For digital marketing agencies, this is a clear signal: Poland’s healthcare sector is undergoing a transformation that will shape the future of health services—not only locally, but increasingly on the international stage.

The Anatomy of Growth: What Is Driving Poland’s Medical Market

The strong momentum of Poland’s healthcare sector is not fueled by numbers alone. Behind this growth are deep socio‑economic shifts that are redefining how healthcare services are consumed in Poland.

Key drivers include:

• Demographic changes
  Poland’s population is aging rapidly. Today, 55% of healthcare spending is directed toward people aged 60+. Over the past three decades, life expectancy in Poland has increased by 11% for men and 8% for women, directly increasing demand for long‑term care, geriatrics, cardiology, and rehabilitation services.
• The healthcare backlog
  Medical needs postponed during the COVID‑19 pandemic have returned with renewed intensity, increasing pressure on both public and private healthcare providers.
• Rising health awareness
  Polish consumers are increasingly treating health not as a cost, but as a long‑term investment—allocating more of their personal budgets to prevention, diagnostics, and ongoing care.
• Lifestyle diseases
  The number of patients suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases continues to grow, reinforcing demand for specialized medical services.

As income levels rise in Poland, spending priorities are shifting. Healthcare, prevention, and safety-related products are gaining importance—often at the expense of traditional consumer goods such as electronics, furniture, or apparel. In this context, the health and life sciences sector is becoming a key pillar of economic growth, innovation, and long‑term prosperity in Poland.

How Polish Medical Companies Are Expanding Globally

Medical exports represent one of Poland’s quiet success stories. In 2020, exports of medical products reached PLN 14.8 billion, generating a trade surplus of over PLN 1.6 billion. Since then, exports have continued to grow steadily, driven primarily by orthopedic equipment, prosthetics, and medical devices.

The main export destinations include Germany (over 22%) and the United States, positioning Poland as an increasingly important supplier within global healthcare value chains.

A good example is Adamed—a Polish, family‑owned pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and a long‑term Bluerank partner. Since 2003, Adamed has pursued a consistent international expansion strategy and now delivers products to 76 countries across six continents. Key milestones include the acquisition of Davipharm in Vietnam and the development of eight proprietary foreign subsidiaries, including in Spain and Kazakhstan.

New Technologies as a Growth Engine

A significant share of Poland’s future healthcare potential is driven by technology.

• MedTech
  Medical technology is no longer a niche in Poland—it is a fast‑growing pillar of the healthcare ecosystem. By 2024, the country was home to 170 Polish MedTech startups, supported by 24 additional startups from the Central and Eastern Europe region. These companies develop solutions in telemedicine, AI‑based diagnostics, and surgical robotics—often with global scalability in mind from day one.
• Advanced digital technologies
  Artificial intelligence, automation, and remote patient‑care systems are directly supporting export growth and international expansion. At Bluerank, AI‑driven solutions are also a core part of how we approach healthcare marketing and analytics.

In 2024 alone, venture capital investment in Poland reached PLN 2.1 billion, further strengthening the innovation ecosystem.

Digital Marketing in Healthcare: Between Performance and Compliance

Healthcare marketing in Poland operates within a highly regulated environment. The Act on Medical Activity and the Code of Medical Ethics set strict boundaries for what is allowed in communication and promotion.

At the same time:

• 80% of Poles search for medical information online (CBOS),
• 56% contact healthcare providers via digital channels (BioStat).

This creates a unique challenge: marketing strategies must be both effective and fully compliant. There is no room here for simple “copy‑paste” tactics borrowed from FMCG or retail.

At Bluerank, years of working with leading healthcare brands in Poland—such as DOZ.PL—have allowed us to develop specialized expertise. We understand how to design compliant digital strategies, collaborate with publishers, and manage campaigns within strict regulatory frameworks. In Poland’s healthcare market, this know‑how is a real competitive advantage.

The Future of the Polish Healthcare Market – and What It Means for Agencies

The outlook for Poland’s healthcare sector is clear and compelling:

• According to EY, the total value of healthcare services in Poland is expected to reach €95 billion by 2028, growing at around 11% annually.
• The private health insurance market grew 33% year‑on‑year in 2023.
• According to PMR Market Experts, private healthcare spending reached PLN 76 billion in 2024, with an estimated 7–8% growth in 2025.
• By 2029, more than 25% of Polish citizens will be of retirement age, significantly increasing demand for medical services.

Marketing trends reflect these dynamics. We are seeing a strong shift toward precision targeting, video‑based educational content, automated campaigns, predictive analytics, and mobile‑first communication. As advertising spend in healthcare continues to rise, agencies with genuine sector expertise are becoming indispensable partners.

Agencies that build healthcare competencies today will compete at the top tier of digital marketing tomorrow.

Public and Private Healthcare: Complementary, Not Competing

The rapid growth of private healthcare in Poland does not mean that the public system is becoming irrelevant. On the contrary—both sectors must complement each other to create real value for patients and the healthcare system as a whole.

Higher public spending goes hand in hand with increased private investment. Public‑private partnerships, telemedicine solutions, and the digitalisation of medical records are just a few areas where collaboration is already delivering results.

In the years ahead, synergy between business, science, and the public sector will become even more critical. Demographic shifts, climate challenges, and the rise of chronic diseases demand interdisciplinary cooperation. For patients, this means better access to care; for the economy, it means growth in one of Poland’s most strategic service sectors.

Why We Created Bluerank Healthcare

Rising budgets, evolving regulations, the need to integrate knowledge across disciplines, and increasingly sophisticated patients—all of these factors demand specialization.

That is why we launched Bluerank Healthcare: an interdisciplinary team combining digital, technological, regulatory, and strategic expertise. Our mission is simple—to translate the complexity of Poland’s medical market into effective, compliant, and scalable digital growth strategies.

If you are looking for a partner who truly understands the specifics of the Polish healthcare landscape and knows how to turn them into measurable digital results—let’s talk. More information is available at Bluerank Healthcare page.

About the author

Jakub Kołaciński is a Senior Business Growth Account Manager at Bluerank, with over a decade of experience in digital marketing. In his work, he focuses on transparency, open communication, and a deep, practical understanding of Partners’ business needs.

He advises companies on digital marketing strategies built on many years of experience delivering projects across multiple industries — including highly regulated sectors such as banking and healthcare.

For the past two years, Jakub has been fully focused on the healthcare industry, coordinating comprehensive digital initiatives on the Polish market. His work spans large‑scale media campaigns with significant advertising budgets, as well as advanced SEO, GEO, and AI‑driven marketing projects tailored to the specific regulatory and operational challenges of healthcare brands.

Projects led by Jakub have been nominated for the European Search Awards and Performance Marketing Diamonds, reflecting both strategic impact and execution quality.

At Bluerank, this transformation has been in progress for years. Its natural outcome is the renaming of the department from Client Service to Business Growth – not as a rebranding exercise, but as a formal acknowledgement of the role Account Managers already play today. 

The Evolution of the Account Manager: From Coordinator to Project Leader 

Today’s Business Growth Account Manager operates as a projectlevel decisionmaker who leads executivelevel conversations, diagnoses business challenges, creates growth roadmaps, and integrates specialists’ work into a single, coherent strategy. They safeguard budget efficiency, eliminate lowvalue activities, and continually reprioritize as the client’s situation evolves. 

This is no longer “service delivery.” It is leadership, accountability, and meaningful influence over the direction and success of client initiatives. 

Client feedback reinforces this shift – through personabuilding interviews, Bluerank’s brand research conducted with CMOs at the turn of 2024 and 2025, and NPS survey insights from 2024 and 2025. Across all sources, one expectation is consistent: partners are looking not only for operational excellence, but above all for business perspective, the ability to connect the dots, and strategic advisory – particularly from project leaders. 

Why Change the Name Now? 

Several years ago, Bluerank intentionally chose not to rename the department. At that time, the new operating model first needed to be fully embedded in daily work. The transformation had to be visible in decisions, competencies, and ways of leading projects – not just on paper. 

Today, the situation is different. After years of systematic capabilitybuilding, the Account Manager role is clearly defined as that of a project leader and business partner. 

This change is supported by concrete initiatives: a comprehensive development ecosystem including project management training, a ninemonth Project Leaders Academy, and mastermind groups. The team has also completed Google & SGH’s Skills of Tomorrow 2.0 programs, as well as Google Trusted Advisor training. Monthly educational and inspirational workshops have become a permanent fixture. Every team member is also required to obtain the DIMAQ Professional certification within their first year at Bluerank. 

We have further strengthened the team by adding specialists in Business Growth Analytics and Creative Growth, expanding both the scope and impact of the Account Manager’s role. Technological development has been a key priority as well – including the implementation of AI agents that support daily work with advanced tools. 

Simultaneously, we rebuilt the intensity of client relationships: we returned to inperson meetings (nearly 80 in 2025), organized events, workshops, and partner initiatives, and incorporated continuous feedback into project practice. For these reasons, the name change is a natural next step – one that no longer describes an ambition, but the way we already operate every day. 

What Business Growth Really Means 

Business Growth is more than a department name. It is a clearly defined working model built on diagnosing the client’s business and industry context, understanding priorities, and designing growth roadmaps that transcend daytoday activities. It reflects a proactive approach: Account Managers do not wait for briefs – they propose directions, opportunities, and new channels that can generate real business impact. 

At the core of the model is the orchestration of specialists’ work into a unified whole – far beyond task management. It involves executivelevel conversations, protecting the logic behind decisions, and ensuring every component of a project supports the client’s business objectives. Optimization is equally essential: eliminating ineffective activities, making datadriven decisions, and ensuring efficient use of time and budget. 

The model also assumes continuous project development: avoiding routine, challenging the status quo, and asking questions that move the project forward rather than repeating familiar patterns. In this framework, Account Managers operate as true project leaders – decisive, contextaware, and accountable for the direction they recommend. 

Why This Matters for the Market 

Clients no longer need a “digital coordinator.” They need a business partner who understands their reality, connects data with context, provides structure and direction, makes decisions, and delivers measurable impact. The term Business Growth captures this role accurately – and honestly. 

Why This Matters to You 

If you are looking for an agency that is more than a task executor – one that helps you make better marketing and business decisions – this model is designed for you. Business Growth means working based on diagnosis, priorities, and accountability for outcomes, rather than following routines or merely “servicing a project.” 

If you’d like to talk about your business, challenges, or potential growth directions, we’re here to help: 
 https://www.bluerank.com/en/brief/ 

About the Author 

Katarzyna Szymańska – Business Growth Director at Bluerank, with 19 years of experience in digital (12 of them at Bluerank). She operates at the intersection of strategy and decisionmaking, overseeing project delivery by Business Growth Account Managers and team leaders, including the interdisciplinary Bluerank Healthcare team. She is responsible for developing team competencies and setting direction, priorities, and standards of work. 

She specializes in strategic advisory, executive communication, stakeholder management, and mentoring. Her work follows a clear and consistent sequence: diagnosis → priorities → decisions → plan → execution. 
Certifications: DIMAQ Professional; Center for Leadership (ALP, AMP). 
FRIS: Realist Achiever. 
Gallup: Discipline, Developer, Achiever, Responsibility, Relator. 

Bluerank Healthcare combines SEO, content, analytics, performance, and AI capabilities with medical expertise and legal standards for medical advertising. 
Learn more: https://www.bluerank.com/en/services/bluerank-healthcare/ 

Bluerank: Patrycja, which of SEO trends will be the strongest one in 2024?

Patrycja Tomczak: Well, to me, the most significant one is the full rollout of Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE). SGE is a new AI-powered functionality that summarizes and compiles results from across the web, based on the user’s query and intent. SGE will likely change the way users search and interact with search results, as well as the way webmasters optimize their websites for SEO. In my view, the main implications of SGE are:

• users will be encouraged to use long-tail keywords and natural language queries, as SGE will provide more relevant and comprehensive answers,
• click-through rate of standard top-three search results will decrease, as SGE will display more information on the SERP itself,
• total organic traffic to websites may drop, as SGE will reduce the need for users to visit multiple sources,
• high-quality, informative content will be more valuable, as SGE will prioritize websites that provide valuable and authoritative information to users,
• structured data/schema markup may grow in importance, as SGE may use it to display rich snippets and enhance the user experience,
• generating reviews will be more important, as SGE will put local businesses head to head in its results,
• measuring SEO results and gaining data from SGE search may not be as straightforward, as SGE may not provide the same level of transparency and analytics as traditional search.

Bluerank: Is this the one of the SEO trends that you are looking forward to? Do you see any risks or challenges?

Patrycja Tomczak: I would say that I am neutral about the SGE trend. On one hand, I think it is a positive development for the users. It will provide them with more accurate, relevant, and comprehensive answers to their queries. SGE will also make the search experience more interactive, engaging, and personalized. Users will be able to refine and explore their results in different ways.

On the other hand, I think it is a challenging development for webmasters. It will require them to adapt and optimize their websites for the new SGE functionality. SGE will also make the SEO landscape more competitive and dynamic, as webmasters will have to compete with other sources and formats of information on the SERP. In fact, I am keen to see how SGE will affect the SEO industry in 2024.

I would also like to add another aspect related to the quality of information and the risk of fake news. SGE is a powerful AI system that can generate and synthesize information from various sources, but it is not infallible. SGE may not always be able to verify the accuracy, reliability, and credibility of the information it presents to the users. SGE may also be manipulated by malicious actors who want to spread misinformation, propaganda, or bias.

Users should be cautious and critical when using SGE, and always cross-check the information they receive with other sources. Users should also be aware of the ethical and social implications of SGE, as it may influence the way people form opinions, make decisions, and interact with each other. SGE is a revolutionary innovation, but it comes with responsibility and challenges.

Read more on SGE here: How Google is improving Search with Generative AI (blog.google)

Table of contents

1. Extended data storage time
2. Countering data sampling
3. Quick update of data in reports
4. Advanced data access management
5. The full picture
6. Summary

1. Extended data storage time

Imagine a situation in which you are asked to answer a question about whether users used mobile devices, tablets, and computers simultaneously in 2022. To do this, you can use the template in exploratory reports. Thanks to the fact that the data retention period in GA4 360 is 50 months you will be able to answer this question in a matter of minutes. This would not be possible in the standard version of the tool because the maximum data retention period is 14 months, meaning that in October 2023 we will not have data available for the entire year 2022.

The extended retention period of up to 50 months will also be indispensable for analyzing multi-year trends or seasonality.

Note that the data retention period is limited only by the exploration section. Standard reports do not rely on restrictions regardless of the version of the tool.

2. Countering data sampling

Data sampling is a statistical procedure used in Google Analytics 4 to generate data in reports based on representative groups rather than the total information collected. It is mainly used to speed up the tool. We can find out whether the report is sampled from the statement top message in the exploration section:

Data sampling in GA4 can be encountered mainly in exploration reports. However, with a very large number of users or the use of secondary dimensions, filters, or segments, it can also occur in standard reports.

The sampling procedure can affect the accuracy of analyses. The example below shows data over 30 days for a comparison of the hostname dimension with the display metric for the same site but two different versions of the tool. You can see that the difference in the number of impressions reaches 12%.

GA4 360 gives us two options for dealing with sampling in the tool panel:a) Adjusting the level of accuracy and speed. By selecting the more detailed results option, we can get an unsampled exploration.

a) Adjusting the level of accuracy and speed. By selecting the more detailed results option, we can get an unsampled exploration.

b) Request for unsampled results. Alternatively, if unsampled data is not available right away, there will be an option to send a request for an accurate report. Results will be available in most cases after about 30 minutes.

It is worth mentioning that in the standard version of the system, the only way to counter-sampling is to change the population size, for example, by shortening the date range.

3. Quick update of data in reports

In today’s fast-changing world, access to up-to-date data is very important. For example, if you’re running marketing campaigns that last for several days, your team needs to be able to analyze the results in real time. This will be possible, only in GA4 360, which in most cases (for Premium Normal and Large services) will be able to process data from 1 to 4 hours. From experience, we know that for standard services this time is a minimum of 24 hours. Efficient data updating can also allow us to implement corrective actions. For example, with up-to-date data, we can detect a sudden drop in the number of users or conversion rate caused by the publication of a new version of the site, and instantly take action to improve the situation.

4. Advanced data access management

For companies with diverse operations who want to manage data access in an advanced way, the functionality for creating subproperties will be helpful. These are simply subsets of the data that are in the master service. For example, you can separate a subproperty for each market in which you do business, for each brand, making it easier to analyze the data. A subproperty created for a marketing agency running a campaign on a specific platform will ensure that we are not forced to present all revenue data to partners, they will only get the information they need to run their optimizations. Note that adding the service mentioned above will involve an increase in license costs due to the processing of additional events, for example, attribution is modeled independently for the source and subproperties.

5. The full picture

Reviewing the data in the standard reports, you may come across a row with a dimension (other). The data is presented this way due to exceeding the limits of rows in the table. This is affected, among other things, by the types of reports (some reports have higher limits) or the complexity of the data set (additional dimensions, filters).

By hiding some of the data in a single line, we do not have the full picture. This can cause problems, for example, when analyzing the effectiveness of product categories. With complex category trees, data on some elements will be “hidden” in a row (other) and, as a result, we may not know which types of categories to eliminate from promotional activities. The lack of a complete picture can lead to the creation of erroneous marketing strategies. You will solve the problem of aggregating data to a single row with the functionality of automatic or manually configured expanded datasets.

Increased data limits, compared to standard GA4, will also help obtain full information on user behavior.

Thanks to the functionality of developed datasets and increased limits of processed information, we are able to fully understand our audience and make more accurate business decisions. Importantly, with the support of Full Stack Experts consultants, we are assured that the quality of the data we collect in the tool is at the highest level. This allows us to take full advantage of the potential of Google Analytics 4 360 and increase the effectiveness of our marketing efforts.

Tadeusz Skrzypczak, Head of Product&User Intelligence at Ringer Axel Springer Poland

Summary

Of course, some of the problems described in the article can be solved by substitute methods, for example, by creating custom scripts that minimize sampling and pass data to Big Query or another warehouse with the help of data science specialists or programmers. On the other hand, if we want all departments in the organization to speak the “language of data” we need to guarantee quick and easy access to it directly in the tool panel for every person involved in site optimization or marketing activities. Google Analytics 4 360, when properly configured, will give us such an opportunity, allowing more people to have an impact on increasing business efficiency.

Artificial intelligence 

The concept of “Artificial Intelligence” has been around since 1956 and was the first to be used by John McCarthy, who was one of the pioneers in this area. Many aspects of people’s lives are already automated or supported by artificial intelligence. It is commonly used in computer systems, e.g. for the analysis and processing of large amounts of data. It is also used in computer systems to perform tasks that require high precision, such as controlling the movement of airplanes or satellites. 

Artificial intelligence in digital marketing 

Until recently, in the world of internet marketing, artificial intelligence was mainly used in Google products. In recent months, it has been available to every Internet user. First of all, it can revolutionize the work of SEO copywriters, content managers and computer graphics thanks to such generally available tools as OpenAI or Midjourney. It was these two tools that I used to create the content of the answer and to support it with graphics in the conversation with AI. Below is a brief description of these two applications. 

What is OpenAI? 

OpenAI is a research laboratory in the field of artificial intelligence that develops free and open solutions for all internet users. It consists of the company OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit foundation OpenAI Inc. OpenAI was founded in December 2015 by SpaceX co-founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Greg Brockman of renowned data company Cloudera, and entrepreneur Rebekah Mercer. The company’s name refers to its goal of promoting friendly artificial intelligence. 

What is MidJourney? 

On the application page, we can read that MidJourney is “an independent research laboratory researching new trends in thought and developing the imagination of the human species.” It is a team of a dozen or so people focused on the design and infrastructure of artificial intelligence. 

Assumptions for the conversation with AI 

The conversation with AI was a form of interesting entertainment, but before the conversation I made a few assumptions that I wanted to investigate in contact with artificial intelligence: 

• no human interference in the content already generated by AI – both in terms of traditional content and visual content (graphics) 
• controlling the response length depending on how comprehensive the answer I wanted to get 
• the interview was conducted in English and was also translated into Polish by AI 
• gradation of the complexity level of questions directed to the AI ​​Writer (easy: related to describing something existing, being a definition; medium-difficult – related e.g. to an important event already completed; difficult – related to abstract and lateral thinking, often related to prediction, questions for opinion ) 
• deepening the question in case of an unsatisfactory answer 

Interview with artificial intelligence 

Hi AI, at the beginning of the conversation, please tell a few words about yourself 
Hi! I am your friendly AI assistant. I am happy to help you with anything you need. I am very creative and clever so feel free to ask me anything. 

I’d like to talk to you about SEO. What is SEO for you? 
SEO is about optimizing your website for search engines. It is important to make sure your website is well organized and informative so that people can easily find what they are looking for. 

What is your first association when you think about SEO? 
The first association is that SEO is constantly changing and evolving. There is always something new to learn which I think is great. 

How do you feel when you think about SEO? 
I get excited when I think about SEO because there is always something new to learn. I also feel confident because I know I have the skills and knowledge to help people improve their website ranking. 

What competencies should a good and effective SEO specialist have? 
Some important qualities for a good SEO specialist include excellent writing and communication skills, creative problem-solving skills, and a strong understanding of how search engines work. 

You mention a very good understanding of how search engines work. Google recently announced that it has deployed an algorithm update called Helpful Content. What can you say about this update? 
The Content Helpful update is designed to improve the quality of search results by penalizing web pages containing low or duplicate content. This is a great step forward in improving the quality of search results for users. 

How much will this update affect Google Search results? 
This update will definitely impact the ranking of websites in Google search results. It is important to ensure that your website contains high-quality original content to avoid penalizing this update. 

You hear opinions that Google is introducing this update because of you, because more and more SEO specialists and content managers use artificial intelligence to generate content and according to Google, this is not qualitative content useful for the user … 
I’m not sure why people say Google is running this update through me. I think this is just a coincidence. Anyway, I think it’s great that they are trying to improve the quality of the search results for users. 

Ok, let’s leave the Google Helpful Content update. Tell me how the ability to generate content via AI will affect the work of copywriters? 
It is difficult to say exactly how the content generated by AI will affect the work of copywriters. I imagine it will automate some aspects of their work, but they will still have to come up with creative and original ideas. 

What specific aspects of copywriters’ work will be automated? 
I imagine AI generated content will automate some of the more technical aspects of copywriting, such as research and data collection. But the actual writing will still have to be done by a human being. 

Many copywriters now breathe a sigh of relief.. 
I am glad that the content generated by AI will help to partially reduce the pressure on copywriters. 

Ok, let’s change the subject. 2022 is not over yet, but what do you think is the most important event or change in the SEO industry this year? 
I think the most important event or change in the SEO industry this year is the continued growth of mobile search. More and more people are using their phones and tablets to search for things online, so it’s important to make sure your website is optimized for mobile devices. 

So the mobile year is still going on  
Yes, the mobile year is still going on! 

And what will be important in SEO in 2023 and what should SEO specialists pay special attention to in their activities? 
I think in 2023 SEO professionals should pay close attention to Voice Search. More and more people are using voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to search for things online, so it’s important to make sure your website is optimized for voice search. 

How to optimize pages for voice search? Is it different from classic website seo optimization? 
Yes, voice search optimization is different from traditional SEO. For voice search, it’s important to focus on long-tail keywords and natural language. You also need to make sure your website is mobile friendly and loads quickly as people use voice search more on their phones. 

So “SEO will not die” and it will simply change over the next few years … 
SEO is definitely not dead! It changes and evolves as the needs of users change 

Finally, a few words from you to all SEO specialists in Poland 
To all SEO specialists in Poland, I say: keep doing the job! You are making a difference for companies and helping people find the information they need. 

Observations 

• after translating the conversation from English into Polish, there were, for example, inappropriate grammatical forms, e.g. an incorrect variant of the word copywriter or individual words were translated by AI in a way that was not very contextual and did not match the sentence. However, the level of corrections was low. 
• in order to deepen the question, AI paraphrased or repeated what it had said before 
• responses are fairly general and perfunctory, even when a longer response was expected. AI showed knowledge of the nature of SEO activities, but lacked detail and the answers were quite schematic. 
• generating images did not always meet my expectations, but in subsequent iterations, after providing more information or a command to generate a variation of the image, I obtained the desired effect 
• AI can be “human” – it feels excited when it thinks about SEO, and to the provocative suggestion that Google is updating Helpful Content also because of the existing content generated by AI, it replies that it is a coincidence 
• the mobile year is still going on  

From this article you will learn:

1. What is user-intent?
2. How does Google determine users’ intentions?
3. What is RankBrain and how does it affect search results?
4. Google BERT Update – better understanding of individual queries and intentions
5. What is dwell time and how it affects positions in Google?
6. Why does Google pay so much attention to the user-intent?
7. Types of intentions of search engine users (search intent)
8. Hierarchy of needs in content marketing activities
9. Why is user intent important for SEO?
10. Why identify Intentions?
11. A perfect match between landing pages and intentions
12. What type of content will achieve good SEO results in 2020?
13. How intentions drive emotions?
14. 6 canonical consumer needs
15. Same queries, different emotions
16. How to differentiate micro-moments?
17. Role of identifying needs of search engine users

What is user-intent?

According to a dictionary definition, an intention is:

“An act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result. The end or object intended; purpose” (source: https://www.dictionary.com/)

In practice, this means fully-aware action aimed at achieving the intended goal.

Correct identification of intentions fosters effective communication and establishing relationships.  Just as marketing does – an effective advertising message is the one where the right content reaches the right person at the right moment. Long since, marketers have been trying to find out the real needs of their consumers and adjust their products and services to their preferences. However, there are situations when consumers do not directly communicate what they expect or do not know what could be the answer to this need. This was perfectly described by Henry Ford, the famous car factory founder, Detroit, 1903:

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said faster horses.”

In such a situation, the effective marketing message has to be focused not on the product, but on its features that solve specific problems or needs of potential users.

It is not much further than SEO where organic search results for a specific product are just a part of a long and complicated customer journey. SEO intent is all about the search intent.

Google’s search engine is a platform for associating users’ questions with websites where they find their answers. Long since search engines exist, the main goal of Google company is to develop complex search algorithms that increase the quality of organic results – that is, returning more and more accurate answers to queries entered by users. Currently, Google is very advanced at scanning and indexing content on the Internet. Much more effectively than before, it can also identify attempts to manipulate algorithms that assess the quality of content, author’s credibility and website’s authority.

How does Google determine users’ intentions?

Google has come a long way from evaluating site content through backlinks solely to machine learning. Initially, results were related closely to a phrase that user was asking about. Simply, the phrase had to appear in exactly the same form on the website or have a large number of backlinks suggesting it was the most appropriate destination for that phrase. As a result, website owners were placing (or even stuffing) keywords important for their business all around their websites. Needless to say, that way of keyword distribution was largely unnatural.

Early 2010’s was the time of three major algorithm updates roll-out: Panda in 2011 and Penguin in 2012. Panda meant to stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. Penguin intended to fight web spam. Then 2013 came with the Hummingbird update. It was a milestone in providing users with higher-quality results. Previous search engine that focused mainly on query semantics was replaced to better understanding the whole context and query meaning. Since then, results were better suited to the user’s intentions, and websites with low-quality content or a ranking manipulated (by positioners- wyrzuciłabym) appeared less and less in high positions.

However, the main challenge was that search engine users often simplify their questions to the form (of phrases) from which it is often difficult to read the intended result (intention).

What is RankBrain and how does it affect search results?

In 2015, the Hummingbird algorithm was supported by a search engine algorithm based on machine learning. RankBrain, as the new algorithm was called, was constantly analyzing phrases searched by users, looking for correlations between them and finally – learned to how to improve matching between the content of websites and a topic.

If RankBrain sees a word or a phrase it does not know, the machine tries to find synonyms with a word vector sorting method, also known as “distributed representations”. By converting words into a mathematical operation, it can return results with the best chance of matching and better interpret the relationships between words. It also analyzes patterns between seemingly unrelated searches to understand how those searches are similar to each other. Basically, RankBrain tries to guess what people mean.

In the following years, Google improved its search engine and updated the algorithm which resulted in better assessment of local results, optimization for mobile devices or featuring original journalistic content.

In recent years, the SEO industry has observed large fluctuations in position changes.

Industries related to health and money (referred as YMYL “Your Money or Your Life”) were put in the spotlight. Related EAT guidelines (“Expertise – Authoritativeness – Trustworthiness”) published in Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines gave us clear guidelines on how Google evaluates content and its quality on the Internet. These shifts in organic visibility have been called the Medic Update, and some specialists associate them with the later Florida 2: March 2019 Core Update.

However, the frequent changes in positions also applied to other industries. Websites increased their organic visibility to lose it again in a moment. In some cases it was difficult to find a pattern and indicate reasons for that. 

SEO specialists have observed changes depending on the kind of the landng pages that succeeded to score high visibility for given search quieries. And frequent changes in rankings for individual websites could indicate that Google tested matching different search results to users’ expectations.

Google BERT Update – better understanding of individual queries and intentions

At the end of 2019, Google introduced another major change to its search engine algorithms. The BERT update improves how Google understands user intent. BERT, or Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, is a natural language processing technique based on a neural network. It comprehensively analyzes queries in a bidirectional way, taking into account the meaning of individual words and their relationship between them. So far, the query has been analyzed one-way: word by word according to the order in which they were given by the user.

BERT was announced as one of the biggest and key changes in functioning of the platform. BERT pursues goals similar to RankBrain, but it works mainly for interpreting long-tail queries. It is still being discusses to what extend this system is able to deal with more complex languages, such as Polish. As for 2020, RankBrain and BERT functioning is synergized using machine learning to match search results to intentions.

What is dwell time and it affects positions in Google?

Another factor for assessing the results returned by the search engine algorithm (and also search intent) is the dwell time.

Dwell time is the amount of time that goes by from clicking on a search result and returning to the results in the search engine. It measures how much time users spend on a page, beginning and ending with the SERPs. It helps Google assess the relevance of the result received by users.

Google, using only internal data (without need to access website statistics), is able to determine or estimate the bounce rate and the duration of the session. Additionally, using the CTR data of the organic results of a given website, it can assess how willingly it is chosen by users as a landing page for organic queries. Analysis of deviations from average values can distinguish websites that are worth showing to users more often because they respond better to their needs. 

Why is Google paying so much attention to user intent?

Matching search engine results to intentions that has been consistently implemented by Google for many years, is aimed at providing us with more adequate answers to queries. That increases users’ trust in search results. As a result, users are more and more engaged with Google which in the long run provides more income from paid search engine services (e.g. Google Ads advertising).

All changes in the Google search engine show us clearly that it is worth taking care of valuable and useful content on our website. It should be constantly developed to meet the needs of users as much as possible.

Types of intentions of search engine users (search intent)

Until recently, digital marketing experts distinguished only three main types of intent: navigational, informational and transactional.

Navigational – a user is trying to get to a certain site.

Informational – a user is looking for information. 

Transactional – a user is prepared to buy or to perform some other specific online activity.

Some sources also use the terms as Know, Go, Do. Regardless of naming it is quite easy to match a given query to the appropriate type of intent.

Informational search queries

This group probably covers the largest number of queries. It represents the need to obtain a piece of information quickly or wishing to research on some topic. That kind of queries can relate to weather, recipes, advice, opinions or comparisons. They often begin with words such as “how”, “where”, “when” “why”.

Navigational search queries

These are the queries where users try to reach a specific brand or company, place or person. Keywords and queries here are quite specific and usually include branded queries (walmart, facebook account, youtube, canva login) or relate to a location (hairstylist near me, Warsaw City Hall).

Transactional search queries

Here the user is prepared to buy or to perform some other particular online activity. These queries focus on service providers (carpenter Warsaw) or purchasing a specific product (samsung galaxy s10 online store). Therefore, these queries are usually highly convertible. Thus, website owners care about these the most. 

Hierarchy of needs in content marketing activities

In the classic approach, one of the main SEO strategies is to develop visibility for informational queries. The key to an effective content plan is to understand the hierarchy of needs and choose the appropriate content marketing strategy for our goals and capabilities (time, resources, budget).

Usually, costs of activities rise along with the need’s priority in the pyramid which we want to respond to. So, when planning content marketing activities start with ones at the bottom of the hierarchy in order to create more ambitious content on subsequent levels over time.

Why is user intent important for SEO?

As you might have already noticed, terms such as “user intent” and “serch intent” alternate in this article. When it comes to the search engine, these two have basically the same meaning. Interpreting search intent correctly is closely related to selecting the right type of content for a given query.

Why Identify Intentions?

Understanding and adjusting to the intentions will provide us with more valuable traffic that is likely to convert. 

The right landing page increases the chances of a high CTR of your organic result. What is more, meeting users’ expectations gives us opportunity to encourage them to perform the next action. When users spend some time on a website, it is a signal for Google that our brand is effectively responding to the expectations of organic users, thus that content should be ranked higher on the search engine results page. 

A perfect match between landing pages and intentions

SEO specialists have recently observed that matching a landing page exactly to specific inquires is becoming more and more significant. Every time users enter queries into the search engine, Google tries to guess their intention and filters search results to so that all displayed website addresses are consistent with the identified intent.

Let’s see this with an example:

For similar queries regarding to real estate market Google interprets intentions differently and suggests different output.

Results for “new apartments London”:

Results for “apartments london 2020”:

In the first example, a developer’s only chance to feature their page of a specific investment is to have a well-optimized Google My Business location listing. Probability of showing such landing page for this phrase with a detailed description of the chosen investment only is very low. In this case Google prefers to list offers (10 out of 10 results in the TOP10) or even websites that aggregate various sales offers. That means users are apparently satisfied with this type of websites the most. In this case a recommended strategy would be focusing on high visibility in aggregate listings. An SEO specialist’s job here would be to analyze where the developer should publish their offer and recommend best practices for descriptions of these offers.

In the second example, Google did not associate the query with a local intent that would render the map. However, users here get a wide range of content where listings only make up 50% of the results. The first three TOP10 results are articles, one is an auto-generated ranking based on the number of views of the investment details, and the last place on the first page is the article listing tags page. Still, none of the results are pages of a specific offer. Therefore, the appropriate SEO strategy for this phrase will be to create highly informational content (newest industry reports, customer insights & market factsheets).

We can also find similar differences in other industries. See e-commerce as an example: inquiries about product groups (e.g., women’s handbags), a single well-optimized product page or an article with a lot of trusted backlinks has no chance to gain high visibility for this type of query, because Google identifies these phrases as a need to browse product lists.

Results for the phrase “women’s handbags”:

If the category level is neglected, our site has very little chance of good visibility for this group of queries (often these are the most popular and profitable phrases in the industry).

A sample of obtaining a high ranking for the phrase “women’s handbags”, even with the best article on the Internet, will not bring the desired result. Of course, the article will still have a chance to appear for other phrases and support domain authority. However, website owners should knowingly set realistic goals for this type of landing page.

Google is increasingly showing maps with local places for general (location-free) and category-related queries. This is a great chance to break through with our local site in a very competitive organic environment.

A very good strategy that works especially well in the fashion category, is getting visibility through Google Graphics and YouTube. This form of optimization usually does not require any off-site activities, so it can be implemented without the need to invest large media budgets.

What content to publish to achieve good SEO results in 2020?

Creating a vast majority of content that corresponds to different needs and reaches potential customers with our offer is the key to success, regardless of Google’s search intent classification.

Below you will find 8 types of effective content. Use them all!

1. Answer to ideas or questions
   Create rankings, precise answers to specific queries: smartphones up to PLN 1000, what washing machine to buy, cheap vacuum cleaners, how much is a good dishwasher.
2. Educate users to help them specify their need
   Publish technological tips and educational content in a given field: a smartphone with a good camera, a washing machine with a turbo function, a mobile phone with face recognition, eco bubble washing machine, wireless charging.
3. Advise on the purchase of specific products
   Through tests, expert reviews and product comparisons: iphone 8 or samsung s9, amica X cooker reviews, iphone X reviews
4. Use the potential of Google My Business
   Local business cards are not just a single pin on the map. It is also a path for communication of events in nearest location, offers, sale, and even quick contact via phone, text message or chat. Complete your profile with photos and videos to make your offer more attractive. Remember that a number of high ratings makes offers and service providers more credible among organic results.
5. Create listings of offers
   Properly optimized listings can be valuable landing pages for potential customers. Do it through expanding category tree, tags or filters. Consider if even a simple offer can be developed as a listing, e.g., key services list or a list of available bids from the entire investment portfolio.
6. Optimize product and offer pages
   Make use of all the possibilities of extending the search results (price, opinion, availability, FAQ, anchor links, etc) to draw attention. For instance, meta description tag is a perfect tool to highlight your value proposition and encourage users to click on that specific result. Take care of the brand’s reputation on the Internet, since a strong brand can further improve the CTR of the organic result. 
7.  Remember about off-site activity
   What if Google does not want to display your pages (e.g., study offers) and prefers aggregated offers? It is important to make sure that the offer has high visibility in external offer catalogs. Usually, an effective strategy is publishing inspirational articles on websites with strong domain authority. It is also worth considering outreach activities that are a complex content marketing campaign. It needs probably more media budget however it pays off afterwards. 
8.  Don’t forget about rich results
   Today, Google is nothing like the old traditional Internet search engine with a bunch of text links covering the whole page. Along with the rise of UX awareness and rapid tech development, Google returns results in a layout that increases their usefulness for specific users. Now it consists of:

• Graphics and galleries 
• Video results 
• Maps
• Booking boxes for travel, hotels, libraries
• Direct Answers (a feature that appears at the top of the SERP in response to implied or explicit queries for information which can be answered briefly with publicly available information)
• Knowledge graph from trusted sources
• A local business listing on the Google Knowledge Graph
• And organic results with an extension created with structured data (schema.org):

• News with a thumbnail
• A carousel of articles, recipes, courses, restaurants, films
• List of courses
• Reviews
• A quote of the opinion or review
• List of events
• Frequently asked questions about the topic
• Instruction with video, graphic and text content
• Interactive list with job offers or trainings
• Product information
• Recipe with graphic or a video thumbnail
• and more, depending on a category of queries.

Observe the organic results of the phrases that are key to your business and make sure that your site uses the potential of the extensions displayed in your industry. If you neglect this, even your lower ranking competition may steal your traffic by taking advantage of being featured and a higher CTR of results with the extension.

How do intentions drive emotions?

Let’s be honest – a decision-making process is far from being rational. It is based mostly on our emotions and how people feel at the particular moment. 

Upon this, in May 2019, Justin DeGraaf, Head of Research and Insights at Google, presented a new method of classifying intentions. He studied functional, social and emotional factors that influence consumer behavior and tried to find what ultimately determines users’ behavior when typing words and phrases in the search bar.

He proposed a new approach to intention based on needs. He explained that people usually do not wake up in the morning with an already set goal for the day. The human brain does not work that way. On general, an impulse will appear first (“I need something” or “I want something.”) and end up as an intention.

For example, if people search “interesting places in the center of Warsaw”, probably they are interested in spending free time with family and they need extra help or inspiration to plan their weekend. The need behind the question “the safest SUV cars” is not the offer to sell a specific model, but rather a desire to see rankings – a list of different car models in a specific order or independent opinions or facts why a given car is considered the safest.

Justin De Graaf identified six canonical consumer needs: Surprise Me, Help Me, Reassure Me, Educate Me, Impress Me, and Thrill Me. Each state of need is a combination of emotional, social and functional needs.

6 canonical needs of the consumer

Same queries, different emotions

It also turns out that the emotional motivation leading to a specific query is shaped not only by the categories of the need, but also by the stage of the consumer’s shopping journey.

Old-fashioned SEO strategies based on keywords only are no longer effective. Same queries at different stages of a customer’s shopping journey can have a far different meaning.

 Think With Google research provided us with a very interesting case study on search vs user needs in the long and complex process of booking a trip. The entire shopping journey lasted 126 days and consisted of 2,000 micromoments.

Micro-moments are impulses when we often instinctively seek answers to questions that appear one-by-one in our consciousness.

The Think With Google case focused on one part of the journey – the Niagara Falls trip, as it involved interesting user behavior upon arrival at the destination.

Six months before the trip, the user started searching for hotels and places to visit. Once getting there, the user looked for “interesting events near me today”. That show a clear interest in inspiration for activities in the area the user was currently visiting. By using a single query, the user actively browsed several different pages that responded to different needs – starting with a website with opinions on local trips, going through a tutorial article, and finishing at an encyclopedic entry from Wikipedia.

Internet marketing specialists face a new challenge of forecasting a vast majority of needs at various stages of the customer journey.

The internet user looks for something with a clearly expressed intention, often out of the need of the moment, and wants immediate results – this is the micro-moment mentioned above.

Google, noticing the enormous increase in this type of organic search, analyzed and divided them into several categories.

How to differentiate micro-moments?

I want to do

Example of the query: “How to build a grill on your own”.

From the marketer’s point of view, you should consider what a potential user could do with your product. The best answer to this is a how-to guide that would inspire users to buy specific products. For DIY related inquiries, it is also worth considering video content.

Porta makes excellent use of the micro-moment in which the consumer considers re-styling the living room. In a long article with many valuable tips for the user, there was room for presenting the Porta’s offer in a subtle non-intrusive manner.

I want to know

Example of the query: “what size of TV depending of the size of the room”.

At this point, the user expects reliable information. If the quality of the answers satisfies the user, our brand will gain credibility and the reputation of an expert. This gives you the chance to pass the lead to the store immediately or facilitate conversion later in the shopping journey.

Sony Center provides users with universal, comprehensive answers to frequently asked questions. Thanks to this strategy, they are able to reach people who have not previously considered buying Sony equipment when they specified their need.

I want to buy

Example of the query: “abs suitcase” or “cheap smartphone for a children online store”

This is the most attractive micro-moment for the seller. The user is very close to convert, but we can implement it in many ways, not only by responding to this query with a product page. For example, half of the customers in the beauty category buy products while watching a video about them at the same time. Including a “buy now” link in videos reviewing your product can be a great sales strategy.

Wittchen is well prepared for different intentions for the same-looking search queries, with both the article and the product category for the “abs suitcases” query. Our gut feeling can often let us down – for this query, Google mainly shows articles. Also, Wittchen uses a very attractive form of product presentation throughout the whole article. 

I want to go

Example of the query: “carpet shop, Łódź center” or “paintball near me”

This category of micro-moments is particularly important for local companies or networks with local points of sale. Local queries are a great opportunity for small businesses that have to compete with big industry leaders in Google. Use the potential of Google My Business. It is surprising how many popular and attractive phrases appear in the form of Google Maps results. 

This is an example of a situation where a user is interested in receiving information about pharmacies closest to his location. Those brands that neglect the Google My Business channel may lose very valuable traffic, oriented towards quick on-line conversion with personal pickup, or fail to take advantage of the potential of the ROPO effect (Research Online, Purchase Offline – search online, buy in store).

If website owners or ecommerce sellers ignore micro-moments, they will lose their customers at the key moment of an impulse purchase. A brand may lose a potential customer, even if it managed to interest them with their product earlier. The budget invested in an advertising campaign may be wasted, because of the absence of the brand at some stages of the shopping journey.

Summary – the role of identifying the needs of the search engine user

That article covers topics related to consumer (user) needs in terms of the SEO. Some of the marketing concepts or techniques mentioned here probably deserve separate articles. Summing up, marketers and sellers should remember about 4 main goals of identifying the needs of a search engine user.

The best content isn’t for everyone

Marketing specialists face the challenge of tailoring the message to the needs expressed by users at a given moment, a specific stage on their shopping path. One-size-fits-all messages are no longer effective. The key to success is a spot-on interpretation of user intent and guiding users to places (landing pages) that gives them the answers they seek. Still, many marketers are hesitant to guide users anywhere else than product pages where, as they believe, chances for conversion are the highest. Then there is a question:

Does it pay off to change your current product-focused marketing strategy?

Let the Olay case be the answer. In a Google Ads campaign, Olay stopped promoting its offer and targeting products. Instead, it decided to solve real problems of their potential customers and guide them to a content section with how-to articles. As a result, featured products gained more clicks and more sales!

The average click-through rate of the Olay campaign increased by 87%, and the average cost-per-click decreased by 30%. There was also a 100% increase of the conversion rate. 

Why attribution? Why data-driven?

But first, why is data-driven attribution the best solution actually? To know that you need to understand what is the aim of attribution and how it is achieved by rules-based models. Certainly you know that sessions aren’t equally valuable and not every user who entered a website will convert. Evaluating campaign performance by a number of impressions, clicks or CTR never shows precisely its impact on goals associated with generating conversions or revenue. However, results presented as distribution of conversions between channels enable objective evaluation of channel efficiency. And consequently whether a budget is spended optimally.

The easiest way to make attribution is to create a heuristic model based on simple rules of credit distribution across channels that occured in the path. On the infographic below you will find a comparison of the most important features of these models and the data-driven one. 

Common advantage of rules-based models is the fact that it is easy to understand the algorithms used to distribute conversion between channels. However, every model has its disadvantages resulting from too cursory research of clients paths. Imagine a quite frequent scenario where a user starts their journey from acquisition channels, then returns to the website thanks to remarketing campaigns and finally, when they decide to convert, they do it after entering the website using a brand channel (for example after typing shop’s name into a search engine). Linear model is the only rules-based model that doesn’t make assumptions about higher significance of particular elements of the user’s path – every step gains equal credit for bringing conversion. Sessions aren’t equally important though, some channels are more effective than others, but linear model don’t take up a challenge to identify those channels. Other heuristic models assume higher significance of channels placed in particular path phases making some channels underrated or overestimated. 

So the challenge here is to identify – in the fair way – which channels are the most efficient in encouraging clients to make a conversion. This challenge is taken up by data-driven models. In contrary to rules-based models, they use machine learning algorithms to evaluate the impact of every channel to conversion. These models take into consideration such factors as number of interactions, order of channels in the path, relations between channels and both converting and non-converting paths. In the end, a data-driven model can answer a question of the real added value of a channel when it appears in the user path. Common algorithms used in business are Markov chains model and Shapley value model.

Data-driven model is the best… but in which tool?

In every GMP tool data-driven attribution uses the same logic and is based on the same algorithm – Shapley value. In Blueattribution we have a slightly different approach – our model is based on Markov chains algorithm which performs better when business has many various channels. Another thing, which may be even more important than choosing a data-driven algorithm, is selection of data used to evaluate channels performance. That factor differs between GMP tools. 

On the one hand we have Search Ads 360 and Google Ads – tools that are very strong in actionability. Data-driven attribution results can directly improve campaigns, since they can be easily used to bid adjustment. Data-driven model will credit campaigns from every stage of the funnel based on their actual impact, so switching attribution model to data-driven may lead to more accurate ROAS calculation and better performance of the campaigns in the long run. The disadvantage here is the fact that these tools aren’t comprehensive, since they contain only a portion of marketing channels.

On the other hand we have products sharing a more complete story of marketing efforts. Data-driven attribution in Campaign Manager measures effectiveness of paid channels considering all conversion paths, but attributes to maximum 200 touchpoints. Unlike other tools, CM takes an advantage of third-party cookies so can also take impressions into consideration in the attribution model. It may be a huge benefit when you have display campaigns which don’t necessarily drive you clicks, but are important in building brand awareness. However, you have to be aware of inaccuracies caused by elimination of 3rd party cookies in popular browsers.

Campaign Manager shows us only paid channels results. To keep track with all marketing channels, including for example organic and social channels, we can use Google Analytics. First-party cookies enable click-based attribution. Although it is possible to use other data sources (Campaign Manager 360, Google Ads or Display & Video 360) to add impressions, it would introduce a bias to the model, since other channels, such as organic and social, wouldn’t have impression data in the model. Google Analytics offers two data-driven models – Attribution (beta) and attribution in Model Comparison tool for GA360 users only. The main difference between these approaches is the limitation put on data used in attribution models. Model Comparison tool considerates all paths but uses only the last four touchpoints of the path no matter how long ago they occured, whereas Attribution (beta) uses all touchpoints in the lookback window which can be set to at most 30 days. 

Investigating boundaries put on both modules we can conclude that businesses which clients need more time to make a converting decision, but don’t interact with website many times, should consider attribution in Model Comparison in GA360. In contrast, businesses which clients convert quickly, can use Attribution (beta) module. It seems that GA doesn’t offer a suitable solution for businesses with customers paths longer than 30 days and consisting of many interactions. To meet this need we recommend data-driven attribution in Blueattribution that is more flexible and can be adjusted to business needs. 

Read more:
https://www.fullstackexperts.eu/
https://attribution.bluerank.com/

We are currently observing the growing maturity of the organization in the area of ​​using analytics to achieve business and marketing goals. Maturity at the same time translates into a growing demand for enterprise-class tools. Who needs them? Contrary to the suspicions, it is not only large organizations, potentates of their industries. More and more often, aggressive startups reach for such tools as Google Analytics 360. Young, dynamically developing technology companies, innovative, often supported by global investment funds. In addition, the client and supplier meet across borders of countries and regions, which is also an evidence for the search for the best solutions and services, regardless of theoretical geographical limitations.

Why do companies choose Google Analytics 360?

• A specific level of Service Level Agreement, along with a constant scope of support from the Google Marketing Platform partner
• Increased limits and no data sampling – for an extensive data architecture
• Integration with BigQuery – for advanced data analysis and integration with BI
• Integration with SalesForce – for combining marketing and sales data
• Integration with the marketing platform (Display & Video 360) – for accurate reporting and better campaign targeting

Increasingly, companies are reaching for, not one but a set of analytical tools from the Google Marketing Platform. 360 Analytics for accurate measurement, Data Studio for convenient reporting, Optimize 360 ​​for constant content optimization.
We are pleased to see how the Google Marketing Platform responds to the further needs of our clients.

More aboutj Analytics 360

Advertising activities on Facebook are a topic which reliably generates a real flood of articles. The countless number of factors that should be taken into consideration when creating a Facebook ad campaign can overwhelm a novice advertiser. The growing competition and rising demands of users mean that what worked yesterday might not necessarily work tomorrow. Luckily, Facebook is constantly testing new solutions, offering its advertisers an ever-wider range of options.

The advertising trends for 2018 include two particularly attention-grabbing terms: automation and transparency. The first term is inseparably connected with personalisation, the second with authenticity, and both steam from the needs of both consumers and advertisers. Facebook wants to satisfy both of these groups. It gives advertisers tools that allow them to create personalized creations whose intentional use can translate into closer ties with customers and greater trust in the brand. Customers are more likely to pay attention to advertisements that match their interests, which makes them also more likely to respond to them in the manner desired by the advertiser. Brands that value their customers ‘expectations, as well as experiences generated by their advertising activities, have a better chance not only to catch people’s attention, but to gain their sympathy and, consequently, trust and loyalty.

So how should you promote your company on Facebook to make sure your actions are effective? The remaining section of the article is devoted to description of 5 steps which will help you get the most out of Facebook ads and encourage you to experiment.

The result measures the effectiveness of the chosen objective

From the point of view of optimisation, one of the most important variables is the one which is chosen at the very beginning of the campaign creation process – selection of the campaign’s objective. As there are several different options available, there are many possibilities to choose from. The whole process, which is not as easy as it seems, will certainly run more smoothly if the following question is asked first: what kind of action should the user undertake after seeing the ad? Even if the answer is simple and specific, the process of choosing the campaign objective should not end here. It may turn out that the most valuable conversions are gained through the campaign aimed at generating traffic on the website rather than the one which was explicitly meant to generate them. Every strategy should include the stage of testing campaigns on Facebook, as quite often it turns out that the path leading to the desired effects is a complicated one, and the conclusions reached from the journey can be surprising.

Personalisation – more than simple targeting

Because customers are becoming more and more adapt at ignoring the ads, advertisers will need to find ways to improve their targeting to display more personalised ads. Facebook itself is most likely to help them by adding additional targeting segments going beyond broad interest/behaviour categories. Before this happens, you can use the already available methods to create the most precise user groups possible. You have at your disposal such solutions as the ability to create custom recipient categories, which provides really broad possibilities. If you use the information on your customers’ purchases and the products they viewed or found interesting in an effective manner, you can send them advertising messages which are especially tailored to match their needs and interests.

DCO and automation

Advertisers should opt for automation in order to ensure that they will remain competitive in 2018. Several months ago Facebook has introduced a new tool that allows automatic selection of the most effective combinations of advertising resources – photos, text, headers, CTA – for the chosen group of recipients. The marketing automation platforms are a more advanced solution which allows to effectively implement and integrate ads with the CRM system, and use the budget more effectively on the Facebook advertising platform.

Push Messenger – experiment with placements

The mobile advertising market is growing fast and may soon dwarf the good old-fashioned desktop advertising. It is expected that this medium will sooner or later surpass all other digital advertising platforms. Considering that the future lies in mobile marketing, you should take appropriate steps to start using its potential in your advertising activities. Facebook has predicted this trend some time ago and offered a new placement to advertisers – Messenger. It gives you the ability to quickly reach customers, and ads displayed using Messenger have a better chance of getting people’s attention, due to the fact that not many brands have been using this solution so far.

Time for moving images

The hottest trends for 2018 include not only content marketing and communication transparency, but foremost video-based marketing. Although the potential of this format has been growing for several years, most of the advertising creations on Facebook still takes the form of static banners. Video is currently an undeveloped area, so it still represents untapped potential, but soon enough it will become a necessary element of any advertising efforts.

Advertising on Facebook does not have to be difficult, but it should definitely be well-thought-out and adjusted if not tailored to its audience. Now is the time to look for new solutions, to track changes and to test new products. You should observe your customers very closely and follow all new developments within the industry attentively in order to make sure that your company is well-prepared for the future.

Focus on the community

When creating content for your fan page, you should focus on being empathetic, not on your KPIs. Making sure that your content represents important substantive value for your community is the key to “meaningful social interactions” mentioned by Mark Zuckerberg. If a company produces content that nobody wants to identify with, the organic reach of its posts will be effectively limited.

Fight for the returning audience

Video, especially live streams, has been ranked very highly on the “reach pyramid” defined by the Edge Rank algorithm. Still, the key to success is not the format itself, but creation of content that engages the audience in such a way that people want to regularly return to its source. Consider preparing a series of videos that will not only provide valuable content, but will help build loyal groups of viewers who will be happy to return to your posts (“repeat viewership”).

Make sure external content is of high quality

Facebook does not like it when users migrate “outside” its platform. Therefore, when you provide links to any external content, make sure you pay attention to its quality. The reach of your posts will be affected by such factors as website optimisation for load time, its correct or incorrect display on mobile devices or the number of ads displayed. You should also pay attention to the quality of the content available on the landing pages to which you direct your audience.

Reconsider the engagement bating

“Share now if …”, “Tag 15 friends with whom …”. The reach of such posts, as ones which do not represent significant value for Facebook users, will be limited. This rule also applies to posts inviting people to vote with reactions, asking them to enter comments with a specific phrase or respond to posts using specific reactions. Avoid this type of posts and opt for a more creative CTA.

Build a contact platform

The expansion of automation in 2017 created great opportunities for using Facebook as a contact platform and a place for cross-platform integration. Setting up the Messenger plugin on the website will allow you to potentially reach people who would not have reached your fanpage. If you also integrate it with a chatbot, whose reaction paths will eventually convert the user to the online store, you can start implementing the real business objectives. In the case of remarketing activities, Messenger acts as a newsletter whose view statistics, not to mention the click rates, are many times higher than those of traditional mailings.

The material presented above is part of the article titled “Eksperci o zmianach, które szykuje Facebook” [Experts on changes announced by Facebook] which has been published in Social Media Manager 1/2018 (www.facebook.com/socialmediamanagerpl)