Monthly Industry Roundup: June 2018

Google Prepares For World Cup 2018

The world’s biggest sporting event takes center stage starting Thursday in Russia, and Google is getting in on the action even if the United States squad isn’t. The World Cup, the planet’s premier international soccer tournament, will be watched by more than 3 billion people, and many of them will be looking for game times, live updates, and highlights. For the most footy-frenzied, Google will be providing an all-encompassing search experience replete with group tables, stats, live video, gamecasts, and even interactive search data on World Cup-themed searches via Google Trends.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN FRANCHISE DIGITAL MARKETING?

Digital Marketing Tips for Increasing Gym Memberships

The health and wellness industry is expected to grow 17 percent in the next five years, and that comes after growing 10.6 percent from 2013 to 2015. Among consumers, health app usage also has increased by 330 percent due to the popularity of physical fitness and the ability to track exercise, create routines, and measure progress through digital technology.

So how can franchise brands in the health and fitness vertical use that relationship to drive more customers into their gyms? In a post via Franchising USA Magazine, Location3 Director of Marketing Josh Allen shares a few strategies that will connect your brand with future workout warriors in your area. Here’s an excerpt from the post on the importance of managing your local footprint online:

Many single-owner gyms and multi-location fitness clubs suffer from having inaccurate location data published in places like Google, Facebook, Yelp, Bing and other online directories. The ramifications of bad location data can range from a potential customer calling a gym that has an incorrect phone number or even potentially arriving at a center on time for a favorite fitness class only to find that the business has moved, closed or simply had an incorrect address published online

 

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN LOCAL LISTINGS MANAGEMENT?

Google Releases its GMB Agency Dashboard

Google announced last week the release of its Google My Business Agency Dashboard, which provides agencies and platform partners a more efficient way to manage multiple Google My Business listings. Location3 Director of Earned and Owned Media Matt Lacuesta and Local Listings Specialist Brett Dugan teamed up to give us their first impressions of the long-awaited feature. Here’s an excerpt from their post via LSA Insider:

This is a new era for Google. Prior to this roll out, Google had not publicly endorsed agency integration with its management platform. Not only does the debut of the dashboard promote that relationship, it also adds a layer of agency support specific to managing enterprise location sets.

For more detailed analysis, including why this update is so important for franchise brands and multi-location businesses, read the entire post here.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN PAID MEDIA?

In-App Mobile Video Set to Increase Display Budgets

From 2018 to 2023, video will account for 93 percent of incremental display ad dollars, and mobile video will be the primary driver, according to a Forrester Research forecast. Brendan Verblow, associate forecast analyst for Forrester, says the increase of in-app mobile videos is due to the substantial amount of time consumers are spending in apps and the growth of online video consumption in general.

Verblow also notes that despite this expected increase, banner ads aren’t going anywhere because of their reach potential. Another trend to keep an eye on is the increasing popularity of long-form video content and the potential for higher ad rates due to the high quality of long-form video.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN PAID SEARCH?

Advertisers Now Able to Import Product Ads From AdWords to Bing Ads

Bing recently implemented a process that allows advertisers to quickly import Product Ads from Google AdWords into Bing Ads. The process is made easier through the use of the Google Merchant Center Import tool, which allows product offers to be imported directly to the Bing Merchant Center. This should help advertisers save time and increase efficiency across both platforms, says Bing.

Bing Ads users can import Product Ads from AdWords by:

• Navigate to the ‘Import’ tab in Bing Merchant Center
• Sign in with your Google Merchant Center account to start the import process
• Select ‘Allow’ when notified that Microsoft.com wants to access your Google account

For more details, read this post from Matt Southern and Search Engine Journal.