Google "Your Money or Your Life" for Attorneys

"Your Money or Your Life" is a Google guideline that classifies website content by its potential impact on a user's life, finances or safety. Legal content specifically is subject to this guideline because it can influence critical life decisions and potentially lead to financial loss and criminal or civil penalties.

Why attorneys need to pay attention to YMYL

• Google applies its strictest standards to YMYL content when evaluating your website information on criteria of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) - a related Google quality guideline.
• Legal content that Google finds to fall short of its YMYL standards will rank poorly in search.
• Potential clients as well as Google will sense a shortfall in the critical YMYL dimension of your content, costing you business.

How to demonstrate that users' money and lives can safely be entrusted to your firm

• Publish attorney biographies that stress credentials, experience and specializations
• Publish specific case studies
• Publish articles that demonstrate your understanding of legal topics
• Tell users about your participation in the legal community: association memberships, publications, committees.
• Link to, and get links from, high-authority legal websites.
• Mention any professional recognitions you have received.
• Get listed in legal directories.
• Mention and link to media and blog articles about your firm.
• Make sure your firm name, address and phone number are consistent internet-wide.
• Use secure HTTPS website hosting and password-protected client forms.
• Use a disclaimer that distinguishes information from legal advice.
• Go easy on legal jargon - talk to users as you would to friends.
• Update content regularly - Google especially likes that.
• Make sure your website works correctly - no broken links - loads fast and is mobile-friendly.

Go here to see a lot more about opportunities in Google Ads for lawyers. Also, you can read here about how Google Search is a critical marketing channel for attorneys and many other local businesses, and follow this link for more information on optimizing your website for Google search.

Questions? Happy to answer. No charge. Shoot me an email.

Suddenly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, marketers have raced to replace their normal, carefully crafted ad campaigns - demonstrated to be making sales and acquiring repeat customers - with ads apparently designed to demonstrate the advertiser's empathy with consumers who are suffering hardships because of COVID-19. (If you doubt that, be sure to watch the video, below.)

Of course most American consumers ARE suffering hardships because of COVID-19, but do they need to be reminded of that by advertisers?

Since businesses have been closed and stay-at-home orders put into place around the country, Americans have been consuming media at record rates, with impressions on some major news sites spiking, clickthrough rates doubling and sessions lasting up to 20% longer than before.

A survey conducted earlier this month by video ad platform Unruly found that only 2% of Americans want advertising to stop altogether, while 80% of people aged 18-44 reported increased cellphone use, and 60% of those aged 18-54 reported watching more TV.

Cutting back severely on "real" advertising at this time wastes a major opportunity. Ads can still be COVID-19-sensitive while driving business - current, or perhaps more importantly, future business - from all these captive, media-consuming people.

The State of Digital Advertising 2019 report released by analysts at SEM platform providers Marin Software finds that 2019 digital ad spend across industries was allocated like this:

• Paid search 39%
• Paid social 19%
• Display 15%
• YouTube 11%
• eCommerce 10%
• Mobile/In App 9%

Top strategic goals reported were:

• Increase brand awareness 25%
• Enhance CX 22%
• Embrace omnichannel marketing 20%

Top tactical goals were:

• Deliver personalization 20%
• Embrace social media 19%
• Optimize paid search 19%
• Manage campaigns better 19%

Top challenges in search:

• Hitting volume targets 29%
• Hitting ROI or ROAS targets 28%
• Integrating product feeds 27%

Top challenges in social:

• Attribution 28%
• Producing quality creative 26%
• Brand safety 26%

Google was rated "most trusted publisher" with a score of 4.5/5, followed by YouTube with 4.3/5.

Top 3 industry challenges most impacting business:

• Data privacy/Tracking restrictions/Ad blocking 22%
• Video advertising 22%
• Visual search 21%

Top trend: 84% said they use or plan to use Google Responsive Search Ads because they produce more clicks and conversions vs. Expanded Text Ads.

Most effective social ad format:

• Video 32%
• Image 26%
• Stories 23%
• Carousel ads 19%

Results are based on a survey of 460 digital marketing managers reporting $1M-$49M in annual digital ad spend across most major industries, B2B and B2C about equally.

Comment:

Marin being in the "SEM platform" business could skew the results in favor of paid search, but probably not enough to change the rank-ordering of media they found. And their sample is of pretty good size measured by both numbers of respondents and aggregated spend. It bothers me though that top 3 strategic goals don't include "sell more stuff" or "add to bottom line". Are these marketers too far from the top? I have to wonder how owners and CEOs of these companies would have answered that question.

At Advertising Week in New York in September, CMO Andréa Mallard pitched Pinterest as "the world's inspiration company."

Why should marketers care? Quoting Ms. Mallard:

"The age of interruption is over. The next generation of ads have to inspire. People have gotten good at ignoring ads that get in their way. They're over the annoyance; one in four people are now using ad blockers. In today's multi-screen, multimedia environment, the only way to stand out is to fit in. So how can ads better “fit in” with consumers’ lives? The first step is returning to the reason we all got into advertising in the first place: let’s get back to inspiring."

And specifically with regard to the travel industry, according to Pinterest Global Head of Vertical Strategy Vikram Bhaskaran:

"What's special about our business is the unique mindset where travelers are open, they're undecided and they're really looking for content from brands...Here's a place where people are explicitly coming for inspiration around travel. And you can reach them in a way that's additive to the experience."

Some statistics on Pinterest and its audience are also interesting in this connection:

• In 1Q2019 Pinterest had 291M monthly active users worldwide and awareness reach of 72%.
• 79.5% of Pinterest users are women (who are overwhelmingly the people who plan family vacations and other significant trips). Women aged 25-54 make 80% of the buying decisions in US households.
• 51% of female Pinterest users say they have found new brands by browsing Pinterest.

Also Pinterest claims:

• Travelers are 2X more likely to use Pinterest vs. traditional online travel sites. Recent hot search topics included "less traveled islands" and "small town travel".
• 97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded.
• 78% of users say they have made a purchase based on seeing travel content from brands on the platform.
• 73% of users say Pinterest inspired them to plan an additional (previously unplanned) trip.

According to the digital marketers at WebFX.com typical costs for Pinterest ad campaigns are:

• Building brand awareness: $2-$5 for 1000 impressions
• Boosting engagement or driving Web traffic: $0.10-$1.50 per engagement

Comment: The combination of 97% unbranded searches and 79.5% users being women makes Pinterest look interesting as platform where tourism destinations and businesses - even little-known ones - could get the attention of potential visitors while they're in the "inspiration" stage of trip planning.

Go here for more on how Google Ads and SEO will up your tourism game.

Disclaimer: As always, neither Pinterest nor any of the companies or individuals mentioned have compensated me in any way fore this review.

The New Mexico Tourism Department (NMTD) has issued for competitive bidding RFP #20-418-1003-00001-00 for "...an advertising firm to further the mission of our tourism initiatives..." and enhance the New Mexico True brand.

Further:

"We seek a local full-service advertising agency that can help New Mexico True continue to grow in the marketplace, as well as continue to evolve strategically and creatively to build awareness for New Mexico to the traveling public. This includes media buying and creative production under the banner of New Mexico True."

Projected budget is $11M per year for a term not to exceed 4 years.

Contractor shall (This is a very brief summary):

• Provide creative, production, distribution, media placement, collaboration, strategy and account services in support of the New Mexico True brand.
• Identify target markets.
• Employ marketing strategies using both traditional and new media.
• Develop:
  • Fly market plan
  • In-state plan
  • Drive market plan
  • Niche-group plan
• Provide oversight of industry brand adoption.
• Collaborate with NMTD and 3rd parties.
• Track budget monthly.

Requirements:

• Relevant experience with state government and private sector
• 3 references from similar projects done for private, state or large local government clients (NMTD will send each reference an Organizational Reference Questionnaire requiring ratings of the agency on a scale of 0 to 3 on various attributes.)
• Oral presentation by staff members
• Primary place of business located in New Mexico
• Short-range strategic plan for marketing to Mexican market
• Demonstrated financial stability
• Able to secure performance surety bond
• Proposal not over 100 pages
• Present 3+ proposed developments of New Mexico True brand

Proposals are due by 8 July 2019. Contract is expected to be awarded by 30 August 2019.

More info is here:

Ray A. Maestas

Procurement Manager

ray.maestas@state.nm.us

505-827-7418

It looks like New Mexico is looking for an Experienced Government Contractor as well as a local one. I'm afraid that may not get them the most creative agency. But it's their $44M.

Go here for more on how Google Ads and SEO will up your tourism game.