Yelp’s ad revenue increased by 13% to a record $1.28 billion in the final quarter of 2023.

Ad clicks for the year experienced a year-over-year growth of 5%, while the average cost per click (CPC) increased by 9%.

Services sector. Yelp reported a record-breaking $793 million in advertising revenue from Services businesses in 2023, marking a 14% increase from the previous year. The Home Services category stood out in particular with a rise of 20% year-on-year in annual revenue growth.

Restaurants, Retail and Other sectors. Yelp reported a 10% increase to a record $483 million, driven by growth in advertiser demand

Self-serve and Multi-location. Together, these channels accounted for approximately 50% of Yelp’s 2023 advertising revenue. Self-serve revenue increased by approximately 20% year over year and multi-location revenue grew by approximately 15% year over year.

What Yelp is saying. Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s co-founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement:

• “Looking ahead, we’re increasing our focus on our Services categories in 2024 as we execute on a robust product roadmap to build Yelp into the best place for consumers to connect with trusted service pros and drive more quality leads to advertisers.”
• “Our team has repeatedly shown that focusing on our product-led strategy can drive durable growth, and we remain confident in the significant opportunities ahead to drive shareholder value over the long term.”

Why we care. Yelp’s increasing ad clicks, indicating a positive return on investment, make it a strong contender for your ad spend this year. This is especially noteworthy for brands in the Services sector, as Yelp is strategically shifting its focus to this area to generate more quality leads for advertisers.

Deep dive. Read Yelp’s full Q4 2023 earnings report in full for more information.

Amazon’s reign as the king of ecommerce won’t end any time soon.

There were over 15 billion worldwide visits to Amazon.com in 2023. 

The continued flood of purchase-ready visitors makes Amazon lucrative for sellers who can stand out and generate sales from the platform. 

This year, Amazon’s core belief behind its algorithm remains straightforward. They want customers to continue buying. They are just as interested in making sales, if not more so, than the sellers themselves.

Here are six marketing strategies to help you grow your sales on Amazon in 2024.

1. Cover the basics

Tips and tricks still don’t replace solid marketing fundamentals. In general, you should think about strategy, not simply tactics.

• How are you positioning your brand/product? 
• Are your prices competitive?
• Is your product differentiated? 
• Do the photos and copy represent that?

You can’t start optimizing your marketing until you have covered the basics.

2. Continuously analyze your keywords and focus on relevancy

Amazon’s algorithm may be focused on customers buying products, which is similar to saying Google’s algorithm is focused on providing the best answers. While it may be true, many variables and nuances go into rankings.

• On-page elements.
• Customer reviews and ratings.
• Pricing.
• Inventory/availability.
• Images and multimedia.

Targeting the right keywords has always been critical. However, this has increased with Amazon’s focus on using AI and machine learning for product recommendations, search relevancy, and customer behavior analysis.

If you haven’t done keyword research on your product detail pages recently, it’s time to do so. Shopping trends evolve, and fresher data is available. Regularly researching keywords is crucial. Ensure they’re integrated into key areas like the title, description, and bullet points.

This doesn’t mean stuffing keywords in your copy. You still have to write for shoppers in a way that drives conversions. In 2024, this has become even easier with generative AI. Amazon even has its own AI tool to help with product listings.

Remember, shoppers are the ones reading and making decisions to purchase. No matter how the copy is created, it must help convince them your product is the right choice. 

3. Go all in on Amazon Advertising

Amazon’s ad revenue was more than $49.9 billion in 2023. It’s hard to imagine it was only $10 billion in 2018.

Ad campaigns continue to be a must for success on Amazon.

Sales on Amazon are rewarded, meaning you can use advertising to get those sales, unlike Google Ads. This means by increasing your ad spend, you can stimulate sales velocity and improve your rankings.

Amazon continues to invest in its advertising offerings, which include expanded targeting options with:

• Sponsored display audiences.
• Sponsored display product targeting.
• Ssponsored brands video targeting. 

They are also offering new ad formats, including:

• Sponsored display video ads.
• Sponsored brands video-only creatives.
• Amazon DSP marketplace targeting.

Amazon has even introduced a new AI-powered image generation tool to help you produce improved creative. 

With new features and capabilities comes the ability to gain more granular insights into campaign performance allowing for better resource allocation of your advertising spend.

To differentiate your campaigns, you should explore and invest in emerging ad types, such as interactive and augmented reality ads.

Stay informed about updates to Amazon’s advertising platform to optimize your advertising cost of sales (ACoS) and leverage these insights for better ad performance.

Dig deeper: 5 reasons Amazon Ads is better than Google Ads for ecommerce

4. Utilize off-Amazon traffic strategies

Amazon’s brilliance has always been how they gain traffic from other websites. That’s why they are and have been one of the largest customers of Google Ads.

Taking an omnichannel approach by utilizing social media, influencer marketing, and content marketing will build brand awareness and direct users to your Amazon listings.

Implementing target campaigns, offering exclusive promotions, and sharing engaging content related to your products helps diversify your traffic sources.

You can also take advantage of Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus program that incentivizes sellers to drive external traffic by offering them a percentage of sales as a bonus.

By strategically directing traffic from other sources, sellers can enhance their product’s discoverability and competitiveness on Amazon, standing out in a crowded marketplace.

Dig deeper: 3 tips for using promotions and discounts in paid search

Everyone loves a discount and a good deal. You can play off both psychological triggers by running a coupon for sponsored product ads.

Running a coupon with advertising on Amazon is a powerful tactic to enhance product visibility, attract more clicks, and significantly boost conversion rates. 

Coupons serve as a direct incentive for potential buyers, offering them a tangible saving on their purchase, which can effectively differentiate your product from competitors. 

When these discounts are highlighted in sponsored product ads, they grab attention within search results, making your listing more appealing. 

This strategy leverages the psychological appeal of getting a deal, encouraging shoppers to make a purchase decision more quickly. 

Additionally, advertising your product ensures that it appears in front of a targeted audience actively searching for items in your category, increasing the likelihood of clicks and conversions. 

Using coupons and advertising boosts immediate sales and enhances your product’s Amazon ranking by increasing sales velocity. Implementing this approach entails pricing and profit margin analysis to ensure sustainable discount and advertising costs. 

Despite this, the potential visibility, sales, and customer acquisition benefits make running coupons with advertising a worthwhile investment for Amazon sellers aiming to expand.

6. Invest in high-quality product videos

Videos have become an indispensable element of effective Amazon listings, providing a dynamic way to showcase your products and differentiate your brand. 

In 2024, leveraging high-quality, informative videos that address customer pain points, demonstrate product use, and highlight unique features is key. 

Consider incorporating user-generated content, testimonials, and behind-the-scenes footage to build trust and authenticity. Amazon’s platform now offers enhanced video capabilities, making integrating this content into your product listings easier.

Optimizing for better visibility and sales on Amazon 

Amazon continues to be the de facto product search engine. Their improvements in technology and advertising for brands continue to pave the way for online sellers while setting expectations for consumers.

Even though it may feel like it, it isn’t you vs. Amazon. It is you vs. the other products someone would buy instead of yours on Amazon. Remember, Amazon wants happy customers and more sales – just like you.

By focusing on these tactics, you can improve your visibility, conversion rates, and, ultimately, your sales on Amazon. 

In a recent update, Google has mandated that all third-party providers include a dedicated opt-out landing page within the New Merchant Experience (NMX) dashboard.

This page must clearly outline the steps a merchant can follow to disconnect their Google Business Profile (GBP) from any booking, waitlist, or food ordering application.

Regaining control from third-party providers on Google Business Profiles

Before this mandate, third-party service providers had significant control over Google Business Profiles, often leaving merchants unable to remove these integrations themselves and confused about where to turn.

When merchants sought help from support, they were advised to get in touch with the provider directly.

Guide to removing third-party providers

To disconnect a service provider from your Google Business Profile within the NMX dashboard, follow these steps: 

• Navigate to Food Ordering.
• Choose the service provider you wish to remove.
• Click on Remove Provider.

Manage provider

The remove provider link is provided by the third-party integration. 

When managing your Business Profile on Google, it is important to note that these links cannot be directly edited or removed unless the URL was manually added. 

Instead, each provider provides a landing page that informs the merchant on how to disable the integration. 

Some providers outline a step-by-step guide on disconnecting within their applications, while others have forms or direct the merchant to their support rep.

Google documents have been updated with the following:

“Providers need to remove third-party links from your profile within 5 days of receiving removal request. If a provider doesn’t process your request, report a violation.”

Too many options?

Food ordering pages can sometimes feel like they’re overflowing with options. Take DoorDash, which owns Caviar, and GrubHub, the parent company of Seamless, Eat24, and Tapingo. 

The abundance of choices can lead to a merchant’s Google Business Profile looking too busy, confusing customers on where to place their orders. 

With the recent updates, providers are now required to offer merchants an easy out for any service they’d rather not offer. This is great news for brands aiming to declutter their online ordering and booking options.

In light of the mandate, DoorDash launched a Google Form, allowing brands to tailor their offerings for all or some stores, with options to opt out of DoorDash, Caviar, or both.

This shift is a real game-changer for business owners, opening up a new level of transparency.

Perhaps, from Google’s perspective, this new process can help reduce the number of support tickets they get about third-party removal requests. 

The impact of third-party integrations on your Google Business Profile metrics

Merchants should weigh the pros and cons before deciding to cut ties with third-party providers. Dropping these integrations could have a direct impact on your performance metrics.

Remember, every interaction on your Google Business Profile (GBP) gets tallied up in your performance stats.

But if a third-party link sends a customer off to another site outside your GBP, that action won’t get counted in your metrics. 

So, think it through. What will serve your business and customers best in the long run?

Dig deeper: How to manage and edit your Google Business Profile from Google search

Meta issued an apology to advertisers following an Ads Delivery outage that resulted in campaigns overspending by “thousands.”

The tech giant confirmed that services are now restored and expressed regret for any inconvenience caused to advertisers.

Refunds, anticipated to take between four and eight weeks, are now awaited by affected parties.

Why we care. If you were affected by the Ads Delivery outage, applying for a refund is necessary, but it’s important to note that payment is not guaranteed. To enhance the likelihood of receiving a full refund, there are specific steps you can take.

Refund application. Barry Hott, Growth and Performance Marketing Consultant, urged advertisers to report the issue to their Meta reps and/or support to “increase the likelihood of a refund for you and for everyone.”

Hott then shared a step-by-step guide to show advertisers how to raise a complaint. He recommended filing a report with Meta support and sending this exact message:

• “My campaigns overspent their budgets and seemed to ignore their cost caps yesterday due to a confirmed widespread Meta ad delivery outage, causing campaigns to spend more than expected and did so extremely inefficiently, causing me to lose money.”

This should then bring you to the menu displayed in the screenshot below. Here, you will need to select “claim refund for ad spend.”

You then need to choose your ad account and select “other ad account issue” as demonstrated in the screenshot below:

You’ll then be able to write another message – for this step, Hott recommended simply pasting the same blurb from earlier along with the below screenshot of the Meta Status Page:

Next, start uploading screenshots showing your performance issues. Include all account IDs if you have multiple accounts. Answer support questions politely, considering their potential unfamiliarity with Meta ads and the outage. Hott concluded:

• “Hopefully you’ll get to a point where they ask for the amount you are requesting for a refund. If you have estimates of what you think was lost, share that amount, but don’t be greedy, use a realistic estimate based on recent past performance.”
• “This is our best chance at getting the refunds we deserve. I hope you found this helpful! Please repost or share this with your peers, and if you don’t already follow me or @MetaBizStatus (the automated account I set up that reports Meta outages), please do!”

Fallout. Several advertisers claimed to have lost thousands as a result of the Meta Ads Delivery outage.

One marketers wrote on X: “Woke up to a ~$80 credit from $6k down the drain. But my ticket is still unresolved and they emailed me at 5 am asking me to be patient as they are working it out.”

Another advertisers commented on X: “It blew thousands in minutes!”

What Meta is saying. Meta did not immediately respond to Search Engine Land’s request for comment.

Lead generation isn’t just about driving leads; it’s about filling your funnel with qualified leads.

The key to achieving this lies within providing your platform of choice with the right information.

Whether you’re using LinkedIn Ads, Google Ads, or Microsoft Ads, Nicole Waddington, digital marketing manager at Cypress North, offered valuable tips on optimizing lead generation campaigns for maximum performance at SMX Next.

Below is a summary of the insights she shared.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the process of finding and learning about potential customers. The strategies leveraged to do this can vary based on your target customer, company, and industry.

However, three crucial elements ensure success in lead generation, regardless of your industry or where you advertise, Waddington said you will need:

• A compelling offer. You need something that will hook the prospect enough to make them want to give you their information.
• CRM access. This is “key” to seeing if your leads are driving quality conversions.
• Conversion tracking. And this doesn’t just stop at leads. This continues down the funnel because you need to be able to attribute revenue to any paid campaigns you run.

“If you don’t have these three things, you might as well just forget about it,” Waddington said.

LinkedIn ads

While LinkedIn Ads may have a reputation for being more expensive, the platform proves its worth by being a powerful tool for attracting high-value leads, Waddington said.

LinkedIn increases your likelihood of reaching high-value consumers, ensuring a higher concentration of qualified leads in your marketing funnel, she added. For this reason, Waddington described LinkedIn as a “great platform for B2B marketers.”

Retargeting tactics: Securing qualified leads using LinkedIn ads

LinkedIn has a diverse range of audience targeting options, such as people who have:

• Visited your LinkedIn page.
• Clicked on your ads.
• Attended a specific event.
• Watched a certain percentage of a video ad you ran.
• Downloaded a particular document.

Retargeting strategy

Tailoring your content to match where your leads are in their journey is important, Waddington said. Don’t jump straight to bottom-of-funnel offers like sales outreach or free trials — nurture and warm them up first on LinkedIn.

Leverage audience targeting not just to focus but also to exclude; avoid spending on existing customers, those who’ve spoken to sales, or unengaged subscribers, making your LinkedIn ads more cost-effective. She explained:

• “Don’t waste money on people who are already your current customers or people who have already talked to sales.”
• “Targeting is great, but so are exclusions, and you should use them to your advantage when you’re on LinkedIn Ads.”

Who to target

For effective top-of-funnel content campaigns, LinkedIn’s Audience Insights tool is the platform’s best-kept secret, Waddington said. This insightful report provides valuable information to pinpoint your target audience without spending on a paid ad campaign. Waddington added:

• “All you have to do is upload a contact list or import a contact list directly from your CRM, such as HubSpot, and LinkedIn will match that contact list to users in their platform.”
• “We can see a whole slew of information that will tell us exactly who we need to go after for those top-of-funnel campaigns.”

Account Based Marketing strategy

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) on LinkedIn is versatile, with applicability beyond just creating awareness at the top of the funnel, Waddington said.

ABM can effectively nurture leads already engaged with sales, especially in the decision phase, by strategically targeting decision-makers with ad creative featuring social proof testimonials, influencing the sales process on LinkedIn.

Additionally, consider third-party audience tools to gather more data on your ideal customers and creatively target individuals based on these insights. Waddington added:

• “You can be so creative on LinkedIn ads, but the key is matching that message with the person’s correct life cycle stage.”

Google Ads

Lead generation through Google Ads starts with successful traditional tactics that have consistently delivered strong campaign performance in her experience.

Leveraging Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs) can be more cost-effective for cost per click, Waddington said, adding:

• “I love this tactic because you can cast a wider net and bid on more general search terms and get it for a lower CPC.”

A broad match RLSA campaign can yield significantly lower cost per SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) compared to a regular prospecting campaign, emphasizing the efficiency of this approach in maximizing budget and acquiring leads, Waddington said.

Audience segments

Leveraging audience segments is powerful as it allows the application of audience segments to campaigns, enabling targeting, exclusion, and bid adjustments for enhanced campaign efficiency.

At the very least, Waddington suggested using audiences as observation, offering valuable data to identify converting customer profiles. She explained:

• “I recommend everyone should be applying audiences as observation to your campaigns.”
• “This is free data that you can use to determine who your customers are and who is converting on your campaigns.”

She illustrated her perspective using a client case study, where audience segments like “auto parts and accessories” and “Black Friday shopping” exhibited higher conversion volumes and lower costs per conversion. This information can be used to create dedicated campaigns or adjust bids upward for these high-converting segments. Conversely, segments with lower conversion volumes and higher costs per conversion can be either excluded or bid-adjusted down for cost-effectiveness.

Performance Max campaigns

Although using PMax for lead generation “can sound scary,” it can be done as long as you optimize for lower funnel stages, Waddington said. The key to success is ensuring you feed Google good data. Explaining why she is a fan of using PMax for lead generation, Waddington added:

• “What’s cool about PMax is you have the ability to use page feeds to tell Google specific pages from your website that you want it to use in order to serve ads through PMax campaigns.”
• “This is a new feature, and it is so much better than the prior strategy that we would use in order to have more control over PMax campaigns.”

Performance Max tips

Some top tips and advice for maximizing the performance of PMax campaigns for lead generation from Waddington:

• Start slow: PMax has a tendency to spend quickly, so set your budget lower than what you would for search campaigns. Scale when you see a response.
• Use first-party data: Ensure you leverage first-party data for audience signals because it works beautifully. It is the best data that you can feed Google Ads, so integrate with your CRM and feed Google first-party data.
• Don’t lump audience signals together: Test them separately in different campaigns because PMax still has poor reporting. You need to know what’s working and what’s not regarding audience signals, so you can determine what audience signals you should continue investing in.

Demand Generation campaigns

Demand Gen campaigns on Google Ads take a hybrid approach, using both images and videos. This campaign type differed from Waddington’s initial expectations when Google introduced it last year.

Although Demand Gen campaigns haven’t been as successful as PMax campaigns, this may not be a fair comparison at this stage, she said, adding:

• “This is a very new campaign type so it is still wroth testing – but just know that it is at the very beginning stages.”
• “The one good thing about Demand Gen campaigns is that you can create Lookalike segments. So you can, for example, upload a co a contact list or a customer list and make a lookalike segment that has narrow balanced or broad targeting. This could be a possible replacement if you used Similar Audiences in the past – which is something that Google sunset last year.”
• “Remember, it never hurts to test, so I encourage everyone to test if you want. Bear in mind, if Google wants something to work, it will make it work.”

Microsoft Ads

Bing remains a significant player in lead generation as it continues to be the default search engine for many users. However, Microsoft Ads has undergone significant changes since 2022. Notably, there has been a decline in the accuracy of keyword matching, Waddington said.

Adapt your strategy

Despite the challenges she’s encountered, you can still effectively utilize Microsoft Ads for lead generation with a robust negative keyword list. The key is adapting strategies and staying on top of optimizations as well as negative keyword management. She added:

• “I don’t want this to scare you away from Microsoft ads because there is a way you can mitigate negatives; negate, negate, negate.”
• “You can use exact match and combination with a robust negative keyword list and still make Microsoft Ads work hard for you and your lead generation strategy.”
• “But Microsoft Ads is not the same animal as it was in 2022. You need to change your strategies.”

Audience ads

Opting out of audience ads on Microsoft advertising is no longer an option, and it’s a reality marketers must accept, Waddington added. This shift means it’s necessary to take a mindful approach in managing accounts and reporting on ther platform. Waddington added:

• “You can’t compare apples to apples anymore. You have to compare apples to audience ads. So just be aware of that in your accounts and also in your reporting.”

Performance Max

Microsoft introduced its own version of Google’s Performance Max, currently in beta testing. While Google’s Performance Max typically takes around two weeks to learn and produces quick results, Waddington noted that her experience with Microsoft’s version has been very different. The learning period has extended beyond the expected two weeks, and the results have been inconsistent.

Key takeaways

Some key takeaways from Waddington’s SMX Next session:

• LinkedIn Ads Creativity: Move beyond pushing bottom-of-funnel offers on LinkedIn. Tailor your creative to the targeted life cycle stage, nurturing leads effectively with the myriad options available, including audiences and the audience insight tool.
• Google’s Performance Max Campaigns: While it can work for lead generation, it requires careful management. Feed it solid bottom-of-funnel data, start slow, and gradually scale as results become evident.
• Microsoft Advertising in 2023: It remains effective, but demands more effort. Watch for audience ad bloat, stay vigilant on negative keyword lists, and adapt to the changing landscape of year-over-year data.
• Creative Targeting: Embrace creativity in targeting, audiences, offers, and align your messaging with the funnel stage to ensure a steady flow of leads. Aim not just for leads but qualified ones that convert into business, ultimately driving revenue for your company or client.

Google has launched a number of new search experiences today to in “preparations for the Digital Markets Act (DMA)” the search company said. This includes new rich results, aggregator units, and refinement chips, plus new flight search results.

“With these new experiences, users in EEA countries searching for queries such as “hotels near me” may notice more visual and entity focused results. These experiences aim to (1) present users with rich and relevant information for their searches and (2) improve the visibility of ecosystem participants (aggregators, suppliers, and businesses) on the search results page,” Google wrote.

Carousel rich result for aggregators and suppliers. Google has launched new carousel rich result for aggregators and suppliers for travel, local, and shopping queries. These rich result tiles may contain price, rating, and images for entities on the page.

Here is what it looks like:

Google said, “If a web page doesn’t have structured data markup on the page, then the standard text result is shown.”

In terms of availability, Google said they can show for travel, local, and shopping queries. For shopping queries, carousel rich results are being tested first in Germany, France, Czechia, and the UK.

Aggregator units and refinement chips. Google also has new aggregator units and refinement chips that allow users to easily see the top aggregator results for their respective query, Google explained. Users can also click on the “more sites” to see additional relevant aggregator sites for their query. Google has a number of units for this including:

• Places sites
• Jobs sites
• Flight sites
• Product sites (being tested first in Germany, France, Czechia, and the UK)

Refinement chips. The refinement chips, for example “Places sites” can help users focus the Search page on aggregator text results, Google wrote. You can see these by looking at the top of the search results or by clicking on “More sites” on the new aggregator units.

Google said, “Publishers don’t need to add any markup in order to be eligible for aggregator units or refinement chips.”

We have some real life examples of this that we covered here a few weeks ago.

Flight results. Google also made changes to the flight results, as it documented, saying, “When you search for queries such as ‘flights to paris’ or ‘flights from berlin to paris’, you may notice more visual- and entity-focused results. This experience aims to present users with rich and relevant information, helping you find the best next step on your search journey.”

These include airline options, flight sites and new rich results for these regions. Here are screenshots:

Why we care. If you have websites that currently rank well for these types of queries in the European regions, then you probably should take a close look at how the search results may change with the new DMA changes. While change can be hard, it also serves as an opportunity for you to rank and get more traffic with these new search experiences.

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