However, even the most thoughtful and well-planned content strategy can run into roadblocks without a detailed editorial plan. The editorial plan should include what categories and topics you plan to write about, how you intend to amplify your content (e.g., social media, email, etc.) and—the most important bit of all—a list of relevant, highly engaging ideas that incorporates a balance of evergreen and time-sensitive content.

Event-specific content can be challenging to create with any consistency, but with some planning and foresight, it is possible to plan out your editorial calendar in advance. One way to do this is to align some of your topics with seasonal holidays, observance days, and themes. 

[Image source]

A holiday for every week, month and season 

At CommonMind, we’ve compiled a holiday planner specifically aimed at social media content planning. It contains more than 300 holidays bucketed in three categories as follows:

• 2019/2020 U.S. National Holidays: This calendar contains all the top favorites like Christmas, New Year’s Day and Tax Day (that last one is somebody’s favorite, I’m sure).
• Educational Calendar/Events: This includes key dates such as Global Family Day and National Science Fiction Day which are observed globally. 
• A Food-themed Calendar: Technically, these aren’t holidays, but they’re fun to observe and perfect for helping fill your editorial calendar, particularly if you are in the food and beverage industry (though this isn’t a requirement).

Since a long list of every conceivable holiday can seem a bit daunting to wrap your brain around, we’ve also created an embedded Google calendar that can be viewed in weekly or monthly increments or printed. 

November 2019 Holiday Calendar – Source: CommonMind

Holiday planning isn’t just for retailers

When people think of the holiday season, it tends to mean the period of time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s (although it’s been creeping up in the calendar to incorporate Halloween as well). But holiday content planning isn’t just for retailers or companies whose business ebbs and flows depending on the season. Here are a few examples of how some lesser-known holidays and observed days can inspire great content.

World Vegan Day (November 2, 2019): This is relevant to a variety of businesses in the health and wellness industry. Here are a few examples:

• A nutritionist could write a piece about how to create a nutrient-rich vegan diet.
• A healthcare provider could create a list of physical signs for vegans to be aware of that indicate they’re not getting enough of a specific vitamin or mineral.
• A fitness expert (or gym) could write about how to ensure vegans have enough energy for various types of workouts.

World Kindness Day (November 13, 2019)

• A marketing agency could write about an ad campaign or case study which features kindness as the main theme.
• A veterinary clinic could write about how kindness helps both pets and their owners live happy, more fulfilling lives.
• Any  number of businesses can write about kindness as their approach to doing business such as through employee wellness and medical programs, community service and involvement, or promoting an internal culture of kindness.

National Hot Cocoa Day (December 13, 2019)

• This is a cocoa-manufacturer’s dream holiday and the perfect day to promote their cocoa products with a blog post as well as via social media.
• Food-related organizations (coffee shops, restaurants, caterers, grocery stores, etc.) could create an event around this day (e.g., drop in for a free cup of cocoa!) and promote it via their blog and social media accounts.
• Retailers can cash in on the height of shopping season by offering free cocoa in stores, coupons that fall on this day, and stories that humanize the company which can be featured on the blog (e.g., feature an employee cocoa-related story).

As you can see, becoming familiar with nonstandard holidays as well as observance days can help spur creative ideas for content that’s relevant to a variety of businesses and industries (you don’t have to sell cocoa to take advantage of National Hot Cocoa Day).

Our Google Holiday Calendar is a great way to familiarize yourself with upcoming holidays and can be imported into your own calendar for easy reference. Since this may be overwhelming, you can also peruse the long list of holidays to begin brainstorming and filling out your editorial calendar for the rest of 2019 and into 2020.

Happy content planning!

Jacqueline Dooley is Director of Digital Strategy for CommonMind.

In this article we’ve compiled some key quotes, stats, and otherwise tweetable highlights from the event.

Keynote: The transformation of search

First we heard from Carolyn Shelby, SEO Manager, Audience Development at the Walt Disney Company / ESPN.

One of the key quotes from her session was “The trick is to understand the psychology of people. Get in front of the consumer. That’s where search engines are going. What is the least amount of thinking that I can make a consumer do? How can I get them what they want the fastest?”

"The trick is to understand the psychology of people. Get in front of the consumer. That’s where search engines are going. What is the least amount of thinking that I can make a consumer do? How can I get them what they want the fastest?"@cshel at #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

She also walked us through a brief SERP evolution, from collecting and organizing, to scoring / ranking relevancy, to now delivering immediate gratification.

A SERP evolution, from:

– Collect and organize
– Score / rank relevancy
– Deliver immediate gratification@cshel from Disney / ESPN kicks off #TSS2019 ! pic.twitter.com/L7FpU9THAJ

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

The future of search is visual

Next up we heard from Michael Akkerman of Pinterest on the growth of visual search and its role in the future.

He talked about the evolution of consumer expectations, from physical stores, to digital convenience, to omnichannel promise, to the inspired shopping of today.

Where it once may have seemed that consumers were only focused on convenience, we’re now seeing the re-emergence of shopping and discovery in the consumer experience.

Evolution of consumer expectations:

-> Physical stores
-> Digital convenience
-> Omnichannel promise
-> Today == Inspired shopping@Mike_Akka of @Pinterest on how shopping / discovery are re-emerging in the consumer experience#TSS2019 pic.twitter.com/iegoYfLCn4

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

He also talked about the role of Pinterest in consumer discovery. On Pinterest, he says, they have billions of text-based searches every month. Of those, 90% are non-brand searches. “People don’t know what they want,” he says. For brands looking to focus on the discovery portion of the consumer journey, Pinterest could be a great option.

"We have billions of text-based searches every month, and 90% of them don’t have a brand qualifier yet — people don’t know what they want."@Mike_Akka on the potential to be found on @Pinterest #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

Michael was joined on stage by Dave Fall, CEO of BrandNetworks. They did a Q&A about what brands can do to get started with visual search.

For many brands, they said, it can feel like there’s a big barrier of entry or that it has to be a huge undertaking. But, they noted, remember that your brand does have visual assets already — think about what you use for your website, display ads, Amazon product listings, etc. Consider how you can re-purpose those to get started.

Advice on getting started on #visualsearch?

"I would say just start. Sometimes the barrier to entry is going from text to visual. But your brand has visual assets: website, display, Amazon. Collect that and think about how you can reuse it."@Mike_Akka & @davefall #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

What DTCs and legacy brands can learn from each other 

Next we heard from Kerry Curran of Catalyst (GroupM). She talked about what brands can do to flip their performance marketing mindsets.

One particularly interesting finding she shared was that in campaigns, when brands communicate like a human, it can improve conversion by 900%.

"Communicating like a human increases campaign conversion by 900%."@KSCdigitalpulse from @CatalystSEM on what #DTC brands can do to flip their performance marketing mindset.#TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

She also noted that in the US, women over age 50 have $15 trillion in buying power. For many marketers, it might seem like younger generations have more appeal — but older generations have deeper pockets.

"Women over 50 in the US have $15 trillion in buying power. Yes the younger generations might seem to have more appeal, but how can you expand into audiences with deeper pockets?"@KSCdigitalpulse from @CatalystSEM at #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

Embarking on a search transformation project

After this, we had a panel discussion on “embarking on a search transformation project.”

The panel included experts from Conde Nast, Microsoft, Mindshare, Volvo, and McKinsey.

John Shehata from Conde Nast shared some work they did to refresh and consolidate older content in order to boost keyword visibility by up to 1000%.

The challenge, as he pointed out, is that 90% of online content was created in the last two years, and 90% of that content gets no traffic. And, 50% of searches on Google end in no clicks. To face that, his team is working on taking past content, consolidating multiple pieces, and focusing on making each piece amazing.

90% of content online created in last two years
90% of that content gets no traffic
50% of searches on Google get no clicks

What can we do about this?@JShehata from @CondeNast on how they refresh / consolidate older content to boost keyword visibility by up to 1000%#TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

Noel Reilly of Microsoft also touched on the speed at which new content is created. She encouraged marketers to think more broadly about what people want and are looking to discover. At Microsoft Ads, she said, 18% of queries each month are new queries.

When inputs are continuing to change so much, she recommended marketers really look at their search query reports to build content around those.

"At Microsoft Ads, 18% of queries each month are new queries.

Inputs are changing so much, you need to broaden your thinking to discover what people want.

Look at your search query reports, build your content around that."@Noooel from @Microsoft at #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

John Shehata of Conde Nast also spoke a bit about what they’re doing to prepare for voice search. Overall, he’s adopting a more conservative approach: investing a little, getting the foundation ready, and waiting for more clarity before diving into larger scale investment.

He likened the current discussion of voice search to the conversation about mobile a decade ago: “Remember when we said ‘mobile is here’ for ten years? But then it took ten years.”

"Remember when we said “mobile is here” for 10 years? But then it took 10 years.

Be ready for voice search, invest a little bit. Beyond that, there's not much we can do yet on a big scale. Have the foundation ready, wait for more clarity."@JShehata on #voicesearch at #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

And to wrap up from this session, we heard another great point from Noel of Microsoft: “The most successful brands I see are the ones putting people at the center of their advertising. Regardless of what the next big thing is in search, your job as a marketer is to understand your customer.”

"The most successful brands I see are the ones putting people at the center of their advertising. Regardless of what the next big thing is in search, your job as a marketer is to understand your customer."@Noooel from @Microsoft at #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

Amazon search

Next we heard from John Denny with some interesting statistics and expert tips on Amazon search.

When it comes to how different generations search, he revealed that 52% of Gen Z named Amazon as their favorite site for shopping. The number two spot went to Nike, who claimed just 4% of votes — putting Amazon at 13 times that.

What are Gen Z’s favorite sites for shopping?

Amazon took the #1 spot with 52%

13x higher than the #2 spot — Nike at just 4%@johnhdenny on the latest in #AmazonAdvertising#TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

He also discussed three of the main options CPG brands have for driving purchases / traffic: a brand’s own website, a brand’s detail page on Amazon, and in-store traffic.

For the largest 100 CPG brands out there, he said, there was five times more traffic on the Amazon detail page plus in-store than there was on the brand’s own website.

His message: for brands not on Amazon, might be time to consider it.

Of the 100 largest CPG brands out there, between
1. Brand website
2. Brand detail page on Amazon
3. In-store traffic

There was 5x more traffic on the Amazon detail page + in-store than there was on the brand’s own website.@johnhdenny at #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

Optimizing for voice search

Next, we heard another panel, this time specifically on voice search, from Mastercard, Synup, and Advantix Digital.

While earlier in the day we heard a more cautious perspective from Conde Nast, this panel was a bit more bullish on voice search.

Synup CEO Ashwin Ramesh gave one interesting rationale around the rapid adoption of voice search globally in countries like India, Indonesia, and parts of Southeast Asia. In India, he says, 50% of all searches are already done via voice. “They’re leapfrogging markets,” he said. He also gave the personal example that his grandmother — she doesn’t type and has never used a computer, but she sends him voice messages via her iPad.

"In India, 50% of all searches are voice.

Countries like India, Indonesia, SE Asia — they’re leapfrogging markets.

My grandmother doesn’t type, she’s never used a computer. She sends me voice messages via her iPad."@ashwin_ramesh of @synup at #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

Paradigm shifts in search

After this we heard from Stephen Kraus, Head of Digital Insights at Jumpshot. He shared many interesting statistics about the current state of the search industry and how it’s shifting.

90% of all search happens on Google, he says, and it skews branded (unlike on Pinterest). Of the top ten most used search terms on Google in the past couple months, seven are brands: Google, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, Walmart, Craigslist, and BMW.

The other three, interestingly, were “you,” “weather,” and “news.”

Top searches on Google in past couple months (total volume):

– 7/10 are brands
– Others are "you," "weather," and "news"@stephenkraussf from @jumpshotinc at #TSS2019 pic.twitter.com/CZbz8L8Z9H

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

While 90% of all search happens on Google, when it comes to product-related search, 54% happens on Amazon.

54% of product-related searches happen on Amazon. @stephenkraussf from @jumpshotinc at #TSS2019

— Search Engine Watch (@sewatch) October 25, 2019

Stay tuned for part two with highlights from the afternoon sessions, as well as some deep dives into specific insights!

In fact, there are now more than one billion voice searches per month, and this number will only rise over the coming years.

But just how big an impact is voice having on search in real terms? What are the specific strategies brands need to apply to avail of this trend?

This is another topic we’re excited to learn more about next week at the Transformation of Search Summit here in New York.

One of the experts we’ll be hearing from is Guillaume Conteville, SVP of Global Digital Marketing at Mastercard.

Guillaume will be part of the panel titled “Optimizing for position 0: Everything you need to know about Voice Search.”

1. What are your key priorities over the next twelve months?

In my role I’ll be focusing on driving change in the way we do marketing to adapt to new usage, and to leverage technology and data to their maximum potential.

The hot topics for us at the moment are CX, Voice, AR, marketing automation, and data-based customization.

2. What is your biggest challenge in achieving those?

Prioritization and execution.

There are so many potential initiatives you could start, identifying the real game-changing ones is always tricky.

Then, like always with tech-based projects, executing on your vision is always more complex than anticipated.

3. What’s your advice to others who may be facing similar challenges?

You really need to establish a broad climate of trust among all stakeholders, in order to have a real test-and-learn approach.

In adtech, it’s impossible to get it right the first time.

Success always come after a lot of optimizing and fine tuning.

4. What’s an interesting trend you’re seeing in the market right now?

It’s not search-related, but it’s fascinating to see how the changes that web browsers have made in regard to third-party cookies are having a massive impact on the whole adtech ecosystem.

The end of third-party cookie tracking will potentially be more disruptive than regulation.

5. Tell us a bit about your session at the Search Summit?

In this session, I’ll be sharing about the journey we’re going through at Mastercard to future-proof our content and ensure its discoverability in a future where people increasingly interact with machines through voice.

6. What are you looking forward to most at the Summit?

This is a unique opportunity for me to learn more about latest developments around search.

7. What’s something you do every day that helps you be more successful or productive?

It might sound cliché but, in this type of role, keeping a learning mindset is absolutely key. So every day I make sure to put some time toward talking to a lot of people and doing a lot of reading.

Siddharth has grown his career in marketing at various companies, including spending the past 11 years at SAP.

For many search marketers, embarking on search transformation projects can seem daunting and unclear. Siddharth’s expertise lies in leading marketing transformation efforts, and he’ll share insights on what’s he’s learned along the way.

Tell us a bit about your role at SAP?

I serve as head of SAP Global Partner Ecosystem and SME Marketing. In this role, I oversee SAP’s entire global partner ecosystem – with nearly 20,000 partners – including companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Deloitte. We also market to the invaluable small and midsize space. My team is responsible for providing excellent support and resources for existing partners and helping to grow the network with new partners.

What are your key priorities over the next twelve months?

My key priorities over the next 12 months will include supporting SAP revenue and growth aspirations through innovative partner marketing, communications, and enablement. We will continue to be laser-focused on creating great partner experiences, extending the company’s reach to more customers, and driving SAP brand value.

What is your biggest challenge in achieving those?

Our biggest challenge is to make sure that we stay focused and look at the big picture. We are a large team within a large, global company. The path to success comprises many components that must come together in a cohesive manner.

What’s your advice to others who may be facing similar challenges?

As with many areas in life, communication and collaboration is key. Everyone on the team needs to be on the same page when it comes to understanding the plan, the strategy, and the goals. More importantly, the communication has to be a two-way street. It is vital to establish a culture in which people feel comfortable asking questions and providing feedback.

What’s an interesting trend you’re seeing in the market right now?

It is interesting to see the growth of AI and how it is becoming more and more sophisticated. AI is providing unprecedented personalization, which makes for memorable customer experiences. When it comes to search specifically, AI is helping to make it easier to find the information you need faster and with more accuracy than ever before.

How do you expect it will change in the next 6-12 months?

The rate at which AI is evolving is truly astronomical. By its very nature, AI gets better with time. With more data and new algorithms over the next several months, accuracy will continue to improve and forecasting and anticipating customer needs will become even more precise.

Tell us a bit about your session at the Search Summit?

I am excited to be a part of the panel discussion, “Embarking on a Search Transformation Project.” It is crucial for companies to not only incorporate search into their overall martech strategy; they must continue to evolve their search strategy to include new search technology. Search needs to be a core part of every marketing strategy and tactics.

What are you looking forward to most at the Summit?

I enjoyed being a part of the Summit as the keynote speaker last year, and I am looking forward to sharing ideas around the fascinating topic of search. Search is such an important topic to all industries, and the Summit will provide an excellent opportunity to learn about the latest developments within this field.

What’s one of your favorite search technologies and why?

I have been following the development of voice search for quite some time now. It is my favorite search technology because it has come so far in such a short amount of time. Additionally, it’s an engaging, convenient, and fun way to obtain information!

What’s something you do every day that helps you be more successful or productive?

I am a voracious reader. Every time I take a break from a meeting or a call I try to read something new or interesting that expands my horizons. I also love to learn new things — so whenever I am in a meeting I often have a lot of questions.

Thanks Siddharth for the insights, and looking forward to learning more at the event.

Hope to see you all there!

She’ll be giving a session called, “Optimizing for the world’s second largest search engine: YouTube.”

Courtney has built her career in search engine optimization, including previous roles as Global SEO Specialist at Anthropologie and SEM & SEO Specialist at Nasty Gal.

YouTube and video optimization are topics a lot of us are keen to learn a lot more about. There are more than 1.9 billion people who use YouTube every month, and people are spending over a billion hours watching videos every day on the platform. Video traffic as a whole is predicted to account for 75% of all mobile traffic by 2020. There is a big opportunity for brands, publishers and video creators to expand their reach.

Tell us about your role at goop?

I manage ecommerce and SEO at goop. I match user intent to quality products and services via search (both on and off site), YouTube, and our website’s marketing and merchandising placements on the homepage and category pages.

What are your key priorities over the next twelve months?

Goop is in the process of launching a new contextual commerce experience to better meet the needs of users who are reading and shopping on our website.

We first want to meet users’ informational intent by delivering educational content across their topics of interest. Once informational intent has been met, we also want to deliver on their transactional intent by featuring compelling products in the appropriate site placements.

Another priority is improving site speed. With Google’s mobile first index, site speed has become increasingly important.

What’s an interesting trend you’re seeing in the market right now?

The rise of zero-click searches on Google. Targeting featured snippets has become increasingly important.

How do you expect it will change in the next 6-12 months?

I anticipate that the percentage of zero-click searches will continue to rise in the next 6-12 months. With this, I anticipate heightened awareness of this trend driven by Sparktoro and other sources. Advertisers and SEOs will become more focused on On-SERP SEO and featured snippet targeting.

Tell us a bit about your session at the Search Summit?

I’ll be providing an overview on how YouTube search intent differs from Google search intent and how to develop a YouTube strategy accordingly.

Along with this, I’ll give actionable advice on goal setting, KPIs to optimize for, key ranking factors, ways to drive visibility to your channel, and recommended tools to use. 

What are you looking forward to most at the Summit?

As much as I’m looking forward to the sessions, I am most excited for the networking aspect! I’m constantly driving my (non-search industry) friends crazy discussing SEO trends and strategy   

What’s one of your favorite search technologies and why?

GTMetrix for site speed tracking. This tool provides actionable recommendations for enhancing site speed and performance. 

What’s something you do every day that helps you be more successful or productive?

My morning routine is everything. I wake up early, work out, listen to a podcast or new music, drink cold brew and do my skincare routine. I’ve never been one to roll out of bed and head straight to work — I need to linger in my personal life a bit first. 

Ps — You can check out goop’s YouTube channel here.

Hope to see you at the event!

Amine Bentahar is the Chief Digital and Operating Officer at Advantix Digital. He’s also an author and member of the Forbes Agency Council.

Amine’s session will be about “Optimizing for position 0: Everything you need to know about voice search.”

Tell us about your current work

Amine Bentahar: I’m the Chief Digital & Operating Officer at Advantix Digital. I’m in charge of operations and ensuring that we are delivering the best quality work and exceptional results for our clients.

I’m also responsible for the overall digital and marketing strategy for many of our key clients which includes publicly traded companies, companies backed by major VC and PE firms, and mid-sized companies from various industries. 

What are your key priorities over the next twelve months?

AB: Implement a voice search strategy for all of our B2C and B2B clients, and continue to leverage voice search as a channel to drive new customer acquisitions for our clients. 

What is your biggest challenge in achieving those?

AB: Most companies haven’t allocated a budget specific to just voice search, and aren’t taking the time to truly understand how their customers are either looking for information or shopping through voice.

Because of this, we are having to spend a lot of time educating companies about the importance of having a voice search strategy and budget. 

What’s your advice to others who may be facing similar challenges?

AB: Educate your teams or clients on voice search and how it’s changing the way customers are shopping or looking for information. 

What’s an interesting trend you’re seeing in the market right now?

AB: The integration of voice search technology in cars, TVs, appliances and other devices. 

How do you expect it will change in the next 6-12 months?

AB: With all the money being invested in R&D by the big players (Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft), I would expect to see this trend to continue growing, and for voice search technology to be available on even more devices. 

Tell us a bit about your session at the Search Summit?

AB: My session will be about optimizing for voice search and more specifically about the steps companies must take to rank for position 0. We will help attendees understand how voice search works and how to develop organic content to be “read” by Alexa or Google Home. 

What are you looking forward to most at the Summit?

AB: I’m looking forward to meeting other thought leaders and marketers and learning from their experiences about things that are disrupting the search world. 

What’s one of your favorite search technologies and why?

AB: Voice search as I find it somewhat amazing especially when you see the fast adoption rate of the technology and how it’s impacting the way customers are now searching. 

What’s something you do every day that helps you be more successful or productive?

AB: I do my best to exercise everyday and also I take at least 30 minutes of my day to read either about marketing or management. 

As a prelude to the event, we’re doing a series of Q&As with speakers and panelists. First up, we have Noël, who will be on the panel, “Embarking on a search transformation project.”

Tell us a bit about your role at Microsoft? 

Noël Reilly: As a Strategic Account Director for Microsoft Advertising, it’s my responsibility to partner with our top global clients and ensure they understand our Microsoft value proposition and how to best leverage Microsoft Advertising products to reach their customers.

My main goal is to help build client relationships and partner with them on digital strategies which empower and grow their business.

What are your key priorities over the next twelve months?

NR: Our Microsoft Advertising offering is evolving quickly — we’ve come out with a ton of solutions, particularly in the audience, automation, and ecommerce space.

My first key priority is of course educating our clients on how best to utilize these tools to drive their goals.

We’re also looking at ways in which to bring a single voice from Microsoft to our clients — I’ve been partnering heavily with the enterprise side of our business to learn more about and deepen the relationship across top clients. 

What is your biggest challenge in achieving those? 

NR: Like all digital advertising, search in particular generates a ton of data, and we as marketers can get overwhelmed by it!

While all of this data we have access to has opened a ton of new possibilities for brands to respond, we also have to make sure we are respecting the people behind that data.

So much is changing in this space right now — with GDPR in Europe to now California following suit, there’s a lot out there to be knowledgeable of.

Add that to the way that search and discovery are changing with things like voice and image, and you’ve got yourself a really complex ecosystem.

Microsoft has taken a people-first approach to all of this. We sometimes get questions from marketers on when we’re coming out with this targeting or that data cut.

And while we are committed to client success, we have taken an industry-leading approach to brand safety and privacy standards and creating solutions that provide value while keeping customer data secure. 

What’s your advice to others who may be facing similar challenges?

NR: Ask questions! If you’re working with a partner who isn’t transparent about where their data comes from, or where your ads are showing up, you should ask why that is.

Automation is a hugely powerful tool for marketers. It can reduce a ton of bandwidth and be a key driver of your digital transformation journey.

Microsoft has tons of new products that can make personalization and automation easier, from product audiences which supercharge your ecommerce remarketing across our network, to automated bidding, to even our handy recommendations tab.

They all use the power of the Microsoft graph which can help you save time and work the way you want to work, but also offer that industry leading transparency and trust I mentioned earlier.

What’s an interesting trend you’re seeing in the market right now?

NR: We have a tendency to focus on the tools: voice search, targeting, and audiences — but those things themselves are not the disruptors.

It’s things like conversational AI, and the new consumer experience, which are what’s interesting.

If you think about search and what it fundamentally has always been: it’s a place to discover and get answers.

This has not changed, but the way consumers engage with it has. And I think marketers are working to figure out the best way to tap into this new ecosystem. 

How do you expect it will change in the next 6-12 months?

NR: I think the focus on designing for every customer experience is what will start to take the spotlight in the next 12 months.

We at Microsoft give you a ton of ways to tap into your consumer. For example, if you want to understand what voice search looks like for your brand, you could run a search query report and look for indicators of voice queries in the intent.

If you want to personalize your message, you can leverage responsive search ads.

But, just using the tools does not guarantee success. The brands who know their customer journeys and are investing in unifying their data are the ones who we see improving their marketing performance.

Tell us a bit about your session at the Search Summit?

NR: My goal is of course to inspire you to not be overwhelmed by all of the changes in the world of search but inspired to put it at the forefront of your marketing strategy — there’s no better way to understand the journey of your consumer.

What are you looking forward to most at the Summit?

NR: I’m obsessed with our clients — I’m really looking forward to hearing from the folks at Walt Disney, Volvo, and Conde Nast.

As someone whose biggest responsibility above all is client satisfaction, I have to know and stay in touch with what is top of mind for clients.

What’s one of your favorite search technologies and why? 

NR: You’re talking to someone who has worked in Search for the last 12 years, so I pretty much nerd out on all of them.

If I have to pick a favorite though, it would definitely be our newly created Audience Ads on the Microsoft Audience Network.

It leverages search and web activity as well as demographic and professional targeting to really allow the advertiser a ton of cool options for targeting, and we’re seeing really great success from our clients who are investing time into this product.

What’s something you do every day that helps you be more successful or productive? 

NR: I am an avid yogi and teach fitness classes outside of work, so this has always been an important part of my life.

I recently moved about an hour and a half outside of the city, so I’ve had to do a lot of adjusting on my time table.

I make sure every morning I use the commute time to answer emails and create my working agenda for the day, so by the time I arrive at the office, I’m ready to hit the ground running.

Things always come up, but I have found that rising early and taking advantage of the quietness of the morning has given me time back to still get things done I need to do while keeping my time in the evenings personal for myself, my family, or my students. 

To see highlights from last year’s event, check out this roundup of the sessions or these presentations.

Transformation of Search Summit 2019 speakers + agenda

We’ve gathered a great list of search marketing pros to share their knowledge and experience at this event.

Carolyn Shelby from the Walt Disney Company will kick off the morning sharing insights from her work as SEO Manager of Audience Development. She’ll explore overarching trends in search and what we can expect to change in the next year. From the shift from search to discovery to the changing balance of paid versus organic, from data concerns to the changing consumer journey, this session will touch on key themes all marketers should keep top of mind.

Michael Akkerman of Pinterest will follow with Dave Fall of BrandNetworks in a session titled “You’ll Know it When You See it: The Future of Ecommerce is Visual.” Together, they’ll discuss how marketers can inspire consumers and bring magic back to sometimes impersonal online experiences. What options exist for brands looking to create more visual discovery of their products and services?

Courtney Messerli of Goop will give expertise on optimizing for YouTube. As the second largest search engine with more than 1.9 billion monthly users, YouTube offers a huge opportunity for brands to expand their reach. She’ll give insight on video optimization as well as expectations for the role of video in the future of search.

Other speakers include:

• John Shehata, VP of Audience Development Strategy at Conde Nast
• Noël Reilly, Strategic Account Director at Microsoft
• Guillaume Conteville, SVP, Global Digital Marketing at Mastercard
• John Denny, VP Ecommerce & Digital Marketing at CAVU Venture Partners
• Allen Hammock, Global Strategist for Search at Kenshoo
• Kerry Curran, Managing Partner, Marketing Integration, Catalyst (GroupM)
• Stephen Kraus, Head of Digital Insights at Jumpshot

Why should you attend this event?

What makes the Transformation of Search Summit special, you ask?

By attending this event, you’ll be able to:

• Connect with 350+ senior search, digital, and ecommerce marketers from global brands
• Hear from renowned experts from across the industry
• Participate in an unparalleled, unique platform to dissect the current landscape
• Be immersed into a strategic deep-dive into the future of search marketing
• Share actionable search tactics on how you can capitalize on and protect your business from digital advances
• Collaborate with your peers about where the industry predicts search is heading
• Take away real insights designed to address your business needs

Last year, 59% of attendees were business leaders (C-level, partner, VP) and directors from across four continents.

To view a sample of this year’s delegate list, see here.

Who should attend?

We’ve designed this event to be equal parts strategic and tactical, designed for senior leaders as well as practitioners.

This might include:

• C-suite leaders looking to understand the changing role that search plays within their organizations
• Head/Director/SVP/VP of Marketing looking to understand the changing role of search in customers’ paths to purchase, impact of technologies on performance, spend, ROI, budgeting, etc.
• Head/Director/SVP/VP of Search/SEO/PPC looking to understand the impact of new technologies and consumer trends on how to best evolve their search marketing strategies

Industries represented span publishing, retail/ecommerce, SaaS, agencies, consultancies, financial services, and more.

Last year saw attendees from brands including Amazon, Sprint, Adobe, L’Oreal, Yext, KPMG, J.P. Morgan, Xerox, Bloomberg, and Wunderman, among many others:

When / where?

This one-day event will take place at a lovely venue called Convene, located in Midtown Manhattan at 46th St and 6th Ave.

Sessions will run from 9am to 5pm, and will be followed by a drinks reception.

Lunch, snacks, coffee, etc. will be served throughout the day.

Thank you to our partners

This event wouldn’t be what it is without the support of our partners:

• Catalyst
• Fospha
• Kenshoo
• Jumpshot
• SEOClarity
• Synup

And we’d like to extend a big thank you to each of them.

Where can I learn more about the event?

To see a full rundown of agenda, speakers, sponsors, and tickets, check out the Transformation of Search Summit website.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Our speaker for the evening was Steve Kraus, Jumpshot’s Head of Digital Insights. Steve has been at Jumpshot since November 2018, and previously held roles including Chief of Insights at SimilarWeb and SVP and Chief Insights Officer at Ipsos. He did a PhD at Harvard in social psychology, and was also previously a professor. 

He pulled on their data on consumer digital behavior to ask and answer various questions we all have about how consumers are searching and spending online.

Since they work with mostly clickstream data, the numbers in this article refer to desktop and mobile clicks, but exclude in-app actions. (You can read more about their data near the bottom of this article.)

What is Amazon’s market share of US digital transactions?

Steve jumped right in with a question we likely all have asked at one point: How much does Amazon matter in digital transactions?

Many in the audience guessed around a 35-60% share. But in reality, the distribution looks like this:

Amazon averages a 74% share of digital transactions in the US.

On this graph, the Y-axis represents the number of digital transactions and the X-axis shows Amazon’s market share in each. So for a category like electronics, you can see that there is a huge volume of digital transactions, and that Amazon holds maybe 80-85% of that volume. For something like women’s clothing, on the other other hand, both the volume is smaller and Amazon’s market share is smaller — closer to 35% (which we’ll expand on later).

Steve mentioned that it’s quite hard to capture every interaction in the long tail, but the numbers are still a fairly accurate representation of the overall.

The key takeaway?

“Everyone says Amazon is so big, but in reality many of us still underestimate them.”

According to Steve, people maybe aren’t over-hyping Amazon’s dominance (nor Google’s). And they may even be underestimating it.

“Many people guess Amazon’s market share at around 40-50% — but that’s how they perform in their worst categories, like clothing and furniture.”

He expanded on this point, adding that Amazon has 16x the number of transactions of Walmart, and 54x the number of transactions of Target.

“Even though we hear so much in the news about antitrust, Congressional hearings, etc., we still underestimate how big and powerful [these tech giants] really are.”

What percent of searches happen on Google?

Another very popular question: How much of the search market does Google own?

According to Jumpshot’s clickstream data, Google has about 90% of all web searches (desktop and Android phones).

The huge caveat here is that they can’t look at searches that happen via voice search nor inside an app — YouTube, Google Maps, Amazon and others all likely have huge volumes of search activity that’s not factored in. In the below graph, for instance, YouTube appears much smaller than Google Images, and we would assume that’s at least partly because most Google Image searchers use desktop and most YouTube searchers use the app.

We can also see from this graph how overall since January 2016, the volume of desktop searches is declining in all areas (and we would assume that volume is moving to mobile).

This graph shows the same data as above, but with Google removed so that we have a better view of the smaller players.

One interesting point to note here is how much DuckDuckGo is climbing. However, their overall volume remains quite small. They’ve gone from next to nothing up to 300 million searches a month, which is great. But compared to Google’s 60 billion searches a month, they hit just 0.5% of the volume.

What percent of product-related search is on Amazon?

We’ve seen that Google owns the largest share of the search market. But what if we look specifically at product-related search?

Jumpshot found that the positions of Amazon and Google flipped between 2015 and 2018. As shown in the image below, in 2015, Google had 54% of product-related search and Amazon had 46%. In 2018, Amazon had jumped to 54% and Google had fallen to 46%.

The obvious concern here, and one that Steve demonstrated via the Vox headline, is the advantage that Amazon has from all the data collected in those searches. And of course, how little of that data is shared with sellers on Amazon who are made to compete with Amazon’s own product lines.

By simply investigating “What kinds of keywords are people searching for and not converting on?”, Amazon can discover opportunities in the market and fill them in a way their competition can’t. 

The story here, “Amazon made a skin care line based on what users search for” represents an example of the qualms of many sellers, regulators, and consumers.

Which retailers are successful and which are struggling?

In the age of Amazon and Google, which retailers seem to be figuring out how to stay competitive?

Contrary to popular discourse about the “retail apocalypse,” Jumpshot says that many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are doing quite well. Other, newer digital brands are, too — Chewy and Wayfair, for example.

In this chart, we see the distribution of a number of successful and struggling retailers. The y-axis represents the overall number of digital transactions of that brand in 2018, and the x-axis shows the change in their number of digital transactions between 2017 and 2018.

Any names shown in green, therefore, are growing their number of digital transactions. Brands in red are shrinking. 

According to Steve, the retail apocalypse is a “story that’s oversold.” 

On the contrary, he says that “a lot of brands known for their retail presence are figuring out omnichannel.”

What causes certain retailers to succeed while others don’t? According to Steve, part of the reason can be traced to the type of search happening: branded versus utilitarian.

Branded vs. utilitarian searches

There are two very different types of searches happening in the world, says Steve. 

• Branded searches, for the name of a particular brand such as Nike, Bose, or Nintendo
• Utilitarian or unbranded searches, for items such as “phone case,” “mens socks,” and “paper towels”

And as we might expect, Google and Amazon have very distinct roles in these two types of searches. In the graph below, we see search volumes for the top 1000 branded and non-branded keywords. Google’s volume lies on the y-axis and Amazon’s on the x-axis. Items in blue are branded searches, items in orange are unbranded searches. 

Interestingly, both Prime Video and Audible get more search volume on Google than on Amazon (despite the fact that they’re owned by Amazon).

Terms like bluetooth headphones, hard drives, paper towels, and phone cases get very good volumes on both Amazon and Google. 

Noteworthy here is that it’s difficult to distinguish whether or not some of these terms are product-related or knowledge-related. If someone searches for “iphone,” do they want to buy an iPhone, learn about the next iPhone to be released, or get help with the one they already have?

Steve also pointed out that furniture is another interesting category. Wayfair has had so much success in gaining search market share there. But a few years ago, we might have predicted it would be a category Amazon could have dominated: big ticket items where people don’t have strong brand preferences. Surprisingly, Amazon hasn’t done as well there.

If we look specifically at apparel searches, we see they too tend to fall into either branded or utilitarian.

Amazon tends to do well on unbranded products like socks and underwear. Heinz for example might be highly successful on Amazon. Bigger, more well-known brands, on the other hand, tend to see higher traffic on Google. 

In the image below, Jumpshot has noted that “major fashion brands would be in the far upper right.” For example, they say Nike has 11 million searches on Google versus just 250k on Amazon.

To be competitive in this context, Steve says one might ask themselves:

“What search terms are growing and not converting? That’s the real sweet spot of opportunity.”

Organic clicks, paid clicks, and zero clicks

There are three possible actions after a search: organic clicks, paid clicks, or zero clicks.

Another question many of us are asking is, “Which of these, if any, is on the rise?”

In the graph below, we see trends of types of clicks from January 2016 to March 2019. Paid clicks and zero clicks are going up, and organic clicks are going down.

And of course, the whole idea of zero-click searches has a lot of people raising questions.

• What percent of searches on Google result in no click?
• How many people now find what they need from the home page?
• What does it mean for the publishing industry if the content a business creates can provide information to a user without that user ever leaving Google’s site?
• How much more crowded and informative will SERPs become?

Similarly to Amazon, Google has extremely valuable data about searches. It’s arguably in their own business interest not to share it.

How do people go about finding things online?

Discover –> search –> shop –> buy. 

In this image, Jumpshot shows the consumer funnel and how Google and Amazon play dominant roles in the search and shop phases. Of the “search” category, Google has close to 90% of total search volume and Amazon has about 54% of product search volume. Of the “shop” category, Amazon has about a 75% share of transactions across categories.

Interestingly, though, the upper part of the funnel remains a bit more up for grabs. And as Steve points out, it’s a “very hard thing to quantify. We can quantify if you’re searching or shopping, but discovery has less immediate action.”

We might assume that sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are where most of the discovery is happening. And while Facebook perhaps used to be very strong there, they’ve made changes to de-emphasize advertisers and move toward privacy.

On regulation

At one point, an audience member asked Steve about his thoughts on regulation and privacy.

“My own suspicion is that here in the US it won’t happen anytime soon. In the EU yes, it’s already happening. But in the US, it almost seems “un-American” to talk about anti-trust. These are entrepreneurs. They made their own success. Why would we punish them? I don’t see the political will to do that here.”

At the same time, he noted that “you do see Facebook and Google preemptively stepping back from some things to stay out of the way.”

What kind of data is Jumpshot looking at?

Jumpshot works with anonymized, aggregated, clickstream data from about 100 million devices, including desktop, mobile web for android, and app usage. (Note that their app data sits in a separate data set and doesn’t generally show what happens in an app. Rather, it shows if an app is opened, how many times it’s opened, and if a user clicked through to anything else.) 

With clickstream data, Jumpshot can only look at what websites people have visited. They can model age and gender based on those websites, but overall their view is fairly high-level. 

They also calibrate that data against “known sources of truth” such as actual versus predicted visits to a certain website. Based on those known sources of truth, they can develop algorithms to calibrate their numbers to those actual known numbers.

In general, Steve mentioned, their data is most accurate where they have more known sources of truth (such as in the US market).

“When Google and Amazon are so dominant, what does that mean for brands?”

We asked Steve what he found surprising or interesting about these findings, and he named: “in this world where Google and Amazon are so dominant, what does that mean for brands? How do they thrive? How do they make decision of utilitarian vs branded economy? They have to decide which one they’re going to play in. Some brands are strong enough that they’re able to do both.”

He elaborated with the example of Nike. They came out a couple years ago with a high-profile announcement that they would start selling directly on Amazon, which they hadn’t done previously.

Even if a brand isn’t directly selling on Amazon, the likely scenario is that they still have a presence there. Consumers can still go to Amazon, search for Nike, and get served results from resellers and wholesalers. Products may or may not be counterfeit, and sellers may or may not provide good service.

“A brand that’s not on Amazon is basically abdicating their presence on Amazon to lesser people, to these forces of the marketplace that they have no control over,” Steve says.

Nike wanted to have control over that, so they began a complex process of figuring out what and how they were going to sell on Amazon. They obviously wanted to keep their nike.com site, and they happen to be among brands who are strong enough to do so. So they started figuring out what consumers search for on their site versus on Amazon, and what products and prices to offer on each.

For retailers, Steve says, the question is:

“Do you want to work with Amazon, through Amazon, around Amazon? How do you thrive in this digital world where so many aspects of it are these winner-take-all markets?”

These Marketing Technology Awards are voted on 50/50 by the community and by a panel of judges. The ceremony will be hosted by Scott Brinker, and will take place on the night of March 21 in Tribeca, New York.

We’ve been raising quite a bit more hubbub about it on ClickZ, which more directly covers all marketing technology.

But since our SEW name is on there too, we wanted to make sure everyone here was in the loop as well. (You’ve probably seen it in the newsletters!)

How do the Marketing Technology Awards work?

You can read full detail about the Awards on the official website here, and can see answers to common questions here.

Categories span across various types of marketing technology, including CDPs, ABMs, call analytics, conversational bots, and a dozen more.

And of course, a handful of more SEO type things such as search tools, location-based marketing, mobile marketing, etc.

Categories also include “Use of Technologies” (best campaigns, best tech stack), as well as “People” (martech CEO and CMO).

The awards were free to enter, and anyone who has used any of the platforms (excluding employees) could vote on them, rating the tools on things like ease of use, integration, innovation, value for money, customer service, etc.

Finalists were determined based 50% by community votes, and 50% by these judges.

Announcing the finalists

So for 2019, we want to thank everyone who has entered, nominated, voted, scored, and otherwise provided your valuable insights and experience.

We’d like to announce the list of finalists for this year, and offer a huge congratulations to everyone on this list.

We can’t wait to celebrate you and your great work at this event.

Here’s the full list:

Technologies

Best Account Based Marketing Tool

• Demandbase
• Jabmo
• Uberflip

Best Analytics Platform

• AT INTERNET
• Interana
• Pathmatics
• TapClicks

Best Attribution Platform

• Fospha
• Marketing Evolution

Best Call Analytics Platform

• DialogTech
• Infinity
• Invoca
• Marchex

Best Chat/Conversationsal Bot/Tool

• Drift
• Smooch
• Wizu

Best Content Marketing Tool

• Acrolinx
• Percolate
• Turtl

Best Conversion Rate Optimization Tool/Technology

• CoolTool
• Lucky Orange
• WEVO

Best Customer Data Platform (CDP)

• Adlucent
• Arm Treasure Data
• Fospha
• Tealium

Best Customer Relationship Management Platform (CRM)

• Crowdvocate
• Erply
• Zaius

Best Data Privacy/GDPR Tool/Technology

• Isatis CyberSoft
• Sourcepoint

Best Data Visualization Tool

• Adobe
• DashThis

Best Demand Side Platform (DSP)

• Amobee
• SmartyAds
• The Trade Desk

Best Digital Asset Management Platform (DAM)

• Canto
• Widen

Best Email Service Provider (ESP)

• Epsilon
• GetResponse
• MessageGears
• Upland Adestra

Best Influencer Marketing Platform

• CreatorIQ
• HYPR
• IZEA Worldwide Inc.

Best Location Based Marketing Platform

• Brandify
• Chatmeter
• Rio SEO
• Yext

Best Marketing Automation Platform (MAP)

• Maropost
• Omnisend
• Salesforce
• Swrve

Best Mobile Marketing Platform

• Attentive
• Urban Airship

Best Paid Media/Bid Management Tool

• Adlucent
• Kenshoo (Kenshoo Search)
• SmartyAds

Best Personalization Platform

• Certona
• Monetate
• RichRelevance
• Sitecore
• Yieldify

Best Predictive Analytics Platform

• Keen Decision Systems
• SmartyAds

Best Sales Enablement Technology

• Clari
• Highspot
• List Partners LLC
• Seismic

Best SEO Tool

• Conductor
• OnCrawl

Best Social Media Marketing & Monitoring Company

• Kenshoo (Kenshoo Social)
• Rascasse

Overall – Marketing Technology Company of the Year

• To be announced from the list of finalist at the awards dinner

Use of technologies

Best Customer Experience Campaign

• Nestlé (Nestlé China)
• Ogilvy (H&M & Ogilvy)
• Best Data Enablement Campaign
• Adobe (Adobe)
• Catalyst (Catalyst & Tauck)
• Idomoo (Fairmont Hotels & Resorts)
• Marketing Evolution (Marketing Evolution)

Best Marketing Technology Stack

• Catalyst’s FUSION
• Kenshoo Inc.

Best Personalization Campaign

• Conversant (Swanson Health)
• Location3 (Mountain Mike’s Pizza)
• Selligent Marketing Cloud (OPEL NETHERLANDS)
• Sitecore (Herschend Family Entertainment (Dollywood.com))
• Velocity Worldwide (The Belfast Classic/Sport Changes Life)

Best Technology Combination

• Akamai
• Glisser
• Merkle (Globe Life and Accident Insurance)
• TVTY

Best Use of Marketing Technology

• Adobe (Adobe & Adobe Advertising Cloud)
• Ogilvy (H&M & Ogilvy)
• SAP (SAP & MSIGHTS, Inc.)

People

Marketing Technology CEO Award

• Conductor (Seth Besmertnik, CEO, Conductor)
• Marketing Evolution (Rex Briggs, CEO, Marketing Evolution)
• Sourcepoint (Ben Barokas, CEO, Sourcepoint)
• Tapad (Sigvart Voss Eriksen, CEO, Tapad)
• Trustpilot (Peter Holten Mühlmann, CEO, Trustpilot)

Marketing Technology CMO Award

• Hootsuite (Penny Wilson, CMO, Hootsuite)
• The Trade Desk (Susan Vobejda, CMO, The Trade Desk)
• Yieldify (Hannah Nakano Stewart, CMO, Yeildify)

Again, a huge congratulations to all of these fantastic companies and people! For inquiries about the ceremony, please see more information and contact info here.