Meta is offering small businesses a new way to boost posts without having to pay a 30% service charge to Apple.

Starting later this month, advertisers will be able to use Facebook and Instagram directly on desktop and mobile to access all the features available in the iOS apps for boosting content without paying Apple.

Why we care. This solution could prove hugely beneficial to small businesses as they can now boost posts without having to pay a charge, saving them money.

What is the Apple service charge? Beginning later this month, when advertisers use the Facebook or Instagram iOS app to boost a post, Apple will handle the billing process, retaining a 30% service charge on the total ad payment (excluding taxes). It’s important to note that this service charge goes to Apple, not Meta.

What are boosted posts? This is a feature that allows business to quickly promote a piece of content without needing to set up a full campaign in Ads Manager.

New payment process. Instead of being charged after boosted posts run, iOS businesses now need to pay in advance by adding prepaid funds to their accounts. If these funds are added within the iOS app, an Apple service charge applies. However, if added from payment settings on desktop or mobile browsers, advertisers can use them without fees, including for boosting content through the iOS apps.

Impacted markets. The new payment process and Apple service charge will initially launch in the US, with additional markets subject to the fee later this year. Advertisers globally can avoid the Apple service charge by boosting content directly from the Facebook.com or Instagram.com websites.

What Meta is saying. Meta said in a statement:

• “We are required to either comply with Apple’s guidelines, or remove boosted posts from our apps.”
• “We do not want to remove the ability to boost posts, as this would hurt small businesses by making the feature less discoverable and potentially deprive them of a valuable way to promote their business.”
• “We are committed to offering businesses flexible and convenient options to help them navigate this change and maximize the results of their ad spend. As part of our efforts to do this, we have invested in alternative ways to boost posts.”

Deep dive. Read Meta’s announcement in full for more information.

Google is disputing claims made about Privacy Sandbox in a new report by the IAB Tech Lab.

The study said the Privacy Sandbox might make it harder for the marketing industry to show effective ads and could put smaller brands and media companies at a big disadvantage.

Google responded by stating that the report contains “many inaccuracies” and “overlooks”ignores” the broader goal of the Privacy Sandbox, which is to improve user privacy while still enabling effective digital advertising.

Why we care. If Privacy Sandbox disadvantages smaller businesses as the report suggests, exploring alternative solutions might be worthwhile ahead of the deprecation of third-party cookies.

What the IAB Tech Lab is saying. The report, titled Fit Gap Analysis for Digital Advertising, stated that:

• “In its current form, the Privacy Sandbox may limit the industry’s ability to deliver relevant, effective advertising, placing smaller media companies and brands at a significant competitive disadvantage.”
• “The stringent requirements could throttle their ability to compete, ultimately impacting the industry’s growth.”

Corrections. Google criticized the report, citing numerous inaccuracies and misunderstandings. The clarifications provided by Google can be categorized into four areas (refer to the bullet points below for the exact wording).:

• Corrections to assumptions or use case gaps that are supported by the Privacy Sandbox APIs.
• Use cases that are currently not supported by third-party cookies and are thus out of scope.
• Feedback and/or proposals that could potentially recreate cross-site tracking and go against privacy-preserving goals.
• Areas where the solution should be determined by the ad tech provider (not the browser or platform) or where the ad tech provider needs to adapt new tactics building on top of Privacy Sandbox.

Despite accusing the report of containing false information, Google said that it would welcome additional feature requests and possible improvement suggestions from the IAB Tech Lab.

What Google is saying. Google said in a statement:

• “The Privacy Sandbox APIs provide building blocks that support business goals while preserving privacy for people. They are not designed to offer 1:1 replacements for third-party cookies or cross-site identifiers.”
• “In order to deliver meaningful improvements to user privacy, it’s not viable to recreate every marketing tactic as it exists today. But it is possible to provide solutions that address business objectives by adapting existing approaches and, in some cases, inventing new ones.”
• “While this change takes investment, effort, and collaboration, we believe it is both necessary and achievable.”

Moving forward. Google confirmed it plans to continue with its plans to phase out third-party cookies later this year, subject to addressing concerns raised by the UK Competition and Markets Authority.

What is the IAB Tech Lab? The IAB Tech Lab is a non-profit consortium uniting global stakeholders in digital media. It focuses on developing technology and standards to improve growth and trust. Key areas of concern include brand safety, ad fraud, identity, data and consumer privacy, ad experiences, and programmatic effectiveness.

Deep dive. Read Google’s response in full for more information.

You’re ready to hire SEO help – where should you start? 

This guide goes A to Z on selecting and vetting an SEO agency, including the exact things you need to watch for as you search for the perfect one.

In this article:

In-house SEO or SEO agency: Which is right for your business?

One of the first questions many businesses face as they ramp up their SEO efforts is: Should we hire in-house or outsource? 

The answer depends on your budget and your goals. Each option has its benefits. In a perfect world, you would have both. 

However, if it’s a matter of one or the other, it’s important to understand the benefits of each and determine which is a better fit for your needs. 

SEO agency advantages

An SEO agency should be a think tank of experienced, savvy analysts. 

Their experience and talent, coupled with access to talented peers, tools and data, is an invaluable resource for any business. 

Here are five benefits of hiring an SEO agency: 

You gain access to emerging SEO strategies

An SEO agency is entrenched in the industry. After all, it’s an agency’s job to know everything about SEO as it happens. 

That said, an SEO agency can keep you up-to-date with changes that may affect your strategy while providing you with effective SEO solutions to combat search engine (or other) changes.

You have cutting-edge tools working for your campaign

SEO agencies have access to and understand how to navigate a wide range of marketing tools. 

From web analytics and conversion tools to research, monitoring and reporting tools, your business can benefit from an SEO agency’s utility kit. 

Agencies know how to select and use the tools needed for your specific project, reducing in-house costs and offering you time savings.

You get comprehensive SEO expertise

There’s not much that a strong SEO agency hasn’t seen. They are, after all, consumed with every aspect of SEO day-in and day-out. 

Because of this, SEO agencies usually produce faster results because they have more experience. 

They’ve worked with hundreds or even thousands of clients in many industries. So there’s less guesswork. 

And, because SEO agencies work with many clients, they avoid the tunnel vision that an in-house SEO can be vulnerable to. 

You probably know your site very well and understand what’s happening in your niche market. SEO agencies work to provide an added perspective based on their experience in your industry.

You can learn how to implement SEO best practices

Some SEO agencies allocate resources for research and development time. 

This is so they can experiment with different SEO methodologies and techniques and observe test results to provide more ROI to the client. 

By hiring the right agency, you can take advantage of those proven techniques. This also ensures you are always practicing sound SEO tactics that won’t harm your site in the long run.

You can use the experts as a sounding board

Agencies serve as a sounding board for businesses to help ensure their strategy is solid. 

Sometimes, hiring an SEO consultant is more cost-effective and much faster than looking for answers online or in books. 

SEO agencies can transfer a lot of knowledge to you and can serve as long-term continuing education for companies – even if they have a very experienced team in-house.

In-house SEO advantages

On the other hand, an in-house SEO has some advantages. An in-house SEO:

• Is devoted to your business and focused on your brand 100% of the time. 
• Will have a robust knowledge of your industry, as well as your business’s unique needs. 
• Will have the advantage of working closely with other team members within the company.
• Might have a stronger influence on IT or marketing since they have a day-to-day relationship with them. (On the other hand, an agency can escalate things to the C-suite when teams are unresponsive. If an in-house’s words are falling on deaf ears, the agency can be the outside voice that the company will listen to.)
• That lives and breathes your brand can make them better equipped to represent the company’s message in marketing. 

The tradeoff is that an in-house expert with 10 to 15 years of experience is in high demand and, thus, is commonly very expensive. 

They are expensive to find and harder to hire, and often, the demand leads to their leaving. 

Which is right for you?

Whether you choose to work with an SEO agency or an in-house SEO, make sure you do your homework. You want an experienced, ethical and effective professional or agency.  

What services do SEO agencies offer?

Different agencies have different service models. This can include everything from an SEO audit to full-service offerings and more.

Depending on your website and business situation, the SEO strategy may vary.

You might, for example, start with an SEO audit. This is often the best way to assess where the site is today so that your vendor can recommend a strategic path for the next steps.

Some of the services you might engage an SEO agency for include:

SEO website assessments and audits

SEO audits can offer an in-depth critique of your website, identifying areas to improve. Sometimes, the client business handles the proposed changes; other times, the vendor can do it for you.

Search engine ranking assessments

Identify where to make website repairs to overcome a rankings drop. You’ll find out what may have caused the issue and how to fix it.  

SEO consulting

Often, the vendor will provide SEO consulting services hourly or on retainer. 

Full-service SEO programs

A full-service program can mean different things with different vendors but may include a unique combination of SEO consulting, SEO training, managed services, including implementing recommendations, and more.

Local SEO

Local SEO is made for the unique needs of local brick-and-mortar businesses that want to show up in the search results for people in the regional area. 

Website content audits

A content audit can identify areas of content strengths and weaknesses on a website, and recommend ways to make the website better suited to its audience and SEO goals.

Content development

To become a relevant choice for any given query and to show up on a search engine results page, a website needs to have targeted, quality content to support its SEO strategy. Content development services can help you get there.

PPC management

SEO and PPC complement one another perfectly. Together, they allow for more visibility on the search results page than just one discipline alone.

How to evaluate an SEO agency

Now that you’ve explored whether you want to hire in-house, outsource or a mix of both, it’s important to know how to evaluate an SEO agency or consultant. 

SEO is one business area where mistrust is widespread due to so many unethical businesses that have jumped into the arena over the years.  

So, how does someone looking for an SEO vendor ensure they choose the right agency? 

Next, I’ll go over five areas to evaluate:

• Reputation
• Expertise 
• Marketing know-how
• The engagement
• Reviews, case studies and testimonials

Evaluate reputation

Evaluating reputation is a key part of choosing an SEO agency because there are a lot of companies that are great at “marketing.” 

In other words, they can have a beautiful website and put up a professional front, but behind the scenes, they lack the talent needed to drive SEO results.

Evaluate expertise 

Author Malcolm Gladwell says in his book, “Outliers,” that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. 

While he has later agreed that number varies by industry, I believe that for SEO, it is closer to 20,000 hours. 

SEO agencies historically have had a problem: They’re often founded by one or more experts and to grow, they have to build teams and take themselves out of the hands-on work.

But they also have to make the business profitable, and labor costs are the largest cost. As a result, many agencies have scaled using entry-level professionals.

However, this strategy is not sustainable when the clients know more about SEO than the agency’s SEO analysts on their client accounts.

This is the thing you need to look for when hiring an agency: experience. Experience is what sets agencies apart. 

It allows us to solve the toughest SEO problems out there for our clients when no other solutions exist in-house. And that’s what’s needed now more than ever.

The bottom line is that you do not want to know more than the agency you’re hiring. 

This is especially true in today’s climate when so much is changing in the world around us. Businesses need the best SEO strategies to survive online.

Dig deeper: 9 tips for selecting an SEO agency

Evaluate marketing know-how

Great SEOs aren’t only super technical practitioners who understand SEO. 

A good SEO agency should understand how search engine optimization fits into the bigger picture of marketing your business to your target audience.

That means understanding more than bits and bytes and also understanding the people you are trying to sell to. 

This impacts everything in SEO, from keyword selection and site navigation to content creation and beyond.

The other thing to consider is that SEO impacts other areas of your digital marketing and vice versa.

To be most effective, businesses do not want to put all their eggs in one basket by relying on one type of digital marketing, whether SEO, PPC or other. And SEO vendors should agree with this.

All of these work together to make your marketing, branding, and online visibility soar.

Evaluate the engagement

Any good SEO vendor will want to work with you for as long as is necessary to help you achieve results. 

That doesn’t mean you should be strung along while the SEO performs meaningless tasks.

SEO comprises many phases, depending on where your website is when you first engage with the vendor. 

For example, you might first have a penalty from Google that needs to be addressed before anything else.

Or, you might be in the midst of a site redesign, and you need to engage an SEO to ensure the website is set up for success moving forward.

Results can sometimes take time, and they should be demonstrable. 

I have seen a lot of sites that have a long list of deliverables without any quantifiable set of measurements. “I will edit eight pages per month” is not ROI, and is easy to perform.

Also, keep in mind that many websites will go into maintenance mode with an SEO vendor after some time. But good SEO partners will always be looking for new ways to improve the site regularly.

In other words, it shouldn’t feel like the SEO vendor is in it just to make a quick buck.

Many agencies and consultancies require a minimum of four to six months.

While not being locked into a contract can be a nice thing for clients, it’s important to understand there is a time frame in which to achieve results. 

The search engines may not even acknowledge changes to your website for a month, so patience is appropriate for SEO.

Evaluate reviews and testimonials

Customer reviews can also be useful. One way to sift through the noise is to ask for a few references from past clients to better understand how the SEO vendor performed for them. 

You can also review SEO case studies. It’s important to verify that they have created successful SEO strategies, not quick fixes.  

Vetting SEO agencies: Red flags

As you’re going through the selection process, remember that a majority of the vetting process falls on you. 

You want to ensure you have the knowledge and questions to help weed out vendors to find the best fit. 

And then be aware of the red flags you may see as you go through the process.

Google points out some things to be wary of, such as:

• SEO firms and consultants or agencies that send you emails out of the blue.
• Guaranteeing a No. 1 ranking on Google.
• Secrecy, or not clearly explaining what they intend to do.

Here’s a list of things to watch out for when hiring an SEO:

• Any company stressing links as the main selling point of their SEO strategy. This is an outdated strategy. Some companies work to gain organic links through quality tactics. These are usually fine. 
• Any company with a bunch of off-shore workers. You don’t want an army of SEOs whose native language and culture are not the company’s target or first language/experience.
• Any company charging dirt cheap for SEO. They might be under-committed to education and service, or worse. Cheap SEO can hurt your business.
• Any company promising “top rankings.” This is extremely difficult for any company to guarantee, and the promise itself is essentially cheapening the discipline of SEO.
• Any company that has a lot of complaints filed against them. Do your diligence to find this out. 

Dig deeper: 9 warning signs your SEO consultant is NOT competent

10 questions to size up an SEO agency 

Now that you have a better understanding of what areas you need to assess, here’s a quick list of questions you can run through to evaluate an SEO agency:

• How long has the SEO vendor been in business?
• Does the client-facing team have sufficient skills and experience?
• Does the company demonstrate thought leadership through speaking engagements, expert content or training?
• Does the company have a good reputation among its peers in the industry?
• Has the company received any awards or accolades?
• How involved is the company in the industry’s professional community?
• Does the company’s SEO methods stay within Google’s quality guidelines?
• What sort of clientele does the SEO company serve?
• What sort of results has the SEO vendor achieved for its clients through its methodology?
• How do they work with new clients? For example, do they have formal onboarding processes to ensure everything goes smoothly? Do they have dedicated account managers so communication stays open? Do they offer training on their services?

Take your time when choosing an SEO agency

Finding an SEO vendor can be a time-consuming process. 

When looking for the perfect fit, key considerations include: 

• The ethics of the company and whether they follow search engine guidelines.
• Their level of expertise, including years in practice, reputation, skill sets and knowledge.
• The services offered and what you need.
• Watching out for red flags that signal a poor-quality agency.

Using some of the methods I’ve outlined here, you should be able to make a more informed decision when buying SEO services. 

This is especially important when money is on the line and SEO practices can help or hurt an entire business, not just its website.

Most B2B marketers, regardless of brand or agency experience, have likely faced this scenario: a marketer in charge of budget insists on investing in PPC campaigns despite evident issues that will hinder their effectiveness.

We’ve worked with some of those clients before, attempting to address issues while managing paid media simultaneously – similar to building a plane while flying it. However, this approach rarely succeeded. Typically, clients failed to recognize the value of paid media, resulting in budget cuts, which was a predictable outcome.

These days, we’re resolute in asking clients to address their issues first or working with them to build a better foundation before we build any media campaigns. 

Below are common issues early-stage brands must be addressed before spending a dollar on media. These include:

• CRM setup.
• Lead follow-up strategies.
• Mobile website UX.
• Ad-to-landing page alignment.
• Audience understanding.
• Performance expectations.

1. CRM setup

The most common issues for CRM setup revolve around tracking, as well as lead scoring and progression.

Tracking-wise, clients are often missing the basics for the fields to pass along the right info (campaign, source, medium, click IDs, etc.). If those aren’t set up properly, we’re not getting the data, which means we can’t get into the back end and figure out how our efforts are working to drive business. 

We can see conversion data in each platform’s UI. Still, without understanding which campaigns drove down-funnel results like opportunities or revenue, or even MQLs, it’s almost impossible for us to optimize the client’s budget.

Speaking of back-end data, clients need to have a way to score leads and/or track their progression through the funnel for us to understand what’s truly working. Without that data, we can’t go much further than understanding how many leads we drove – which means brands could be perpetually throwing money at junk leads.

If you can’t look in your CRM and state, with confidence, where your best leads and opportunities are coming from, you’re not ready to run paid campaigns.

Dig deeper: 2024 B2B trends: 6 key areas for marketing success

2. Lead follow-up strategies

Let’s say you turn on media campaigns and drive a bunch of leads squarely in your target audience. Great! What are your next steps for engaging and guiding those leads through the purchase journey?

Ideally, you’d have your outreach and email nurture process dialed in, with triggers based on the level of intent. But top SaaS companies take an average of two days to get back to users requesting demos, per a 2023 ChiliPiper report. This is about as high-intent as it gets for B2B. 

If you can’t explain what happens when a qualified lead hits your CRM at every stage of the funnel, that’s reason enough not to spend on leads. The worst-case scenario: you spend money, you drive leads, and the leads go neglected and give up on your company, which means you’ve spent money to ding your reputation.

3. Mobile website UX

Optimizing mobile landing pages for conversions is crucial for making the most of your paid media. Basics like optimizing lead gen forms are table stakes, but we still see brands with UX that’s frustrating enough to get users coming from the most aligned, high-intent queries to bounce.

Before you put any campaigns in place, ensure your mobile users will get a good experience when they hit your site.

For instance, we still see brands coming to us with mobile landing pages (LPs) that hit the user with a form without explaining the benefits or next steps above the fold, which hampers paid campaign performance out of the gate, no matter how tight the query/ad/LP alignment.

Dig deeper: 5 tips for creating a high-converting PPC landing page

4. Ad-to-landing page alignment

Speaking of ad-to-LP alignment, do a couple of basic checks to make sure the flow isn’t out of whack. 

• Your ad call to action (CTA) and your landing page CTA must be the same (or at least extremely similar). 
• The experience should match the expectations you’ve set up for the user when they visit your site.

Better yet, make sure the keyword intent and the landing page are aligned. For instance, if it’s a more top-of-funnel keyword, the homepage or services page might be fine.

In contrast, comparison or competitor takedown keywords should go either to a page explaining your differentiators or a page showing a comparison chart. 

My other recommendation is to make sure your CTA aligns with keyword intent. For instance, if you’re bidding on educational keywords (e.g., “how do I…?”), try asking the users to subscribe to a blog or newsletter as a starting point so you can capture their data for nurturing purposes.

5. Audience understanding

Let’s see if you can answer these questions:

• Who benefits most from your product or service?
• What problem or challenge do you solve for your audience?
• Are they even aware they have that problem?

Most brands can answer the second question, but the first can produce murkier answers, and the third is a toss-up. 

Can’t answer all of them? That will hamper the efficiency of your targeting, and you might not understand that you have to build awareness (say, on Meta or LinkedIn or the Google Display Network) before leaning into search to try to capture intent that doesn’t exist.

6. Performance expectations

If you need to drive more revenue in the next week or two, it won’t happen just by turning on B2B paid media campaigns. Whether you’re setting your expectations or figuring out how to communicate to your higher-ups, you need to understand that it takes time to dial things in. 

For new campaigns, you’ll need time to analyze whether your audience reacts well and whether there’s a product-market fit.

Moreover, for any campaign using machine learning (e.e., LinkedIn, Google’s Performance Max, Meta’s Advantage+ campaigns) to help with targeting, you’ll need to feed the algorithms enough volume (and hopefully offline conversion tracking data) to help them optimize.

Combine that with B2B’s long sales cycle (rare is the click that leads directly to a closed-won), and you need to build in time for any new campaigns to bear fruit in the form of revenue.

Dig deeper: A guide to effective PPC projections

If you can confidently say that none of the above is an issue, you’re ready to start testing paid campaigns.

That said, even mature companies can use a reminder to do some sanity checks and refreshes on the above initiatives. Either way, a little tune-up of the fundamentals will go a long way to improving the ROI of any media campaigns to follow.

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Third Door Media, Inc. is a publisher and marketing solutions provider incorporated in Delaware, USA, with an address 88 Schoolhouse Road, PO Box 3103, Edgartown, MA 02539. Third Door Media operates business-to-business media properties and produces events. It is the publisher of Search Engine Land the leading Search Engine Optimization digital publication.

Google Analytics 4 has a new consent setting section that is now available to all users globally.

The platform added this feature in preparation for the enforcement of Google’s EU User Consent Policy (EU UCP), which will require advertisers to send it verifiable consent signals if they want to serve personalized ads in the UK and European Economic Area (EEA).

Google cautioned that neglecting to adhere to this policy could adversely affect ad campaign performance, impacting both reach and return on investment

Why we care. The new consent mode setting section will make it easier and quicker for users to confirm that their consent mode v2 is properly passing consent signals to their web streams.

What Google is saying. A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land:

• “This new page aims to make it easier for Google Analytics advertisers to understand how to set up consent mode and whether or not Google Analytics has recently received consent signals with their analytics data.”
• “It also provides links to our most helpful guides and CMP partner page, if they are interested in using a CMP to get them setup.”

Who’s affected by EU UCP? Google’s EU User Consent Policy applies only to end users located in the EEA or the UK.

EEA explained. The EEA is made up of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Why now? With regulatory changes and events like third-party cookie deprecation planned for later this year, advertisers need to implement solutions like consent mode to ensure their audience and measurement solutions like GA4 continue to work effectively without disruption.

What is a certified CMP? A Google-certified CMP is a platform approved by Google to assist businesses in managing user consent for online advertising and data collection, adhering to the IAB’s Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) v2. Check if your CMP is certified by viewing Google’s full list of certified CMPs here.

Get your consent in order. Consent Mode, a tool in GA4, enables businesses to honor users’ consent preferences from cookie banners or widgets. This allows Google Analytics to dynamically adjust its behavior. For instance, if users decline consent, Consent Mode helps clear up uncertainties in the consumer journey, providing a full performance overview.

Deep dive. Read Google’s guidelines on consent mode for more information.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) added a new trend detection insight that highlights “subtle but long-lasting and important changes in your data.”

How it works. The new feature works like anomaly detection, helping identify changes in data. But, there’s a key difference: while anomaly detection spots sudden spikes or drops, trend change detection focuses on slower changes happening over a longer time. This gives users a detailed view of data changes, making it a useful tool to spot both quick and long-term trends.

Why we care. Deeper insights into trends facilitate data-driven decisions, enhancing optimization effectiveness. Understanding market behavior allows you to predict future opportunities, manage risks, and allocate resources efficiently.

Using trend detection. To access trend change data, navigate to the Insight card within the Insights and Recommendations section on the GA4 homepage. This information is visible in the Reports snapshot, Advertising snapshot, and the Insights hub.

Here’s a preview of what the trend change insights card looks like:

Reaction. While some marketers welcomed the new insight, others voiced their preference for GA4 to prioritize other insights, such as real-time data, over this particular addition. Curtis Moldrich, Digital Editor at Car magazine, wrote on X: “Where is real time by page?”

Daniel J. Pinna, Founder and Creator of Ancient Faces, agreed, posting on X: “The feature is awesome. But yes, I’m w/ you Curtis. Where are the tools that we need and are gone from Universal?”

Google is yet to announce when or if it will release real-time data on GA4.

Deep dive. Read Google’s announcement in full for more information.