Analytics In Marketing: Why Is It Needed And How To Build it

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Analytics in Marketing

Analytics is an important part of marketing. Without it, it’s impossible to understand whether you are successfully moving forward and what to do next. The Ringostat platform team will describe what analytics in marketing consists of and what tools to use at different stages of company development.

What is marketing analytics?

Marketing analytics is the process of measuring the effect of launched activities and developing a plan to strengthen them. With its help, you can understand how marketing affects the success of the company, as well as find out the number of sales from advertising, brand awareness, etc.

We can say that the global goal of marketing analytics is to attract maximum leads and sales, having the optimal amount of budget. To find the most effective promotion channels and invest in them, and disable or optimize the rest. In a word, to make sure that the funds for promotion bring the maximum benefit. Also, a marketing analyst should be able to predict what effect certain activities will lead to.

The Importance of Analytics in Marketing

Without marketing analytics, a company risks spending years on channels and tools that do not work. Or use images that do not attract customers, but, on the contrary, cause rejection.

For example, some Ringostat clients in the past have allocated their marketing budget simply equally among the channels. However, by already connected call analytics and going deeper there, they realized that part of the money was regularly used for inefficient activities.

Here are some statistics that show the importance of analytics for marketing and business in general.

  1. 76% of marketers make decisions based on data analysis.
  2. 32% of marketers quoted marketing analytics and competitive insights to be the most important factors in supporting their marketing strategies.
  3. 69% of marketers say it’s preferable for a company to have a marketing analytics team.
  4. Marketing analytics is the most significant investment for marketers, adding 16% to their annual budgets.

Stages and tasks of forming marketing analytics

First, let’s look at the tasks that marketing analytics solves.

  1. Development of measurable and understandable indicators that will evaluate the success of the marketing strategy.
  2. Getting data about user behavior and conversions. For example, you can get data from web analytics systems, event-based analytics, call tracking, etc. Here is an example of a dashboard that contains the main indicators and KPIs of the marketing department.
  3. Evaluation of the effectiveness of all online and offline promotion channels.
  4. Monitoring the company’s role in the market, researching competitors and the activities they launch.
  5. Compilation of analysis, forecasts, and reports to assess the qualitative and quantitative indicators of success. We will take a closer look below at the difference between reports and analysis.
  6. Search for growth areas and potential risks for business. For example, a marketer monitors how a competitor is developing. And if another market player systematically misses some activities, then it makes sense to use this opportunity.
  7. Development of promotion recommendations based on historical data and forecasts.

Now let’s list the stages of work that  a marketer or analyst goes through in order to solve the tasks. Everything here depends on the scale and ambitions of the business. But in general, they come down to the steps described below.

  1. Formation of KPI and development of relationships between them. For example, it can be ROI and ROMI, the number of leads, targeted calls, the amount of the average check, etc.
  2. Statement and decomposition of the task, the purpose of which is to change KPI. Let’s say a company has a task to enter the Bulgarian market. One of its subtasks is preparing articles for Bulgarian readers. And it includes smaller subtasks for adapting publications.
  3. Connecting and configuring sources from which you can get data for analytics. For example, the number of leads can be taken from CRM. The marketer receives conversion data from Google Analytics.
  4. Collection and aggregation of data. For example, setting up their automatic transfer to a special dashboard, visualization.
  5. Summarizing. Analysis, calculation of how indicators have changed.
  6. Development of recommendations. A marketer or analyst describes the steps that are required for the growth of indicators. At the same time, the specialist must calculate in detail that action A will lead to changes in KPI by N%. And the implementation of changes will cost N% of the budget.
  7. Implementation of changes for KPI growth. For example, drawing up a plan for the year for orders or leads, the growth of the average check size. And again, the decomposition of global tasks into smaller ones.
  8. Retrospective — that is, an in-depth analysis of data for past periods. We will describe it in detail below.

It is clear that you cannot compare marketing analytics of  a micro-business and an e-commerce  giant. But we will analyze how it generally differs in companies of various sizes. And what to consider for different types of businesses that are promoted through digital channels.

Small and micro business

In such companies, the role of an analyst is usually performed by a marketer, or even by the owner/head of the business. But this does not mean that you can work without marketing analytics at all. If you make decisions based only on intuition, then the business is risking not to grow.

The main task for small and micro businesses is to clearly understand what activities are effective and scale them up.

Although the budgets here are low and the connection of special tools will be unprofitable, there are also free ones. And there are enough useful tips and digital guides on the web, which describe must-have services and approaches.

What to consider

  1. If you are promoting online, learn the basic concepts of digital marketing. You must understand what ROI, CPC, CTR, and other key indicators are.
  2. Check your Google Analytics reports regularly. They give you enough information at this stage. So you can evaluate the effectiveness of your site and running ads in ready-made reports:
  3. Learn how to work with Google Sheets. Their capabilities are enough to build an analytical tool for a small company. Also, learn how to drive information from other sources into a spreadsheet and visualize it.
  4. Classify leads. If you do not have a CRM, then write down all clients in a table with notes. For example, “Consultation”, “Spam”, “Wrong number”. This will help you determine if quality traffic is coming from marketing activities.

Medium business

These companies already have a marketer. If a business also has a sales analyst, then it’s easier. It will help to evaluate how the sales of concrete products are related to their promotion. For medium-sized businesses, budgets allow connecting more serious tools to help the analyst.

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But often managers of medium-sized businesses make mistakes:

  • believe that analytics should be done by a marketer — in addition to his main duties;
  • if there is an analyst in a crew, then they give too many different tasks to him: analysis of competitors, sales, procurement planning, and pricing;
  • they ignore the point that analysis should be carried out regularly and data should be observed in dynamics.

It turns out that the owner wants to get a full-fledged analytical department represented by one specialist. Meanwhile, he won’t be able to spend a lot of time on analysis, by simultaneously performing other important tasks. Therefore, the best option is the decomposition of responsibilities between specialists. They also need to be equipped with tools that will allow them to analyze the return on marketing in depth.

What to consider

  1. Set up the e-commerce module in Google Analytics. This way you will see all transactions, the average check, the most popular products, and much more.
  2. If at least some of the customers contact your company by phone, install call tracking. Otherwise, you will not be able to analyze how incoming traffic is converted into calls and requests. Here is an example call log with sources:
  3. Connect CRM if you haven’t set it up yet. And don’t forget to integrate it with telephony and call analytics. In this case, the sources of transactions will be automatically transferred to the system.
  4. Set up end-to-end analytics. This is a tool that automatically calculates the return on investment in marketing. The easiest way to do so is to purchase a ready-made tool. In this case, you do not have to involve a programmer. Such a system drives income from a CRM, and promotion costs from advertising accounts. The analyst receives a ready-made report with key indicators.
  5. Even if the promotion is made by an outsourced agency, the analyst cannot just stand aside. You need to constantly interact with the contractor in order to achieve high results.

Big business

Companies with impressive turnover, most often, have big data. Analysts have a huge responsibility here. Therefore, it is especially important that the information be systematized and clearly visualized.

Often, large businesses engage an outsourced analyst who is involved in building complex dashboards and interpreting data. And the CMO is already working closely with him in conjunction, so he makes a final decision.

Example of a large business report from Supermetrics

What to consider

  1. Google Sheets will not drive a large amount of data, such a document will take too long to load. Therefore, use special tools for visualization and reporting. For example, Microsoft Power BI.
  2. Large companies often use many services and need them to share data. Connector services, for example, Zapier, will help to establish this process.
  3. Connect event-based analytics services. For example, Woopra or Kissmetrics. Such systems will help analyze the behavior of the client on different devices, synchronizing data from different sources. And automatically update customer profiles in real-time.
  4. Some big businesses rely on display or offline advertising, in addition to digital channels. There is a misconception that they just work for the brand and their effectiveness in terms of money. And leads there are not so easy to track. This is not true. For example, call tracking will allow you to track calls from advertising on TV and radio. If you need to accurately evaluate the return on display advertising, contact an agency with the appropriate expertise. 

In this scheme, one of the agencies combines data to evaluate the effectiveness of display advertising for their clients

Differences between reports and well-built analytics

Reports and analytics are not the same thing. Rather, the first ones are the components of the second one. If you are a manager or a business owner, and the analyst only provides you with reports, then he does only part of the work. Let’s look at the difference.

A report is a standardized document with a selection of data for periods and/or indicators that are requested. For example, there may be a report on the number of leads from the context for May. This sample includes only data for the past period. And it can be generated automatically, for example, in Google Data Studio.

Analysis is a comprehensive look at the desired metric. It includes not just a selection of data for past periods, but also an explanation of why this happened, and recommendations for the future. It is difficult to automate it, because it can refer to the task that needs to be solved. For example, to analyze why the number of organic calls decreased and what to do next. The analysis may also contain a forecast.

Sales Forecast Example

Retrospective

Retrospective analytics is just one of the duties of a profile specialist. This is precisely the compilation of reports at the request of management. For example, once a month or a week such reports are provided by the agency to the customer. In a retrospective, a specialist compares the expected data with the fact one, possibly, how the tests worked out, etc.

Ideally, an in-house analyst should take the initiative and find  the data himself to discover valuable insights. For example, regularly listening to calls from customers. Look for weaknesses in the sales funnel, identify trends and much more.

An example of built analytics for an online store

Let’s take a quick look at how analytics for an online store can be built. It all depends on the scale, but we will analyze useful reports and indicators that the analyst pays attention to.

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Web analytics system

Like any other business, an online store must analyze the effectiveness of promotion using Google Analytics. The most useful reports for this are:

  • Traffic sourcesAll trafficSource channel: here you can see what activities bring you real users; 
  • Campaign Report: shows how many leads you got from paid ads;
  • Keyword Report: shows which keywords drive traffic, but it’s important to pay attention to its quality; 
  • E-commerce module: shows key metrics specifically for e-commerce: transactions, revenue, the number of additions to the cart for each product, etc.; 
  • Conversions: shows how often people achieve key goals: for example, whether they download content or fill out online applications, etc.;
  • Audiences: allows understanding what demographic characteristics have your website visitors ;
  • User behavior: a report that provides a complete picture of the actions on the site.

Call tracking

People might want to call online stores. Therefore, in e-commerce, with customized analytics, you cannot live without call tracking. After connecting such a service, you can collect data on the ad that has driven to the client’s request.

An analyst can daily log in the personal account of a call tracking service and see how many calls were from different sources. Below is an example of a report showing the source, channel, campaign, and even the keyword:

It is important for analysts to pay attention to such reports:

  • missed calls — to understand how many deals are lost because of the sales department;
  • separately for calls from paid ads and organic search;
  • statistics on calls from the callback widget, if the service provides it.

The analyst also pays attention to the peak hours and days that drive the most calls. This data will influence the bid management at this time and even the development of an optimal schedule for the sales department:

Usually, call tracking is integrated with Google Analytics. After that, call data is automatically transferred to the web analytics system. Thus, the effectiveness of ads can be evaluated both by online conversions and by calls. Here is an example of a report in Google Analytics with calls of different statuses:

CRM

This system not only helps the sales department. It can also provide lots of valuable information to analysts. If you integrate it with analytical services, then it will receive data on sources that  brought each lead. For example, the user who made a call.

Based on this data, the analyst can evaluate how investments in ads pay off through sales. But it is quite difficult to do it manually for all channels, so end-to-end analytics can be enabled for this purpose.

End-to-end analytics

When an online store has all of the systems described above configured, it can set up end-to-end analytics.. Thus, this service will be able to link the costs per paid ads with income from it and calculate ROI.

As a result, the configured analytics scheme may look like this:

Its result is a report showing the number of calls, deals, revenue for each channel:

Such a report links different levels of data. From the very top of the funnel — the number of sessions from different sources, to performance metrics which are expressed in money and ROI.

To sum up

  1. Marketing analytics is the process of measuring the effect of launched activities and developing a plan to strengthen them. With its help, you can understand how marketing affects the success of the company, the number of sales, brand awareness, etc.
  2. Without marketing analytics, a company risks investing in tools that don’t work. Or use ads that don’t attract customers, but, on the contrary, cause rejection.
  3. To build analytics: learn the basic concepts of digital marketing, define your goals, and regularly check the reports of web analytics systems. Learn how to work with Google Sheets and/or other data collection and visualization tools.
  4. An online store should install the e-commerce module in Google Analytics. It is important to connect call tracking if customers call the store. Set up a CRM and end-to-end analytics, so you can understand how investments in ads pay off.
  5. Reports and analytics are not equal. The first one can be called the component of a second one. If you are a manager or a business owner, and the analyst only provides you with reports, then he does only part of the work.

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Evergreen Content – The Holy Grail of Content Marketing Strategy

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evergreen content

The lifespan of digital content is usually very short. And by digital content, I don’t mean necessarily social media, and formats such as Stories, which were designed to disappear after several hours. The sad truth is that even the content posted on websites in a “traditional” way can be also compared to mayflies.

Of course, news, articles, and other types of content are not removed from servers and even a few years after being published they are still available to users. But let’s be honest – after some time, usually, no one cares. The expiration date has passed. The topic is out of date. It is the fate of the vast majority of news articles, statistics, reviews, sports coverage, political commentary, and a few content types from other categories.

The Web generates an unbelievable amount of data every day and most of it after some time is simply useless. Even those pieces of information that the users consider up-to-date and quality content at a given moment, in the vast majority of cases, will soon irrevocably lose their recipients’ attention.

Evergreen Posts That Gain Traffic

There is, however, there is content that is characterized by constant attention. Such content is often called evergreen content. The name comes from an evergreen tree, a tree that retains its leaves all year round. What does evergreen mean in content writing? It refers to the content, which is continuously flourishing and gaining attention – organic traffic. A single post, video or even a whole website described as an evergreen piece acquires visits all the time – theoretically, no matter the season, the arrangement of planets, or the world’s economy. It does not have an expiration date.

evergreen content definition

It is certainly worth remembering about evergreen content when preparing a content marketing strategy. In general, writing evergreen content pays off – since a blog post or an article is continually relevant, it attracts users even years after the initial publication date. Some long-lasting evergreen posts were written even a decade ago and are still getting consistent traffic. For a business owner it sounds like a dream, right?

Evergreen Content Examples

In the case of pop culture websites, evergreen articles will be, for example, journalistic materials about literature or film classics, which are considered a magnum opus in a given field. However, in other branches, just like in the tech industry, things are a little more complicated. Both software and hardware change so dynamically that articles covering now up-to-date topics quickly become obsolete. An article about the best app for a given task one year after publication may be simply based on outdated information, thus meaningless for the user.

From the website owner’s perspective, a guide to a specific version of a given application loses its traffic potential when customers migrate to the updated edition of the app. It is still well-written and valuable content but basically, no one would look for it – as a result, search volume drops to zero.

Please note that popular articles are not always considered evergreen articles. For example, seasonal content cannot be classified as evergreen content. The Google Trends chart for the phrase “Australian Open” shows a huge increase in interest every year, but in the periods between the competitions, the search volume drops significantly. A similar situation occurs with other annual events – the football world cup, the Nobel Prize Awards, Golden Globe Awards, recipes for the Christmas cake, or death anniversaries of famous people.

Google Trends chart - Australian Open

For comparison, let’s look at the chart for the phrase “how to lose weight” for the past 12 months. Top articles covering this topic are getting constant search traffic – a truly evergreen topic and therefore evergreen content.

Google Trends chart - how to lose weight keywords

Evergreen Content Ideas

Some topics for evergreen posts and evergreen articles are presented below. See the most common examples of evergreen content:

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  • Dietary content – what to eat to lose weight, how to gain weight, etc.;
  • Recipes for popular dishes – from scrambled eggs to chili con carne, to fancy lobsters;
  • Sport and workout articles – sets of exercises for a specific audience for a specific purpose;
  • Dictionary content – definitions and translations of words or phrases;
  • Various types of how-to guides – e.g. gardening, renovation, marketing, DIY;
  • Instructions/tutorials for the use of specific tools, software, etc.

For example, a recipe for scrambled eggs returns about 118 million results. Will people lose interest in this popular breakfast? Highly unlikely.

Google screen - pizza recipe results

Of course, this is just the top – an article can be called an evergreen content when its relevance (and thus the potential interest of the recipients) does not pass with time. It does not mean, however, that once written, evergreen content shouldn’t be regularly updated. While the assumption of evergreen content is long relevance (well, eternal, if possible), expanding the content with new data will always be desirable – both by the users and search engine crawlers. A well-written evergreen content does not need to be updated very often, which simply saves your time.

Long Live The Evergreen Post… Or Not

That is why the majority of articles such as buying guides with product offers are definitely not a piece of evergreen content. Of course, guides “what to buy in [month, year]” sometimes can generate huge organic traffic and increase conversion, but by no means can it be characterized as evergreen content. Apart from some industries, current trends and store assortment are changing so dynamically that such texts have to be updated very often – every few weeks or even days.

How To Create Evergreen Content?

The main source of traffic for evergreen content is organic traffic from search engines. In digital marketing, intuition is very important, but it looks up to something much more powerful – data analysis which is the basis of the positioning of websites in search engines (SEO), and the mother of any successful digital project. Creating evergreen content is simply a combo of analysis, research, and creativity – just as most activities in digital marketing. Here are a few tips on writing successful evergreen content.

Do Keyword Research And Identify The Search Intent of Users

A keyword analysis is absolutely crucial in SEO – and in content strategy in general. Keywords that are placed in the text are read not only by users but also by web crawlers. You have to answer the question: what phrases do people who are looking for content on a given topic enter into the search engine?

If the topic has already been mentioned on your business rivals’ websites – you can analyze the subpage using various tools, and use the collected data to build your own content. Find relevant evergreen topics, gain knowledge, use both phrases from the so-called short-tail and long-tail keywords, write a blog post and – when done correctly – enjoy the traffic in Google Analytics (or any other analytical tool).

Make Your Efforts Visible

There are many articles that are perfectly written, and based on solid topical research – yet they are really hard to find in search rankings. The main reason for such a situation is the lack of a target keyword (or – most likely – target keywords). Of course, proper choice of keywords is one of many factors that affect a website’s position in SERPs (Search Engine Page Results), but when writing evergreen content, it cannot be underestimated.

Therefore, it makes sense to use SEO tools: Google Trends, Ahrefs, Senuto, or Semstorm. These are both paid and free tools.

SEO Guide - e-book from Verseo

Writing Evergreen Content In Accordance With SEO Guidelines

The article must be filled with proper keywords, but the form is also important. In order for it to fulfill its role of evergreen content, it should be presented in an attractive arrangement. It consists of the entire visuals – text layout, images, font and color, internal linking, the division into paragraphs, and many other factors.

Don’t forget about technical aspects. It can be a little complicated, especially if you do not have access to the website backend. But do everything you can to speed up the website’s loading time – sometimes even simple image compression can make a significant change.

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Even perfectly written articles will not attack the top search results if there are no links to this content from other websites. The more competitive is a given branch, the harder it is to achieve positioning success, and thus more links of high quality are needed. If the article is very valuable from the user’s perspective, theoretically many links will appear in a natural way – that is how the social power of the internet works. Usually, however, this is not enough to lift content where it should be – at the very top of SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

For this reason, it is worth using the help of professional positioners with experience, resources, and skills in link building. Broad topics with high search volumes have high commercial potential, hence the competition in this race can be fierce.

Don’t Forget About Basic Decency

When writing an article that is supposed to be evergreen content, it is very easy to turn to clickbaits and other tricks that are viewed as unethical. Don’t do it. Of course, the main assumption of blog posts on a given business’ website is – apart from getting organic traffic – encouraging the users to buy products or services offered by a company. Evergreen content has to do more than just ostentatiously trying to sell something.

Typically, the traffic gained from clickbaits and extensive keyword stuffing is of very low value. The users come and go – often without reading a single paragraph, and certainly without making any conversion. They feel cheated and have all the right to feel so if they have been misled. As a result, the bounce rate increases. Contrary to your brand’s reputation.

Keep The Content Up To Date

It is better to avoid references to current events. Although the world is widely commenting on a certain matter at a given moment, in a few months the public’s attention will completely change its direction. References to a currently popular TV series or a recent political dispute are very catchy, but in the long run, they harm rather than help.

Evergreen content doesn’t get old. Do you still mention Grumpy Cat, Rage Comics, Hannah Montana, or the third season of “Dexter” while talking to friends? If so, you belong to a vast minority. No one cares today – including users of your website. When it comes to evergreen content, if you really have to, refer to widely known classics or anything else that will not get out of date immediately.

Repurpose Content

Repurposing guarantees perpetual life. Therefore, the best content marketing strategy should include the practice of content repurposing. It is all about reusing the existing content and presenting it in a new format. How to repurpose content? For example, you can transform a blog post into an infographic or a video. It’s a way of making relevant and high-quality content more appealing to the audience. You can also create audio content from blog posts or convert blog content into a PDF and a how-to guide. Transforming popular posts into a paid ebook would also be a good idea.

As you see the possibilities are endless. Content repurposing is a way of producing new content out of evergreen pieces and maintaining its evergreen status. Remember – never waste a good piece of evergreen content.

Ready to Start Creating Evergreen Content?

You are now equipped with basic knowledge of common evergreen formats. If you are a business owner, a marketing specialist, or a blogger – create content, publish on your own website, attract users and get to top-ranking pages. Evergreen writing is not as difficult as it seems. Good luck!

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Alternative Search Engines

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Alternative Search Engine

There’s no doubt – Google is the most popular search engine. It’s estimated that Google processes approximately 5.5 billion online searches per day. The high quality of Google’s search results makes users switch from other search engines to Google. Both the engine and the entire colossal network of services have almost monopolized the digital marketing market. Positioning a business website on Google or using the Google Ads system, and – subsequently – Google Display Network and Display & Video 360 are nowadays more a necessity than a choice at certain stages of business development.

However, many marketers and SEO specialists simply forget the fact that the Google network, although by far the most popular, does not handle the whole digital search traffic. One of the most important internet marketing commandments is definitely “make your brand be (almost) everywhere”. Therefore, the presence of the brand’s website in other search engines is also important – it allows to attract traffic and potential customers using sources that are sometimes ignored by the competition. A niche can sometimes become a marketer’s friend – maybe not always the closest one, but certainly an important ally.

Let’s talk about the best Google alternative search engines. How do they work and how many search queries do they receive daily? We have prepared an alternative search engines list. Find out what are the most popular search engines after Google. 

Curious to discover what the search engine market has to offer?

Google Search Engine Alternative #1: Microsoft Bing

The second search engine in the world, processing nearly 900 million search terms per day. Bing has been set up as an evolutionary form of previous Microsoft services – Live Search and even older MSN Search. It can be said that Microsoft has done a simple rebranding. The name of the search engine is sometimes ironically referred to as an abbreviation of Bing Is Not Google, which allegedly functions as an inside company joke.

Bing is built-into Windows – the most popular desktop OS in the world. Thanks to the contract between Microsoft and Yahoo, Bing also fuels the “ancient” search engines veteran. Naturally, for obvious reasons, Bing supports search using the Microsoft Cortana virtual assistant. Less obvious, however, is the fact that Amazon Alexa also uses Bing as its primary search engine.

Bing is a part of a larger set of services for digital marketing and e-commerce, called Microsoft Advertising. It works in a similar way as Google Ads – has millions of users (potential customers) and huge sales potential. However, even in its basic form, it is worth taking care of proper positioning in Bing – it is a service gathering a huge number of users around the world – in 2021, it has been about 1 billion visits per month.

Bing is the default search engine in Microsoft Edge and can be chosen as the main search engine in other browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome, Vivaldi, and Safari.

Useful tools for marketers:

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Google Search Engine Alternative #2: Yandex

An alternative search engine to Google is Yandex, which has been present on the digital market since 1990, but in its final form – as yandex.ru – it appeared in 1997. Yandex is therefore a few months older than Google. According to one theory, the name Yandex is quite autoironical and originates from the abbreviation of Yet Another Indexer.

As a search engine aimed at the Russian-language market, it has been quite successful, currently serving over 50% of traffic related to digital searching in the territory of the Russian Federation. What is not surprising, among all search engines, Yandex is the best when it comes to processing Cyrillic characters. Yandex is not just a search engine. Similarly to Google and Microsoft, Yandex offers a number of other options and functionalities – from a web browser to a GPS-based navigation system, cloud storage space, to a display advertising network.

The version for the Russian market can be found at yandex.ru, while the “western” version is available at yandex.com.

If your (potential) customers are located – to simplify – in Eastern Europe (excluding Ukraine – due to the political situation, access to Yandex has been officially banned), then you cannot afford to underestimate the value of a search engine used by tens of millions of Internet users. Yandex also supports the Yandex.Direct network, which is a system that displays ads, among others, on the search network – similar to Google and Bing.

Yandex can be set as a default search engine in Microsoft Edge and in Google Chrome (after adding it manually to the list).

Useful tools for marketers:

Google Search Engine Alternative #3: DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is another example of alternative search engines to Google. It was released in 2008 and its name originates from a popular game for children. Apart from the main URL (duckduckgo.com), the search engine is also available at the easier-to-enter addresses duck.com and ddg.gg. DuckDuckGo is gaining market share slowly but is growing steadily. In 2021 nearly 100 million web searches daily were done with DuckDuckGo.

DuckDuckGo is based on a significantly different model than Google or Bing. DDG does not collect users’ data and does not show profiled search results. Every user gets the same SERPs, regardless of search history or other activities on the Web. Focus on privacy protection is the main reason why DuckDuckGo is steadily increasing its popularity – some users do not feel comfortable with the fact that various websites, search engines, and applications collect a lot of search data, even if it is anonymised and theoretically does not allow for the identification of a specific user.

Such mechanics has both advantages and disadvantages. The users are thus cut off from the content which statistically fits best their search intent (or at least they do not get it right away). When it comes to searching for products or information, profiling makes it easier to find the “right” data quickly.

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DuckDuckGo mainly uses its own solutions, such as the DuckDuckBot crawler, but also many external sources – including Bing. This means that optimizing the website to best meet the requirements of Microsoft’s search engine also helps in positioning the site in DDG. The above-mentioned Bing Webmaster Tools can give you a helping hand – you can use it to check errors on the website and find some useful tips.

If you run a local business, be sure your brand is included in Apple Maps – DuckDuckGo uses AM’s database, so your business will be shown to users of both search engines.

In Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, DuckDuckGo is set as one of the default search engines.

Google Search Engine Alternative #4: Amazon

What can be interesting, when it comes to searching for products, Google has been looking up to another champion – Amazon. According to Jumpshot reports, the e-commerce giant achieved 54% of internet shopping traffic in the second quarter of 2018. Mozilla Firefox has allowed the use of Amazon Search as the default search engine a few years ago. 

In general, Amazon does not matter much for the service sector or websites based on content but when it comes to the typical product sales on the Web, Amazon is a place to be for producers and stores.

Google Search Engine Alternative #5: YouTube 

In many cases, YouTube is also a valuable source of traffic. Although it is not a sales platform, as the largest video site in the world, YouTube is an ideal place for increasing brand awareness. Millions of customers look for reviews there, watch unboxing videos, and discuss product quality or customer service in the commentary section. Therefore, it is worth at least monitoring the buzz around the brand on YouTube, and remembering about the presence on the platform and proper brand exposure.

Alternative Search Engines to Google

Google, as the leading search engine, has a lot of sites in its index and picks up new sites faster than any other engine. This is one of the major reasons why people move from other search engines to Google. However, there are many alternative search engines to Google, which have a lot to offer. In addition to the ones mentioned above, we can also name others.

Alternative search engines list

  • Startpage 
  • Onesearch, 
  • Search Encrypt
  • Swisscows
  • Brave Search
  • CCSearch
  • Gibiru
  • Neeva

Most of them put a lot of emphasis on protecting users’ privacy in their communication. Of course, it is just the tip of the “search engine market” iceberg.

Are those search engines better than Google? As always – it depends on the user’s needs, habits, digital competencies, and attitude to data collection.

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What is your favourite search engine? Is Google the best search engine? Can any other search engine compete with it?

Google Tag Manager – What Is It?

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Google Tag Manager - What Is It

Google Tag Manager is a tool that has been widely used for more than a decade but is still relatively less known than other services from Google, like Google Ads or Google Analytics. Google Tag Manager can be very valuable when it comes to managing the website’s source code – especially when we don’t have programistic skills and experience in web development. How does Google Tag Manager work? When should it be used? Read on and learn a few things about Google Tag Manager.

What Does Google Tag Manager Do?

Google Tag Manager is a tool that allows you to add, remove and modify scripts (so-called tags) on your web page. In other words, Google Tag Manager helps you manage all the tags – or at least the tags that you need to analyze a website’s performance, increase conversion rate, etc. When using Google Tag Manager, you don’t have to manually place the script on the web page – GTM will do it for you, taking the role of a messenger between the script and the web page thus eliminating the risk of making major mistakes during this digital “open-heart surgery”.

With time, a typical web page gets more and more tags. Among others, the most popular ones are certainly Google Analytics (data about traffic and conversion), Facebook Pixel (measuring ads’ performance) or Google Ads tag responsible for remarketing. But it’s only the tip of the iceberg – from a marketing specialist’s point of view, the digital market consists of thousands of useful services that come with tags. Thanks to Google Tag Manager, you don’t have to manually inject all of them into the web page – all that has to be done is to implement the Google Tag Manager code once, and then you can implement all the tags through it.

Google Tag Manager – Set Up

To get started with Google Tag Manager, you first have to create a container and implement that container snippet on your web page. To do so, you have to set up an account. Google recommends one account per company. Create the account by inserting the account name, usually, it’s the name of the company. Then you have to name the GTM container (an entity, which contains the tags, triggers, and variables). The name of the container can be the name of your web page. Remember that you can use Google Tag Manager for different platforms, including mobile apps. Now all you have to do is to click the “Create” button and you’ve set up your first GTM container. The last step is implementing on your website the snippet that will pop up on your screen. And that’s how you get started with Google Tag Manager.

Google Tag Manager – Structure

In Google Tag Manager, the structure is very simple. The highest instance is the account – it collects all the subsets in the tool. Within the account, you can create containers – figuratively speaking, containers are separate boxes for sets of multiple tags. Each container has its code that has to be implemented in the website’s code. After proper implementation, the entire set of tags stored in it is active on the website.

The tags are tracking codes that gather pieces of data from the website. Depending on the type of the tag, it can be information about website traffic, conversion, event tracking, etc. Each tag should have an assigned trigger that runs the tags (you can track things such as contacts from form submissions, phone number clicks, etc.) – you can add a trigger that tells the tag to fire on all subpages or only on some of them. For example, when measuring the conversion, you can assign a trigger that tells the tag to collect data only from the purchase confirmation page.

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Assigning user permissions in Google Tag Manager

In Google Tag Manager, you can assign a role to a certain user – both on an account level and a container level. If we want the users to have access to all the containers you have created, you should give them account-level permissions. We have two types of permissions here: Read Only and View, Edit, and Manage. However, it is worth mentioning that the second type doesn’t allow making any changes within the containers – it only allows the user to see what settings have been selected for each container.

There is also a possibility to permit the users to edit the container (useful also if you don’t want to give them access to the entire account). In this case, at the container level, you have three options: 

  • View Only 
  • View and Edit 
  • View, Edit, Delete & Publish

Thanks to this, you can freely manage access to the account and retain full control over the data it contains.

Google Tag Manager – Why Is It Worth It?

Google Tag Manager offers many benefits to website owners. The most important qualities are listed below.

Advantages of Google Tag Manager

Making changes on the website easier

Sooner or later, every website needs technological updates. If you change the website layout, CMS, or a template, it is necessary to move all the scripts implemented directly into the code. This task can be difficult, especially if your website uses many services. Using Google Tag Manager, the mission is much easier – all you need to do is move the GTM container code. That’s why it is advisable to implement Google Tag Manager when you are about to launch your website. Of course, at first, it may seem that with only a few scripts this is an unnecessary difficulty, but their number can grow quickly making any changes harder and more time-consuming. It usually starts with Google Analytics code… but rarely ends up with just one tag. 😉

Shorter loading time

Every additional tag in a website’s code makes loading slower. If it takes too much time, many users will get impatient and simply resign from visiting the page. With Google Tag Manager, it is easier to keep the tags in order and remove those that are no longer needed. Using Google Tag Manager has one more crucial advantage – with GTM, tags can be loaded asynchronously. What does it mean? To put it simply, faster-loading scripts don’t have to wait for others, which significantly shortens the overall website loading time.

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Container template import

If you have a set of tags implemented on a website, you can easily import that to a new account. This way you don’t need to waste time on making a new GTM container from scratch if you plan to create a new website with similar tags.

Switching tags off

When you don’t want the tags (which are directly implemented on the website) to collect data, the only way is to completely remove them. However, such a radical solution is not always the right choice – sometimes you can’t be sure whether you will need a given tag in the future. With Google Tag Manager, you can simply temporarily disable a given tag.

Quick script verification

Google Tag Manager enables both script preview and debug mode, so you don’t have to wait to see if the tag has been properly implemented. Otherwise, you would have to wait for the tag to collect the data to check if the implementation was successful.

Tag configuration without a programmer

When it comes to making changes to the website, many owners prefer hiring a web developer to ensure that the process goes smoothly. Programmers are expensive, and including an additional person in the process can make it much slower. The tag configuration can be performed in Google Tag Manager. You can implement new tags in the site code and manage tags by yourself, being sure that you won’t face a long-term failure of the website caused by the new tag code. If something bad happens, all you have to do is to return to the GTM container settings before the last tag was deployed.

Creating tags easier than ever

Advantages of Google Tag Manager

GGoogle Tag Manager is a powerful tool – in fact, this tag management system is a game-changer if you want to get your tags organized. With GTM, you can collision-free add & manage the tag code for most popular services – not only Google tags, like Google Analytics or Google Ads, but also third-party tools, for example, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and many more, including custom tags and event tracking (for example form submissions).

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