The Portent Blog

Featured

Marketing reports damage my car. Sometimes, when I walk out of a meeting, usually a quarterly or monthly There-Is-A-Very-Important-Person-In-The-Room kind of meeting, I head to my car. I close the door. I crank up the radio. Then I punch the roof as hard as I can while screaming “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.” Most of the time, that’s because… Read More

Design & Development

Recently, I wrote about why every marketer should care about design and that we should all know design principles. However, even if you agree, you may be worried that you lack the graphic design chops or the technical skill to use something like Adobe Photoshop. Don’t let that deter you. There are plenty of tools… Read More

Design & Development

Introduction to Gutenberg for WordPress Gutenberg is a new page builder being added as an integral part of the new WordPress version 5.0. In a nutshell, rather than using shortcodes and HTML to customize page and post content within the editor, Gutenberg provides an easy-to-use interface that helps newer or less technical users to create… Read More

Amazon

If you’re thinking of selling on Amazon, or growing an existing Amazon sales channel, you know that sponsored products are the primary advertising placement for Amazon sellers within Seller Central. And within Amazon, paid placement can play a doubly important role in your overall success. First and most obviously, sponsored product sales increase your visibility… Read More

Internet Marketing

If you’re a marketer reading this and you haven’t already created an email nurturing campaign that gets beyond simply sharing your latest content, ask yourself “why not?” And no, having a single transactional email triggered when someone submits a contact form still doesn’t count. Cleverly worded though it might be. According to the Annuitas Group,… Read More

Internet Marketing

Email newsletters are a fantastic way to share highly relevant content with your audience. But they have a major problem. It’s one that affects a lot of marketers strapped for time, and that I’ll candidly admit I’ve struggled with myself. It starts harmlessly enough: telling yourself you have enough content coming out on a regular… Read More

SEO

Picture this. You’ve just hired an SEO agency, and to kick things off they’ve just delivered a massive Excel file titled “Keyword Research”. They’re clearly excited about all of the insights that lay within, and how fundamental this is to their work with you. But you’re relatively new to SEO, and when you open the… Read More

SEO

Deciding to purchase a new domain and choosing a domain name are often decisions that are made by a wide range of stakeholders within a business. Like a first-time home buyer, clients who are faced with the decision to purchase a new domain ask us a myriad of questions: Are domain names a ranking factor?… Read More

Analytics

Any marketer worth their salt knows how critical it is to measure the right performance metrics and to be able to trust that data implicitly. Nowhere is this more true than in digital marketing, where the expectation is for (nearly) flawless measurement across users, sites, campaigns, and devices. In doing dozens of web analytics audits… Read More

SEO

In December 2017, Google doubled the length of search snippets from ~160 to ~320 characters. This meant that we could now write more thorough copy in our Meta Descriptions and have that show up in search results. That lasted for 5 whole months before in May 2018, Google’s Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) confirmed, via Twitter: “Our… Read More

PPC

As a PPC Strategist working with a variety of clients and industries, I see often certain AdWords features work for some and not others. While there are some obvious wins or constant sources of high ROI, such as Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs) producing better revenue and user engagement than broad targeting Display ads,… Read More

Analytics

NOTE: This is not legal advice. We are not lawyers. It’s also not the only thing you’ll need to do to reach GDPR compliance for your business. Cookie consent is only one portion of GDPR compliance. Please consult legal counsel before implementing this solution. Another note: This solution works for cookies fired from inside the… Read More

Internet Marketing

The days when PR was a handshake and a well-placed logo on a celebrity are gone. Now that we are all slaves to the search engines that run our world (mostly kidding), our brands compete in a digital landscape that is constantly changing. Sometimes it feels like going into a sword fight blindfolded. How do… Read More

Internet Marketing

First: None of this is legal advice. I’m 24 years out of law school, and my eyes cross when I read any form of legislation. For the legalities, visit the GDPR site and/or hire a lawyer. I wrote this list while ranting about the various awful blog posts I’ve read by “experts,” and marketers’ tendency… Read More

PPC

Part 1 – Introduction to Mobile PPC & Why This Guide Matters Google searches on mobile devices outnumber those made on laptop or desktop computers and that gap continues to grow. This means that you’re likely losing money if you’re not advertising to mobile traffic in your PPC accounts. However, you need to do it… Read More

Analytics

Imagine with me for a minute you’re being asked to give credit for a marketing result: A download of a killer asset, a lead form fill, a meaningful sales opportunity. What’s “fair”? First touch? Last touch? Well, I hope one of the two, because that’s what’s being sent to Salesforce by default from your web… Read More