Future-Proof Your Marketing: Key Insights for 2024-2025 Successes
Danny Denhard
Interim CMO CGO & CPO, Coach, Consultant & Startup / Marketplace Advisor.
This was originally posted on my quick-fire blog series.
Beth Gladstone and I have known each other for many years, we connected after I spoke at a conference in the early 2010’s, to appearing on her podcast in 2019 and it was great collaborating on a project in recent years.
Beth is one of those people who is brilliant and understands SEO strategy and social media like very few others. I wanted to have a quick-fire interview with Beth as I greatly respect her and also to shine a light on her masterclasses and how to think about the future of Social Media.
Q1/ Social media is evolving and the channels we love are changing quicker than ever, from Instagram to TikTok, what are the most important changes for in-house marketers to know and leverage?
Absolutely, social media looks very different now to even what it was a year ago. As an in-house marketer I’d be thinking of not just a channel strategy, but also a sub-channel strategy for example how are you using reels vs explore vs stories within Instagram, or your YouTube channel videos and playlists vs Shorts. Secondly, marketers need to think about what Adam Mosseri (Head of Product at Instagram) describes as “connected vs unconnected” reach, which basically means creating content for those who already know you and buy from you vs those who are coming across your brand for the first time. Which is something we naturally do for our website or email campaigns, but that’s new for social media.
Q2/ You are running a brilliant masterclass at the end of September on the state of play, what are some of the most important reasons why social media managers and marketing leaders should take the masterclass?
As marketers it can be really tempting to begin social media creation by asking “what do we want to share?” This often leads to brand messages the company is happy with, but that don’t inspire sharing or engagement. To be truly effective on social media today I believe we need to ask: who is my audience, what matters to them and how can I create that in a way that the channels will want to share? The masterclass is a deep-dive into how to do those two things based on where the algorithms on channels such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube are today.
Q3/ User behaviour is changing on each channel, Instagram is slowly becoming more private for consumers and then shifting brands to broadcast running channels, whereas TikTok wants to own QVC-style sales and be the live streaming platform, do you have any thoughts on where these shifts in user behaviour might be taking brands and creators?
TikTok Shop is extremely lucrative for those who are adopting it early, but like all social media strategies, the benefit of early adoption is likely to fade over time. We also have to remember that what’s best for the channels (in Instagram’s case, very short-form video under 9 seconds, shared person-to-person) usually isn’t best for brands or creators. Which is why I’d also be looking outside of short-term tactics on these channels, to longer-term strategies on more evergreen channels like YouTube, or even decentralised platforms such as Threads or Mastodon.
Q4/ You have a unique knack (many don’t) in clearly explaining big shifts on social media platforms (via your Instagram stories and main feed), what should brands do next when reacting to the recent big shifts? Can you share 3-5 recommendations for adapting their social media plans to drive success in Q4?
For the upcoming quarters, I’d be thinking about:
Connect With Beth
Q&A With Carl Hendy From audits.com
Carl Hendy is one of my go to SEO resources, he is one of the very few who truly understands organic search and how SEO connects to the wider business and more importantly how it connects to the long-term goals of the company.
Having known each other for well over a decade and collaborated on a project or two, here are a handful of quick-fire questions Carl offers considered answers (I bet you will learn a thing or two below) and highlights why he has had successful exits as a business owner and is trusted by many of the largest businesses with their most important revenue-driving channels.
Q1/ You recently launched audits.com, apart from how did you get the domain, what are the most frequently asked questions about audits and your services?
I’m quite a private person therefore I won’t share the cost, I might want to sell it one day 😃. I played the long game and spent quite a bit of time tracking down the owner. Once a price was agreed the handover of the domain name was done pretty quickly. I acquired the domain name directly from the previous owner and no third parties were involved other than using Escrow to handle payment and exchange of goods. Outside of my SEO work I felt the domain name was a safe long term purchase as can be applied to many different markets, I wouldn’t have been that interested if it seoaudits.com etc
Rightly or wrongly, the first question I’m often asked is, "How much traffic do you think you can drive to the website?" This is a question that cannot be answered without conducting thorough discovery work and competitor analysis, both of which are time-consuming and require investment. The clients I work with typically have multiple products or services spread across various languages, with differing competition for each product or service in each language. It’s a significant undertaking. Be cautious of anyone or any agency that provides such a number with a quick turnaround. Many of the forecasts I’ve seen in proposals fail to filter out brand demand, meaning that like-for-like visibility comparisons often offer little genuine value.
In the last 12 months, I’ve noticed a definite increase in brands wanting to cap their PPC budgets or reallocate existing spend, while pushing their organic channels to work harder. Brands are finding PPC more expensive and, like SEO, increasingly difficult to quantify. PPC now faces a similar issue where spend is often funnelled into a 'black box' at Google. Additionally, there has been considerable frustration across teams with the introduction of Google Analytics 4, leading many to seek alternative analytics solutions or recreate their previous dashboards.
A lot of my work involves websites that have been affected, rightly or wrongly, by Google algorithm updates. Common questions include: “How long will it take to recover?”, “How much internal resource will we need?”, and “Can we regain what we've lost?” which doesn’t seem to be a problem for Reddit at the moment.
An interesting observation I’ve made is that while many brands are aware they may have been impacted by the recent Google Helpful Content Update or a Core Update and are keen to address it, they’re often unaware that their website has been struggling with algorithm updates going back over 5 years. There does appear to be a more widespread, public understanding of how Google algorithm updates impact businesses now than in the past, and some of the recent media coverage of the Google updates has been quite scathing.
Q2/ What is unique about audits.com offering to ecom teams, SEOs and CMOs that others don’t?
Most brands or business owners I speak with are backed by either private equity or VC funding. Having recently built and sold a highly regarded SEO agency to private equity, I understand the process, accountability, and sometimes the pressures that come with those responsibilities of financial investment. Additionally, I am well-versed in concepts such as team structures, resource allocation, financial budgeting, and employee management. This is not usually the case for SEO teams.
My career spans across cybersecurity, IT support, financial services, web development, and marketing; therefore, I have a good understanding of how an ‘internet business’ operates at many levels.
A full discovery and opportunity assessment must take place before diving into traditional SEO recommendations. This approach typically differs from how a traditional SEO project might begin. Therefore, I rarely rush into new business opportunities with just my ‘SEO hat’ on. In fact, it’s often quite the opposite. I tend to evaluate feedback from clients and data to determine whether the ‘organic’ channel presents a realistic opportunity to drive acquisition and revenue. It’s easy to look at any website and identify traditional ‘SEO issues’; the real question is whether those opportunities translate into a financial return within the expected timeframe.
The reality is that many brands have an unrealistic expectation of how quickly SEO can generate returns. Many older websites, which have grown organically, undergone multiple revisions, and been modified by various stakeholders, are often affected by one of the many Google algorithm updates. As a result, significant change and patience are required before the benefits of those changes are realised. There will always be some quick wins, but for a long-term, successful SEO campaign, it requires a more all-encompassing brand, product, and channel strategy.
When auditing and reviewing a website's performance, I focus on recommending actions that will have a compounding effect on long-term performance improvement. For most websites, only a small percentage of recommendations will yield noticeable results. For a well-established brand in their industry, they may only require a few strategic changes or a clean-up of search signals to drive a significant increase in visibility and financial gain. You don’t need to implement every piece of SEO fluff out there. It really is about understanding which levers to pull, and in most cases, it's a compounding effect of many small ones.
I aim to work with clients in a way that simplifies their understanding of SEO, connecting it directly to their customers and products. This might involve improving existing processes, eliminating unnecessary activities, and, where possible, automating SEO housekeeping tasks. When you strip away the SEO jargon and focus on recommendations that relate directly to the client and their products, it’s much easier to gain stakeholder buy-in. Some of the SEO terminology can be off-putting and means very little to most clients-avoid using it, as they might just tune out. Most established brands need to return to SEO basics that align with their customers, brand and products-keep it simple.
I love working directly with business owners and stakeholders, and I often function as an internal stakeholder. This gives me a greater understanding of a client's business and customers than an external third-party agency might achieve. My experience with large, complex corporate structures within companies such as BlackRock, Aviva, O2, and Groupon has allowed me to understand and overcome the challenges in achieving SEO change and success within a corporate environment.
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Q3/ We have spoken about the issues most in-house teams have with limited dev resources to be able to complete recommendations made from audits and make the number of optimisations required to improve search performance, what are the 3-5 work streams Marketing teams can do to help themselves most?
Q4/ The organic search landscape has changed massively over the last 2 years, many are overlooking the tried and tested methods of improving performance, what is still critical for SEO and improving organic performance?
Correct internal resource allocation from the client / brand at project start or correct budget allocation if they need support in providing that resource. A realistic expectation of what is required by the client for a successful SEO project.
Budget allocation to match required ROI from the organic channel. Most brands I have worked with over the last 20+ years may receive anywhere between 30%-70% of their traffic from ‘organic’ yet a fraction (and I mean tiny) of their marketing budget goes to this channel and almost zero allocation of resource internally with development teams or interconnected channels to fulfil an SEO teams requirements.
SEO tends to become a priority for a business only when traffic is declining or revenue has experienced several months of consistent decline. By this point, it is likely that Google has been negatively impacting the website for many months, if not years, and it will require a shift in SEO strategy, budget, and resource allocation to turn the fortunes of the SEO channel around. Consistent, compounding positive changes are what is required in search.
I generally try to avoid discussing traditional SEO techniques, as nearly all websites have unique requirements to succeed in their respective markets. One area that has been around for a long time, but where Google has tightened its focus in recent years, is user experience. It’s about giving users what they want - removing clutter, noise, and years of over-optimisation. Keep it simple. Fortunately for myself and other SEO practitioners, websites are rarely lean or efficient, and years of bloat are often in play.
Other key signals, such as links, brand demand, website experience, and having content that aligns with user intent and expectations, are essential. What's crucial is knowing which elements need to be compounded for long-term, sustainable SEO success. Picking and choosing your battles versus throwing mud at walls wins in the longer term. Historically (many years ago), throwing mud at the wall would have no negative effect; however, that is not the case now, and this approach can have a long-term negative effect on organic visibility and revenue.
Equally important is understanding when and when not to rely on SEO tools or third-party SEO data. This helps avoid wasting resources, both on your side and the client’s. Far too many SEO recommendations are presented to clients that ultimately deliver little to no real value. SEO teams need to spend more time with clients, gaining a deep understanding of their business and customers. Tools should then be used to complement first-party data and the internal experience of the client. Clients, in turn, need to work harder to integrate their SEO teams across the business for a more aligned strategy.
Q5/ You share some incredible insights and data on LinkedIn around keyword rankings across key search markets, are there any common patterns you spot or come up while working with brands in organic search?
When onboarding with clients, one of my requests is often to review their existing keyword ranking data. Typically, they present a small number of top-tier (often vanity) keywords. Often brands are placing all their eggs in one basket when it comes to driving traffic from search engines. It doesn’t take much to lose those positions, which can result in a significant drop in acquisition and revenue. By understanding your Share of Search (or Share of Voice) across topics and entities, you can address content gaps across the website and reduce your exposure to search position volatility, reducing risk to website revenue.
Top-performing websites often provide users with exactly what they need to answer their query immediately upon page load. The user is presented with a solution straight away. The experience is further enhanced by catering to how users might interact differently, for example, travel or ecommerce websites that have extensive UI features around filtering and sorting, allowing users to efficiently find what they want.
For highly competitive queries, these websites are typically supported by strong (and sometimes manipulated) backlink profiles. The main landing pages are further strengthened by related supporting content. These websites ensure their landing pages are aligned with user intent and often benefit from a combination of brand and service/product search demand.
For larger global brands, or multi-brand and multi-product websites, an often overlooked opportunity is to saturate the search results and dominate a significant share of Google’s real estate. This can be achieved by understanding where each brand is winning or losing from a Share of Search perspective and leveraging each website to align with the type of content and search intent presented.
Google doesn’t want to show the same type of content across the entire first page and that provides opportunity. There are many large publishing groups that do this activity pretty well.
Connect With Carl
Q&A With Paddy Moogan - The New Leader Course
Paddy Moogan is on a journey to help improve the world of management. Having been an agency co-owner, a top tier SEO expert and an all round great person, Paddy is uniquely placed to help managers across their management journey to find and develop their management style and improve their leadership.
I consider myself lucky to have had Paddy as a friend for easily 15 years (when we were both coming up & often competing in the agency world) and it’s been a pleasure seeing him build his own agency and then help other agencies develop their offering and improving their management.
If I were running a team or back agency side I would firstly recommend signing up to his newsletter and asking to joining his new leadership course that you will learn all about below.
Q1. You have been on a mission to help managers especially managers early on their management journey to get the right level of support and training for a long time, what are the key recommendations you make to managers?
I think that the first core thing for managers to understand is that the job of being a manager is very different from the job that they’ve done up until this point. Someone can be the best person in the world at their particular job, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll automatically become a great manager. So an awareness of the need to learn new things and embrace change is the first thing that I try to help new managers understand.
Beyond this, I recommend that new managers focus on the fundamentals of management and block out most other stuff. To me, the fundamentals lie in being an effective communicator via one-on-one meetings, giving (and receiving) feedback, creating good personal development plans and having difficult conversations.
Underlying all of these is a need to balance the person’s “new” job with their old one. Most people, particularly at digital agencies, still have their previous clients to manage and work on - they don’t suddenly disappear! So there is a need to balance priorities and learn to do two jobs at the same time.
Q2/ You have shared your recent journey leaving the agency you co-founded openly (across LinkedIn (X) and more recently threads), could you share any essential lessons for managers and business leaders from your recent experiences that will help them on their journeys?
My exit from Aira wasn’t the one I dreamt of! It came from a place of looking after my mental and physical health and the challenges that I faced can apply to pretty much anyone. My lessons really revolve around self-care and recognising as soon as possible when things are getting too much. For me, there wasn’t a particular moment or incident that caused me to break down, it was the compounding effect of a few years of challenges which ultimately led to a mental breakdown. I’d encourage others to not ignore these “small” things which can build and to regularly get support when things aren’t always going as you’d like.
Q3/ You have been guiding managers and agency leaders through your new leader newsletter since early 2023, what are the biggest learnings or lessons you have picked up from your newsletter audience over the last 18 months?
Mostly that many people experience very similar problems! I encourage newsletter subscribers to reply to me and share their current challenges and more often than not, the challenges have been shared before. Most of these challenges connect to a core skill which is effective communication. This could be delivering feedback or having a hard conversation or just listening to someone - communication is so often the common thread between lots of challenges that managers face.
Q4/ Most managers are promoted to progress their career or keep them with the company, what are the 3 recommendations you make most to help first-time managers or managers starting out in their career?
Q5/ Your new training course went live recently and “its the training every new manager should get” If a manager wanted to ask their boss for your course, how should they pitch it to them?
Thankfully, I’ve written a template email for this exact purpose! But essentially, it’s about getting training that otherwise isn’t given to managers. 82% of people are given no training at all before becoming a manager, so chances are that most people fall into this. Asking their boss to provide training (at a decent price point) for something so important is very fair and reasonable - so try not to think that you’re being cheeky by doing so!
Here’s Paddy breaking down his course
Links To Connect With Paddy
Content & SEO Strategy for B2B Brands & Startups
3moThank you for sharing Danny and an honour to be involved ☺️
Marketing leader with experience in brand building & activation | Digital & ecommerce focus
3moA great Q&A Danny, congrats. Really valuable tips from some expert minds. 👏🏻
Founder Audits.com - SEO Trusted by Brands, Investors, and In-House Teams.
3moI enjoyed the questions and thank you for sharing.
Interim CMO CGO & CPO, Coach, Consultant & Startup / Marketplace Advisor.
3moI will also be including how to be successful in video marketing in the upcoming Q&A posts