🔗 Messy.

What Shopify’s earnings report means for e-commerce, Google revamps its guide to link best practices, and more. February 17, 2023 [Read in browser]( [logo] [sponsor]( Good morning, happy Friday. Hopefully you survived the week without getting hit on by AI. [… Unlike this New York Times writer.]( Guess we shouldn’t be surprised. If AI is going to replace humans, it was only a matter of time before it attempted to replace our significant others. GOOGLE It’s time to tidy up your links [article-image] Spoiler alert: Google’s crawlers don’t like messy links. The company updated its [SEO link best practices]( document to include more details for making your links easier to crawl and improving your pages’ relevance. Before and after: Previously, Google’s best practices only included a section on how to make your links crawlable. It’s still there, of course. But there are also a few freshly added sections: - Anchor text placement. Describes the position of the anchor within the code. - How to write a good anchor text. More descriptive instead of generic, but concise instead of long, and avoiding adjacent links. - Internal links. Every page you care about should have at least one link from a page on your site, according to Google. - External links. A good practice is citing sources and pointing towards reputable websites. No, you shouldn’t “nofollow” every link, only those you don’t trust or don’t want to give reputation from your link. Nothing revolutionary, but still good to hear it from the big G. Oh, and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) dropped something: It looks like Google [reduced the number of touchpoints]( available in the conversion paths and multi-channel funnel reports. Previously, you could analyze 50 touchpoints. Now it’s only 20. And according to Charles Farina—who tweeted the update—reports now load noticeably faster. Why we care: Links matter. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. Google mentions relevance and authority a few times in its linking guidelines, meaning it’s still one of the best authority factors you can have. So act accordingly. Also, a switch to 20 touchpoints may mean smoother reporting, but there are certainly users that will miss the 30 touchpoints lost. Hopefully there’s a solution for that, too. SHOPIFY Revenue rose, but not without a price Some migraines last a long time. And for Shopify, it’s been at least a year between the post-pandemic slump, rising costs, and mass layoffs. But the e-commerce giant seems to be recovering. It [reported $1.73B in revenue]( for the final quarter of 2022 – a 26% lift compared to the year before. Feeling better: Shopify says gross merchandise volume (GMV)—the value of merchant sales flowing through the platform—rose 13% compared to previous year. The company also reported a 41% growth, a 31% GMV increase, and a gross profit of $2.8B at the end of 2022. … But take it easy: However, the rising costs racked up a $822M operating loss, leading to the layoffs of 1000 employees, or 10% of Shopify’s workforce. Oof. Eyes on the future: Shopify expects revenue growth “in the high teen percentages” for the rest of 2023, implying slower transaction volume. In the meantime, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said the company will “focus on updating its commerce solutions suite,” having already released a [ton of new updates]( recently. Why we care: The slower growth estimates could mean we’ll see e-commerce revenues similar to 2022 rather than in the more lucrative years prior. Yes, GMV and online transactions are increasing every day. But so are prices… and competition. SPONSORED BY STACKED MARKETER PRO You’re managing multiple channels. This will save your copy… and your sanity. 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[Try the course for just $7 for 7 days when you join Stacked Marketer Pro.]( E-COMMERCE How to take the perfect product photo, based on science [article-image] Pop quiz: You are the lead designer of a water bottle company, and you’re tasked with creating a product photo for your campaign with the goal of increasing sales. You have three choices: - Take a photo of someone holding the product. You see a hand, but not the person’s face. - Take a selfie. The person’s face with the product. - Only show the product. Without the person’s body. If you picked number one, you won, and your product photo will likely increase sales. That’s according to a [scientific study covering brand selfies](. There are other findings from the report that could change the way you shoot product photos, depending on your primary objectives. For example: - To increase engagement, use selfies of customers with your product, with both face and products showing. - To increase sales, use selfies of customers holding the product, without their faces showing. - Image of a product alone is less likely to drive engagement or sales than any of the two above. Yep. 74% of customers said they’d buy a product after seeing a photo of someone’s hand holding it. However, 69% were positive they’d buy it after someone posted a selfie, and 66% said they’d buy it after only seeing the product photo. Why? To find out, we’ll have to delve into consumer psychology. According to the research, seeing another person’s face holding a product skews your perspective. You connect the product with them and feel like that product is already “taken.” However, you’re still engaged and likely to interact. On the other hand, when we see someone’s hand holding a product, we tend to “fill in the missing pieces” and imagine ourselves holding it, almost as if they were offering that product to us. An image of the product alone makes it feel too far away. It’s not ours, and it’s not anyone else’s. Interesting findings, right? Of course, [there are caveats to these findings.]( But think about them when you plan your next campaigns. A product selfie with a hand or a face could make a big difference! SPONSORED BY GROWING UP This newsletter is curing CMO FOMO for current and future marketing leaders [article-image]( 4600+ SaaS marketers just got insights into the future of martech, including the eight companies to watch, a marketing gamechanger, and more. That’s what you can expect from Growing Up, the newsletter created by Growth Sprints founder Brendan Hufford that [shares everything you need to be a better SaaS marketer]( today. Want to know what SaaS marketers are doing to thrive in their careers? You’ll get a lot from Growing Up. [Subscribe for free with one click.]( THE CREW’S INSIGHTS An SEO revenue formula every local business should be using [article-image] This is a niche insight, but if you market for local businesses—or run one—it’s valuable. To demonstrate the insight, let's dream up a junk removal business: Stacked Marketer Junk Removal. Now, Stacked Marketer Junk Removal is in Vienna. So the primary search we’re targeting is “junk removal vienna austria” (but in German, of course). Right now, we’re ranked number five. We want to know how much more revenue we’d be generating if we were ranked first. But improving our SEO is expensive and might require us to hire an agency, so we want to know if the increase will be worth it. So here’s the formula we’d use: [Organic Conversion Rate x Expected New Monthly Traffic x Average Customer LTV]. Let’s break this down quickly: - Organic conversion rate = How many people who find you organically convert. - Expected new traffic = How much more traffic you’d expect to see at the #1 or #2 spots. Based on this data, we’d expect to see about 4x more traffic at the #1 spot, if we were originally ranking #5. That’s a lot! - Average customer LTV = How much a customer will pay you over the total course of business with your brand. The result? You get the estimated monthly increase in revenue for any amount of monthly traffic. And if you’re able to estimate monthly traffic by search position, you can do a quick cost-benefit analysis. Why do this? Because many marketers focus on ranking higher before calculating what ranking higher would actually mean for the bottom-line. If you realize you’d only make an extra $200 per month by ranking number one, then maybe SEO isn’t the best choice for your business. But if you’re missing out on $20k per month? Get right on it! ROUNDING UP THE STACK [ENTREPRENEURSHIP:]( This free newsletter regularly sends you proven strategies to simplify audience and business growth. Justin Welsh said it’s “... short, punchy, valuable.” Join 28,000 other creative entrepreneurs. [Subscribe to For The Interested for free here](.* [TWITTER:]( Cannabis Ads just got legalized. Twitter announced it’s “relaxing its Cannabis Ads policy,” allowing you to promote related content. Of course, this only includes US states where cannabis is legalized, plus Canada. Still, a good start. [GOOGLE:]( Ads API version 13.0 just rolled out. The biggest changes include support for Performance Max travel goals and remarketing with user-based lists, among other things. Don’t worry, devs – you can check out the full list at the link. [MARKETING:]( Most people spend at least 13 hours a week engaging with social media and video sharing apps, according to a recent survey. Oh, and 60% of engagement takes place on smartphones. Yes, optimize everything for mobile. Everything. [META:]( Instagram just launched Channels, a new broadcast chat feature that will allow creators to share public, one-to-many texts, images, polls, and more with their users. A more efficient way to share announcements than Stories? Guess we’ll see… [ADVERTISING:]( Uber’s slamming the gas pedal, expecting to reach $1B in ad revenue by the end of 2024 after increasing ad offerings during last year. That would mean doubling 2022 revenue. Looks like Journey Ads and Car Tops Ads are performing well! *This is a sponsored post BRAIN TEASER Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly? You can find the [answer here]([.]( [poolside-logo] POOLSIDE CHAT Never give your phone to a hungry kid [article-image] It was a hectic day for delivery people in Michigan. They kept receiving order after order from the same household. By the time $1000 worth of food arrived at one confused man’s doorstep, it struck him. [His six-year-old son had taken his phone and ordered every food that ever existed from GrubHub.]( We’re talking shrimp, salads, shawarma, sandwiches, and ice cream, among others. When the dad confronted his son, the little boy stopped him and politely asked – “Dad, did the pepperoni pizza come yet?” Ladies and gentlemen, meet the future all-you-can-eat buffet champion. SHARING IS CARING A cozy thought as you head into the weekend… When you refer our newsletter to other smart marketers—and they subscribe—we send you the super comfy Marketer Zip Hoodie (50 referrals). And you unlock other rewards along the way, like: - The Crew’s Top 10 Insights (2 referrals) - The Ultimate Holiday Marketing Deep Dive (4 referrals) Zip. Mmm, cozy. Share your referral link below to start unlocking exclusive content and merch! 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