Ecommerce Management Advisors
Ecommerce Management Advisors
LinkedIn unveils research-backed creative principles to boost B2B ad performance, as 90% of CMOs seek bolder marketing approaches.
LinkedIn releases new content guidelines, prioritizing professional insights while penalizing promotional posts and engagement-bait tactics.
Google’s click-through rates (CTRs) experienced notable changes across industries and search categories in Q3, according to a report from Advanced Web Ranking.
This report compares Q3 data to the previous quarter. It shows how CTRs can vary and what that means for website traffic.
Key Findings:
To assess traffic impact, the report looked at changes in CTR alongside search demand trends for different industries.
When both CTR and demand grow at the same time, it signals likely traffic gains. However, if both decrease, it may indicate potential losses.
The Science sector bounced back after two quarters of falling CTR.
The top results saw an increase of 2.48 percentage points (pp) on desktop and 4.16 pp on mobile. Impressions also went up by 33.78%.
The Law, Government & Politics sector had the biggest drop in single-position CTR, with desktop websites ranked second, falling by 9.74 pp. Still, overall demand grew by 32.74%.
After a year of stable CTRs, the Shopping sector experienced a recovery in Q3. The top position increased by 2.30 pp on desktop and 1.94 pp on mobile, with a demand rise of 21.09%.
Other industries with notable CTR increases include:
On the losing end, Arts & Entertainment saw desktop CTRs sink 6.56 pp and 1.42 pp for positions one and two and a 4.12 pp mobile slide for the top spot. Impressions also dipped -1.54%.
Mobile is crucial, especially in Personal Finance, where mobile CTRs are 34%. Focus on mobile-friendly designs and keep content short.
Users prefer informational content over commercial pages, so prioritize educational material while maintaining clear sales pages.
Different industries require different strategies:
Branded searches perform well on mobile, so focus on building your brand. Track your CTR metrics against industry standards and adjust as trends change.
The findings suggest that websites should closely monitor their CTR metrics against industry benchmarks, as rankings alone don’t tell the complete traffic story.
SERP layout variations for different keywords can impact click-through rates as well.
The next report covering Q4 will offer year-end comparisons and trend analysis.
Featured Image: Ratana21/Shutterstock
Google Analytics launches Customer Match beta, enabling advertisers to enhance remarketing using first-party data instead of third-party cookies.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has proposed that Google sell its Chrome web browser and possibly the Android mobile operating system.
This suggestion is part of a larger effort to address the company’s alleged monopoly in online search.
In a 23-page brief submitted to the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., the DOJ outlined extensive measures to dismantle what it claims are Google’s illegal monopolies in general search services and search text advertising.
The DOJ’s proposal centers on the divestiture of the Chrome browser, which the agency claims has strengthened Google’s dominance in the search market.
The DOJ wrote in its filing:
“To address these challenges, Google must divest Chrome, which has ‘fortified [Google’s] dominance,’ so that rivals may pursue distribution partnerships that this ‘realit[y] of control’ today prevents.”
The DOJ suggested that Google should sell the Android mobile operating system if behavioral remedies to prevent self-preferencing practices do not restore competition.
However, the DOJ acknowledged that the divestiture of Android “may draw significant objections from Google or other market participants.”
In addition to the structural breakup, the DOJ is seeking a range of conduct remedies, including:
The proposed judgment would remain in effect for 10 years.
Google swiftly condemned the DOJ’s proposal, calling it a “radical interventionist agenda” that would harm innovation and America’s global technology leadership.
In a blog post, Kent Walker, Google’s President of Global Affairs, said the remedies would:
“.. break a range of Google products — even beyond Search — that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives.”
Walker adds:
“DOJ’s approach would result in unprecedented government overreach that would harm American consumers, developers, and small businesses — and jeopardize America’s global economic and technological leadership at precisely the moment it’s needed most.”
Google raises the following concerns about the DOJ’s plan:
The recent court filings are part of the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google, which started in October 2020 with help from several state attorneys.
In September, Judge Amit Mehta found that Google had broken antitrust laws to keep its search and search advertising monopolies. This ruling will lead to a phase where solutions to restore competition will be discussed.
Both sides are expected to present detailed proposals for these solutions in the coming months, with a hearing planned for next year.
The outcome could significantly affect Google’s business model and the online advertising market.
Featured Image: JarTee/Shutterstock
YouTube is introducing “Gifts, Powered by Jewels,” which lets people support creators during vertical livestreams.
This signals YouTube’s push into the virtual gifting space that TikTok has capitalized on for years.
“Gifts, Powered by Jewels,” is available for members of the YouTube Partner Program in the United States and offers new ways to earn money from live content.
The new gifting system introduces two virtual currencies: Jewels for viewers and Rubies for creators.
Viewers can purchase Jewels in bundles to send animated gifts that appear as overlays during vertical livestreams.
This feature is similar to TikTok’s popular gift animations that occur during live sessions.
Creators earn Rubies from these gifts, with each Ruby worth one cent in real currency.
For example, if a creator receives 100 Rubies, they earn $1.
To incentivize adoption, YouTube offers a 50% bonus on gift earnings (up to $1,000 per month) to qualified creators for the first three months.
This bonus structure appears designed to attract creators who might currently be prioritizing TikTok livestreams for their virtual gifting revenue.
The feature is currently restricted to:
Only mobile app users can buy and send gifts, but creators can receive them while streaming directly on YouTube or through third-party software.
YouTube is phasing out Super Stickers for vertical livestreams with the introduction of gifts.
Once creators enable gifts on their channels, Super Stickers will no longer be available for their vertical live content.
Unlike traditional monetization features such as Super Chats and channel memberships, gifts don’t have a fixed revenue share since their prices can vary based on bundle pricing and promotional offers.
YouTube is beta testing “Gifts, Powered by Jewels” in the United States and plans to roll it out to more countries soon.
You can enable gifting through the Earn hub in YouTube Studio.
This launch represents YouTube’s direct challenge to TikTok’s live streaming monetization.
While TikTok has the edge in virtual gifting, YouTube’s large user base and monetization infrastructure could make it a strong competitor.
Featured Image: Screenshot from support.google.com, November 2024.
Wix announced it is rolling out an AI-based tool that simplifies the site planning and visualization step, dramatically compressing the time from planning to site rollout. The new tool enables agencies and enterprise users to create a visual map and wireframe website representation for planning new websites, simplifying one of the most fundamental tasks of creating a high performing website.
Wix is a cloud-based website builder for small to medium size businesses to enterprise level companies that handles all of the back-end technology necessary for creating a professional online web presence with a state of the art website performance and search optimization features. It offers complete customization, marketing and integrations with Google business features that small businesses, agencies and advanced users require.
One of the first steps for creating a high performance website that is user friendly, easy to navigate and search optimized is planning the site structure. This is important for every website but especially important for large websites with thousands of products or topics. A taxonomical topic structure that makes it easy for users to locate what they’re looking for begins with creating a visual representation of major category sections with hierarchical nodes that represent subcategories and all of the associated web pages.
Wix’s new tool is an AI-powered tool that can create the visualization after users input the project details. The visual representation allows agencies and designers to view what the site structure will look like and make decisions ahead of time. The visual representation can then be exported to share with clients and stakeholders. The AI can even pre-insert content suggestions. The resulting visual representation can be fully customized and edited. A task that ordinarily can take weeks to months is compressed to days.
Wix explains how it works:
“Agencies and web professionals can input project details, including business type, site description, goals, target audience, and tone of voice. After filling in the information, a tailored sitemap structure is created detailing pages and sections.
If preferred, bespoke wireframes can be generated to kick off the creation process. Both the tailor-made visual sitemap and wireframes are created with pages, sections and relevant business applications.”
The tool’s built-in collaboration functions can reflect changes made to the sitemap in real-time, speeding up the process of getting project buy-in and moving forward.
Read Wix’s announcement:
Visual Sitemap And Wireframe Generator: Site planning, accelerated
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Graphic farm
LinkedIn’s Marketing Jobs Outlook report reveals a rebound in industry job postings, with a 76% increase compared to last year.
The report also identifies the most in-demand marketing roles across regions and experience levels, providing a roadmap for those looking to make career moves.
Whether you’re a seasoned executive or just starting out in the field, understanding these trends can help you position yourself for success.
According to LinkedIn’s data, these are the marketing positions employers are most actively hiring for now:
North America (NAMER)
Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA)
Asia Pacific (APAC)
Latin America (LATAM)
While the overall marketing job market saw a 76% year-over-year increase, B2B marketing roles grew by 21%.
This suggests that despite the more modest growth compared to the broader industry, opportunities are expanding again in the B2B space after last year’s slump.
The report found a 91% job satisfaction rate among B2B marketers, especially those in executive positions.
However, 55% said they are either actively job searching or would consider leaving for the right opportunity.
The marketing field is changing quickly, and 72% of professionals feel overwhelmed by these changes.
More than half worry about falling behind if they don’t keep up.
This shift is due to the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI), and most professionals expect it to significantly impact their work soon.
The report notes that “to stay ahead of the curve, marketers are embracing continual learning,” with 51%seeking guidance on skills to develop.
With AI taking on more routine tasks, human-centric skills are more crucial than ever.
LinkedIn named “Collaborative Problem-Solving” the top marketing skill of the year, and it has grown by 138% since 2021.
Key technical skills marketers are growing include Creative Execution (443% increase), Artificial Intelligence (392% increase), and Marketing Technology (351% increase).
LinkedIn’s new Marketing Jobs Outlook seems promising, but what should marketers do with these insights?
Here’s the breakdown.
Most B2B marketers are happy where they are, but over half would jump ship for the right gig.
Keep your resume and LinkedIn fresh in case that dream job pops up.
Marketing moves fast, and most feel overwhelmed by the constant change.
The solution? Never stop learning. Dive into training on the latest skills and tech to stay caught up.
You can’t escape AI in marketing now. Get comfy with these tools, but don’t sleep on skills like collaboration and creative problem-solving.
As AI handles the routine stuff, these “human” skills will set you apart.
Are you eyeing a career move? Social Media Manager, Marketing Manager, and Director roles are hot in North America.
In EMEA, aim for Marketing Specialist or Head of Marketing jobs.
Is your niche growing slower than others? Don’t stress. Remote work means more options across locations.
Plus, your marketing chops likely transfer to other industries—pivot as needed.
You can explore LinkedIn’s Fall Marketing Jobs Outlook report for insights, in-demand skills, and career tips.
Featured Image: Primakov/Shutterstock
Microsoft announced an update to GraphRAG that improves AI search engines’ ability to provide specific and comprehensive answers while using less resources. This update speeds up LLM processing and increases accuracy.
RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) combines a large language model (LLM) with a search index (or database) to generate responses to search queries. The search index grounds the language model with fresh and relevant data. This reduces the possibility of AI search engine providing outdated or hallucinated answers.
GraphRAG improves on RAG by using a knowledge graph created from a search index to then generate summaries referred to as community reports.
Step 1: Indexing Engine
The indexing engine segments the search index into thematic communities formed around related topics. These communities are connected by entities (e.g., people, places, or concepts) and the relationships between them, forming a hierarchical knowledge graph. The LLM then creates a summary for each community, referred to as a Community Report. This is the hierarchical knowledge graph that GraphRAG creates, with each level of the hierarchical structure representing a summarization.
There’s a misconception that GraphRAG uses knowledge graphs. While that’s partially true, it leaves out the most important part: GraphRAG creates knowledge graphs from unstructured data like web pages in the Indexing Engine step. This process of transforming raw data into structured knowledge is what sets GraphRAG apart from RAG, which relies on retrieving and summarizing information without building a hierarchical graph.
Step 2: Query Step
In the second step the GraphRAG uses the knowledge graph it created to provide context to the LLM so that it can more accurately answer a question.
Microsoft explains that Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) struggles to retrieve information that’s based on a topic because it’s only looking at semantic relationships.
GraphRAG outperforms RAG by first transforming all documents in its search index into a knowledge graph that hierarchically organizes topics and subtopics (themes) into increasingly specific layers. While RAG relies on semantic relationships to find answers, GraphRAG uses thematic similarity, enabling it to locate answers even when semantically related keywords are absent in the document.
This is how the original GraphRAG announcement explains it:
“Baseline RAG struggles with queries that require aggregation of information across the dataset to compose an answer. Queries such as “What are the top 5 themes in the data?” perform terribly because baseline RAG relies on a vector search of semantically similar text content within the dataset. There is nothing in the query to direct it to the correct information.
However, with GraphRAG we can answer such questions, because the structure of the LLM-generated knowledge graph tells us about the structure (and thus themes) of the dataset as a whole. This allows the private dataset to be organized into meaningful semantic clusters that are pre-summarized. The LLM uses these clusters to summarize these themes when responding to a user query.”
To recap, GraphRAG creates a knowledge graph from the search index. A “community” refers to a group of related segments or documents clustered based on topical similarity, and a “community report” is the summary generated by the LLM for each community.
The original version of GraphRAG was inefficient because it processed all community reports, including irrelevant lower-level summaries, regardless of their relevance to the search query. Microsoft describes this as a “static” approach since it lacks dynamic filtering.
The updated GraphRAG introduces “dynamic community selection,” which evaluates the relevance of each community report. Irrelevant reports and their sub-communities are removed, improving efficiency and precision by focusing only on relevant information.
Microsoft explains:
“Here, we introduce dynamic community selection to the global search algorithm, which leverages the knowledge graph structure of the indexed dataset. Starting from the root of the knowledge graph, we use an LLM to rate how relevant a community report is in answering the user question. If the report is deemed irrelevant, we simply remove it and its nodes (or sub-communities) from the search process. On the other hand, if the report is deemed relevant, we then traverse down its child nodes and repeat the operation. Finally, only relevant reports are passed to the map-reduce operation to generate the response to the user. “
Microsoft tested the new version of GraphRAG and concluded that it resulted in a 77% reduction in computational costs, specifically the token cost when processed by the LLM. Tokens are the basic units of text that are processed by LLMs. The improved GraphRAG is able to use a smaller LLM, further reducing costs without compromising the quality of the results.
The positive impacts on search results quality are:
Dynamic community selection in GraphRAG improves search results quality by generating responses that are more specific, relevant, and supported by source material.
Read Microsoft’s announcement:
GraphRAG: Improving global search via dynamic community selection
Featured Image by Shutterstock/N Universe
Google updates search documentation to clarify how both page-level and site-wide signals influence ranking in search results.