Marketing Content

Marketing Strategy for

2017!

Spoiler Alert: It has very little to do about producing “Quality

Content”

3 Random Facts About

Larry


Slightly Obsessed

With Unicorns

Make PPC Magical Again!


Have a 2-year old Kid (#ppckid)

Live in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA


WordStream’s NEW Headquarters!

2008

2017


5-Year Compound

Annual Growth Rate 95%

Content Marketing Moneyball IRL!

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

$1,100,000$3,300,000

$6,500,000

$10,000,000

$22,800,000

$32,000,000

Hoping to Grow to $40-60 Million This

Year (Just a Guess*)


Part 1: What is “Quality” or “Relevant” Content?


The Content Donkey

Detector



Content Quality Should Be Based on Data Not

Just Biased Views of Your Own Work

Need Objective Way to Discern Unicorns vs. Non-

Unicorns

Great CRO

Great Social

Great PPC

Great SEO

“Quality Content” =

Content Marketing Objectives vs. Actual Outcomes!


Unicorns!

Optimize Content for User Engagement Metrics like Click Through Rates (CTR) & Dwell Time and You’ll Find Unicorns!

Larry’s Crazy Content Marketing Theory


The Key To AdWords Has Always Been About User Engagement (Quality Score)


+/- 1 Point in QS Results in +/- 9% Ad Impression Share on desktop (or +/-18% on mobile)


CTR (Quality Score) Determines Ad Visibility in AdWords

Quality Score (Dramatically) affects your

AdWords CPC10 Discounted by 50.0%9 Discounted by 44.2%8 Discounted by 37.5%7 Discounted by 28.6%6 Discounted by 16.7%5 Google benchmark4 Increased by 25.0%3 Increased by 67.3%2 Increased by 150.0%1 Increased by 400.0%

You Save

You Pay


Quality Score for Gmail Ads (CPC vs. Open Rate)


Quality Score on Google Display Ads (CPC vs. CTR)


Facebook & Twitter Ads: Higher Engagement Rate = (Much) Lower Cost Per Engagement

Engagement RateCost per engagement

$.005

$.02

$.03

$.08

68%

7%

21%

37%

$3.00

1%


Do Engagement Rates Like CTR & Dwell Time Rate Impact Rankings?

What About Organic Search?


Signs Point to YES: Engagement Rates Matter for Organic Search


User Query Entered

ML Algo Makes a Guess and Re-Writes The Query into Something it Recognizes (Query

Interpretation)

Did The Result

Satisfy The User?

Great. Next Time I See Queries Like This, I’ll Put This Page at the Top.

Larry’s Greatly Simplified Machine Learning Diagram*

YES

NO

*Note: Not Official Google Diagram.

Rats. Next Time I See a Query Like This, I’ll Try Some

Other Page


What’s A Good Click Through Rate for Organic Search? (Spoiler Alert:

It’s in Flux)O

rgan

ic S

earc

h Cl

ick

Thro

ugh

Rate

High CTR Listings Floating To Top Positions

Low CTR Listings Sinking To Bottom of Page

Organic Search Position


+/- 3% Increase inPost Engagement+/- 1 Spot in Organic Position

CTR-Based Organic Ranking Rewards?


Dwell Time Becoming an Increasingly Important

SEO Ranking Factor


A year ago: Time on Page Didn’t

Appear to Matter

Much for SEO


Today: Low Time on

Page Donkey

Content is Nearly

Extinct!


What About the

Facebook Newsfeed

Algo?


User Browses Feed

Newsfeed algorithm displays something it thinks might be interesting to the user.

Did User Engage

With Content?

Great. Next Time I See Updates Like This, I’ll

show it on this users newsfeed and for others like him/her.

Larry’s Greatly Simplified Facebook Newsfeed Algo*

YES

NO

*Note: Not Official Facebook Diagram.

Rats. Next Time I’ll try different

status update for this person and

won’t bother showing it to people like

him/her.


The Same Stuff That Does Great in Search Tends To Also Do Great on Social Media


Are They Related to Engagement Rates?

What About Conversion Rates?


Higher CTRs = Higher Conversion Rates


Picnic Pants*(inspired by Wil Reynolds!) Drones

Vs.CT

R

• Picnic Pants

Drones •

Conversion Rate


These Unicorns All Have High Engagement in

Common!

SEO Unicorn

Paid/Organic Social

UnicornCRO

UnicornPPC

Unicorn



PPC, SEO & Social Media Employ

ML-Enabled Algos that Reward High Engagement Content

with Greater Visibility.

Engagement Rates =‘On-Base Percentage’ of

Content Marketing!

Part 2: What’s a Good Engagement Rate?


High Engagement Unicorns

Low Engagemen

t Donkeys

What’s the Difference?(Hint: It’s Relative)


Post Engagement Rates for 129 Facebook Status Updates for a

Random Customer


Unicorn Social Updates are +10x

More Engaging Than Donkey

Posts

Unicorns (top 10%) have 6x Higher CTR than Donkeys (Bottom 10%)

Unicorns

Donkeys

CTR vs. Average Position in Organic Search



A Small Number of

Stories (10%)

Generate Most of the

Traffic (+60%)

Typical Blog Traffic Distribution

The Top 10% of Offers Convert +5x Better Than Donkeys

Search Conversion Rate Distribution

Median: 2.35%

Top 25%: 5.31% and Above

Top 10%: 11.45% and Above

SHAR

E O

F AL

L AC

COU

NTS

SEARCH CONVERSION RATE. (WordStream Customer Data – Not Official Google Data)



Unicorn Content Power Law: Most of the Value Comes from a Fraction of the Content

(duh)


The Future of Content

Marketing is Increasingly

Winner-Take-All. Time to Adjust

Content Strategy!

Traffic to the Top 10 Posts of the Month at Inc Magazine

High Engagement = Your Top ~3% Content!

They do WAY better in SEO, PPC, Social Media, and CRO than ever before!


Part 3: Unicorn Content Creation



Make More Unicorns, Duh!

I’ve Written My

Share of These

Dumb Viral Article

How-To’s…



They Focus on Content Attributes

Rather Than

Outcomes


They Make Arguments in Favor of

Content Quality

over Quantity or Long Form vs.

Short Form

Content Quality vs. Quality Debate


It’s a False Choice: You NEED the QUANTITY to

*FIND* the QUALITY


Larry’s Content

Marketing Truth Bomb:

Unicorn Creation is More of a Numbers

Game Than Most Content

Marketers Want to Admit.

WordStream Blog Article Performance for Stories

Published in 2016


I Worked Hard on All My Content Last Year

But I Only Found 5 Unicorns Last Year.

The Rest Were Donkeys!


Larry’s Theory:

Success is More About Extracting Maximum Leverage From The

Unicorns You Have

Larry’s Content Marketing Strategy: The Content Pyramid

Scheme1. Produce and

Audition Lots of Content

2. Measure Engagement Rates

3. Kill the Donkeys4. Find The Unicorns

and Sound the Unicorn Alert!



4. The Unicorn

Alert


Content Treadmill


Create Unicorn Babies


Unicorn Baby Generates Nearly 100k Views

Boost Your Unicorns

With Social Media Ads

& PPC Advertisin

g



Facebook Ads: High Relevance Score = Low Cost Per Click


Unicorn Infographicification™

& Videoification™


Webinars & Conference

Presentations

WordStream Webinar Performance in 2016

Average Donkey: 674Average Unicorn: 3323

5 Webinars Generated 71% of the Registrations


Evergreen Unicorns



A Million Views for $1000 Content Creation Effort ($0.001

CPM)

5

4

3

Content Marketing Moneyball: Data Driven Content Strategy

Optimize for EngagementML- Systems Reward High Engagement w/ Great Visibility.

Audition Lots of Content IdeasQuantity matters. Improves chances of unicorn detection.

Find the UnicornsIdentify content with unusually high engagement rates

START/GO(Donkey

Land)


2

1

Kill Your Donkeys.Milk Your Unicorns.

Donkey Elimination

Stop Wasting time pushing donkeys. Let

them die.Unicorn AlertGet off Content Treadmill. Go nuts with your best unicorns across all channels.

END/REPEAT (Unicorn Land)

– OR is it??


What Does it All Mean?

Content Marketing

?


How Content Marketing REALLY Works

STEP 1: Demand Creation: Create & Promote Inspirational / Memorable Content about Your Brand to your Target Market

STEP 2: Bias Formation: People See Your Content, But Don’t Necessarily Take Action Right Away.

STEP 3: Harvest Demand: Later when the Need Arises, People either:

Do a Branded Search for Your

Stuff

Do Un-Branded Search but Biased Towards

Clicking & Buying From You.


Comparing New vs. Repeat Visitors

How Does Brand Affinity Impact Content Marketing

Success?


Brand Affinity DRAMATICALLY Impacts CTR (+2-3x!)


Brand Affinity DRAMATICALLY Impacts CONVERSION RATES (+2-

3x!)



Returning Visitors: 127% Higher Conversion Rate, 218% Higher Time on

Site

Virtuous Cycle of Unicorn Land


1. Unicorn Alert Yields Better Engagement2. Better Engagement Yields Better Unicorn Alerts!

THANK YOU Will

Critchlow & Searchlove

Friends!#searchlove @larrykim

SearchLove San Diego 2017 | Larry Kim | Content Marketing Moneyball

Marketing

Transcript of SearchLove San Diego 2017 | Larry Kim | Content Marketing Moneyball