This Month In the World of Marketing - Search, Social, & Websites -Jan 25th 2024

Season #8 January 26, 2024

GeekSpeak - This month in the work of marketing - 2024-01-25 at 11.03.13 Season 8 Episode 4

Chapters:

[00:00:00] - Introduction and Overview
[00:00:02] - Discussion on Current Projects and Marketing Topics
[00:00:40] - Insights on Live Broadcasting and Visual Graphics
[00:01:00] - Introduction of Hosts and Their Roles
[00:01:35] - Deep Dive into Search, Social, and Website Updates
[00:01:57] - Important Alert: Password Changes Due to Security Breach
[00:03:27] - The Future of Digital Security
[00:04:12] - Exploring the Content of the 'Game Card'
[00:05:03] - Monthly Variations in Digital Marketing and Resource Exploration
[00:06:22] - Critical Vulnerabilities in WordPress Plugins
[00:10:23] - The Role of Advanced Custom Fields in Web Development
[00:11:37] - Update Frequency for Website Plugins
[00:12:17] - Security Updates in Technology and Digital Platforms
[00:13:08] - WordPress Developments: Partially Synced Patterns
[00:17:04] - The Future of WordPress Themes and Gutenberg
[00:18:31] - Upcoming WordPress Releases and Their Impact
[00:19:15] - Changes in Google Ads and New Features
[00:21:08] - Updates in Hotel Advertising on Google
[00:22:10] - Third-Party Cookies and Privacy Concerns
[00:24:03] - AI Developments and Its Impact on Marketing
[00:25:26] - AI and Military Collaboration: Ethical Considerations
[00:26:10] - Chatbots Getting 'Lazy': A New AI Phenomenon
[00:27:17] - Changes in Google Ads Service and Staffing
[00:28:54] - Learning and Adapting to Google Ads Developments
[00:30:19] - The Importance of Security and Updates in Digital Marketing
[00:31:24] - Bing's New AI Initiatives and Market Share
[00:32:57] - Conclusion and Invitation for Next Week's Topic Suggestions

GeekSpeak - This month in the work of marketing - 2024-01-25 at 11.03.13 Season 8 Episode 4

[00:00:00] Greg Mckinnon : It's you and Phelan holding down the fort.

[00:00:02] Pip: Uh, it is, it is me and Phelan holding down the fort Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative for next week. But this week we are talking about all things marketing and this is. This month in the world of marketing and look how good the graphics are. You liking it? I'm loving it. Yeah.

[00:00:40] Greg Mckinnon : I'm not watching the live and it's not, I only see you in restream or in the cam.

[00:00:46] Pip: Aren't you feeling fortunate?

[00:00:47] Greg Mckinnon : Like I said, I complimented you. You look great today.

[00:00:53] Pip: I know, and it's the camera, as I showed you. Ha ha ha ha.

[00:00:57] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, hey everybody. Welcome. We're missing [00:01:00] two of us, uh, this week for the monthly wrap up. But, um, I'm Greg with Original72 Creative, and we're a full service website, graphic design, and digital marketing firm in Vancouver. And, of course, you know, pick me.

[00:01:14] Pip: Hello. I am back. Bam.

[00:01:16] Pip: Thank you. Bam. And, uh, today is good. We're going to have a really fun chat because we're talking about all the things that have happened in the last month for search, social and websites, which is what we focus on because really search social and websites does cover like this space of digital marketing except for email marketing.

[00:01:35] Pip: Right, Greg? You think? But we include email marketing. It's kind of like one of the things and it just doesn't fit in search social or websites. Does it?

[00:01:45] Greg Mckinnon : Uh, I mean, it's, it's in the realm of digital marketing.

[00:01:51] Pip: Right, right. It's true. So, well, well, but okay. So the first things first, go change your passwords.

[00:01:57] Pip: Everyone, um, [00:02:00] huge breach. I think, I don't know, Greg, do you know who the breach was from? Was it from Facebook or like, but millions of people's information.

[00:02:07] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, I, I've only like read headlines about it. I've not read any articles to, uh, see exactly who and where everything was, uh, where it was breached from, but I just know from what everybody's been reporting, it's massive and it's usernames and passwords for across like tons of.

[00:02:30] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, uh, platforms. Um, I think this is really something that you want to make sure that if you are, uh, the type of person who uses the same password for everything, this is where you. Leave yourself open to be much more vulnerable because if your password gets exposed Then people can just try that password if they know, you know other [00:03:00] places that you might be especially like banking things and You know all that really important stuff.

[00:03:10] Greg Mckinnon : You want to It'll make sure you have a secure password and a different password for each of them just to protect yourself as much as you

[00:03:16] Pip: can. Yeah, I think we'll uh start posting something in the group about hey Don't forget to update your passwords because I think it's really important especially as we get deeper into into this.

[00:03:27] Pip: I think uh, You know deeper into the digital space. I think there's going to be a lot more security. I always said the best businesses to get in for like in digital space is security would be a number one spot if you're interested, right? Because you will in the future, future us need are going to have to have it super locked down.

[00:03:47] Pip: So, but I think that's the biggest news of the month that, that we, we wanted to talk about, right?

[00:03:55] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, that was, that was definitely the, the biggest [00:04:00] thing that's come out, um, in the, in the recent, uh, couple of weeks here. Alright, so we'll play a game with that. Actually, we have a ton of stuff in this, uh, in this game.

[00:04:12] Greg Mckinnon : Card, who, who did you put all this

[00:04:13] Pip: stuff in? Phelan and myself, we all went looking for it. Um, cause it

[00:04:19] Greg Mckinnon : was good. And I was like, is this old, an old card? There's a lot in here.

[00:04:23] Pip: Yeah. The bottom stuff is. I hadn't

[00:04:26] Greg Mckinnon : even heard of, um, and I feel, sometimes I feel bad about coming on these wrap ups because I'm so focused on and busy doing my client stuff that a lot of the time I don't have.

[00:04:41] Greg Mckinnon : Uh, the time to go and, and like, see news or like even see what's happening in the past couple of weeks, right? And so when we come on for our Little prep meetings. I'm like, uh, I don't really know what's going on this month.

[00:04:58] Pip: Well, it's really funny because [00:05:00] like each month it's so different. And I mean, I have my resources.

[00:05:03] Pip: I go to for sure for stuff like I follow Rusty Brick for SEO stuff. Cause he covers search. Um, and I find it really interesting, but, uh, and then, you know what, I started doing research on TikTok, uh, to find some news, nothing. I couldn't find anything, which was really interesting because it's a good search engine.

[00:05:23] Pip: And then I also, um, like, well, you know, a month is a long time. That's the thing. So I've started to. Grab pieces here and there because a lot after a month, I mean, you're doing websites. So a lot of the, the topics are, you know, you know, big updates, but like plugins, there've been some plugin breaches, I think, uh, in the last month, but the rule is just,

[00:05:46] Greg Mckinnon : we have, uh, two in the, in our, our card here.

[00:05:49] Greg Mckinnon : Phelan must've, uh, found out about these ones. So why don't we get right into it? So, yeah. For web stuff, um, going on the [00:06:00] theme of things getting hacked. There's been some critical vulnerabilities identified in, um, better search and replace for WordPress, which is a plugin that gives you, um, more functionality around being able to search things on your website.

[00:06:22] Greg Mckinnon : Um. Above what the basic way that, um, WordPress's search function

[00:06:31] Pip: works. So does Word, does WordPress's search function work well? Cause I thought that was one of the hardest things to get working well on your website. Well,

[00:06:41] Greg Mckinnon : it, it works, but it doesn't, it works and it will find what you've, what you've typed in.

[00:06:50] Greg Mckinnon : It'll find it in pages and posts and titles. What it doesn't do a great job of is, um, like separating pages from [00:07:00] posts or specifying, I only want to search through titles, or I only want to search through content. Um, and also it doesn't do any, like, it needs to be exact. Right. So. Um, if you, if you're searching for something and if you, if you don't type it in, like exactly how it is on the site, like you're only going to get exact, um, results of, of what you type in.

[00:07:33] Greg Mckinnon : So it's not, it's not, it's very. Basic, right? So, so better search and replace is a plugin that will extend your ability to customize how you can do searching on your site. Yeah. Hadn't identified a vulnerability and suggest to, uh, update that right away to protect yourself. A [00:08:00] second plugin, um, ACF, which is quite common, uh, ACF stands for Advanced Custom Fields.

[00:08:09] Greg Mckinnon : Um, so this plugin is used when you want to have, uh, so for a post page, as a, for instance, you have a title, you have a featured image, you have the page content. You have categories that, that kind of stuff, advanced custom fields. When you install that, you can create additional fields that you can assign to your pages or posts that you can then collect that data.

[00:08:39] Greg Mckinnon : So if you want to put in like a sub heading or like a phone number or like. Any, any additional information that you want to collect, uh, or store separately in, in a post, additional [00:09:00] fields. And then when you go to, uh, that, um, to create a post, you'll see those additional fields that you can type in that information and then you can display it how you want.

[00:09:11] Greg Mckinnon : On the page, um, because you've collected that data. Yeah.

[00:09:17] Pip: So who would that, would a, a business owner be doing that or would like your developer be doing that? That's,

[00:09:23] Greg Mckinnon : that's more a developer thing. Like, so it's commonly used. For like doing team bios, right? So you'll use the post functionality to do your team bios, right?

[00:09:35] Greg Mckinnon : So you have, you have the title, which is usually the name of the person. You have their featured image, you have their content, but maybe you want to display somewhere under their photo, their name, their email, their Twitter. Uh, or social handle, like, you know, that kind of stuff. You can set up advanced custom fields and say, you know, give me a, give me a [00:10:00] field to put in their email, give me a field to put in their phone number, give me a field to put in their social handles.

[00:10:06] Greg Mckinnon : And then when you attach that to the post, um, then you can, when you're creating that post, there'll be separate fields that you can fill in. Okay, this is their phone number, this is their email, and then you can decide where you want that to be put on. Uh, on the page,

[00:10:23] Pip: I like that. Um, uh, but as it says advanced in the, in the name, so it's

[00:10:29] Greg Mckinnon : advancing it.

[00:10:30] Greg Mckinnon : And you want to, you want to use it more when, um, I guess when you want things to look specific. So if the client, if you want everybody's bio to have a consistent look to it, and you just want the customer to fill in the data in the post. Um, then filling in that phone email in a certain spot, you know, you've specified where you want it to come out on the front end and they don't have to worry about how it looks.

[00:10:59] Greg Mckinnon : They just fill in [00:11:00] the

[00:11:00] Pip: information. Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. So that makes sense. So the developer would set it up and then the person would, could add their own info. So that's interesting. Lots of updates in the website space. I

[00:11:13] Greg Mckinnon : guess we, we're, we're getting into explanations of these things, but really what we're trying to do is report on that they've both had some critical vulnerabilities and they both, if they are being used on someone's site, need to be updated right away to keep yourself safe.

[00:11:28] Pip: Well, I think you should update plugins every two weeks, right? That's what do you do? What do you do, Greg? Is that what you do? Uh, monthly. Okay.

[00:11:37] Greg Mckinnon : Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Or if I'm in a site that I maintain. If I'm in the site anyway, doing something, I'll just, I'll just do it. But at least I go into all of my sites on a monthly basis and do whatever updates need to be done.

[00:11:53] Greg Mckinnon : If there is something that I know is critical, then I take care of it right away. Um, [00:12:00] but otherwise I, I do it

[00:12:02] Pip: monthly. Right. So it sounds like the theme this week generally is, uh, uh, security issues, update stuff. I mean, even Apple had a security update. If you look at your computer, Greg and I were getting into a little tiff about Apple cause he don't like it.

[00:12:17] Pip: And I do, but that's story for another day. Anyway, update security, big topics for this month, overall huge breach. We just talked about if you're just joining us and if you are just joining us, say hello. In the comments and I'll try to put them up on a screen and in the right way. We are going into search now.

[00:12:35] Pip: I

[00:12:35] Greg Mckinnon : was gonna, before we move on to search, we have some other web stuff, um, other than critical things that, um, I had mentioned in my, in our prep meeting, there was something new coming to WordPress, which, uh, has a little bit of buzz around it with the WordPress community and, and it. Potentially being something that will start getting a lot more people to use the block [00:13:00] editor, um, instead of a page, installing a page builder, um, and it's called partially synced patterns.

[00:13:08] Greg Mckinnon : And I think everybody probably knows, uh, or maybe, maybe do, maybe don't, if you've used the block editor, um, they, WordPress has, you, you, you can build sections of a site. Using the blocks that are available, and then you can, um, select a grouping of blocks and make it a pattern. And so when you store that, when you take that pattern that you've built and you like, you're like, I want to use this all over the place.

[00:13:39] Greg Mckinnon : Um, maybe it's a mailing list signup. Kind of a thing and you want that mailing list sign up on a bunch of pages looking the same But you don't want to have to build it over and over again on every page you build it You save it as a pattern and then when you're on a different page You can just [00:14:00] insert that pattern that you created.

[00:14:02] Greg Mckinnon : And it's the identical look of what you built on a previous page, just on this new page. And these patterns can either be synced, or they can't. Not be synced. And so, um, essentially what that allows you to do is you, you have a design and, and something that looks a certain way and you can put it on multiple pages and they're all synced.

[00:14:29] Greg Mckinnon : So if you make a change to one and save it, it'll change across all of them. You don't have to change, uh, them in every page it is because they're all synced. If you want to sync one of them, then that one won't be synced anymore. At all, right? If you changed, if you change the one that all of the ones that are synced, if you change the one and you saved it, it would change across all of the ones that were synced, except for that one that you unsynced.

[00:14:58] Greg Mckinnon : So that's been the functionality up till [00:15:00] now, but partially synced patterns are going to give us the opportunity to have a, um, a block that we've designed and can be. Parts of it can be synced. So what this will allow designers and, and, uh, people that have WordPress sites to do is to create sections. And so in this case, maybe the, uh, email signup is not a great one because you kind of want that one to be the same everywhere.

[00:15:32] Greg Mckinnon : But maybe you just want like a layout of someone's bio. And you create a pattern based on that so that the client can use it over and over again. But the information, like the, the image needs to change. The, the, uh, name of the person has to change. So you can create a pattern and partially sync the information, um, that doesn't need to be, or that needs to [00:16:00] change so that the synced part is just the design aspect.

[00:16:05] Greg Mckinnon : Um, and if you change the design, the design will change across everywhere, but the content won't because you don't want the names and the, you know, they're If they have designations or email showing or their picture, you don't want those things to change, but the design behind it, you might, um, want to change.

[00:16:27] Greg Mckinnon : And so you can partially sync those patterns with specific things you want to stay the same, but allow the customer to be able to change the other stuff.

[00:16:38] Pip: Interesting. Now, is this native? Uh, WordPress

[00:16:43] Greg Mckinnon : native, uh, WordPress. Yes,

[00:16:46] Pip: that's exciting. So we're, so that means is that the Gutenberg stuff? Like, is that the, okay.

[00:16:53] Pip: Wow. So do you think, I mean, over time people will stop [00:17:00] using themes as much because of this change?

[00:17:04] Greg Mckinnon : Well, this isn't a theme thing. This is basically creating your, uh, you're building your content on. Um, on the page. Mm hmm. Um, so, yeah, it has nothing to do with the theme. It has to do with building out your content within your pages.

[00:17:24] Pip: Okay. So you would, okay. That's interesting. Right? Uh, website pages. Who builds them? Not me. Uh, not anymore. Actually, that's not true. I do build the content. In pages for SEO. So, um, that sounds pretty interesting. It'll just

[00:17:40] Greg Mckinnon : be really great because designers or people who build sites for customers can create sections that can be reused and the client could be like, Oh, I have a new page and I want that section that looks like this.

[00:17:54] Greg Mckinnon : I'll drop that pattern in here, but then I can change the [00:18:00] content in it. Um, but the pattern itself, the, the, the look of it is, is still synced. So in the future, if you were to make a change to it, it would actually change across all those patterns, but the content that the client put in wouldn't, wouldn't change because of the content itself, the image or the text within that layout, um, isn't synced.

[00:18:24] Greg Mckinnon : It's the structure and the, uh, and the, the layout of the pattern.

[00:18:31] Pip: Interesting. Um, when is that due to launch?

[00:18:35] Greg Mckinnon : I don't believe it's in the next release, but I. Think maybe the one after that I could be wrong. I can I can check and throw that in the Yeah, that'd

[00:18:47] Pip: be awesome. I'm also gonna throw rusty bricks video in the comments because some of the information I got Today was from him.

[00:18:56] Pip: So we're gonna dive into search. So Google Ads SEO [00:19:00] AI Facebook, uh, we have some things. There's a couple of things about Bing, uh, some information about Google search console. Ah, pretty interesting. Okay. Um, so we talked about critical vulnerabilities and, um, website changes with patterns. That's super cool.

[00:19:15] Pip: Google ads, Greg, you do do Google ads still for some of your clients, right? Yeah, I do do. I do. I do do. I do do. So Google's launched this new thing called Gemini Power Campaign Creation Tool, and I think I have a link. Uh, do I? Yes. So it's inside of Google Ads. Now, so I was adding I think last week trying to add images to a Google ads campaign.

[00:19:42] Pip: Cause you, we all know search engine results pages. There's a lot more action pictures things now. Um, so I was trying to add some images and I was like, where's, where's the link to add images and I couldn't find it like for the life of me. But if I went to the top menu, you know, the wrench icon and [00:20:00] it had.

[00:20:00] Pip: Um, it now has a place where we can do creative stuff. Yeah, but it gives you your images and so it'll show you the layout of what your ads will look like. It's pretty interesting. So this, I think this is part of the Gemini powered creation tool. Um, because it's just giving us more. It's AI inside Google ads.

[00:20:23] Pip: There's some really cool stuff going on. Um, so although one might think AI is going to take over Google ad stuff, I don't think it is because I think you need the human eye to make it make sense to. Like just change it a little, but there's a, there's a lot of change inside Google ads right now. There's, um, hotel ads have changed in the SERPs.

[00:20:45] Pip: There's big comparisons. If you're, if you do hotel advertising, um, you're in a little bubble of your own. Right. They, they have different things on Google. You can book right from the, [00:21:00] the, uh, knowledge panel, right. Or the Google business profile panel. And so, yeah, so hotel ads are changing. I don't know what's going on there.

[00:21:08] Pip: I try not to pay attention. And if I ever Get a hotel client. I pass it on, like to the people that deal with hotels. So, but there's been some interesting news there. And then this will interest you, Greg, AI powered. We were talking the other day about what are third party cookies and third party cookies are like Google Analytics, which is quite funny because if you're using Chrome, Chrome is from Google, but, uh, Google analytics is also from Google, but it's considered a third party cookie.

[00:21:46] Pip: So Chrome can still get out, like has all your data. Um, but in order to let Google analytics use it or share it or whatever, like, I guess there's going to have, [00:22:00] you're going to have to have that function on your website of like saying you're having cookies and things like that. So there's some weird stuff going on with the cookies.

[00:22:10] Greg Mckinnon : Yeah. The third party cookies thing. I know Phelan brought that up. I wish he was here to give us more detail because I don't know a ton about it other than what he said. But. I can explain what third party cookies are for, for people, and so Um, a cookie is stored on your computer from, from a site. Um, and typically if it's your site, if you've created a cookie to store someone's, um, session data, uh, things that they were doing on your site, that's fine, that's you dropping a cookie for your site, that's first.

[00:22:46] Greg Mckinnon : Um, so third party cookies are external services that you're using. So Google analytics, um. And anything else that you might have for [00:23:00] data or functionality on your site that is not yours, but you're using as a service and they need to drop something to store, that would be a third party cookie. And that's what they're looking to, um,

[00:23:15] Pip: restrict.

[00:23:17] Pip: Yeah. So what does restrict mean? Uh, yeah, right. It's pretty interesting. Well, we'll see what it means right now. Phelan and I are learning how to, uh, you know how, when you go to websites and you click on the little button that says accept all cookies, you can actually. Put that, I think piece of JavaScript, if I'm correct, inside Tag Manager and, and it's because it's a yes or no statement, right?

[00:23:44] Pip: Tracker don't track. So if you do it there, or you can get a plugin to do it. So, um, we'll see what all these new rules mean. Um, but I, I do like that they're cracking down on themselves.[00:24:00]

[00:24:01] Greg Mckinnon : We're cracking down on others and they are just doing it differently now.

[00:24:05] Pip: Right, exactly. So, I mean, we'll see. We should all know that Visa sells your information on everything you buy and we should all be well aware that when we talk about, you know, those new Nike shoes I want or the new Adidas or whatever, that the next time it rolls around, there's some algorithm that did something and now I'm going to get those ads.

[00:24:28] Pip: You bet your bottom dollar. Uh, but needless to say, maybe I need those things. So, um, we could have a whole talk on, um, the Google privacy and the things we get to do as consumers and what we get to turn off and shut, like, turn on, on our own, if anybody's been to their Google profiles, it's pretty interesting, but let's go, we're going to AI now, Greg, cause we're, we're, we got three minutes.

[00:24:51] Pip: AI is crazy. Uh, crazy. Let's go a little bit long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Um, AI, [00:25:00] so Weirdest thing that happened AI has started working with the US military This is not a political statement or a political this we're in marketing man all we know is that the rules of AI some rules got re released and When people read through those rules, the only thing that had changed was that it said that AI can work with the military.

[00:25:26] Pip: That was one of the clauses, right? So if, if you're reading the contracts in jargon, I mean, Oh, thank you. Somebody said, this is such a great episode. Yes. Yeah. That's lovely. Uh, I'm going to go find out who you are and virtually high five and kiss you. Um, but the AI stuff is crazy. So the two big things are the military thing with AI and also, um, chatbots got lazy.

[00:25:55] Pip: Uh, so, giving excuses, like you'd give your excuse to your boss. [00:26:00] Uh, things like that, like, you don't have enough information to proceed with the task, or it's used that kind of language, you know, it's more you do it yourself.

[00:26:10] Greg Mckinnon : This one was interesting when Phelan mentioned it, because I hadn't heard of this, but I mean, yeah, it's It's, it's like, like he said, or he said, AI is getting lazy.

[00:26:23] Greg Mckinnon : Like people apparently, um, are asking it to do tasks and it's being lazy about providing them the information or more like telling them how they can do it on their own instead of actually doing it for them. Um, I don't know if this is a purposeful change that OpenAI has. Um, put in, I wouldn't be surprised if they've changed how, uh, you know, how, how it works to possibly do that kind of stuff.

[00:26:59] Greg Mckinnon : [00:27:00] Um, because our, do we think it would learn on its own and just become lazy? I don't know.

[00:27:07] Pip: Oh, no, no. Yeah. I'm not sure. So that was Aura who said that. And we have a Dorothy that she likes her math, Greg, just so you know, but on the other side of what you were talking about, um. I haven't seen, I have a lot of fun with AI, but then I get trapped in, who else gets trapped in this cycle?

[00:27:26] Pip: Right? Where you're in AI and you're like, Oh, I'll make a picture. And then yeah, you're there for 20 minutes later being like, Oh, I'll try this and it's useless and you should just move on quickly. So I don't think it's where it's going to be. But on that note, Google, I don't, if you use Google ads and you've called Google in the last year, the service is.

[00:27:50] Pip: Like it's almost worse than Facebook ads if not worse like you can't get ahold of anybody you we've actually we have a trick For getting a hold of the people but [00:28:00] like you're not getting callbacks people aren't getting the help They need like accounts get frozen and we just learned that Google let go of a huge number of their sales reps Now if you don't know their sales reps are those people that call you and tell you oh go broad match Up your budget, you know,

[00:28:17] Greg Mckinnon : I Still get tons of calls from the people who are taking care of, um, or are assigned to the accounts that I manage.

[00:28:28] Greg Mckinnon : I, I find them relentless in calling to set up times to talk. Well, do you

[00:28:37] Pip: know why? Why? Because they have a quota to fill. So they have a certain number of accounts that they hold and of those number of accounts, there's a budget. There's the current budget and then the budget they have to hit, like a sales rep, right?

[00:28:54] Pip: So if they don't hit that budget, like, and the new people, like, those are the people we're getting called to. So if you have a [00:29:00] really small Google Ads account, that's the call. You're getting the newbies. So good question to always ask. How long have you been working there? Cause you might know more than them if you're working in Google ads,

[00:29:09] Greg Mckinnon : right?

[00:29:09] Greg Mckinnon : So I'm getting the calls because I typically only deal with smaller ad. Yeah, accounts for customers. If we're doing, if someone wants to do like a big thing, it would go to, it would go to you. Well,

[00:29:21] Pip: no, not even, it would go to somebody. But I've only dealt with a couple of the high reps because of some accounts I've been on.

[00:29:29] Pip: Because the amount of money they spent. Like

[00:29:31] Greg Mckinnon : the, the accounts that I, the clients that I have as AdWords, um, clients are, are small budget, only single or two. Campaigns, a couple of them. They're, they're small fish. Right, like if I don't Get into larger campaigns and, you know, like thousands of, of dollars a month.

[00:29:56] Greg Mckinnon : I would, I would farm that off to, to you who is more of an [00:30:00] expert on this, obviously. Yeah, yeah, it's

[00:30:01] Pip: super fun. But

[00:30:03] Greg Mckinnon : so I'm probably getting inundated with all these. Reps that are assigned to my clients because they're all small and, you know, doing, you know, their budgets are tiny and we're only doing a couple of campaigns and they're like, we can boost these guys and get them to spend way more.

[00:30:19] Pip: I will tell you, we, I had to, I, you know, I, I had to be apologetic to a client. This last month because around Christmas, Google, like the campaigns were running so well and Google was like, Ooh, increase your budget and you'll get this many more conversions. And I was like, Oh, and this client's very particular about their budgets, of course, right?

[00:30:42] Pip: It's money. And, but because I guess Christmas was such a rush, I was like, Oh, great idea. I want to make the, get the more leads. It did not do its job. And I had to like, be like, Hmm. Yeah, we, and we spent a little extra money and I, you can actually inside Google ads, you can see the version history. [00:31:00] So you can see who did what.

[00:31:01] Pip: So I went and checked it. And yes, it was me. Ooh, ooh, hot flash. Look at that. Think I'm embarrassed. Um, anyway, anyway, uh, needless to say, don't trust those Google ads reps. That's, that's, that's the goal. And they've all lost their jobs to AI. That's where I was going there or not all lots of people. So maybe service will get better.

[00:31:24] Pip: You know, it'll be worse, but a lot of people at Google have lost their jobs recently. So, um, you know, those people are probably pretty smart when it comes to Google though, because they know the inside. So maybe,

[00:31:35] Greg Mckinnon : yeah. Anything, anytime I talk to one of those, uh, people, my, my reps, I always basically just ask them a ton of questions.

[00:31:46] Greg Mckinnon : Because I do basic stuff with AdWords. So when they're going through things, I use it as, okay, they know what they're doing, so I'm just going to like ask them a bunch of questions and learn more about all [00:32:00] of these things that they're trying to get me to do, what

[00:32:04] Pip: it all is. Well, and I think that's really smart because then you, you, you, uh, you start to learn the cutting edge things that they're trying to implement, because if they're saying, you know, like broad match, for instance, you know, I might try it on something because maybe the algorithm, like, cause AI is going to get better over time.

[00:32:21] Pip: And so doing things that can benefit you or your client is, is something to think about. You can't stick in your old ways, but yet you proceed with caution. And so try it on a small thing and say, yeah, we've done it. It completely changed how we do Google ads in the last year. So which is really interesting.

[00:32:39] Pip: So anybody interested in getting into Google ads now is a good time because, you know, a lot of the old information is stale and outdated. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Anyway, we are out of time, but before we go, um, just so you know, Bing's got some updates. What else? Like, let's travel through this quickly.

[00:32:57] Pip: Ooh, big tour. Um, I've [00:33:00] lost my information. So nothing else happened last month. I like,

[00:33:05] Greg Mckinnon : there's, there's one, there's one comment, Bing market share, not growing.

[00:33:12] Pip: Yes. Bing, Bing has launched, um, like chat GPT. They have their own, that is. Exactly. And you can pay and get faster service and things like that. So if you want to try a different AI or a similar AI to chat GPT, I would look over there.

[00:33:34] Pip: Other than that, uh, next week we'll be here, but there is no topic. So if you'd like us to talk about something in particular. listed below because, uh, Reena's off for one more week and then she's coming back and, uh, there's a lot happening that we're going to talk about next week. Anyway, uh, so join us next week.

[00:33:53] Pip: Same bat time, same bat place with the Marketing Gig Mixer group. Woo! And I'm [00:34:00] so glad you're here. Ora, thank you for joining us. Dorothy, thank you for jumping in. And if anybody has any comments or anything about this episode that they want to know more about, just message us. Uh, in the comments anywhere, and we'll

[00:34:11] Greg Mckinnon : be back to all four of us next month,

[00:34:14] Pip: next month.

[00:34:15] Pip: Woo. Woo. Uh, chat soon guys. Bye everyone. Bye.

See the podcast on video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/fGKFHI8-AaI?si=BHk2xeetUiEogQs7

Episode Transcript

GeekSpeak - This month in the work of marketing - 2024-01-25 at 11.03.13 Season 8 Episode 4
===

Greg Mckinnon : [00:00:00] It's you and Phelan holding down the fort.

Pip: Uh, it is, it is me and Phelan holding down the fort Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative Greg Mckinnon original 72 creative for next week. But this week we are talking about all things marketing and this is. This month in the world of marketing and look how good the graphics are. You liking it? I'm loving it. Yeah.

Greg Mckinnon : I'm not watching the live and it's not, I only see you in restream or in the cam.

Pip: Aren't you feeling fortunate?

Greg Mckinnon : Like I said, I complimented you. You look great today.

Pip: I know, and it's the camera, as I showed you. Ha ha ha ha.

Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, hey everybody. Welcome. We're missing [00:01:00] two of us, uh, this week for the monthly wrap up. But, um, I'm Greg with Original72 Creative, and we're a full service website, graphic design, and digital marketing firm in Vancouver. And, of course, you know, pick me.

Pip: Hello. I am back. Bam.

Thank you. Bam. And, uh, today is good. We're going to have a really fun chat because we're talking about all the things that have happened in the last month for search, social and websites, which is what we focus on because really search social and websites does cover like this space of digital marketing except for email marketing.

Right, Greg? You think? But we include email marketing. It's kind of like one of the things and it just doesn't fit in search social or websites. Does it?

Greg Mckinnon : Uh, I mean, it's, it's in the realm of digital marketing.

Pip: Right, right. It's true. So, well, well, but okay. So the first things first, go change your passwords.

Everyone, um, [00:02:00] huge breach. I think, I don't know, Greg, do you know who the breach was from? Was it from Facebook or like, but millions of people's information.

Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, I, I've only like read headlines about it. I've not read any articles to, uh, see exactly who and where everything was, uh, where it was breached from, but I just know from what everybody's been reporting, it's massive and it's usernames and passwords for across like tons of.

Yeah, uh, platforms. Um, I think this is really something that you want to make sure that if you are, uh, the type of person who uses the same password for everything, this is where you. Leave yourself open to be much more vulnerable because if your password gets exposed Then people can just try that password if they know, you know other [00:03:00] places that you might be especially like banking things and You know all that really important stuff.

You want to It'll make sure you have a secure password and a different password for each of them just to protect yourself as much as you

Pip: can. Yeah, I think we'll uh start posting something in the group about hey Don't forget to update your passwords because I think it's really important especially as we get deeper into into this.

I think uh, You know deeper into the digital space. I think there's going to be a lot more security. I always said the best businesses to get in for like in digital space is security would be a number one spot if you're interested, right? Because you will in the future, future us need are going to have to have it super locked down.

So, but I think that's the biggest news of the month that, that we, we wanted to talk about, right?

Greg Mckinnon : Yeah, that was, that was definitely the, the biggest [00:04:00] thing that's come out, um, in the, in the recent, uh, couple of weeks here. Alright, so we'll play a game with that. Actually, we have a ton of stuff in this, uh, in this game.

Card, who, who did you put all this

Pip: stuff in? Phelan and myself, we all went looking for it. Um, cause it

Greg Mckinnon : was good. And I was like, is this old, an old card? There's a lot in here.

Pip: Yeah. The bottom stuff is. I hadn't

Greg Mckinnon : even heard of, um, and I feel, sometimes I feel bad about coming on these wrap ups because I'm so focused on and busy doing my client stuff that a lot of the time I don't have.

Uh, the time to go and, and like, see news or like even see what's happening in the past couple of weeks, right? And so when we come on for our Little prep meetings. I'm like, uh, I don't really know what's going on this month.

Pip: Well, it's really funny because [00:05:00] like each month it's so different. And I mean, I have my resources.

I go to for sure for stuff like I follow Rusty Brick for SEO stuff. Cause he covers search. Um, and I find it really interesting, but, uh, and then, you know what, I started doing research on TikTok, uh, to find some news, nothing. I couldn't find anything, which was really interesting because it's a good search engine.

And then I also, um, like, well, you know, a month is a long time. That's the thing. So I've started to. Grab pieces here and there because a lot after a month, I mean, you're doing websites. So a lot of the, the topics are, you know, you know, big updates, but like plugins, there've been some plugin breaches, I think, uh, in the last month, but the rule is just,

Greg Mckinnon : we have, uh, two in the, in our, our card here.

Phelan must've, uh, found out about these ones. So why don't we get right into it? So, yeah. For web stuff, um, going on the [00:06:00] theme of things getting hacked. There's been some critical vulnerabilities identified in, um, better search and replace for WordPress, which is a plugin that gives you, um, more functionality around being able to search things on your website.

Um. Above what the basic way that, um, WordPress's search function

Pip: works. So does Word, does WordPress's search function work well? Cause I thought that was one of the hardest things to get working well on your website. Well,

Greg Mckinnon : it, it works, but it doesn't, it works and it will find what you've, what you've typed in.

It'll find it in pages and posts and titles. What it doesn't do a great job of is, um, like separating pages from [00:07:00] posts or specifying, I only want to search through titles, or I only want to search through content. Um, and also it doesn't do any, like, it needs to be exact. Right. So. Um, if you, if you're searching for something and if you, if you don't type it in, like exactly how it is on the site, like you're only going to get exact, um, results of, of what you type in.

So it's not, it's not, it's very. Basic, right? So, so better search and replace is a plugin that will extend your ability to customize how you can do searching on your site. Yeah. Hadn't identified a vulnerability and suggest to, uh, update that right away to protect yourself. A [00:08:00] second plugin, um, ACF, which is quite common, uh, ACF stands for Advanced Custom Fields.

Um, so this plugin is used when you want to have, uh, so for a post page, as a, for instance, you have a title, you have a featured image, you have the page content. You have categories that, that kind of stuff, advanced custom fields. When you install that, you can create additional fields that you can assign to your pages or posts that you can then collect that data.

So if you want to put in like a sub heading or like a phone number or like. Any, any additional information that you want to collect, uh, or store separately in, in a post, additional [00:09:00] fields. And then when you go to, uh, that, um, to create a post, you'll see those additional fields that you can type in that information and then you can display it how you want.

On the page, um, because you've collected that data. Yeah.

Pip: So who would that, would a, a business owner be doing that or would like your developer be doing that? That's,

Greg Mckinnon : that's more a developer thing. Like, so it's commonly used. For like doing team bios, right? So you'll use the post functionality to do your team bios, right?

So you have, you have the title, which is usually the name of the person. You have their featured image, you have their content, but maybe you want to display somewhere under their photo, their name, their email, their Twitter. Uh, or social handle, like, you know, that kind of stuff. You can set up advanced custom fields and say, you know, give me a, give me a [00:10:00] field to put in their email, give me a field to put in their phone number, give me a field to put in their social handles.

And then when you attach that to the post, um, then you can, when you're creating that post, there'll be separate fields that you can fill in. Okay, this is their phone number, this is their email, and then you can decide where you want that to be put on. Uh, on the page,

Pip: I like that. Um, uh, but as it says advanced in the, in the name, so it's

Greg Mckinnon : advancing it.

And you want to, you want to use it more when, um, I guess when you want things to look specific. So if the client, if you want everybody's bio to have a consistent look to it, and you just want the customer to fill in the data in the post. Um, then filling in that phone email in a certain spot, you know, you've specified where you want it to come out on the front end and they don't have to worry about how it looks.

They just fill in [00:11:00] the

Pip: information. Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. So that makes sense. So the developer would set it up and then the person would, could add their own info. So that's interesting. Lots of updates in the website space. I

Greg Mckinnon : guess we, we're, we're getting into explanations of these things, but really what we're trying to do is report on that they've both had some critical vulnerabilities and they both, if they are being used on someone's site, need to be updated right away to keep yourself safe.

Pip: Well, I think you should update plugins every two weeks, right? That's what do you do? What do you do, Greg? Is that what you do? Uh, monthly. Okay.

Greg Mckinnon : Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Or if I'm in a site that I maintain. If I'm in the site anyway, doing something, I'll just, I'll just do it. But at least I go into all of my sites on a monthly basis and do whatever updates need to be done.

If there is something that I know is critical, then I take care of it right away. Um, [00:12:00] but otherwise I, I do it

Pip: monthly. Right. So it sounds like the theme this week generally is, uh, uh, security issues, update stuff. I mean, even Apple had a security update. If you look at your computer, Greg and I were getting into a little tiff about Apple cause he don't like it.

And I do, but that's story for another day. Anyway, update security, big topics for this month, overall huge breach. We just talked about if you're just joining us and if you are just joining us, say hello. In the comments and I'll try to put them up on a screen and in the right way. We are going into search now.

Greg Mckinnon : was gonna, before we move on to search, we have some other web stuff, um, other than critical things that, um, I had mentioned in my, in our prep meeting, there was something new coming to WordPress, which, uh, has a little bit of buzz around it with the WordPress community and, and it. Potentially being something that will start getting a lot more people to use the block [00:13:00] editor, um, instead of a page, installing a page builder, um, and it's called partially synced patterns.

And I think everybody probably knows, uh, or maybe, maybe do, maybe don't, if you've used the block editor, um, they, WordPress has, you, you, you can build sections of a site. Using the blocks that are available, and then you can, um, select a grouping of blocks and make it a pattern. And so when you store that, when you take that pattern that you've built and you like, you're like, I want to use this all over the place.

Um, maybe it's a mailing list signup. Kind of a thing and you want that mailing list sign up on a bunch of pages looking the same But you don't want to have to build it over and over again on every page you build it You save it as a pattern and then when you're on a different page You can just [00:14:00] insert that pattern that you created.

And it's the identical look of what you built on a previous page, just on this new page. And these patterns can either be synced, or they can't. Not be synced. And so, um, essentially what that allows you to do is you, you have a design and, and something that looks a certain way and you can put it on multiple pages and they're all synced.

So if you make a change to one and save it, it'll change across all of them. You don't have to change, uh, them in every page it is because they're all synced. If you want to sync one of them, then that one won't be synced anymore. At all, right? If you changed, if you change the one that all of the ones that are synced, if you change the one and you saved it, it would change across all of the ones that were synced, except for that one that you unsynced.

So that's been the functionality up till [00:15:00] now, but partially synced patterns are going to give us the opportunity to have a, um, a block that we've designed and can be. Parts of it can be synced. So what this will allow designers and, and, uh, people that have WordPress sites to do is to create sections. And so in this case, maybe the, uh, email signup is not a great one because you kind of want that one to be the same everywhere.

But maybe you just want like a layout of someone's bio. And you create a pattern based on that so that the client can use it over and over again. But the information, like the, the image needs to change. The, the, uh, name of the person has to change. So you can create a pattern and partially sync the information, um, that doesn't need to be, or that needs to [00:16:00] change so that the synced part is just the design aspect.

Um, and if you change the design, the design will change across everywhere, but the content won't because you don't want the names and the, you know, they're If they have designations or email showing or their picture, you don't want those things to change, but the design behind it, you might, um, want to change.

And so you can partially sync those patterns with specific things you want to stay the same, but allow the customer to be able to change the other stuff.

Pip: Interesting. Now, is this native? Uh, WordPress

Greg Mckinnon : native, uh, WordPress. Yes,

Pip: that's exciting. So we're, so that means is that the Gutenberg stuff? Like, is that the, okay.

Wow. So do you think, I mean, over time people will stop [00:17:00] using themes as much because of this change?

Greg Mckinnon : Well, this isn't a theme thing. This is basically creating your, uh, you're building your content on. Um, on the page. Mm hmm. Um, so, yeah, it has nothing to do with the theme. It has to do with building out your content within your pages.

Pip: Okay. So you would, okay. That's interesting. Right? Uh, website pages. Who builds them? Not me. Uh, not anymore. Actually, that's not true. I do build the content. In pages for SEO. So, um, that sounds pretty interesting. It'll just

Greg Mckinnon : be really great because designers or people who build sites for customers can create sections that can be reused and the client could be like, Oh, I have a new page and I want that section that looks like this.

I'll drop that pattern in here, but then I can change the [00:18:00] content in it. Um, but the pattern itself, the, the, the look of it is, is still synced. So in the future, if you were to make a change to it, it would actually change across all those patterns, but the content that the client put in wouldn't, wouldn't change because of the content itself, the image or the text within that layout, um, isn't synced.

It's the structure and the, uh, and the, the layout of the pattern.

Pip: Interesting. Um, when is that due to launch?

Greg Mckinnon : I don't believe it's in the next release, but I. Think maybe the one after that I could be wrong. I can I can check and throw that in the Yeah, that'd

Pip: be awesome. I'm also gonna throw rusty bricks video in the comments because some of the information I got Today was from him.

So we're gonna dive into search. So Google Ads SEO [00:19:00] AI Facebook, uh, we have some things. There's a couple of things about Bing, uh, some information about Google search console. Ah, pretty interesting. Okay. Um, so we talked about critical vulnerabilities and, um, website changes with patterns. That's super cool.

Google ads, Greg, you do do Google ads still for some of your clients, right? Yeah, I do do. I do. I do do. I do do. So Google's launched this new thing called Gemini Power Campaign Creation Tool, and I think I have a link. Uh, do I? Yes. So it's inside of Google Ads. Now, so I was adding I think last week trying to add images to a Google ads campaign.

Cause you, we all know search engine results pages. There's a lot more action pictures things now. Um, so I was trying to add some images and I was like, where's, where's the link to add images and I couldn't find it like for the life of me. But if I went to the top menu, you know, the wrench icon and [00:20:00] it had.

Um, it now has a place where we can do creative stuff. Yeah, but it gives you your images and so it'll show you the layout of what your ads will look like. It's pretty interesting. So this, I think this is part of the Gemini powered creation tool. Um, because it's just giving us more. It's AI inside Google ads.

There's some really cool stuff going on. Um, so although one might think AI is going to take over Google ad stuff, I don't think it is because I think you need the human eye to make it make sense to. Like just change it a little, but there's a, there's a lot of change inside Google ads right now. There's, um, hotel ads have changed in the SERPs.

There's big comparisons. If you're, if you do hotel advertising, um, you're in a little bubble of your own. Right. They, they have different things on Google. You can book right from the, [00:21:00] the, uh, knowledge panel, right. Or the Google business profile panel. And so, yeah, so hotel ads are changing. I don't know what's going on there.

I try not to pay attention. And if I ever Get a hotel client. I pass it on, like to the people that deal with hotels. So, but there's been some interesting news there. And then this will interest you, Greg, AI powered. We were talking the other day about what are third party cookies and third party cookies are like Google Analytics, which is quite funny because if you're using Chrome, Chrome is from Google, but, uh, Google analytics is also from Google, but it's considered a third party cookie.

So Chrome can still get out, like has all your data. Um, but in order to let Google analytics use it or share it or whatever, like, I guess there's going to have, [00:22:00] you're going to have to have that function on your website of like saying you're having cookies and things like that. So there's some weird stuff going on with the cookies.

Greg Mckinnon : Yeah. The third party cookies thing. I know Phelan brought that up. I wish he was here to give us more detail because I don't know a ton about it other than what he said. But. I can explain what third party cookies are for, for people, and so Um, a cookie is stored on your computer from, from a site. Um, and typically if it's your site, if you've created a cookie to store someone's, um, session data, uh, things that they were doing on your site, that's fine, that's you dropping a cookie for your site, that's first.

Um, so third party cookies are external services that you're using. So Google analytics, um. And anything else that you might have for [00:23:00] data or functionality on your site that is not yours, but you're using as a service and they need to drop something to store, that would be a third party cookie. And that's what they're looking to, um,

Pip: restrict.

Yeah. So what does restrict mean? Uh, yeah, right. It's pretty interesting. Well, we'll see what it means right now. Phelan and I are learning how to, uh, you know how, when you go to websites and you click on the little button that says accept all cookies, you can actually. Put that, I think piece of JavaScript, if I'm correct, inside Tag Manager and, and it's because it's a yes or no statement, right?

Tracker don't track. So if you do it there, or you can get a plugin to do it. So, um, we'll see what all these new rules mean. Um, but I, I do like that they're cracking down on themselves.[00:24:00]

Greg Mckinnon : We're cracking down on others and they are just doing it differently now.

Pip: Right, exactly. So, I mean, we'll see. We should all know that Visa sells your information on everything you buy and we should all be well aware that when we talk about, you know, those new Nike shoes I want or the new Adidas or whatever, that the next time it rolls around, there's some algorithm that did something and now I'm going to get those ads.

You bet your bottom dollar. Uh, but needless to say, maybe I need those things. So, um, we could have a whole talk on, um, the Google privacy and the things we get to do as consumers and what we get to turn off and shut, like, turn on, on our own, if anybody's been to their Google profiles, it's pretty interesting, but let's go, we're going to AI now, Greg, cause we're, we're, we got three minutes.

AI is crazy. Uh, crazy. Let's go a little bit long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Um, AI, [00:25:00] so Weirdest thing that happened AI has started working with the US military This is not a political statement or a political this we're in marketing man all we know is that the rules of AI some rules got re released and When people read through those rules, the only thing that had changed was that it said that AI can work with the military.

That was one of the clauses, right? So if, if you're reading the contracts in jargon, I mean, Oh, thank you. Somebody said, this is such a great episode. Yes. Yeah. That's lovely. Uh, I'm going to go find out who you are and virtually high five and kiss you. Um, but the AI stuff is crazy. So the two big things are the military thing with AI and also, um, chatbots got lazy.

Uh, so, giving excuses, like you'd give your excuse to your boss. [00:26:00] Uh, things like that, like, you don't have enough information to proceed with the task, or it's used that kind of language, you know, it's more you do it yourself.

Greg Mckinnon : This one was interesting when Phelan mentioned it, because I hadn't heard of this, but I mean, yeah, it's It's, it's like, like he said, or he said, AI is getting lazy.

Like people apparently, um, are asking it to do tasks and it's being lazy about providing them the information or more like telling them how they can do it on their own instead of actually doing it for them. Um, I don't know if this is a purposeful change that OpenAI has. Um, put in, I wouldn't be surprised if they've changed how, uh, you know, how, how it works to possibly do that kind of stuff.

[00:27:00] Um, because our, do we think it would learn on its own and just become lazy? I don't know.

Pip: Oh, no, no. Yeah. I'm not sure. So that was Aura who said that. And we have a Dorothy that she likes her math, Greg, just so you know, but on the other side of what you were talking about, um. I haven't seen, I have a lot of fun with AI, but then I get trapped in, who else gets trapped in this cycle?

Right? Where you're in AI and you're like, Oh, I'll make a picture. And then yeah, you're there for 20 minutes later being like, Oh, I'll try this and it's useless and you should just move on quickly. So I don't think it's where it's going to be. But on that note, Google, I don't, if you use Google ads and you've called Google in the last year, the service is.

Like it's almost worse than Facebook ads if not worse like you can't get ahold of anybody you we've actually we have a trick For getting a hold of the people but [00:28:00] like you're not getting callbacks people aren't getting the help They need like accounts get frozen and we just learned that Google let go of a huge number of their sales reps Now if you don't know their sales reps are those people that call you and tell you oh go broad match Up your budget, you know,

Greg Mckinnon : I Still get tons of calls from the people who are taking care of, um, or are assigned to the accounts that I manage.

I, I find them relentless in calling to set up times to talk. Well, do you

Pip: know why? Why? Because they have a quota to fill. So they have a certain number of accounts that they hold and of those number of accounts, there's a budget. There's the current budget and then the budget they have to hit, like a sales rep, right?

So if they don't hit that budget, like, and the new people, like, those are the people we're getting called to. So if you have a [00:29:00] really small Google Ads account, that's the call. You're getting the newbies. So good question to always ask. How long have you been working there? Cause you might know more than them if you're working in Google ads,

Greg Mckinnon : right?

So I'm getting the calls because I typically only deal with smaller ad. Yeah, accounts for customers. If we're doing, if someone wants to do like a big thing, it would go to, it would go to you. Well,

Pip: no, not even, it would go to somebody. But I've only dealt with a couple of the high reps because of some accounts I've been on.

Because the amount of money they spent. Like

Greg Mckinnon : the, the accounts that I, the clients that I have as AdWords, um, clients are, are small budget, only single or two. Campaigns, a couple of them. They're, they're small fish. Right, like if I don't Get into larger campaigns and, you know, like thousands of, of dollars a month.

I would, I would farm that off to, to you who is more of an [00:30:00] expert on this, obviously. Yeah, yeah, it's

Pip: super fun. But

Greg Mckinnon : so I'm probably getting inundated with all these. Reps that are assigned to my clients because they're all small and, you know, doing, you know, their budgets are tiny and we're only doing a couple of campaigns and they're like, we can boost these guys and get them to spend way more.

Pip: I will tell you, we, I had to, I, you know, I, I had to be apologetic to a client. This last month because around Christmas, Google, like the campaigns were running so well and Google was like, Ooh, increase your budget and you'll get this many more conversions. And I was like, Oh, and this client's very particular about their budgets, of course, right?

It's money. And, but because I guess Christmas was such a rush, I was like, Oh, great idea. I want to make the, get the more leads. It did not do its job. And I had to like, be like, Hmm. Yeah, we, and we spent a little extra money and I, you can actually inside Google ads, you can see the version history. [00:31:00] So you can see who did what.

So I went and checked it. And yes, it was me. Ooh, ooh, hot flash. Look at that. Think I'm embarrassed. Um, anyway, anyway, uh, needless to say, don't trust those Google ads reps. That's, that's, that's the goal. And they've all lost their jobs to AI. That's where I was going there or not all lots of people. So maybe service will get better.

You know, it'll be worse, but a lot of people at Google have lost their jobs recently. So, um, you know, those people are probably pretty smart when it comes to Google though, because they know the inside. So maybe,

Greg Mckinnon : yeah. Anything, anytime I talk to one of those, uh, people, my, my reps, I always basically just ask them a ton of questions.

Because I do basic stuff with AdWords. So when they're going through things, I use it as, okay, they know what they're doing, so I'm just going to like ask them a bunch of questions and learn more about all [00:32:00] of these things that they're trying to get me to do, what

Pip: it all is. Well, and I think that's really smart because then you, you, you, uh, you start to learn the cutting edge things that they're trying to implement, because if they're saying, you know, like broad match, for instance, you know, I might try it on something because maybe the algorithm, like, cause AI is going to get better over time.

And so doing things that can benefit you or your client is, is something to think about. You can't stick in your old ways, but yet you proceed with caution. And so try it on a small thing and say, yeah, we've done it. It completely changed how we do Google ads in the last year. So which is really interesting.

So anybody interested in getting into Google ads now is a good time because, you know, a lot of the old information is stale and outdated. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Anyway, we are out of time, but before we go, um, just so you know, Bing's got some updates. What else? Like, let's travel through this quickly.

Ooh, big tour. Um, I've [00:33:00] lost my information. So nothing else happened last month. I like,

Greg Mckinnon : there's, there's one, there's one comment, Bing market share, not growing.

Pip: Yes. Bing, Bing has launched, um, like chat GPT. They have their own, that is. Exactly. And you can pay and get faster service and things like that. So if you want to try a different AI or a similar AI to chat GPT, I would look over there.

Other than that, uh, next week we'll be here, but there is no topic. So if you'd like us to talk about something in particular. listed below because, uh, Reena's off for one more week and then she's coming back and, uh, there's a lot happening that we're going to talk about next week. Anyway, uh, so join us next week.

Same bat time, same bat place with the Marketing Gig Mixer group. Woo! And I'm [00:34:00] so glad you're here. Ora, thank you for joining us. Dorothy, thank you for jumping in. And if anybody has any comments or anything about this episode that they want to know more about, just message us. Uh, in the comments anywhere, and we'll

Greg Mckinnon : be back to all four of us next month,

Pip: next month.

Woo. Woo. Uh, chat soon guys. Bye everyone. Bye.

This Month In the World of Marketing - Search, Social, & Websites -Jan 25th 2024

GeekSpeak - This month in the work of marketing - 2024-01-25 at 11.03.13 Season 8 Episode 4

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