More than a decade ago, I coined the term brand SERP – the result you get when someone searches for your name or company.  I called it the “digital business card” because I saw firsthand how a messy one could cost a business trust and revenue. That idea shaped how many people think about online […]

Capturing intent at the precise moment consumers are ready to take action has always been the goal in search.  But there’s value – and real payoff – in influencing that intent before the search even begins.  As customer journeys grow more complex and span multiple touchpoints, the need to reach audiences earlier continues to rise. […]

Black Friday is when performance peaks — and so do risks. In 2024, global spending reached $74.4 billion, with U.S. online sales up 10.2% year-over-year. Behind that growth, affiliate competition and coupon activity surged, pushing paid channels to their limits. During these high-traffic days, even a single unchecked campaign can waste hundreds of thousands of […]

Yelp just unveiled its 2025 Fall Product Release, a sweeping AI-driven update that turns the local discovery platform into a more conversational, visual, and intelligent experience. Driving the news:Yelp’s rollout includes over 35 new AI-powered features, headlined by: Yelp Assistant, an upgraded chatbot that instantly answers customer questions about restaurants, shops, or attractions—citing reviews and […]

OpenAI announced the launch of its first web browser, which they named ChatGPT Atlas. Atlas is currently available on Mac only right now and has all the features you would expect from an AI browser. But the most surprising part is that its built-in search features seem to be powered by Google and not Microsoft […]

Google Merchant Center is rolling out a new Issue Details Page (IDP) to help advertisers more easily diagnose and resolve account or product-level problems. How it works: Located under the “Needs attention” tab, the page provides a consolidated overview of current issues. It surfaces recommended actions, business impact metrics, and sample affected products — giving […]

Google Ads appears to be testing an automatic assignment of New Customer Value within New Customer Acquisition (NCA) campaigns — and it’s doing so without advertisers’ explicit consent. The change, first spotted by performance marketer Bilal Yasin, has led to unexpected reporting shifts and frustration among advertisers. “Without any heads-up, and without it being in […]

When you think of video advertising on YouTube, you probably think of ecommerce: Videos showing products. Influencers doing an unboxing. Other visuals of consumer products that lend themselves to the video format. Even Google’s own case studies for video emphasize consumer-focused themes. Just look at the analysis of the top 2025 video ads. See any […]

Marketing mix modeling (MMM) is having a moment in marketing measurement. As privacy regulations limit user-level tracking, marketers are turning to it for reliable, cross-channel measurement. (We love it at my agency – MMM analyses often lead to smarter budget allocation with significant downstream impact.) But as adoption grows, so do execution errors and misconceptions […]

A website redesign is essential for remaining competitive, but for multi-location businesses, the risks are much higher. Stripping away the local relevance that drives traffic to location pages can cause rankings and online visibility to plummet. Using localized content on location pages resulted in a 107% rankings lift, something businesses risk losing if a redesign […]