The 10 Most Watched YouTube Ads of 2016 (And the Agencies Behind Them)
Most ads on YouTube are something to be endured, muted, and skipped immediately after the mandatory five seconds has passed. It’s nothing personal — people just want to get to the good stuff.
So how can advertisers create branded videos that users actually want to watch?
For an ad to be sought out and consumed willingly on YouTube, it needs to stand out as an enjoyable, compulsively shareable piece of content. It can’t just be a typical advertisement — it needs to compete for attention with viral, non-branded content.
To better understand what YouTube users want in a watchable online ad, let’s take a look back at what worked in 2016.
Google released a list of the top 10 most watched ads on YouTube from 2016, and we’ve compiled them here to inspire your next digital ad campaign. All advertisers and marketers should be taking notes: These are the online ads people actually wanted to watch in 2016.
The 10 Most Watched YouTube Ads of 2016
1) Mobile Strike
Things escalate quickly in this extended Super Bowl spot for Mobile Strike, an online multiplayer game. Starring former California governor and beloved action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, the plot follows Schwarzenegger as he’s attacked by a slew of characters after opening up the Mobile Strike app on his phone.
A deadly fight for the phone ensues, and pretty soon there’s a military tank crashing through the walls and marines rappelling from the ceilings.
Created by San Francisco-based 215mccann, the one-minute spot was the number one watched spot on YouTube in 2016, amassing over 102 million views since its release in February.
2) Knorr
MullenLowe created this clever digital campaign for global food and beverage brand Knorr. In the three-minute ad, a group of singles are paired off based on their favorite flavor profiles (e.g., spicy, hearty, salty etc.) and then asked to feed each other a meal matching the flavor preferences they share. The results are delightfully awkward.
It’s a weird but undeniably touching social experiment, and Ukonwa Ojo, senior global director at Knorr, insists the emotions they captured on film were completely candid. “It’s as real as I can humanly make it with cameras and equipment and people standing around,” Ojo said to Adweek.
The ad has been watched over 60 million times on YouTube since its release in April.
3) Nike Football
Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo experiences a Freaky Friday moment with a young fan in this short film from Nike and Wieden + Kennedy. After taking a tumble into the crowd during a match, Ronaldo and a young British soccer fan switch bodies
Naturally, the kid is in awe to find himself inhabiting the body of the famous footballer, but he quickly learns he’ll have to improve his soccer skills if he’s going to pass as Ronaldo. Meanwhile, the real Ronaldo — trapped in the body of a teenager — steadily rises through the ranks of youth football. Over the course of a year or so, he’s made it to the pros.
Clocking in at nearly six minutes, it’s Nike’s longest brand film ever — but it’s definitely worth sticking around for the climactic ending. It’s no surprise that it’s picked up over 58 million views on YouTube.
4) Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge
Developed in-house at Samsung, this extended ad introduced consumers to the much-anticipated Galaxy S7 and S7 edge back in February.
The introduction video excels at condensing a lot of information into an easily digestible format, with sleek graphics and a dramatic soundtrack. The video was watched over 46 million times.
5) Clash Royale
Leave it to creative agency Barton F. Graf to produce something zany, offbeat, and yet somehow still universally appealing enough to get almost 38 million views on YouTube.
This ad for Clash Royale, a multiplayer mobile game, stars an turtleneck-clad keyboard player exuberantly explaining “the rules of the duel” — in song, naturally. And not just any song. The whole ad is set to an altered version of “Flash” by Queen.
6) Mtn Dew Kickstart
This ad raises more questions than it answers. What the heck is that thing? How did it get into that apartment? What made those guys think following it outside would be a good idea?
The Superbowl ad for Mtn Dew’s energy beverage, produced by BBDO, rapidly gained viral attention for it’s visually unsettling main character: a Frankenstein creation with the head of an adorable pug, the torso of a monkey, and the legs of a human baby. It’s not pretty to look at, but no one can deny that puppymonkeybaby accomplished what it set out to do: Get people talking. The ad received 27 million hits on YouTube.
7) Always
Always worked with agency Leo Burnett to produce this ad focusing on female empowerment through sports. The ad, which ran during the summer Olympics, features a group of young women and girls explaining discouraging comments they’ve received about their athleticism, and encouraging all young girls to stick with sports no matter what.
The positive message propelled the ad to 27 million views.
8) Hyundai
Hyundai’s Superbowl ad from agency INNOCEAN USA opens on a couple racing through the woods — with two vicious grizzly bears in close pursuit. Thanks to the voice activated technology on their Hyundai, they’re able to make a speedy getaway.
The grizzly bears, discouraged by their prey’s escape, plop down for an unexpectedly cartoonish conversation. “I was just gonna hug him!” one of them says. It’s an amusing example of thwarted expectations that drew in 26 million YouTube viewers.
9) Pokémon
This Superbowl ad from Los Angeles-based agency Omelet celebrates 20 years of Pokémon with cinematic flair.
Taking cues from sports advertising, the commercial follows a series of kids and young adults as they train in their respective fields, drawing inspiration from each others’ successes. In the final scene, a young boy witnesses an epic Pokémon battle on TV, and his dad declares, “You could do that.” The ad received 25 million views on YouTube.
10) Skittles
Skittles is no stranger to delightfully weird advertising, and their Superbowl commercial this year was no exception. In the DDB Chicago-produced spot, Aerosmith rocker Steven Tyler is presented with a portrait of his likeness made entirely from Skittles. And it sings, of course.
24 million people tuned in to see the ad.
What ads did you watch on YouTube in 2016? Let us know in the comments.
Hunting Down SERP Features to Understand Intent & Drive Traffic – Next Level
Posted by jocameron
Welcome to the seventh installment of our educational Next Level series! In our last episode, Jo showed us how to better optimize our sites when we think we’ve done it all (but still aren’t ranking). This time around she’s giving us the tools and the knowledge to finally capture ourselves a SERP feature. Read on and level up!
Are you within striking distance of traffic-bumping SERP features?
The content on your freakin’ awesome site better be targeting the intent of the searcher.
People of the world want different types of content depending on what they search. If you get this right, your content will earn the engagement signals that tell search engines you’re fighting the good fight.
The stakes are even higher now. Not only are you battling it out in the organic results, but there are attention-grabbing features that draw clicks away from organic results.
But, hey now, chin up! You can use these features to focus on keywords with higher opportunity and win those bobby-dazzlers to drive even more traffic.
I’m going to show you how to use the ever-impressive SERP features to check whether you’re targeting intent and whether the entirety of your content satisfies searcher intent, putting you within striking distance of owning some of those queue-jumping features.
Follow along in your Moz Pro account or start a free trial, it’ll be fun, trust me.
What is searcher intent?
Intent is the nuanced language people use to search different things, and it drastically changes what they’re really, truly seeking.
Every single time a human inputs their heart’s desire into that blank, judgement-free rectangle, they’re asking Google to satisfy their intent.
Show me your best “headphone reviews,” your most reliable “sewing machine repairs,” your funniest “cat vs printer gifs,” I command thee!
Headphone reviews – I want comparisons, specs, images, first-hand experiences. Maybe I’ll buy something, eventually.
Sewing machine repairs – I’m looking for a local business who I can call or visit. Or an instructional article or video.
Cat vs printer gifs – Desperately seeking images in the .gif format of a furry friend freaking out over a machine friend.
With a few simple clicks on my keyboard, my intention is revealed. As a marketer, if you’re targeting keywords with particular intent, then this needs to be reflected in your content. As a searcher, I haven’t got time to read a long article about cat gifs and printers. I want an array of images to choose from. Likewise, I don’t want to scroll through an image gallery when I’m looking for a service, or an in-depth guide when I’m on the precipice of entering that ever-so-tempting sales funnel.
Now let’s look more specifically at the headphone niche. If you sell headphones you might think, “If I can stuff my landing page with a bit of jazzy content and get it in front of every person who searches for ‘headphones’ in every weird and wonderful way, I’m bound to get a chunk of traffic and *bam*, I’ll sell a bunch of headphones.”
It doesn’t really work like that. If your content doesn’t satisfy the intent indicated by the searcher, they’re likely to head back to search — and you just know Google is paying attention to this behavior. So you could end up sending signals to Google that your content isn’t all that good as it sends your visitors back to search. And because Google wants everyone to find what they’re after, your rankings could take a trip to page-two obscurity.
The different types of searcher intent
Intent for the purpose of marketing your content can be lumped into three different types that broadly encapsulate what warm bodies are looking for. This is explained in more detail in this post by Tom Anthony. Here is a brief recap that looks at how searches in the headphone niche can fit into vastly different intent types:
Informational: what were the first earbud headphones?*
Navigational: cnet headphone reviews
Transactional: cheap travel headphones
* I’m going to go all hipster on you and say it was the stethoscope, which morphed into it’s current shape around the 1850s according to Wiki.
Can you see how the implied intent varies depending on the phrasing around the search term? As you research your own target keywords, build up lists, and use those lists to formulate content, the implied intent of the searcher plays an important role in what form your awesome content will take.
It also goes hand-in-hand with your journey into long-tail keywords.
As the marketers of the world have been paying attention to the implied intent to guide their content creation, so indeed has the biggest website on the planet. The website that reduced internet usage by 40% when it went down for 2 minutes a few years ago. Yeah, you’ve heard of them, right? Well, they’re taking a big, old, sloppy bite of the intent pie. In their quest to give the people what they want right in the results pages, Google unleashed The Glorious SERP Feature.
What the wicky-wack are SERP features?
The fancy-schmancy SERP feature is Google’s way of dazzling users with its more-than-a-result result.
It’s Google’s way of saying ‘I hear you’ with its finger guns out, blowing imaginary smoke and reholstering them back into its pockets whilst leaning over the back of your chair, all pleased with itself.
Features might pop up all over the results, like this:
The one with its paw in the air ready to swat? Argh, too cute.
Or they might shuffle into the results, like so:
Then again, they may hang out over here, all nonchalant but desperate to please at the same time:
With 16 different varieties currently documented, they’re like the chameleon of the SERP kingdom: taking relevant content and reinventing itself like a shapeshifting lizard queen (or Madonna).
What SERP features can I win?
There are a handful of features you can reasonably have a punt at without throwing cash at Google: Featured Snippets, Related Questions, Image Packs, Site Links, Tweets, Videos, and the News Box. I’m going to focus on Featured Snippets, Related Questions, and Image Packs.
The rest of the features are within the reach of larger sites, Google partners, or local businesses. I’m not going to dive into the local aspect in this post, as our Local Learning Center is a good place to start that journey.
For regular schmoes like us, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on all 16 features and their presence in the results for keywords you’re tracking. Even if you can’t win them they will elbow out organic results.
Featured Snippets: These are like having those fast-track passes at your local theme park. You can jump from somewhere else in the results to position ZERO, and then you’re pretty much owning that SERP.
Rob Bucci is my featured snippet guru and you’ll probably join the ranks after watching his talk at Brighton SEO.
Related Questions: If you’re tracking Featured Snippets, then you’ll want to familiarize yourself with their buddies, the Related Question.
Winning a Related Question will most likely get you a small bump in clicks through to your site; nothing wrong with that. However, the treat you don’t want to miss out on is grabbing those questions and adding them to your tracked keywords in Moz Pro. Often, this will help you sniff out a Featured Snippet you can target.
Image Packs: I looove image packs — there aren’t enough ways to display that in text form. I’m very visually motivated and I spend a fair bit of time searching for animated .gifs. If you watch Rob Bucci’s talk then you’ll know that they didn’t tend to find overlap with Featured Snippets. So these are a good opportunity to target the visually minded and increase your chances of getting traffic through features across more keywords.
How to use SERP Features to target intent
Back in the olden days, like 6 months ago, you would look at keyword modifiers and find transactional terms like ‘buy,’ ‘cheap,’ and so on, then bundle these into the ‘transactional’ pile, and so on and so forth and rinse and repeat.
Now, in the bright and shiny land-of-the-future, we can use the presence of particular features to understand the intent as Google sees it. You’re doing two very important things here: lumping your keywords into piles to understand intent that you will use to guide your content, AND identifying features you can win and those that may push you out of the results.
Identify the features present for your target keywords
As with every job there is a manual method and a tool-based method. Manual is totally fine for people with small sites, like a personal blog, and a handful of keywords. I hope that by explaining the basic manual method it will lay the foundation of understanding when we ramp up to the tool-based method.
Okey dokey spreadsheet fans, get ready for the keyboard + mouse dance we do when filling up a spreadsheet with lovely data. Start by searching your keywords one-by-one, use incognito mode to avoid personalised results, and add a mark to the sheet next to the features that are present.
Here’s a sheet with all the features already added to get you started. I even added some gentle colors inspired by the first episode of Black Mirror Season 3. Lacie’s giving it 5 stars.
Don’t forget to check out the second tab with your handy-dandy SERP feature cheatsheet.
This is a good way to start understanding more about the different SERP features, identify what they look like, where they hang out, and how intrusive they are.
Identify and track SERP features with Moz Pro
Got more than a handful of keywords? Want all this data for your site and your competitors? Want a tool to do the heavy lifting for you? Don’t we all.
Did I mention before about the Moz Pro has a 30-day free trial? I’m pretty sure I did, but it was so far up the page and the follow-along-with-me part is starting right now! It will do all the SERP feature hunting, tracking, and cataloguing for you.
Moz Pro will identify the presence of all 16 SERP features and will also be able to show you if your site is present in Featured Snippets, Image Packs, In-depth Articles, Local Packs, Reviews, Site Links, and Videos.
First off, head to the SERP Features tab under Rankings.
You’ll see the percentage of features present for the keywords you’re tracking (in gray), along with the percentage of features your site is present in (in blue).
Find out how you are performing against your competitors
Underneath the Overview chart look for the filter icon, click it and scroll down to choose SERP Features and enter your desired feature. I’m going to start with Image Packs. It’s fairly easy to optimize some image — don’t forget to add informative file names, alt text, and correctly compress your images.
This little feature key will help you decipher the results:
Blue: Your site is in the feature.
Orange: You and one or more of your competitors are in the feature.
Red: You are not in the feature, but one or more of your competitors are.
Gray: A SERP Feature exists but no one in your campaign is present.
Keep an eye out for features your competitor is dominating by clicking the SERP Features header to filter the results.
Identify keywords you’re on page one for with features that you could win
If you’re on page one for your desired keyword, and there is a Feature Snippet present, then there is a gift there, just waiting for you. Kind of like when you had that Amazon parcel sitting on your front doorstep, getting chewed on by your neighbor’s dog and piddled on by their cat and you’re in your house just meters away, blissfully unaware.
Become aware by heading to the SERP Features tab and filtering by Featured Snippets.
Hit that Rank header until the arrow is pointing up, then scroll down to peruse keywords with Feature Snippets present sorted by your rank. The tooltip Insights indicates I’m within striking distance of owning this snippet.
Ronell outlines a strategy for winning and keeping a Featured Snippet. At its heart, it’s about pure laser-focus on intent, find the question, answer said question, add value, and make it accessible to humans and bots.
Identify pages that are dropping in the rankings and check that the content matches intent
For this I’m going to head to my Rankings tab, containing all the keywords I’m tracking in my Moz Pro campaign.
Double click the little up/down icon header twice to filter all the down-arrow keywords to the top of the pile.
I’ve noticed that my rankings have dropped for my coveted keyword ”learn how to moz,” and I want to figure out if there are some SERP features present that could indicate whether my content could be targeting intent better. So I’ll click the keyword to open up the Keyword Analysis. Then scroll down to Your Performance and toggle to SERP Features from the drop-down menu.
You’ll see all the different types of features on the left-hand column and when they were present in the results for your keyword indicated by the light gray line.
I’m not seeing any Featured Snippets or Image Packs, but lookie here! A Related Question…
Remember what we said about Related Questions? Track those beauties down and add the questions to your bundle — you might just find a Featured Snippet hiding out there.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll snap up those questions and add them to my Moz Pro campaign.
Now the next time my campaign updates I can check for tasty little Featured Snippets to target.
Now back to analyzing intent. I’m going to look at that page and see what can be improved to better match the intent as implied by Google.
I can see that videos are present, so I’m going to pop a video into my content. It may not show up as a feature on the results page, but I’m responding to what the searchers of the world are seeking, and I’m also thinking this will keep people on the page whilst serving their needs.
Repeat, and sort your Tracked Keywords by Rank
You can also follow this same process by sorting by Rank to find keywords where you’re on the bottom of the first page or the top of the second page to suss out the intent as indicated by the presence of certain SERP Features.
Then zip back up to the last step and repeat the process of analyzing keywords for features to figure out intent and hunt down those tasty features.
Wrapping up
Here’s a quick recap: SERP features are your insight into what content Google thinks best serves the needs of searchers for any given keyword.
You can use the presence of features to quickly understand the implied intent for your target keywords and cross-reference this with a drop in rankings to improve how your content meets the needs of searchers.
By combining the feature power of Image Packs, Related Keywords, and Featured Snippets you’ll be covering the most effective organic features and potentially queue-jumping your way to position ZERO.
For the organic fanatics, you’ll also be able to track all 16 features and give more love to those with features you can win whilst artfully stepping around keywords with unobtainable features overcrowding the results and pushing your tasty URL into the lost land of page 2.
Happy hunting!
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How school superintendents explored the future of learning together
As education leaders, we’re expected to have all the answers. When we don’t, we solve problems by talking to our peers. The School Superintendents Association (AASA) invites administrators and educators to come together and talk about the challenges superintendents face, like how best to integrate technology in the classroom. This is a focus of the AASA’s digital consortium leadership cohort, which recently reached out to Google to see how they could further the AASA’s goal of leading new ways to use digital media in classrooms. We also reached out to Education Reimagined, an organization that advocates a paradigm shift to learner-centered education.
Google hosted a meeting of the AASA’s digital consortium with Education Reimagined at Google’s Chicago office in July 2016. Our discussion led us to realize we were thinking about the problem we wanted to solve in the wrong way. We had been making plans for how technology would transform our schools without considering one of the most important voices — our students! “The group’s discussion was a powerful reminder that we don’t make decisions in a vacuum,” said Mort Sherman, Associate Executive Director of the AASA. Putting student voices at the center of everything we do will help us design the future with them and for them. This will be a long journey for all of us, but one we are thrilled to embark on.
Putting student voices at the center of everything we do will help us design the future with them and for them.
Discovering student voices
At the Google office in Chicago, Education Reimagined Director Kelly Young kicked off the day by emphasizing the need to put students at the center. She advocated for a student-centered approach, where learning revolves around the needs of individual students instead of traditional classroom structures. She also encouraged us to bring students to the event to make sure that student input informed all of our discussions.
Google then worked with us to leverage their innovation methodology, informally known as “10x thinking” or “moonshot thinking” to help solve the challenges we were facing. It’s a version of “human-centered design thinking” that helps participants develop solutions while keeping the end-user at the center of the process.
Superintendents used a design thinking process to explore learner-centered education
In the STAT program at Deerfield Public School District 109, students facilitate a technology review committee meeting.
As we began, it occurred to us all that students are our users, and our users weren’t part of our conversation as much as they should be. Without their input, we wouldn’t be poised for success, because we weren’t empathizing with their daily experience. By going through the 10x process with the students present, we gave them a voice in a way we rarely do. As the realization of user-centric education sunk in, we were excited to share our takeaways with our schools.
After meeting in Chicago, we returned to our districts to put this learner-centric approach into action. Leyden High School District 212, for example, created two student advisory board member posts, giving students the opportunity to weigh in on meaningful decisions. Another, Deerfield Public School District 109, set up the STAT program (Student Technology Advisory Team), in which students provide their input on how technology in the classroom impacts them and what tools, devices, or practices are relevant and effective from their perspective. These are just two examples of the learner-centric transformation happening across the country.
Cementing our progress
More recently the AASA’s digital consortium re-convened in California to discuss, among other things, how we could turn this “aha” moment into action. A huge barrier to action is getting buy-in from teachers and parents, most of whom grew up in a classroom-centric education system.
Consider this: each of us spends over 16,000 hours in the classroom — that’s a lot of experience to work against. So together, we’re working to develop ways for schools to pilot learner-centric education without abruptly abandoning the classroom model. Google’s approach to innovation had us work through six questions in groups. We asked questions such as “If I look back in 12 months, how will I know I succeeded?” We ended the session with answers to some of the questions we had posed, bearing in mind our work isn’t finished.
We’re still working to implement learner-centered education in schools. And it’s not easy. When we meet next spring, our superintendents will report on progress made in individual schools and districts.
It took combining Google’s approach to problem solving, the philosophy from Education Reimagined and the amazing network of superintendents brought together by the AASA to help us think differently about the role of technology in learning. Now that we’ve identified the paradigm shift that needs to happen, we’re excited to share our moment of realization with districts, schools, and classrooms across the country.
Vanessa Gallegos, left, of East Leyden and Noelle Lowther of West Leyden were introduced as student representatives for the school board during a meeting on May 12 at East Leyden High School.
Introducing the new Google Wallet experience on the web
We’re excited to introduce the new Google Wallet web experience (wallet.google.com) just in time for the holidays. Available across all browsers, the updated Wallet website has a brand new look and added features, which will make planning that New Year’s trip with friends a breeze.
You can send what you owe to your friend’s email address or phone number, and they can quickly transfer the money to their bank account – all without installing an app.
You can also request money on the web and your friends can pay you back without leaving their browser. Once you receive their money, you won’t even need to cash out. You can just set a default payment method and any money that’s sent to you through Wallet will be automatically transferred to that account.
Sign in to wallet.google.com now and be sure to bookmark it for the next time you need to pay someone back.
Send Money | Request Money
The Introvert's Guide to Running a Meeting
What do you think of when you see the word “introvert”?
“Shy,” “quiet,” and even “antisocial” might be some qualities that come to mind. But we’ve got news for you: How we think of introverts is pretty misconstrued from the actual definition. An introvert, according to Dictionary.com, is “a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings.” Let’s explore that.
Looking at that definition, introverts aren’t necessarily the timid lambs that stereotypes make them out to be. Rather, they’re introspective individuals who can still be outgoing — they just don’t crave being around other people, speaking and presenting, all the time. 
That’s why it might be a bit trickier for introverts to run a meeting — not because they’re reticent, but because they take extra time to process their internal thoughts and surroundings, according to Quiet Revolution, an organization dedicated to the science of psychological introversion.
But “tricky” certainly doesn’t translate to “impossible.” So if you’re an introvert who’s been charged with a running a meeting, check out these tips.
But First, a Little More on Introversion
I’ll never forget the day I found out that I might be an introvert. I came across an article that described the characteristics of introverts, and realized that they many of my social patterns — things like enjoying quiet time to myself, or in a social situation, opting for longer conversations with fewer people (rather than small talk with tons of strangers).
But how could I be an introvert? I was a theatre minor. I used to sing with a punk band. Those were not things that introverts do, right?
Wrong. The more research I do on introversion, the more I realize that it’s a vastly misunderstood population. And it’s a big population. According to the Quiet Leadership Institute (an extension of Quiet Revolution), half of the U.S. workforce identifies as introverts.
Susan Cain, co-founder of Quiet Revolution, explored these misconceptions in her 2012 TED talk. I, like many others, had introversion confused with shyness, or maybe even stage fright — neither of which I’ve ever possessed. But introversion, she explained, is “different from being shy. Shyness is about fear of social judgment. Introversion is more about, how do you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation.”
That’s what makes us different from extroverts, who “crave large amounts of stimulation,” noted Cain. It’s not that introverts are afraid to lead meetings — or speak in public, sing with a punk band, or go to parties alone. The distinction is how we prepare for or function in those situations.
But when it comes to introverts and extroverts, one isn’t better than the other. Plus, according to Cain, the “best performing teams are a mix [of] introverts and extroverts.”
So when it comes to those meetings, here are our tips for how introverts can run them in an effective way.
The Introvert’s Guide to Running a Meeting
1) Know where you stand.
First things first: You might not even be sure where you stand on the introvert/extrovert spectrum. Guess what — Quiet Revolution has a quiz for that.
For the purposes of this post, the assessment is probably most helpful for folks who don’t think — or don’t want to accept — that they’re introverts. But a quiz like this one can help you learn a lot about your behavioral patterns, and perhaps avoid a case of mistaken identity.
Source: Quiet Revolution
For example, according to the Quiet Leadership Institute, 96% of workforce leaders identify as extroverts. That implies a staggering imbalance among management, but could that number be the result of personal misconceptions similar to my own? Perhaps these leaders identify as such because they enjoy taking charge and overseeing groups. As we covered, introverts can still possess those qualities.
You might even be an ambivert — someone who falls in the middle of the spectrum — which after taking the quiz, I learned is the bucket into which I fall. In any case, having this information can help you recognize certain habits, which in turn can help you lead more effectively.
2) Set aside (quiet) time to form an agenda.
When I asked my team for meeting leadership tips, my colleague, Janessa Lantz, made an excellent point.
“Introverts often need time to prepare thoughts,” she told me. “By sending out an agenda in advance, you’re designing a more inclusive meeting.”
But planning a meeting this way doesn’t just benefit the attendees — as considerate at that might be — it also works to your advantage. Nearly 86% of people with introverted qualities agree that they “pay a lot of attention to the meaning of [their] thoughts and actions.” And while that can lead to a more thoughtful approach to things, it also requires extra time.
That’s where being the designated leader of a meeting is a good thing. You have the luxury of time to yourself, hopefully, to plan the meeting and put the necessary consideration into it. So don’t look at the task as a setback — it’s actually an opportunity.
3) Lead with the topics you’re passionate about.
Many introverted leaders admit that while social interaction doesn’t frighten them, prolonged exposure to it can leave them feeling less energized, due to their sensitivities to stimulation. That’s why, during a panel discussion on introversion at the 2016 New Work Summit, LinkedIn Chief Human Resources Officer — and self-proclaimed introvert — Pat Wadors recommended starting the meeting off with topics you’re most passionate about.
“If there’s passion around a topic, I don’t want to be in my head worried about, ‘Will I be called on?’” Wadors explained. “I have a point of view. I will speak early. And then, my energy is spent really actively listening and being present.” Check out the full discussion:
Here’s another opportunity for you to use running a meeting to your advantage. If there’s something that you strongly feel needs to be discussed, consider proactively scheduling a meeting that will be entirely dedicated to it. That allows you to dedicate extra time to a specific topic or project that’s important to you, and thoughtfully form an agenda with points that are vital to it.
But scheduling meetings comes with its own set of parameters, which brings us to our next point.
4) Invite only those who absolutely need to be present.
As we noted earlier, introverts tend to value quality over quantity in social situations. Meetings are no different. Instead of inviting the entire team, only invite the people who absolutely need to be there, and focus on having a productive conversation with them.
That technique goes beyond introversion — after all, there’s a book out there called Meetings Suck for a reason. They’re a huge culprit when it comes to wasting time. Just look at these statistics from the Wrike Work Management Survey:
24% of employees cite meetings as their biggest productivity roadblock.
34% say that they attend six or more meetings per week.
Only 9% of meeting attendees believe they always walk away with clear, actionable outcomes.
When you’re tasked with running a meeting, make sure it’s done efficiently, and help conserve the time of others wherever you can. Since introverts tend to thrive in situations that permit a higher-quality discussion with a fewer number of people, this approach should help make the meeting more productive and thoughtful.
5) Take your time during the meeting.
In the article “An Introvert’s Guide to Communicating With Results,” entrepreneur and CEO Caren Merrick writes, “It is perfectly acceptable to not immediately answer a question.”
As long as we’re being honest, I’ll confess that I sometimes have a bad habit of speaking up in meetings or discussions, just for the sake of looking like I’m engaged. Trust me — Don’t do that.
As per Merrick’s advice, it’s better to take your time to contribute something thoughtful to a conversation, even if you do so after the fact in a follow-up email or chat. In fact, you can even build that into your agenda, by dedicating a portion of the meeting to outlining next steps and “questions to be answered.” Then, make sure you schedule time for yourself to personally debrief what you took away from the meeting, and any further commentary you’d like to provide afterward.
That said, don’t take too long to follow up. With our growing to-do lists and shrinking attention spans, you’ll want to make sure the meeting is still somewhat fresh in your colleagues’ minds when they receive your notes.
6) Schedule time to decompress after the meeting.
In addition to setting aside post-meeting time to debrief, you might want to clear your schedule for time to decompress. Because of an introvert’s aforementioned sensitivity to stimulation, it’s often helpful to schedule a meeting and organize your day around it so that low-energy tasks follow it, or a re-charging activity, like having a quiet lunch break.
Permitting yourself that time to refuel — even if it’s the rest of the work day — will allow you to revisit items from your meeting when you’re clear-minded and energized. Chances are, your colleagues would prefer that your follow-up communication is thought-out, rather than immediate.
You’ve Got This
Now that you know what it really means to be an introvert, you might feel a little bit more empowered. With this information, not only can you go forward with a renewed sense of confidence, but also, you have a greater understanding of what helps you to be a strong leader.
And again — Maybe you’re not actually an introvert, or you’re a mix of both. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, it’s important to understand what allows you to succeed.
Understanding these work styles won’t just give you introspective insights — it can also make you a better leader with a greater comprehension of what’s best for your colleagues. As you plan and run these meetings, do so with your team in mind, and see how these approaches fit into the way they work.
So go ahead, do a little research. Next time you’re asked to run a meeting, you’ll be glad you did.
What helps you lead a meeting — especially as an introvert? Let us know in the comments.
How to Increase Profits Using uCRO by @davidvmc
Simply put, CRO is the practice of testing web pages to encourage visitors to take actions that drive value; uCRO is the practice of testing web pages to encourage visitors to *not* take actions which decrease profitability.
The post How to Increase Profits Using uCRO by @davidvmc appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
4 Tactics to Supercharge Your PPC Campaigns by @HollystarPR
It can be challenging to maintain high performance and stay competitive without a constant pulse on the Google ad platform. Here are some next-level tactics that can help supercharge underperforming PPC campaigns.
The post 4 Tactics to Supercharge Your PPC Campaigns by @HollystarPR appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
5 Little-Known Tips for Improving the Performance of Your Campaigns [Infographic]
Let’s say you’re climbing the performance chart that reflects your ad campaigns. After all that hard work and PPC strategizing you put toward improving your performance grade, how steep is the climb looking? Is it an easy or tough climb?
Some of us come off as natural all-star rock climbers, while others are left frigid, timid, and stuck to the crevices of the wall.
What’s the secret? As with most things: proper training. And if you don’t have any, don’t worry — there’s still hope.
We here at KlientBoost have partnered up with HubSpot to bring you some rock solid tactics that you can use to get a grip on the whole PPC thing.
The Iceberg Effect: Gain More Control Over Your PPC Campaign
The search terms that you end up paying for and the keywords that you’re actually targeting don’t always line up the way you want.
Too often we see the “Iceberg Effect” in action, where miscellaneous search terms below the surface are tacked onto keywords that we think are working properly in our ad campaigns. It gives us an unhealthy search to keyword ratio that might look something like this:
Not being in control of all those search terms? Not ideal. With a search term to keyword discrepancy ratio of 132:1, it can be challenging to continually improve your clickthrough rates and lower your cost-per-click averages.
How do you gain control of this icy situation? We use something called Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) to shoot for a 1:1 ratio of search terms to keywords, allowing for more control over the entire ad group.
Here’s what a non-SKAGs search term report might look like:
It’s not that any of these search terms are bad, it’s that each search term has a different conversion and sales rate. And by keeping them as search terms and not turning them into keywords, you will never be able to control them to take your PPC campaigns to the next level.
So what does a search term report look like if we use this granular PPC tactic and use SKAGs?
Everything in the search term column matches the keyword column. With the SKAGs tactic, you can get super granular and isolate one variable at a time, which means you have more control over your entire PPC account.
And with the ability to lower your search term to keyword ratio to 1:1, you can take it one step further and do the same from keyword to ad. When this happens, you’re able to increase your clickthrough rate, which in turn:
Increases your quality score
Decreases your cost-per-click
Increases your impression share
Improves your average position
Value Tracking: Keeping Tabs on Conversions vs. Sales
With your PPC tactics now upgraded, your PPC campaigns should be driving up conversion volumes and making you more money. But do you know which keywords, audiences, or placements are actually making you money?
If you don’t track the components of your campaign and attribute them to your sales, you might be missing out on where to focus your efforts. By implementing Google’s ValueTrack parameters you can automatically track data within URLs when your visitors convert.
When you tie your hidden field sales tracking back to your CRM, you can find out specific details about which leads are making you the revenue (doesn’t apply to ecommerce). Hidden form fields can reveal to you things that happen during a conversion, like which landing page URL your conversion came from, where the visitor is located, or what keyword they typed in.
You can also do this with manual UTM parameters. Here’s an example of how on the surface, you would think Keyword #1 is converting better:
Keyword #1 has a lower cost-per-conversion.
Here’s an example of what hidden field sales tracking can reveal to you on a deeper level:
Now Keyword #2 looks better, right?
Although Keyword #1 has a lower cost-per-conversion, Keyword #2 has a much higher sales rate, which is making you more money. See the benefits of tracking the sale vs. the conversion?
Knowing these types of details can help you understand where you should be crediting your sales success, so you can be more aggressive in bidding on those keywords, audiences, or placements. With this PPC tactic, you can ease up your budget on the areas that aren’t contributing to sales, and allocate to the areas that are.
The CTA Thermometer: Gauging Visitor Intent on the Temperature Scale
Not all PPC visitors come through to your landing pages with the same conversion intent.
Typically, those that come through from display tend to be colder, while visitors that come in from search tend to be warmer. Here’s a visual we’ve learned works well across the multitude of client verticals we service:
There’s a temperature scale that varies depending on visitor origin. Knowing where your visitors come from can help you immensely when it comes to matching your call-to-action with their temperature in the conversion funnel.
We recommend testing out various CTAs to match the intent temperature of your visitors — after all, a small CTA tweak could’ve made all the difference.
Here are some ideas to make your offer more relevant to your visitors:
In short: the warmer your visitor’s intent the warmer the CTA can be. Traffic that comes in from the display network will likely respond to colder CTAs, since those visitors are in the awareness stage.
Micro PPC Conversions: Breaking Down the Larger Conversion Into Smaller Pieces
As you know, the more granular and detail-oriented you can get with you PPC campaigns, the more control you can have over the success of them.
When it comes to conversions, you can break down your larger macro conversion into micro conversions to figure out where your issues are.
An effective way to figure out which part of your PPC campaign is causing the conversion bottleneck is to analyze the micro conversions. Let’s say that you’re running some new Facebook campaigns but for some reason, no one is converting. If you knew, however, that visitors spend an average of four seconds on your site/landing page, then you know that your Facebook ad targeting may be off. Instead of thinking it’s the ad or landing page that needs some tweaking, it could be your targeting instead.
Here are some common types of micro conversions we use to analyze the path towards a conversion:
What can each of these common micro conversions tell you about your landing page? Let’s break it down:
Time On Site. How long are your visitors spending on your site? If the time is brief, the conversion issue doesn’t have to do with your landing page design. The issue is happening in an earlier stage, like in your ad campaign or your targeting options.
Scroll Depth. How far are your visitors scrolling down your landing page? If they aren’t scrolling down very far, maybe you need to have a shorter landing page where your CTA is above the fold. If they’re scrolling pretty deep, it might be a good opportunity to include additional (super legible) offer details toward the bottom of the page.
Form Field Completion. Are visitors abandoning your forms? If so, try testing out different formats and include a multi-step landing page with more form fields.
Button Click. Testing out different CTA button colors and copy may be the key to your larger conversion success.
By isolating micro conversions you can zero in on where exactly the conversion friction is located, which can help you alleviate the issues quickly and reach your larger conversion goal.
Closing Thoughts
Whether it’s addressing the Iceberg Effect, tracking your sales vs. conversions, testing CTA temperatures, or analyzing your micro PPC conversions, each of these PPC tactics can have a significantly positive impact on the performance of your campaigns.
And the best part, there’s a good chance your competitors don’t even know about them.
Now it’s your turn to up your PPC performance game. With these useful PPC tactics, you’ll be climbing your performance incline to the top with utmost ease.
What are your best PPC tips? Share them in the comments below.
Happy Holidays from Tilt Brush
It’s that time of year, happy holidays! As an end-of-year gift from the Tilt Brush team, we’ve got one last batch of treats for you. In our latest update, our goal is to make it even easier to create more impressive sketches… and share them with your friends.
Guides: Our newest set of art tools, “Guides”, allow you to create perfect shapes in Tilt Brush. Using a combination of cubes, spheres, and pill shapes, you can create everything from the solar system to a dining room chair with newfound precision.
Sharing to YouTube: Once you’ve made a sketch, you can now quickly share a video of it to YouTube right from Tilt Brush. Just take a video and hold down the YouTube button, and you’re moments away from seeing your video up on YouTube.
We baked both of these updates into a tasty holiday video for you:
We’ve also added a few of our favorites to our Tilt Brush playlist on Youtube, and we’d love to see yours too. Just tag your videos with #TiltBrush.
Happy holidays and happy sharing!
A journey to the bottom of the internet
Depending on where you are right now, these words may have just zoomed thousands of miles, across the bottom of several oceans, at nearly the speed of light, to reach your screen. Yes. The. Internet. Is. Magic.
A few of months ago, my friend Lo and I were given a challenge by the YouTube channel What’s Inside. Could we get our hands on a chunk of an underwater internet cable, so they could attempt to cut it in half? We didn’t know how we’d do this, but figured there was a way (lots of emails). And of course, we were excited to find the answers to our own questions about these cables in the process.
Like, how many underwater internet cables are there? (More than 250 active, fiber optic cables that connect cities and data centers all over the world.) What’s the history of these cables? (The first transatlantic telegraph cable is more than 150 years old.) Do sharks really bite them? (Yes, but they don’t pose as big a threat as internet headlines might lead you to believe.) How much traffic can they handle? (The equivalent of 10 million YouTube videos a second.) How big are they? (Skinnier than a breakfast burrito.)
Our search for a cable took us to New Hampshire to visit one of the factories that creates them, as well as aboard a ship to see the Monet cable being loaded onto it. Our trip also taught us things we never knew to ask. For example, the internet smells like a freshly paved driveway. And when these cables are loaded onto the ship, they’re coiled by hand. Which means they’re literally walked the entire distance that they will eventually stretch. (In the case of the Monet cable, from Florida to Brazil.)
If you haven’t already, please watch the video version of this story above, so you can see for yourself what a fascinating, lengthy part of the internet these cables are. And if you’re curious about something else related to Google or how the internet works, I hope you’ll leave me a comment on YouTube, or send me a tweet. Not only will your words potentially travel thousands of miles and to the depth of the ocean to reach me, but maybe one day, I’ll get to travel to some far off corner of the internet to bring back an answer to you.
P.S. We also successfully completed our mission and delivered a chunk of cable to What’s Inside. To see whether or not they could cut this cable in half, check out their video.