Are you an unnatural connector? Maybe you say you're introverted or even antisocial. It could be related. But I'm talking about the difficulty making personal connections. You're at a party or conference and you're surrounded by people you don't know. Do you wait for someone to talk to you? Do…
Here's how to detect whether a Facebook ads placement has become a problem. Usually this happens when your results are too good to be true. Use Breakdown by Placements to get a better sense of performance by placement. Look at the distribution of actions and budget by placement, but also…
Should you ever turn on the Audience Network placement? It has a bad reputation, and for good reason. Audience Network is notorious for driving low-quality traffic due to accidental clicks and click fraud. But while you should definitely remove it when optimizing for link clicks and landing page views, you…
If you want to drive quality traffic with Facebook ads, do this instead... Create a custom event that fires when something happens that signifies a quality website visit. Then use it to measure your results. You may be surprised by what you see. When optimizing for a link click or…
Jon invites Joel Hughes to the Pub to discuss WordPress, GA4, and AI. Joel is the founder of Glass Mountains, which is a web support agency with clients in the UK and US (including Jon). Topics covered... 0:23 Music, CDs, minidisc players, and what they're drinking (Corona and Manic Confidence…
You can clone your voice with AI now. I did this with Resemble.ai. You can create a free account to try it out like I did. First, you submit three to 25 audio samples by reading various sentences and phrases the app gives you. I tried really hard to talk…
If you live in a cold winter climate like I do, this is one of the toughest times of the year. It's easy to make excuses when it comes to staying inside. And if you're a solopreneur or simply work from home generally, this can be dangerous. You can go…
If you're on TikTok, you've likely heard creators recommend reposting the exact same video. This could be to leverage a good performing video, but it could also be to try again if something didn't do well. This is something I wouldn't normally ever consider on other platforms. And really, I…
Sometimes, you need to switch up the look and feel of your videos to add variety. Do all of your videos look the same? That's something I've realized after recording more than 200 videos. I needed to switch it up. Almost all of my videos have the same look and…
This is what my office setup looks like... I do everything here. Writing, video and podcast recording, meetings, you name it. When you spend that much time in one place, you want it the way you want it. I have an old 2016 MacBook Pro. I recently scaled back to…
There is a huge potential problem with Meta Verified, but there is a solution... If you're a creator and you sign up for this, what happens in a couple of years if you miss a payment? Or if you cancel? I assume you'll lose your verification badge. And that creates…
Here's what I think about Meta Verified. It's a mixture of good and bad... The good: 1. Diversifying is good so that Meta doesn't rely entirely on advertising. 2. Better support is good, and such a package is something many of us have been pushing for years. 3. More verification…
The Meta Verified subscription test begins in Australia and New Zealand. Here's what we know... It's for Creators 18 or over, though Meta doesn't make it clear if this includes creators who create a personal brand with pages (businesses otherwise not involved yet). Benefits include: - Verified badge that requires…
This has been a popular claim lately. While I'll concede that general remarketing isn't as necessary anymore, this claim misses some important caveats. Sure, targeting all of your website visitors because they are more likely to convert may not be as necessary anymore. You could go broad and as long…
Here's why I'm publishing at least one video every day of 2023. This has very little to do with strategy. It's not about the algorithm or trying to go viral. While it's certainly beneficial to stay in front of our audience with daily content, that's not truly the primary motivation…
Don’t let excuses keep you from recording! While this is true for any type of content creation, most roadblocks and excuses exist for people around video. The process can be overwhelming. It's intimidating. You're making yourself vulnerable. As a result, you'll come up with every reason imaginable not to hit…
What is the best, cheapest, or easiest way to set up the Conversions API? Like so many things, the answer isn't all that simple. It depends. Instead of asking how you should set up the API, you should first ask how you're currently managing your pixel. Many of these tools…
Broad targeting really does work, even when you aren't optimizing for a purchase. You've likely heard about the new rage of using broad targeting to run catalog ads and other ads for a purchase. It really can work. It makes sense why that works, especially with catalog ads. Facebook knows…
Create a custom event that fires when someone scrolls and spends extra time on your website. Previously, I showed you how to create an event in Google Tag Manager that fires when someone spends 60 seconds on a page of your website. Then I showed you how to create an…
Luke and I meet at the Pub to discuss the latest news related to search and AI. In this episode of The Pubcast, we talk about the following... 2:30 Bard and Bing Search announcements and what they mean 13:00 The future of Search referrals 21:23 Searching businesses: “What Does Jon…
Review spam on Facebook is an absolute mess. I've had about 1,200 reviews on my Facebook page over the years. Initially, most of them were authentic. These days, I'd guess that I get 50 spam reviews for every legitimate one. They all follow a similar template that should be easy…
What should brands and website owners do differently in preparation for AI-generated search engines? Yes, it's possible that the future of search may result in less referral traffic. But we don't know whether that's definitely the case, or to what level. But you still need to be prepared. You can't…
What happens to content creation if search engines of the future become Answer engines? This is a question I've been grappling with myself as someone who has benefited significantly from referral traffic from Google over the years. If search users can get a quick answer to their questions without clicking…
Should content marketers be worried about the future of search due to the recent announcements from Google and Bing? YES! This is coming from someone who has benefitted from more than 10 million sessions referred organically from Google over the years. That's more than 15 million page views and more…