Episode 21: Navigating Algorithm Changes: Long-Term Strategies for Marketers
Discover how to navigate constant algorithm changes with long-term marketing strategies. Learn how understanding platform revenue models and focusing on user experience can lead to lasting success, even in a world of AI-driven content.
“AI can write, but it can’t give that unique experience of actually using the product. The human touch will become more important over time.”
Objectives
In this episode, you will be able to:
Understand the frequency and impact of Google’s algorithm changes.
Recognize the importance of long-term strategies over chasing algorithm updates.
Learn how understanding a platform’s revenue model can guide marketing decisions.
Explore the role of AI in content creation while maintaining authenticity.
Transcript
Robbie (00:00):
So, Tim, how do you keep up with all these algorithm changes? How do you make decisions about what happens on a platform?
Tim (00:08):
You employ an army of people, and you are making thousands of changes per day. It’s amazing—just scrambling, chasing after them all.
Robbie (00:16):
Knowing everything. All the time.
Tim (00:18):
All the time. Every minute change.
Robbie (00:21):
You must know them better than even the engineers at Google do.
Tim (00:24):
You know, thankfully, there’s a way around this, and it’s not chasing algorithms.
Robbie (00:29):
We are coming here today with some meaningful ideas. So we’re gonna educate you all.
Tim (00:36):
Hopefully.
[Intro]
Robbie (00:48):
Okay, so this is Tim and Robbie coming to you with the Content Community Commerce podcast. We discuss topics at the intersection of content, community, and commerce. And today, we’re gonna talk about something that I think is kind of an underrepresented idea in marketing. But I think if it’s something you understand at a fundamental level, it kind of goes upstream. It really helps to make long-term decisions on platforms and channels. We’re going to use a lot of different descriptions for what a platform and what a channel are.
Tim (01:19):
We’re gonna keyword stuff this—it’s like we’re gonna hit all the versions.
Robbie (01:22):
This is gonna be a Thanksgiving keyword turkey. But basically, how do you make decisions on platforms when they change so much?
Tim (01:31):
It’s insane. If you look at just Google as a search engine, they literally make thousands of algorithm changes a year. People think it’s just a few times a year that things change around, but the reality is that it’s always happening. They’re always in the middle of A, B, C, and D tests across a massive audience while making these changes.
Tim (01:54):
Then you have your larger updates—the ones that get a little bit of attention. So, your broad core updates, which maybe happen four times a year. This year, they’ve done four in the last quarter alone, so they’ve been a little more heavy-handed. But again, as marketers, if you’re constantly trying to appease and adjust to these changes, you’re just going to be scrambling. It’s not the best way to go. So, that’s really what we’re looking at—how do you make your website, email campaigns, videos, or whatever it might be successful when there’s this changing world around them that potentially risks trashing your success overnight? What do you do to stop that from happening?
Robbie (02:42):
Yeah, and honestly, this is where I think I notice consistently when working in social. Basically, if we can understand how a platform makes money and monetizes, we can understand what decisions they’re going to make in the long term and how they’re going to optimize moving forward. Google is looking for people to have success finding what they need on Google Search. If they don’t, they’re not going to use Google Search. If they don’t use Google Search, they’re not going to sell as many ads. Understanding this gives us an understanding that we need to be doing good work, especially on Google.
Tim (03:20):
Podcast over. Simple answer: just do good work. This is a good episode. That’s a wrap. Yeah, no, honestly, every marketer needs to have an awareness of what the updates are, what they look like, and the intent behind them. But, as you said, ultimately, all search engines and platforms are doing it to make it better for the user. If that’s your ultimate goal as a marketer, if you’re leaning into that—how do we make this the best possible experience for the user—whether that is in video, social, or organic search, your odds of surfacing in those results are going to be much higher.
Tim (04:06):
And you’re not going to be chasing after the algorithms. You’re not going to be playing in SEO black hat spaces, trying to find quick, dirty wins because they will probably result in a very quick downward spiral of traffic. So, focusing on what the user needs and understanding the intent is crucial. You don’t want to create things that don’t fit the result page. That’s the biggest thing I watch during an algorithm change—what intent does Google see this result as? Is it still informational intent, or has it changed to commercial intent? If it’s shifted to commercial, then we need to make sure that our commerce page on the site is leveled up. But we’re not trying to scramble and fix shady things we’ve done.
Robbie (04:55):
Fix it before Google does.
New Speaker (04:58):
Yeah. Don’t let them see this.
Robbie (04:59):
It’s just like when kids try to clean up after they’ve trashed the house before their parents come back, pushing everything under the couch to hide. Yeah, where’s the Cat in the Hat to clean everything up when you need him? I think it’s a unique concept because, again, we live in a world where, as marketers, we have to make decisions, change, and be nimble all the time. It forces you to think about how we operate long-term. I used to always say, “I hate Facebook,” but, dang it, I love Facebook because it made me a better marketer back in the day.
Robbie (05:29):
In social media, you really need to keep evolving and growing. They make it harder to reach an audience all the time, but they also make you step up your game in a lot of ways. For example, if Facebook monetizes through ads and they came up with Facebook Live, you’re going to get an algorithm bump when you incorporate a live video because they want more live videos. These are a little bit longer, and they can sell more ads against that.
Tim (06:04):
And they don’t want you pushing out of the platform. They want to keep things native.
Robbie (06:08):
They want to keep things native. So, staying there and keeping you there—that’s how YouTube optimizes. YouTube used to be focused on a certain number of views, but now they optimize for view length and quality. Understanding how they make money gives us, as marketers, an understanding of how to direct our efforts with a long-term mindset. Hopefully, we won’t be chasing the algorithm dragon too much, but understanding and using that knowledge in our operations is key.
Tim (06:52):
Yeah, they make money when they have the trust of the user. Whatever they’re doing is ultimately to gain that trust. Even with some of the things you’re doing with email at the moment, a user wants to know that the emails they’re receiving are coming from safe places, and that they’re not being scammed. For marketers, this means you have to go through new credentialing processes to prove that you’re not shady and not going to steal their money.
Robbie (07:26):
Yeah, the golden age for Nigerian princes is over with DMARC certification and all the different levels of certification you now have to go through to ensure you’re a reputable sender. You are the person you say you are. Even Gmail is deactivating accounts that haven’t been active for two years. If you’re emailing those accounts, you’re going to get dinged for it because you’re not practicing good list hygiene. You’re spamming.
Tim (08:00):
I was going to say, if you’re not getting open rates on those emails, and they’ve been unopened for three or six months, clean your list. Make sure you’re not just growing a long tail of spammy emails that you’re sending to.
Robbie (08:16):
It’s weird because you need to make sure the content you’re sharing is good, not spammy. If people are completely checked out and you’re not removing them from your list, that’s a loss for you. It’ll be an even bigger loss long-term because you’re going to get dinged, and deliverability will be a big issue moving into 2024.
Tim (08:41):
Yeah, so that’s one example of not chasing after shifts or changes but making your emails better. You’re constantly trying to ensure that, for the client and the user, you’re optimizing everything. In search, Google will tell you what they want. They have a quality raters guideline—a big PDF full of stuff—and they’re always updating it. But the general principle behind it all…
Robbie (09:12):
Kind of like light afternoon reading.
Tim (09:14):
It’s a great read if you want to take a nap after Thanksgiving dinner. Just read this, and you’ll be out like a light.
Robbie (09:22):
Thrilling, like The Hunger Games, and exotic like Fifty Shades of Grey.
Tim (09:28):
All of the above. If you distill it down, what they’re really looking for is experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. That’s their big overarching thing. More recently, they’ve been saying to create things that are hard for others to recreate. The internet is full of people doing the same as everyone else. How do you bring something more, something unique? If that’s how you’ve always been doing it—bringing your unique perspective, doing unique research that makes you better—then you’re already being rewarded and will continue to be because you’re doing what Google wants. When I talk about chasing the algorithms, it’s not about doing more for the sake of it. It’s about bringing something unique.
Tim (10:14):
For example, I recently shared with you about Outdoor Magazine partnering with Colorado State to have a testing lab for their product and gear reviews. It looks really legitimate now because they’re testing in a lab. The bar is set higher, but that’s where, as a consumer, you don’t want an affiliate who’s never touched the product to tell you, “Here are the seven best e-bikes,” when that person has never gotten off their couch wrote the article.
Tim (11:07):
You want somebody who has actually gone on a trail, used the product, and provided feedback with photos of their experience. It justifies everything. As marketers, we need to be more genuine and legitimate.
Robbie (11:24):
Yeah, you make a really good point. Content is becoming commoditized with AI, making it harder for quality content to rise to the top. But that’s likely the direction we’re going.
Robbie (11:50):
Unique and novel content that AI can’t produce will become more valuable over time.
Tim (11:59):
Yeah, AI can write it, but it can’t give that unique experience of actually using the product or being an expert who has talked to customers and knows their gripes.
Robbie (12:14):
AI can give content but not as much context and nuance.
Tim (12:17):
Yeah.
Robbie (12:17):
It gives us an understanding of how to make long-term decisions. Even if we’re using AI, let’s make sure we have a human voice on top of it. AI can be a primary research tool, but let’s have a subject matter expert push the idea forward further than we could have otherwise. The human touch is going to become more important over time as AI becomes commodified. We’re going to see more of this across marketing in general. Email is becoming more contextual, with Gmail trying to deliver emails at specific times that they think will be best, possibly without giving you the chance to send it at your own time.
Tim (13:09):
“Tim wants to read this now.” “Tim never received this one because Tim didn’t want to read it.”
Robbie (13:28):
“Tim’s credit card is maxed.” It’s a unique piece of understanding how to approach this without being shortsighted and focusing on the long term. We have to play the long game as marketers.
Tim (13:38):
Yeah, and as you mentioned earlier, the advertising component can’t be ignored. Ultimately, there’s a revenue part at the end. I don’t want to say that performance in search can be influenced by ads in search, but I think organic can be influenced by ads. You also mentioned videos—if videos are longer and more quality, there are more opportunities for ads to show, versus a quick and dirty 30-second video.
Robbie (14:17):
You can’t do interstitial videos on a 30-second video; it just doesn’t work.
Tim (14:26):
10 seconds in “We’re gonna break in with an add”.
Robbie (14:30):
“These are my top five life hacks.” Just cutting it off at the knees. But it’s fascinating because platforms reward creators for the content they produce and the amount of time they keep people engaged. If I’m keeping people engaged for a longer time, I’ll get rewarded by the algorithm, and the platform will make more money because I’m on the platform longer. Understanding this helps us unpack the contextual nature of how these platforms monetize and make decisions about what content to show, surface, or tank long-term.
Tim (15:24):
Google has a lot of dead bodies between the search engine, YouTube, and everywhere else.
Robbie (15:30):
Google—cold-blooded.
Tim (15:31):
Billions of pages and videos that will never see the light of day. <laugh>
Robbie (15:35):
But the reason I like this idea is that if you extrapolate it across networks and platforms, like Google call surfaces, it’s applicable to everything. It gives you great insights into where to make your decisions and where to place your bets. If we know a platform is saturated and overdone, it may not be advantageous for us, so we may not need to invest there.
Tim (16:07):
Or, we don’t have the capabilities to create informative, long, engaging videos. So maybe we shouldn’t just do YouTube because everybody wants to be there. You pick the places where you can execute at your best.
Robbie (16:22):
But Spotify, when you’re serving up our podcast, make sure to give it some love. We’re giving you guys some love right now. This is the most engaging podcast around, keeping everyone on for long periods so you can sell lots of ads. But it’s true. This podcast is brought to you by the Spotify Podcast Network, not affiliated with the Content Community Commerce podcast.
Robbie (16:47):
We’re going to get our next season with that tagline. But I think it’s fascinating that it applies to every platform and how we think about it. Even Gmail, to some extent—they need to serve up ads. They have different inboxes: primary, promotions, and notifications. They separate that out, so you may not receive as many emails from brands, making it harder for brands to reach people. But if you’re not receiving those emails from Pottery Barn, you’ll go to Pottery Barn through search and may click on an ad. There’s a unique incentive structure around it, and I’m trying not to go down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
Tim (17:33):
You’re tiptoeing in there. I’m gonna pull you out, Robbie.
Robbie (17:39):
This is what YouTube doesn’t want you to know. But these are the things I think are unique because, as time goes on, we can use this insight to make long-term decisions. Understanding this will help you see what level of investment you need to make, how worthwhile it’s going to be, and what’s going to be successful long-term.
Tim (18:21):
I like that. So if we were to do three key takeaways for marketers who want to avoid chasing algorithms, what are those takeaways?
Robbie (18:33):
First off, understand how the platform monetizes. If we understand that, we can understand the direction they’re going long-term and make strong, durable decisions that aren’t just short-term focused. We can be trashy and short-term occasionally, but not for the majority of our marketing.
Tim (18:57):
You’re in it for the long term. So, yeah. I would say focus on the user and create quality content for them. If you’re just trying for quick wins purely to appease Google and hope to win a piece of the pie, you’re probably not going to get rewarded. But if you’re thinking about how to make this great for the user and optimizing accordingly, you’re likely to surface much higher, whether that’s in Google Search, YouTube, or whatever platform you’re using.
Robbie (19:37):
Lastly, while it may take some experimentation, don’t fall prey to short-term thinking. The short-term mindset is really a killer because if you get too focused on juicing the algorithm, that’s when you’re going to make bad decisions. That’s when you’re investing in black hat strategies.
Robbie (19:57):
That’s when you’re trying to do sketchy things that aren’t on brand. Your TikTok might go crazy for a few days, but then you’re going to get dinged.
Tim (20:08):
It’s not worth it for the long term.
Robbie (20:10):
Yeah, so be smart about how you’re approaching it. Use that information to empower you as a marketer. Thinking about that across platforms gives you a lot of power as a marketer.
Tim (20:21):
Yeah, I like it. Robbie, you got some practical takeaways.
Robbie (20:25):
Okay, this was a treat, Tim. It was a speedier pod, but I think it was good—short and sweet. We’ll see you guys next time.
Tim (20:33):
Next time.
[Outro]
