In late May 2026, Google published its first official guidance on how AI Overviews and AI Mode work. It is the clearest thing the company has said on the subject, and it points directly at the fundamentals: fast, accessible websites, content that reflects genuine expertise, and strong local reputation signals. These are the same things that have driven search visibility for years.

The entire category of “AI optimization” services (the chunking, the file formats, the rewrites) does not appear in the guidelines as something Google uses or rewards. In fact, Google addressed these tactics in a section titled “Mythbusting.”

That is worth pausing on. Not because you should feel validated (though you might), but because it tells you exactly where to spend your time. You don’t need a new playbook; you simply need to execute the existing one more consistently.

Here is what Google actually said in their AI search guidelines, what it means for your business, and one question that will tell you whether your website is already in good shape.

Contents

• What’s in Google’s AI search guidelines?
• What to focus on for AI search visibility, according to Google (+experts!)
• What’s less important for AI search
• How to apply these AI search guidelines in one easy step

What Google says about AI search in its guidelines

The guidance lives in Google Search Central’s documentation under “Optimizing for generative AI features on Google Search.” It was announced at Google I/O 2026 and covers AI Overviews, AI Mode, and the emerging category of agentic search experiences.

The document answers a question that has been floating around since AI Overviews launched: Does SEO still matter for AI search?

Nikiya Griffith, Director of Organic Growth at BX Studio, says the answer has been clear in practice for some time. “We’ve seen that about 80% of the time, what’s good for SEO is good for GEO. Our most successful strategic initiatives over the last year have been ones where SEO and GEO were approached in unison as one holistic strategy. Of course, you still need to devote time and attention to the considerations that are unique to GEO or SEO, but overall, we really see GEO as an extension of good SEO.”

Google’s guidance lands in the same place. Its answer is direct: “In short, yes.” Its generative AI features pull from the same Search index as traditional results. They use the same ranking systems. Succeeding in AI Overviews or AI Mode starts with succeeding in search.

Three themes run through the document: foundational SEO, demonstrable expertise, and trust and local relevance. This is not a new set of requirements. It is a clarification of which signals Google already counts, now applied to AI-powered experiences.

For small businesses, that is genuinely good news: The work you have already done holds more value than the AI optimization industry would have you believe.

Get everything you need to know about showing up in AI search in our free guide: The AI Search Toolkit >>

What to focus on for AI search visibility, according to Google (and the experts!)

While the mythbusting section is detailed (which we’ll cover shortly), the guidance on what actually works breaks into three areas that will feel familiar to anyone who has been paying attention to SEO over the past few years.

Foundational SEO

AI systems still need to discover, access, understand, and retrieve content. That process works the same way it always has. The guidance explicitly references crawlability, site structure, mobile usability, page speed, and internal linking, and these same factors affect both traditional search visibility and how AI Overviews retrieve content.

A plumbing company in Phoenix with a slow mobile site creates a barrier for both. These used to feel like two separate problems. Google’s guidance makes clear that they are the same problem.

For most small businesses, the technical bar is not complicated. Make sure your content is crawlable, your site performs well on mobile, and your pages meet the basic technical requirements to be eligible for indexing. If you can check those three things, you have covered most of what the technical section describes.

Content built on real experience

This is where the guidance spends the most time, and it is worth reading carefully.

Google explicitly prioritizes what it calls “non-commodity content,” meaning content that goes beyond what anyone with a search engine could produce.

The guidance gives a clear example of the distinction: a summary of existing advice is commodity content. A first-hand account based on real experience (“Why We Waived the Inspection and Saved Money: A Look Inside the Sewer Line”) is non-commodity content. The difference is not length or format. It is whether the content reflects genuine knowledge that is not widely available elsewhere.

For SMBs, this is a real structural advantage over larger publishers or businesses. An HVAC technician in Cleveland who writes about why heat pumps underperform during polar vortex conditions, covering the specific settings to adjust and the system configurations that tend to fail, is providing something a national publisher writing generic HVAC content cannot replicate. A dental practice that explains what patients actually notice during their first Invisalign appointment, drawn from hundreds of cases, is working with knowledge that competitors cannot simply copy.

Businesses closest to customer problems often have information that larger publishers cannot easily replicate. Google’s guidance points toward making that expertise visible.

“If you have genuinely unique insights to share, whether it’s in the form of expert quotes, original data, or something else, you’re going to have a much better chance of winning in organic and AI search,” said Nikiya.

“You still need to make sure you’re following best practices and formatting fundamentals, so your content can be easily crawled and gets discovered. But quality beats quantity if you’re aiming for long-term growth.”

Local relevance and trust signals

The guidance calls out Google Business Profile, reviews, citation consistency, and local mentions as signals that carry weight in both traditional and AI-powered local results.

For small businesses, reviews that describe specific services or outcomes carry more than generic five-star ratings. “Arrived on time, fixed the leak” gives AI systems less to work with than a review describing a specific situation: an emergency repair at 2 a.m., or a problem that two other companies had misdiagnosed. Specific language gives Google’s systems more context about what your business actually does and how well it does it.

Citation consistency matters too. If your address, phone number, and business name appear differently across directories, it weakens the trust signal. Cleaning that up pays off in both traditional and AI-powered local results.

Need help understanding the modern rules for SEO? Download our free guide >> How to Do SEO Right—Right Now!

What’s less important for AI search, according to Google

The mythbusting section of Google’s AI search guidelines is where businesses can save real time and money. Google names five tactics and explains that none of them are required for AI search visibility.

Llms.txt files

An llms.txt file is a markdown document placed at a site’s root that summarizes what a site is and links to its most important content. The idea, proposed by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI in 2024, was that AI systems could use this file to orient themselves without crawling everything. The SEO industry ran with it quickly.

The problem is that AI systems have largely not read it. Ahrefs analyzed 137,000 sites in May 2026 and found that 97% of existing llms.txt files received zero traffic. Not low traffic. Zero, meaning no bots, no humans, nothing fetching the file at all. Of the 3% that did receive any traffic, AI retrieval bots accounted for just 1.1% of requests. Slackbot, a chat app’s link-preview mechanism, fetched more llms.txt files than PerplexityBot did.

Ahrefs also found that zero AI bots went looking for llms.txt files that did not exist. There is no knock at the door you are missing by not having one.

Google’s guidance matches this data precisely. The mythbusting section states that businesses do not need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in generative AI search.

Google’s own Search Advocate John Mueller has called llms.txt “a temporary crutch, perhaps to save some tokens” for AI coding tools parsing developer documentation. The file was designed for software developers, not HVAC companies or dental practices.

Content chunking

Chunking means breaking content into short, discrete sections under the theory that AI systems retrieve information in small pieces and prefer content formatted that way. Google says this is not accurate.

Its systems can understand multiple topics on a single page and surface the relevant portion without the publisher doing that work in advance. Write pages for your audience. Length should follow the content, not the other way around.

AI-focused content rewrites

Some businesses have been rewriting perfectly serviceable pages to add “long-tail keywords” and “AI-retrieval phrases.” Google says this is not necessary.

Its systems understand synonyms and general meaning well enough that content does not need to mirror every variation of a query. Chasing retrieval phrases is work that produces diminishing returns.

Specialized AI schema

Structured data continues to matter for rich results, including review stars, FAQ boxes, and local business details. But Google is explicit that there is no special schema.org markup for AI search. There is no AI-specific type or new property you need to add. If your structured data is already in place for traditional search, you are covered.

Nikiya flags one practical risk worth watching here. “There’s been a lot of mixed messaging around schema markup recently, and as a result, we’ve seen an uptick in what I consider schema slop. I think the intention behind it is good; people want to follow best practices, but if you have an AI tool write schema for you, and you don’t have an expert with technical SEO or GEO experience to review that code, you can actually wind up doing yourself a disservice. If you’re going to add schema markup to your website, you need to make sure it matches what’s actually on the page, and you need to validate it.”

Follow this schema workflow if you do add it to your site.

The short version: existing, accurate, validated structured data is what matters. Adding more schema without those conditions is not a neutral act.

How to apply these AI search guidelines in one easy step

When reviewing a page, ask: Would a customer who already trusted your business find this genuinely useful?

Read each page as a prospective customer would, and look for:

• Specifics
• Evidence of experience
• Practical guidance rather than general statements

Pages that sound interchangeable with your competitors are the ones that deserve attention first. Pages that reflect how your business actually thinks about problems and solves them are already aligned with what Google describes throughout its guidance.

The content that tends to underperform in AI search is the same content that tends to underperform in traditional search: thin, generic pages that do not add anything beyond what is already available everywhere else. That has not changed. It is simply more visible now.

What Google’s guidance clarifies

The most valuable aspect of this document may simply be the clarity it provides. For the first time, businesses have a written reference from Google itself on what it evaluates across traditional and AI-powered search experiences.

When someone tries to sell you a new AI optimization service, whether it involves chunking, llms.txt files, or special schema, you can check it against published guidance. If Google explicitly says it does not matter, that is a definitive answer.

The work that has always driven search visibility is the same work this guidance describes: technical accessibility, demonstrated expertise, and local trust signals. Adding AI to search does not change what the foundation requires. If anything, it makes getting that foundation right more consequential.

The post Google’s AI Search Guidelines: What You Really Need to Know appeared first on WordStream.

Cross-channel marketing is the discipline that closes that gap. It’s a coordinated approach to reaching customers across paid, owned, and earned channels where data from each channel informs the messaging and timing of the others, so a single campaign feels continuous instead of repetitive.

As someone who has spent more than a decade working in and alongside marketing departments of varying shapes and sizes, I’m intimately familiar with the challenges and opportunities surrounding cross-channel marketing.

In this guide, I’ll cover the basics of cross-channel marketing, show you how to execute it, and share some examples to put it all in perspective.

Contents

• What is cross-channel marketing?
• Cross-channel vs. multichannel vs. omnichannel marketing
  • Cross-Channel Maturity Assessment
• The channels that go into a cross-channel mix
• What cross-channel marketing actually buys you
• How to build a cross-channel marketing strategy
• 3 cross-channel marketing examples
• How to measure cross-channel marketing
  • Cross-Channel Stack Builder
  • Cross-Channel Frequency Cap Calculator
• Common cross-channel mistakes to avoid
• Cross-channel marketing FAQs

What is cross-channel marketing?

Cross-channel marketing is a coordinated approach to reaching customers across multiple connected channels (paid, owned, and earned), where data from each channel informs the messaging and timing of the others, so a single campaign feels continuous rather than repetitive.

In operational terms, a cross-channel campaign has three shared layers: one audience definition pushed to every platform, one creative system rendered natively per channel, and one measurement frame that treats all channel-level data as inputs to a single ROI question. Strip any of those three out, and you do not have cross-channel; you have multichannel with extra steps.

That is the multichannel trap: running ads on Google, Meta, and your email list does not make you a cross-channel marketer if those channels never share an audience or a signal. Multichannel is coverage. Cross-channel is coordination.

Do you know how your Google Ads are really performing? Find out with our Free Google Ads Grader

Cross-channel vs. multichannel vs. omnichannel marketing

There is often a lot of confusion about the difference between cross-channel, multichannel, and omnichannel.

A quick-and-dirty way to think about this is: multichannel = present; cross-channel = coordinated; omnichannel = all-encompassing (offline and online).

Here’s a more in-depth breakdown:

Want to know what stage of marketing maturity (multi, cross, or omnichannel) your company is currently in? Answer a few questions, and our free tool will help you determine which stage you’re actually in:

The channels that go into a cross-channel mix

Your cross-channel marketing mix depends on your business: it’s a mix of multiple channels that share audiences and signals.

Marketers now use an average of 10 customer engagement channels in their mix, but high-performing marketers fully personalize experiences across only six of them, per Salesforce’s State of Marketing Report.

That four-channel gap between channels used and channels coordinated is the working definition of the cross-channel problem. The mix keeps growing, and the coordination is what lags.

Cross-channel marketing doesn’t require running all 10. It requires that the channels you do run share audiences, triggers, and measurement.

This is particularly true for a small business with limited resources. Your cross-channel mix could be just a couple of carefully coordinated channels.

What cross-channel marketing actually buys you

Cross-channel marketing requires some work to achieve. It’s important to understand what you will, and probably won’t, gain from it.

Cross-channel marketing has a few primary benefits:

• Campaigns using three or more channels see a 287% higher purchase rate than single-channel campaigns: Based on Omnisend customer data. It’s important to treat this as directional, not causal.
• Customers exposed to AI-powered personalization across three or more touchpoints show a 67% repeat-purchase rate: That’s with the average personalized customer generating 3.4X more lifetime revenue than a non-personalized counterpart.
• High-performing marketing teams are 12.8X more likely than underperformers to heavily coordinate marketing efforts across channels: That’s from a survey of ~4,500 marketers in Salesforce’s 10th Edition State of Marketing.
• 79% of customers expect consistent interactions across departments, yet 55% say it generally feels like they’re communicating with separate departments instead of one company. 

If you’re looking to add raw incremental leads or sales, focusing on cross-channel coordination may not be the right area of focus. Better coordination across channels can get you better yield out of your current spend, but it’s ultimately about coordination more than increased reach.

Want more sure-fire tactics to drive more sales? Download 14 Super-Fast Ways to Boost Conversions

How to build a cross-channel marketing strategy

To build a cross-channel marketing strategy, you want to start with a target audience. From there, you determine the proper channels to leverage, map creative to those channels, and build a system of cross-channel management and tracking.

Define one audience, not per-channel audiences

Build the audience definition outside the ad platforms first. Your CRM (customer relationship management software), a CDP (customer data platform), or even a clean spreadsheet works as the source of truth. Then push that single definition into the appropriate platform, like Google Ads Customer Match, Meta Custom Audiences, your email service provider, or your demand-side platform.

Map the journey to channels, not channels to budget

Lay out the customer journey first: stage, then channel, then message, then next best action. Most teams do this backward. They look at last quarter’s marketing budget split, decide who is getting a raise, and stick the journey logic in later.

Set one creative system

You are looking for consistency across channels with your creative, offers, and brand experience. Build a single campaign-level promise with one offer and one proof point. Then translate it into channel-native executions.

Wire up identity and signal sharing

Every ad platform needs to know when someone buys, fills out a form, or calls your business. If that connection is broken, your reporting lies to you.

The two free fixes most small businesses skip are turning on Enhanced Conversions in Google Ads and the Conversions API in Meta. That is the single biggest data upgrade you can make in an afternoon.

If your developer or agency offers to set up “server-side tagging,” say yes. You do not need to know how it works. Skip any pitch for a “Customer Data Platform,” unless you are running four or more paid channels at real scale.

Set frequency caps across channels, not within

The most powerful budget argument for cross-channel is that you stop hitting one prospect with 14 ads when 4 would have done it.

Most teams cap frequency inside each platform. That is multi-channel capping. It does not account for what Meta is doing to the same user that YouTube is also doing.

This guide walks through implementing cross-channel frequency capping, which requires a unified user ID, which is what identity resolution is for.

Decide your measurement frame before you launch

Pick what “success” looks like before you start spending. Decide on the one or two marketing KPIs you’ll use to judge the campaign (cost per lead, return on ad spend, sales generated in the first 30 days) and write them down before launch.

Wait until the campaign is running, and you will find some metric on some dashboard that makes the work look good. That is not measurement. That is cherry-picking.

For a simple framework you can use this afternoon, use this guide to marketing objectives.

3 cross-channel marketing examples

Below is a series of cross-channel examples across different company types. The through-line for each example is that each has one audience, one signal, and three or more channels that talk to each other.

Example 1: B2C ecommerce

An apparel brand syncs its browse-abandon and cart-abandon audiences into Meta, Google Ads, and Klaviyo from a single customer data source. A browse on the site triggers a retargeting ad capped at three impressions across all three platforms combined. An email follows at hour 24. An SMS follows at hour 48 for opted-in users only.

In a cross-channel marketing system, an ad like this could trigger after someone abandons their cart.

The mechanics that make it cross-channel: the brand identifies the same person across all three platforms, so the three-impression cap holds across the whole mix. Without that identity match, the same prospect would see three Meta ads, three Google ads, three reminder emails, and an SMS within 48 hours of a single browse session. The brand still spends the same budget. It just stops burning it on people it has already reached.

Example 2: B2B SaaS/ABM

In B2B deals, the buyer is usually a group, not a person. Gartner and Forrester research find that the average B2B buying group has six to 10 people who weigh in on a purchase, and each of them takes 15 to 20 marketing touches before the deal closes. That is the cross-channel problem in one number.

The mechanic that makes it cross-channel rather than multi-channel: the team uses one platform (an “account-based marketing” or ABM platform) that watches what people at each target company are doing across LinkedIn ads, display ads, and the company’s website. When someone at a target account starts paying more attention, the platform automatically ramps up direct mail to that account. When an account goes quiet, the platform tells the sales team to stop calling and focus on accounts that are actually warming up.

Every channel works off the same signal about what each target account is doing. None of them runs on its own schedule.

Example 3: Local and multi-location SMB

An auto-service shop runs Local Services Ads, Google Ads, Meta, organic Google Business Profile, and email. The mechanic that makes it cross-channel: phone-call conversions in Google Ads get pushed back into Meta as a custom conversion event. A searcher who called for a brake quote then gets a Meta retargeting ad for an oil-change offer, not the same generic “schedule service” ad they already ignored.

Cross-channel marketing helps you send more relevant ads to people who connect with your business.

The coordination layer is server-side tagging plus a marketing services partner, which is how most multi-location SMBs get there without a full data team. The shop is not running a CDP. It does not need one. It needs one event flowing cleanly between two ad platforms and an email tool. That is cross-channel at the SMB scale, and it works.

How to measure cross-channel marketing

Multi-touch attribution coverage has collapsed from over 90% to between 30% and 60% in post-cookie environments.

Additionally, customers and prospects are increasingly researching your brand in AI platforms and agents that may or may not link to your site, breaking the trackable funnel in another way.

This means that the measurement model most teams used for the last decade now misses 40-70% of the conversions it is supposed to count. You can combat some of this leakage by using multiple tools.

Cross-channel measurement tools and software

Determining your “cross-channel measurement stack” can be overwhelming. If you’re looking for help determining how your company should think about the specific stack that will best fit your needs, we built a free tool to help you make the right choice:

Here are the two areas to focus on:

1. Server-side tracking and enhanced or server-side conversions: The plumbing that gets clean conversion data from your website into every ad platform. Set this up first. Everything else here depends on it. (See Step 4 above for the SMB version.)
2. GA4 cross-channel reports and Data-Driven Attribution: Google Analytics 4 is the free analytics tool that ships with Google’s marketing stack. The cross-channel reports show you how Google Ads, organic search, social, email, and direct traffic combined to drive a conversion. Data-Driven Attribution (DDA) is Google’s automated model that splits credit across those touches based on what actually moved the needle.

Two things to note:

• Google’s April 2026 update changed how paid and organic search are grouped. Check “session_default_channel_group” in your reports so you are comparing the right things.
• DDA needs at least 400 conversions per 28-day window per event to model credibly. Below that threshold, use Position-Based attribution as a fallback.

This is useful for day-to-day optimization decisions.

3. Media Mix Modeling (MMM): MMM works backward from what you spent on each channel each week and what came in as revenue to figure out which channels actually drove the result. It uses aggregated data only, so user-level tracking is not required.

This is useful to decide where your next budget dollar should go.

4. Incrementality testing: Pause one channel in one geography for 30 days. Measure whether sales in that geography actually drop. That tells you what the channel was really delivering, separate from what the ad platform claims. Run one of these tests per quarter against your biggest channel. You can also use this same approach for other segmentations like day-parting.

This is useful to check whether the rest of your measurement is telling the truth.

5. In-platform reporting: The numbers that each ad platform (Google, Meta, and so on) shows you about its own performance. This is useful for tuning campaigns inside that platform. Every ad platform over-credits itself, so do not use these numbers to compare platforms against each other or to decide how to split budget across the mix.

KPIs that actually matter for cross-channel marketing

These are the most useful KPIs to measure cross-channel marketing:

• Blended CAC (customer acquisition cost): Total marketing spend divided by new customers gained. This is the only cost-per-customer number that survives cross-channel measurement.
• Cohort LTV (lifetime value) at 30, 60, 90, and 180 days: How much new customers spend with you over their first six months. This tells you whether you are buying durable customers or one-time conversions.
• Marketing-influenced revenue percentage: The share of total revenue had a marketing touch somewhere in its path. This would be marketing-influenced pipeline if you are B2B.
• Cross-channel frequency: The average number of ad impressions each prospect sees across all your channels combined.
• New-to-file rate by channel mix: Which combinations of channels bring in new customers, versus which combinations just keep re-touching people who would have bought anyway.

What not to do when measuring cross-channel

Stop crediting “last paid touch.” Last-click attribution gives the final paid ad all the credit and ignores everything that came before it.

Stop adding up channel-by-channel ROAS (return on ad spend) from each platform’s own dashboard as if those numbers are comparable. Meta and Google each over-credit themselves. Summing their reported ROAS gives you a number that does not exist in the real world.

Not sure what your cross-channel cap should be? Use our free tool to get a specific recommendation:

Common cross-channel mistakes to avoid

These are the six mistakes that show up over and over in cross-channel marketing audits:

1. Confusing channel coverage with channel coordination: Running ads on Google, Meta, and TikTok at the same time is not cross-channel marketing. If those channels do not share audiences or signals, that is multichannel with a bigger spreadsheet.
2. Buying a CDP before fixing your tag setup and audience definitions: A Customer Data Platform will not save messy conversion data or vague audience rules. Fix the inputs first. Then decide whether you need the platform on top.
3. Capping frequency per platform but not across the mix: Three impressions on Meta, plus three on YouTube, plus three on display is nine impressions to the same prospect. Cap the total, not the channel.
4. Letting each channel manager pick their own audience definition: “High-intent shopper” on the Meta side and “high-intent shopper” on the Google side have to refer to the same list of people. If they don’t, every channel is optimizing for someone different.
5. Building creative once for “the campaign” and reusing it everywhere unmodified: Coordination is not duplication. Same promise, same proof point, different format per channel.
6. Trying to run cross-channel without server-side data, then being shocked when nothing reconciles: Every ad platform reports its own version of the truth. The only way to compare them is with clean first-party conversion data flowing into all of them from one source.

Cross-channel marketing FAQs

There’s a lot to discuss on this topic. Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about cross-channel marketing.

What is cross-channel marketing in simple terms?

Cross-channel marketing is a coordinated approach to reaching customers across multiple connected channels (paid search, social, email, SMS, display, CTV, and more) where data from one channel informs the next. A click on one channel can trigger a follow-up message on another, so the customer experience feels continuous instead of repetitive.

What’s the difference between cross-channel and multichannel marketing?

Multichannel means you’re present on multiple channels, but each one operates independently. Cross-channel means your channels share data and trigger each other. A browse on your site, for example, can trigger a retargeting ad, then an email, all coordinated. Multichannel is coverage; cross-channel is coordination.

Is cross-channel marketing the same as omnichannel?

No. Cross-channel coordinates marketing channels around a single campaign or journey. Omnichannel goes further: every brand touchpoint, including service, in-store, and commerce, shares a unified real-time customer view. Most SMB and mid-market teams are realistically doing cross-channel, even when vendors sell them “omnichannel” platforms.

What are examples of cross-channel marketing campaigns?

An ecommerce brand syncing browse-abandon audiences across Meta, Google, and email with shared frequency capping. A B2B team running coordinated LinkedIn ads, display, and direct mail against the same target account list, paused when intent signals fire. A local business retargeting Google Ads searchers with a Meta offer.

How do you measure cross-channel marketing in 2026?

With a layered stack: server-side tracking for clean inputs, GA4 data-driven attribution for day-to-day optimization (minimum 400 conversions per 28 days), media mix modeling (MMM) for budget allocation, and quarterly incrementality tests for causal validation. Single-touch attribution and platform-reported ROAS are no longer reliable as standalone measures.

Do SMBs need a customer data platform (CDP) for cross-channel marketing?

Not necessarily. If you’re running two to three channels with a single email tool and a CRM, a well-configured ESP plus server-side tagging and shared custom audiences can deliver most of the value. A CDP earns its cost when you’re operating four or more paid channels at scale and need real-time identity resolution.

Make cross-channel marketing your growth engine

Cross-channel marketing is a powerful driver of leads and conversions because it blends thoughtful creative, intentional use of technology, and buyer psychology to reach more people in an impactful way.

The best part is that it can be scaled up or down to fit just about any business. So whether you market a fast-growing, multi-location auto repair shop, an online retail outlet, or a local yoga studio, you can tailor the tactic to your goals.

And if you’d like some help coordinating and tracking your marketing channels, reach out, and we’ll show you how our digital marketing solutions can help.

The post Cross-Channel Marketing: Benefits, Strategies, & Measurement Tools appeared first on WordStream.

For a long time, that approach worked. Content only needed to do three things:

1. Appear in Google’s SERP in top positions for relevant business queries.
2. Bring visitors to the site.
3. Turn some of those visitors into leads or customers.

As long as Google delivered the visit, the system held together.

However, things quickly changed when AI Overviews, local packs, and tools like ChatGPT entered the picture.

Today, many searches end before anyone clicks. AI answers summarize the pages, local packs show the key details, and zero-click results solve the problem directly on the search page. AI Overviews alone now reduce clicks by 58%. (This phenomenon is often referred to as Google Zero.)

In those cases, the user gets what they need without ever visiting a website.

When visibility moves away from the site, search-only content stops contributing to it. It doesn’t get reused in conversations, and it doesn’t help explain the service elsewhere. 

Once the visits disappear, the content just sits there doing nothing.

It’s important to note that this is not a quality problem. It is the result of designing content to work in one environment, under conditions that no longer exist.

In this article, I’ll explain how to design and create a content strategy so it continues to drive value for your business, even when rankings fluctuate and clicks disappear due to Google Zero.

Contents

• Why traffic is no longer the marker of content marketing success
• How to future-proof your content strategy against Google Zero
  • Design content for reuse first, ranking second
  • Build around core assets, not disposable blog posts
  • Focus on distribution channels that keep value when search drops
• Metrics that matter when traffic does not
• How to transition your content strategy without nuking existing SEO

Why traffic is no longer the marker of content marketing success

The most effective content strategy today doesn’t need traffic to prove its value. It still gets used even when nobody clicks.

In practice, that means the content works in more than one place. It can explain the service in an email. It can help sales answer common questions. AI can summarize it without twisting its meaning.

This kind of content has a few clear traits:

• It still makes sense when pulled out of the page.
• It can be reused without rewriting.
• It supports sales, support, and education.
• It still works when the click never happens.

Search still matters, but it’s just no longer the center of the system. It is one of several ways the content gets seen.

That matters because content rarely travels as full articles anymore. Nearly 60% of Google searches now end without users clicking through to any website.

People share fragments. Sales paste sections into emails, AI tools pull short summaries, and customers skim through what they need.

“If your content only works when read top to bottom, it breaks as soon as that context disappears,” said Stephanie Yoder, Director of Content at Rebrandly.

Basecamp Fitness explains how their classes work, who they are for, and what new members should expect. That explanation does not live on a single page.

Staff use it in emails, it shows up in social posts answering common questions, and also in sales conversations with first-time visitors.

Traffic helps people find it. But the content does not rely on traffic to stay useful.

Get updated tips for your SEO strategy with our free guide >> How to Do SEO Right—Right Now!

How to create a future-proof content strategy

I’ll walk you through the steps you need to know to create content that continues driving results despite AI search impact, zero-clicks, and a changing search engine results environment.

Design content for reuse first, ranking second

This is the most important shift to understand. Most SEO content starts with keywords and builds outward. A future-proof content strategy works in the opposite direction. It starts by explaining the thing clearly and then gets optimized for search.

Keyword-first content assumes the reader arrives at the beginning and reads everything in order. That assumption no longer holds.

Reuse-first content assumes the reader may only see one section. That changes how you write.

It means you should:

• Explain the service before trying to attract attention.
• Write sections that still make sense on their own.
• Define terms early instead of building suspense.
• Assume context will be lost.

A simple test helps here: If a paragraph stops making sense when pasted into Slack or summarized by AI, it is fragile.

Hooks, suspense, and clever framing rely on buildup. Buildup disappears during reuse. Clear explanations are what stand the test of time.

Let’s look at Death Wish Coffee as an example. Their content explains caffeine levels, sourcing, and product differences in plain language. Those explanations still work when reduced to a few lines in an email or an AI summary.

Nothing important gets lost because the meaning is clear from the start.

Build around core assets, not disposable blog posts

A more durable approach is to build around core assets. These are pages designed to support several parts of the business at the same time.

Core assets usually explain things customers already ask about, such as:

• Pricing and cost
• How the service works
• What the process looks like
• Who the service is for and who it is not for

These pages get reused naturally because they answer real questions.

Each core asset can support:

• Search visibility
• Sales conversations
• Onboarding emails
• AI summaries

“Disposable blog posts chase narrow queries. Core assets explain how the business actually operates,” said Stephanie.

Here’s an example: Morgan & Morgan publishes clear explanations of legal processes. They explain what happens after an accident, how claims move forward, and how long things usually take.

That content is reused in intake emails, consultation prep, and follow-ups. Even when traffic shifts, the explanations continue to support real client conversations.

Get everything you need to know about showing up in AI search in our free guide: The AI Search Toolkit >>

Focus on distribution channels that keep value when search drops

When search traffic drops, content should not disappear with it. It should already be doing work in other channels that the business controls or actively uses.

That usually means email, social, video, and AI summaries. Each channel behaves differently, so content needs to be designed with those behaviors in mind.

Email: Where content turns into a relationship

Email is where content stops being “published” and starts being used.

Once content enters email, it becomes part of an ongoing relationship. It shows up in follow-ups, onboarding messages, and explanations sent one-to-one or one-to-many. This is why email rewards clarity more than volume.

A clear explanation can be reused for years. A trend-based post usually expires after one send.

Strong email-ready content:

• Explains one thing clearly
• Answers a real customer question
• Does not rely on context or buildup

When content works in email, it keeps working long after the publish date.

Take Brick Underground, for example. They write clear housing explainers. Those explanations regularly become newsletter content sent to renters and buyers.

Even when individual articles stop ranking, the explanations still reach the audience through email, where the relationship already exists.

Social: Where weak explanations get exposed

Social media is not where people go to read full articles. It is where ideas get tested. Social forces clarity because there is no patience for confusion. If an explanation is vague, it gets ignored. If it is clear, it gets saved, shared, or questioned.

This makes social a useful feedback channel.

It shows you:

• Which explanations people understand.
• Which ones create discussion.
• Which ones fall flat.

Content that survives social usually survives reuse elsewhere.

Let’s look at Industrious Frisco as an example. They share information about what makes them and their workouts different as captions, carousels, and short posts. The same ideas that live on the site also live on social.

The website is not the only place the content works. Social becomes another surface where the explanation earns its keep.

Want social media ideas for every month of the year? Free guide >> The Mega Must-Have Marketing Calendar

Video: Where explanations get shorter and stickier

Video reduces the time it takes to explain something. A short video can do the work of a long paragraph, especially for first-time customers who want to understand what to expect.

Video also builds familiarity. Seeing and hearing someone explain a service builds trust faster than text alone.

What makes video valuable in a resilient content engine is reuse.

• Videos show up in search features
• AI tools pull from transcripts
• Clips get reused across platforms

The explanation stays consistent, even when the format changes. A clear explanation filmed on a phone beats a polished video that says very little.

Beardbrand Barbershop does a great job at this. Their grooming explainers exist as short videos, text, and transcripts. Even when people never click through to the site, the explanation stays accurate across formats.

The metrics that matter when traffic does not

When search traffic drops, many teams panic because their main scorecard disappears. That happens when traffic is treated as the outcome, instead of a signal.

In a future-proof content strategy, traffic is context. It helps explain what is happening, but it is not the only proof of value. More useful signals show whether content is being used, not just visited.

Assisted conversions

Assisted conversions show whether content played a role earlier in the decision, even if it was not the final click.

For example:

• A customer reads an explainer
• Leaves the site
• Comes back later through direct traffic or email
• Converts

The content helped, even if it did not get credit as the last click.

Email engagement

If content is reused in an email, engagement tells you whether it is useful. Replies, forwards, and click-throughs show whether explanations are helping people understand and decide.

Sales usage of content

One of the clearest signals is internal use.

If sales or support teams regularly send a page to customers, that content is doing real work. Views matter less than whether staff trusts it enough to reuse it.

Brand search growth

When explanations work, people remember the business. That often shows up as an increase in branded searches. People stop searching generically and start searching by name.

Accuracy of AI summaries

Checking how AI tools describe your service is another signal. When summaries are accurate and consistent, it usually means your content is clear and specific enough to be reused safely.

How to transition your content strategy without nuking existing SEO

Think of this as refactoring, not rebuilding.

Start with content that is already performing well

The easiest wins come from content that already moves beyond the website. Look for pages that:

• Sales teams send to prospects
• Support teams link in replies
• Customers mention or forward

If people already reuse a page, it is doing more than ranking. That is the content worth improving first. Do not start with your worst pages. Start with the ones that already have a job.

Rewrite intros for clarity, not attention

Many pages fail during reuse because the opening is vague. SEO intros often try to warm the reader up or set a mood. That works when someone reads the full page. It fails when only the first few lines get copied or summarized.

A clearer intro answers three questions right away:

1. What does this page explain
2. Who is it for
3. What problem does it help solve

When that information is explicit, the page becomes easier to reuse in emails, sales replies, and AI summaries.

Add structure that supports extraction

Most content is written as a single flow. That makes it harder to reuse. Structure gives content natural breakpoints.

Clear headers, short sections, lists, and definitions allow:

• Sales to copy one section instead of the whole page.
• Email to reuse a paragraph without editing.
• AI tools to summarize accurately

You are not adding complexity. You are making meaning easier to extract.

Repurpose before publishing anything new

Before writing another blog post, reuse what already works.

Take one strong page and turn it into:

• A short email explanation
• A social post or carousel
• A short video or script

This forces clarity. If the explanation does not survive reuse, the problem shows up fast. Only publish new content after you know how it will be reused.

Build distribution into the workflow

Most content fails because distribution is an afterthought. If the plan is “publish first, share later,” reuse rarely happens. A better workflow asks one question before publishing: Where else will this explanation live?

If there is no clear answer, the content probably does not need to exist yet.

Let’s look at Nick’s Pizza & Pub as an example. Nick’s Pizza explains how their food is made, what they care about, and what customers should expect. That explanation shows up on the site, on social, in local press mentions, and in AI summaries.

The content works because it is clear and practical, not because it was written to rank. No SEO tricks. Just explanations that travel.

Future-proof your content strategy for success despite AI-driven traffic volatility

Traffic volatility is not the real risk. Single-purpose content is. Businesses that create a future-proof content strategy built for reuse, clarity, and distribution build engines that keep working even when rankings shift and clicks disappear.

The post How to Future-Proof Your Content Against Google Zero appeared first on WordStream.

This is an incredibly common struggle for growing businesses. When you tell Google Ads that your primary goal is simply a “form fill” or a “phone call,” the algorithm will relentlessly hunt down the fastest, easiest, and cheapest ways to get people to contact you. More often than not, that means a flood of low-quality leads, unqualified leads, or even spam.

After more than a decade working in Google Ads, I have 11 specific tips to help you get better quality leads in Google Ads. Let’s go!

Contents

1. Use offline conversion tracking for better Google Ads lead quality
2. Turn off search partners
3. Proceed with caution on the Google Display Network
4. Use negative keywords (but don’t fight the system)
5. Leverage audiences through targeting or exclusion
6. Turn off optimized targeting
7. Turn off automated assets and text customization
8. Embrace “creative-led targeting”
9. Use Conversion-Based Smart Bidding
10. Introduce strategic friction on your landing page
11. Fight bot spam with tech

11 ways to improve Google Ads lead quality

Here are 11 of my top tips for better Google Ads lead quality so you can see the best return on investment for your PPC campaigns.

1. Use offline conversion tracking for better Google Ads lead quality

To get the best quality leads from Google Ads, there is one non-negotiable prerequisite you must have: Offline Conversion Tracking (OCT).

Tracking basic conversion actions like views, button clicks, or form fills is no longer sufficient; just because someone clicked a “contact us” button, it doesn’t mean they’re the right customer for you.

By connecting your CRM to Google Ads, either directly or via third-party lead tracking software, you can tell Google’s algorithms who actually become Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), and paying customers. That way, it can find more users like them. Smart Bidding is only as smart as the data you give it, and sending your offline conversion data back to Google trains the algorithm to hunt for quality over quantity.

If you do not have this data foundation in place, then Performance Max, broad match keywords, Smart Bidding, and all of Google Ads’ AI-powered features will likely fail you, bringing in low-quality leads because you aren’t providing the right data on what constitutes a quality lead.

Implementing offline conversion tracking with Smart Bidding could render most (if not all) of the following 10 tips unnecessary. But still, there are many businesses that either can’t or won’t import offline conversions into Google Ads, due to:

• Legal policies or restrictions
• Lack of technical capabilities
• Low conversion volume
• Long conversion lag

Luckily, you can adjust your Google Ads targeting, creative, bidding, and landing pages to stop the spam and start attracting high-value leads.

You can upload offline conversion actions to track in your account under the conversions section of the Google Ads platform.

Looking for more ways to optimize your Google Ads results? Start with a free, instant account report using our Google Ads Grader!

2. Turn off search partners

Google’s “search partner network” is a consortium of mostly low-quality, spammy websites. If your search campaign has a high volume of impressions and exceptionally low costs per click, but terrible lead quality, search partner placements are often the culprit.

Uncheck the “search partners” box in your Search campaign settings to ensure you are only advertising on Google Search, and keep an eye on your channel performance report in Performance Max to ensure Search partners aren’t eating up your budget.

3. Proceed with caution on the Google Display Network

The Google Display Network (GDN) consists of millions of websites and apps, many of which exist solely to farm ad clicks via AdSense. For lead generation, the GDN is a notorious driver of bot traffic, spam placements, and garbage inventory if used with the wrong campaign strategy,

Ensure the Display Network box is unchecked in your search and Demand Gen campaign settings, or that video partners are turned off in video campaigns. In Performance Max, keep an eye on your channel performance report to ensure the Display network isn’t using up all your campaign budget.

Overall, if you’re running display ads, be sure to have view-through conversion tracking set up, so you can still monitor any leads that came in from display campaigns indirectly.

4. Use negative keywords (but don’t fight the system)

Negative keywords are important for blocking irrelevant queries and protecting your budget. In fact, WordStream’s study of over 15,000 Google Ads accounts found that adding just one negative keyword can improve conversion rate and Quality Score.

However, don’t fall into the trap of playing “Whack-a-Mole” with the algorithm.

If you find yourself adding more than 10% of your search, shopping, or Performance Max search terms as negatives, stop what you’re doing and re-evaluate. Negating that much traffic means you have a fundamental root cause issue that needs to be addressed first. For example, you may be using the wrong keywords, the wrong match types, the wrong ad targets, the wrong conversion tracking, and/or the wrong bid strategy.

By identifying and addressing the root cause of your irrelevant search terms, the Smart Bidding algorithm can re-learn what a good lead looks like and optimize away from low-quality searches without your micromanagement.

5. Leverage audiences through targeting or exclusion

In search and shopping campaigns, you can restrict who sees your ads by layering specific audiences on “targeting” mode. To see your ads, a user must search for something that matches your keywords and belong to a specific audience you’ve chosen. The “detailed demographics” and business-related “in-market” segments will be especially useful here.

Alternatively, use audience exclusions to filter out unqualified users. For example, if you are a plumber looking for big residential jobs, you know that a renter won’t be paying for the fix. You can exclude the detailed demographic for “renters,” so your ads only show to homeowners or those with unknown homeownership status.

6. Turn off optimized targeting

Optimized targeting turns your audience targeting into an audience signal in display and Demand Gen campaigns. Practically, this means you’re giving Google Ads permission to show your ads to whomever it thinks is most likely to convert, completely ignoring your original audience selections.

For lead generation businesses that aren’t using offline conversion tracking, optimized targeting usually results in a flood of irrelevant spam leads because it simply hunts down the easiest, cheapest form-fillers. Turn it off in your ad group settings to maintain strict control over who sees your ads.

7. Turn off automated assets and text customization

Many Google Ads features allow AI to create text, image, and video assets for you. While this can be helpful in certain scenarios, AI can completely miss the mark and attract the wrong users to your ads. For example, I’ve seen Google automatically create sitelinks for the careers page when the advertiser is looking to attract clients, not job seekers. I’ve also seen Google generate extremely generic headlines for B2B advertisers, attracting more clicks but not qualified clicks.

Turn off your account-level automated assets, and ensure asset customization is turned off in Performance Max, Search, and Demand Gen campaigns. Consider testing these features again once you have offline conversion tracking in place.

8. Embrace “creative-led targeting”

As automated targeting mechanisms increasingly take away your ability to choose exactly who sees your ads, your ad creative (text, images, video) must act as your ultimate filter. Exact match keywords are no longer exact, so writing highly specific ads is crucial to attract your ideal customer and actively repel your non-target audience.

B2B advertisers should use industry jargon, specific acronyms, or clearly state your “starting at” price in the ad copy. The point is to actively stop B2C searchers from clicking, saving your budget, and sending the quality engagement signals back to your targeting algorithm. That’s why I call this “Creative-Led Targeting,” and it will be familiar to anyone who runs social ads. In fact, this becomes even more important with image and video ads; your visual creative should grab your ICP’s attention right away, while being completely unappealing to your non-target audience.

9. Use Conversion-Based Smart Bidding

Manual CPC bidding tells Google to get you cheap clicks, which is often the exact opposite of driving high-quality leads. Remember this mantra: High CPCs are not the enemy; low-quality traffic is. Use conversion-based Smart Bidding so that you and Google Ads are aligned on your objective: quality leads.

If you’re just getting started with Smart Bidding, start with maximize conversions and transition to target CPA when you have approximately 30 conversions per month in your campaign. If you run multiple campaigns with low conversion volume, consider “linking” their learnings together via a portfolio bid strategy.

There are four conversion-based Smart Bidding strategies outlined above that you can use in Google Ads to improve lead quality.

Ready to take advantage of Smart Bidding? Download our free, fool-proof guide to Smart Bidding, complete with tips on how to get started fast!

10. Introduce strategic friction on your landing page

As marketers, we’re often taught to make it as easy as possible for the user to convert. However, for lead generation and/or B2B advertising, a little friction can be a highly effective filter. Consider adding qualifying questions to your lead form that will let users filter themselves out.

For example, if you offer website development services for large businesses, add an “estimated budget” dropdown where the lowest option starts at “$50,000”. If someone looking for a $500 website build clicks your ad and sees they do not meet your minimums, they will likely abandon the form. This is a win! It signals to Google Ads that it was not a good click, steering the Smart Bidding algorithm away from similar users in the future.

Another example would be asking if the installation is for a business or a residence. You can program your lead tracking software to only let Google Ads count the lead as a conversion if the user selects “business.” If they select “residence,” you can still reach out to them, but your Smart Bidding algorithm will steer away from similar users in the future.

11. Fight bot spam with tech

Sometimes, poor lead quality isn’t the result of an unqualified human; it is a literal bot scanning the internet to fill out forms. As the agentic web (AI agents performing tasks on behalf of users) starts to grow, I expect this problem will get worse. If you’re experiencing a high volume of automated spam, with gibberish form fills or lots of hang-up phone calls, you have to fight tech with tech.

Try installing reCAPTCHA on your landing page, or use “honeypot” hidden fields on your forms. These tools are designed to stop bots from submitting their information in the first place, ensuring that fake conversions are never recorded and sent back to Google Ads.

Source

Improve your Google Ads lead quality in a flash

High lead volume is a vanity metric if those leads don’t actually close. By establishing a rock-solid data foundation with offline conversion tracking and complementing it with these structured fixes across your targeting, creative, bidding, and landing pages, you can effectively guide Google’s algorithms to find the right customers for your business while leaving the low-quality leads behind for your competitors. For more ways to get better leads from your search marketing, see how our solutions can help!

The post How to Improve Your Google Ads Lead Quality: 11 Expert Tips appeared first on WordStream.

In this article, I’m going to go through all of this and more to make sure you have your campaigns set up for success on the GDN.

Contents

• What is the Google Display Network?
• Benefits of running ads on the Google Display Network
• How to run ads on the Google Display Network
• Google Display Network ad formats
• Targeting options on the Google Display Network
• Brand safety with Google Display Network ads
• Best practices for the Google Display Network

What is the Google Display Network?

Despite its name, the Google Display Network (GDN) is actually not owned and operated by Google. It’s a large network of websites, mobile apps, and videos (which include YouTube) that have placements for ads to be displayed. Aside from YouTube, those apps and websites are owned and operated by individuals and/or businesses. Those folks create spaces on their sites/apps for Google to show ads for a cut of the ad revenue.

Essentially, the website owner creates a space, you create the ad, and Google is the middleman that places your ads on the owner’s website based on your targeting options. You pay Google to show your ads, and Google keeps most of that payment but gives a portion of it to the website owner for using the space.

A Google Display Network ad example.

Should you be running ads on the Google Display Network? Find out with a free, instant account report using our Google Ads Grader!

Why should your business run ads on the Google Display Network?

The GDN is a massive network of properties that allows advertisers to reach a large portion of global internet users. With that reach, there’s quite a lot you can accomplish.

Google Display Network ads generate brand awareness

No matter what type of business you run, there’s always a moment when your available customer base first becomes aware of you. For some, that’s through word of mouth; for others, it’s through search, but the Google Display Network can be a great way to introduce yourself to your available market while they’re browsing content that’s relevant to your business or based on their past user behaviors.

You can nurture existing users

As much as we might like it for a user to convert the first time they engage with our brands, that usually takes a few steps. The GDN can be a great tool for reengaging users who are already familiar with you, giving them more information and making them more interested in your company and what it has to offer.

Google Display Network ads help to drive conversions

While I wouldn’t recommend the GDN for those marketers who are solely conversion-driven, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be a sales generator in some accounts. Depending on your offer, typical buyer cycle, and proper conversion tracking setup combined with automated bidding, the GDN can be a way to drive incremental conversions for your business. There’s even a metric called view-through conversions, which can indicate which conversions on a search ad originated from a display ad (a marketing partner can help you set up tracking for this).

Three ways to run Display ads on Google

Google makes it very easy (sometimes too easy) to show your ads on the Google Display Network by offering many different campaign types that will support those placements.

Depending on the campaign objective you select, you can then choose the type of campaign you want to use.

While the image below has only one listing for “Display,” this is a bit misleading, as all of these campaign types can have you show in the Google Display Network depending on your settings. (Yes, even Search.)

With that in mind, let’s go through how you can show on the GDN and talk about which campaign type might be a good fit for your needs.

1. Create a Display campaign

Although standard Display campaigns will be phased out next year, for now, this is the most straightforward use of the Google Display Network and the only campaign type that targets this network. This campaign focuses specifically on websites, apps, and videos that participate in the GDN and doesn’t include other placements like Gmail, Discover, etc.

When creating a new display campaign, you can choose any of the campaign objectives in orange in the image below to create a display-only campaign.

My preference is to almost always use a campaign without a goal’s guidance and then select display in the box that comes next. I find that gives me the most control, but sales, leads, and website traffic will also work well if those are what you need for your goals.

This campaign type can support all three of the ad formats we discussed above and allows for extremely granular targeting, which we’ll cover in a bit. Because of this, Display Campaigns give the most flexibility in Display Network-only control.

2. Run a Performance Max campaign

PMax campaigns span across all Google-owned properties, including search, YouTube, Gmail, Discover, Shopping, Maps, and the Google Display Network, and they are Google’s most automated campaign type. They include the Google Display Network but also include tons of other placements, so the ads are even more dynamic than simple Responsive Display Ads in the regular Display campaign.

In addition to machine learning that dynamically creates ads for each placement, Performance Max campaigns also rely heavily on Google’s Smart Bidding strategies to see results. Manual CPC is not an option here. Instead, advertisers select whether to focus on Conversions or Conversion Value, which will default your bidding strategy to either Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value. There is the option to check a box and opt into Target CPA or Target ROAS, depending on which goal you select.

If you’re hoping to use Display campaigns to get lots of impressions and clicks, Performance Max can help you do that, but it will also focus on conversions and include all of the other placements within the Google Network.

If you’re primarily focused on sales and have a good amount of conversion volume, Performance Max could certainly be worth a test. The downfalls are that, again, you’ll be reaching into other networks, potentially taking away performance from your other campaigns, like Search.

Additionally, PMax campaigns can be harder to gain insights from and don’t offer transparency as easily as other campaign types.

Lastly, if your primary goal is lead generation, PMax can be very good at generating leads, but in my experience, the quality is very hit or miss. Be sure to use all of the controls you have to rein in the targeting and messaging to find the highest quality leads.

Ready to enable Smart Bidding with your display campaigns? Download our free, fool-proof guide to Smart Bidding, complete with steps to get started fast!

3. Enable Demand Gen campaigns

Demand Gen campaigns are Google’s latest campaign type that can target the GDN and are intended to help advertisers reach users earlier in their buying journey. It is also going to be the default campaign type when Google Display Campaigns are phased out completely in 2027.

Like PMax, Demand Gen reaches across multiple Google networks like YouTube, Discover, Gmail, the GDN, and more but doesn’t target Search since that is typically a lower-funnel channel. The goal of Demand Gen is to create demand and interest before a user actively begins searching for a product or service.

Demand Gen campaigns also have more flexibility in goal optimization than PMax campaigns. For a new campaign, you can optimize for conversions, clicks, conversion value (if your account has enough volume), or YouTube engagements.

Since Demand Gen is going to be the replacement for GDN-only campaigns, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the different ad formats available. In Demand Gen campaigns, you can create Single Image Ads, Video Ads, and Carousel Image Ads. These are going to operate similarly to RDAs, but are a little more structured in how they’re created.

While Demand Gen isn’t only a display campaign, its expected role as the replacement for them makes these campaigns a must-try for anyone looking to be on the Display network in the coming years.

The three types of Google Display Network ad formats

There are three types of ad formats that can run on the Google Display Network, and depending on your campaign settings and targeting, any of them can be highly impactful.

1. Responsive Display Ads

RDAs are Google’s most recommended and most automated ad format for the GDN. Rather than designing and creating individual ads for every available banner size (we’ll get to that list in a minute), advertisers can upload a collection of assets, including headlines, descriptions, images, logos, and videos, and then Google will dynamically combine them to make single ad units that adjust to fit each placement.

The biggest benefit to this ad format is that you don’t have to have lots of design skills and resources to be able to have a large reach on the GDN.

The downside is control and brand aesthetic. Since Google simply combines the pieces you give them to fit the space and tries to accomplish your marketing goal, it’s not going to review the resulting ad unit with the same scrutiny that your brand manager would. If brand look and feel are a high priority for your brand, you can use the ad preview option to ensure the combinations you’ll see are safe, or you may want to opt for static banner ads.

2. Static banner ads

These are going to be the more “traditional” types of ads and likely what most people think of when they think of display ads.

Static Banner Ads are fully designed creatives that fit into certain dimensions, such as 300×250, 728×90, 300×600, and so on.

These can be the preference for brands that want to have full creative control and ensure their ads look and feel exactly how they want, since Google doesn’t take any liberties adjusting them.

But that control comes with a price. Strong-performing banner ads can be tough to design. Additionally, there are 20 different ad sizes you can design for, so once you have the theme and messaging, you now have to make 20 different versions of it look good. For some teams, that’s a no-brainer, and they’re willing to do it. For others, that lift is insurmountable, and RDAs are their go-to format.

3. HTML5 ads

HTML5 ads are dynamic ads that use animation and motion and can support advanced user interactions.

When they’re executed well, HTML5 ads can be much more impactful than banner ads because they allow for a higher level of engagement from the user, like interactive experiences, product showcases, and others that are more compelling than static imagery. But they also still allow the advertiser to retain full control over brand look/feel, so they beat RDAs in that respect as well.

That said, this format requires far more experience and know-how than the other two. For that reason, they’re mostly used by larger brands promoting ecommerce sales or focusing on attention and interaction as the main campaign objective.

How to set up your targeting options on the Google Display Network

There are two main ways you can target users on the Google Display Network, no matter what campaign type you use:

• Audience targeting: This targeting group focuses on the individual you’re trying to reach and information about them.
• Contextual targeting: These options are focused on the information on the page the person is looking at, not the information about the person themselves.

Depending on the campaign type you’re using to advertise on the GDN, your targeting options are going to be different. Here’s a rundown of a few available for each of the categories above.

1. Audience targeting

These are your options for assigning audience lists to your Google Display Network campaigns.

• Remarketing audiences: Users who have previously visited your website, engaged with your content, watched your videos, or interacted with your business in some way.
• Affinity audiences: users with long-term interests and habits that align with specific categories such as fitness, travel, technology, or home improvement. These audiences tend to be very broad and higher funnel. Great for lower-cost brand awareness and impressions.
• In-market audiences: users actively researching products or services and showing signals that indicate they may be preparing to make a purchase. These are much more conversion-focused audiences, but are still determined by Google to be interested in large categories, so don’t expect magic, but they can perform really well.
• Custom audiences: groups of users created by advertisers based on specific keywords, URLs, interests, or behaviors relevant to their business.

2. Contextual targeting

Remember, contextual targeting helps you control where your Google Display Network ads show, as you can choose what types of content on websites and apps they show alongside.

• Keywords: similar to Search, keyword targeting lets advertisers provide a list of valuable keywords and target webpages, videos, etc., that are relevant to those keywords to get in front of someone looking for that content.
• Topics: Advertisers can select from a list of categories (think Automotive or Finance), and Google will then show ads on placements that are related to those topics.
• Placements: This is the most specific type of contextual targeting, where advertisers can select individual websites, URLs, videos, etc. to target by providing the exact location on the GDN.

More ways to control where your Google Display Network ads will show

The most common concern from advertisers about the Google Display Network is around how their final ads will look. This has implications for both how the ad will be formatted to fit the space if using a dynamic format, as well as what your ads will show up next to, meaning the content they appear in. There are a few different ways we can control those factors to ensure all of your GDN ads are brand safe.

Content controls

Google has several different content control settings depending on the campaigns you’re using to help limit ads from showing in placements that wouldn’t be approved by advertisers.

Inventory type

The first option is a broad selection of the inventory available throughout the Google Network. This setting lives at the account level and allows advertisers to choose, at a high level, the type of content they will show next to.

For most accounts, I would expect Moderate inventory to be acceptable, but if you’re particularly lax or strict, you can choose Maximum or Limited based on your preferences.

Advanced settings

At the account level, there are additional content controls around sensitive content, types and labels, content themes, keywords, and placements you can set controls for as well.

Some of these exclusions can also be done at the campaign level if you so choose, but I find that if I locate a placement, keyword, or topic that’s not suitable for one campaign in my account, it’s likely not suitable for all.

Brand guidelines

Google has also been developing and expanding its brand guidelines features, which allow advertisers to input custom colors, fonts, logos, and even provide qualitative text guidelines to help ensure all ads Google puts out are in line with brand specifications.

Best practices for the Google Display Network

Before you start running ads on the GDN, keep these best practices in mind.

Monitor placements regularly

The Google Display Network is constantly getting updates with new placements coming in and older placements going out. That means that even if you review placements and set up exclusions once, your job isn’t done. Find a cadence that works for you (likely once a week or every two weeks to start, then once a month or quarter once your campaign is established), and stick to it.

Choose the right bidding strategy for your goals

As mentioned above, depending on the campaign type you use, the bidding strategies available will differ. Google does a pretty good job of driving the actions you select based on bid strategy to ensure you’re using the one that optimizes for your actual goal.

Invest in good creative

The GDN is almost entirely a visual platform. Your creative is what’s going to do most of the heavy lifting to get the user’s attention and entice them to click. Make sure you’re investing enough effort into this piece to see good results.

Expand beyond the Google Display Network

The Google Display Network isn’t the only place you can serve image and video ads. Copying your display ads over to other owned networks of sites with available ad space, like the Microsoft Audience Network or USA TODAY Network, can push your business’s reach further.

Get found by potential customers on the Google Display Network

The Google Display Network is a great way to reach new or existing customers and get them to engage with your brand. The campaigns that run on the network can support just about any business goal you could have; just make sure you’re leveraging the proper brand safety controls and selecting the right settings to hit your target KPIs.

For more ways to make your business visible on the Google Display Network, see how our solutions can help!

The post The Complete Guide to the Google Display Network appeared first on WordStream.

Here, I’m breaking down exactly how to run TikTok ads. In this guide, I’ll be covering what TikTok Ads are, how to track your TikTok ad performance, TikTok ad creation tips, and common TikTok ad FAQs, as well as mistakes to avoid. Let’s get to it!

Contents

• What are TikTok ads?
• The benefits of TikTok ads for small businesses
• How to run TikTok ads: Step-by-step
• Best practices for your TikTok ad creative
• How to measure TikTok ad performance
• TikTok ads FAQs

What are TikTok ads?

TikTok ads are paid promotions that appear throughout the TikTok app and allow brands or content creators to advertise products, services, or content through vertical content. Like other social media ads, TikTok ads can be used to help businesses increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, or even make sales directly.

TikTok’s advertising platform is the TikTok Ads Manager. It follows a three-level structure, which is similar to other social media platforms: campaign, ad group, and ad. We’ll also go through step-by-step how to set these up.

Types of TikTok ad formats

There are a few different TikTok ad formats:

• In-feed ads
• TopReach ads
• Branded mission ads
• Branded hashtag campaign
• Branded effects
• Logo takeover ads
• Carousel ads
• Spark ads
• Catalog ads
• Prime time ads
• Pulse ads

The most common of these ad formats is the In-feed ad, which appears directly on the For You Page feed for your targeted users. This ad format also looks really similar to organic content, and it typically makes the most sense in terms of TikTok ad cost. I’ll cover a more thorough breakdown of the type of TikTok ads later in our TikTok ads FAQs section.

An in-feed ad from Nuvia Smiles.

Learn how to best take advantage of powerful social media platforms in our complete guide to social media marketing (simplified!)

The benefits of TikTok ads for small businesses

Now that we’ve established what TikTok ads are, let’s make sure it’s clear why these can work for your business. If you’re marketing a small business, you might be skeptical of adding another marketing channel. It requires investment—budget, sure, but also your attention and time. All limited resources. But TikTok is particularly effective for SMBs for a few reasons:

• You can reach new customers at scale. TikTok’s recommendation algorithm prioritizes content relevance over follower count. This means your brand can reach thousands of potential customers without necessarily having a big, established audience. Unlike other platforms, TikTok regularly surfaces content from newer creators and brands. This also means a viral moment is possible—nothing to count on, but possible.
• You can reach highly engaged audiences. TikTok users spend a significant amount of time on the platform and actively engage with content through likes, comments, shares, and follows. Getting in front of people who are active and interested in consuming content sets you up for success.
• You will have better luck with authentic content. TikTok doesn’t require polished, high-budget videos. In fact, lower-budget content often performs better, which means you can create it more easily. Many successful TikTok ads are customer testimonials, product demos, educational tips, and even user-generated content.
• You can target local customers. TikTok can seem like it’s only for ecommerce brands, but that’s not the case (even though they do well on the platform). TikTok lets you target by location, and that can help you promote special events, increase foot traffic, book appointments, and build community awareness. This is great for restaurants, home service companies, gyms, and salons.
• You can work with a small budget. This is a big benefit. You can get started advertising on TikTok with a relatively modest daily budget. The platform allows you to use that investment to test different audiences, experiment with creative formats, and figure out which campaigns work for you so that you can scale gradually and make the most of your funds.

How to advertise on TikTok: Step-by-step

Here’s how to advertise on TikTok in six steps.

Step 1: Create your TikTok ads account

The first step is simple. Head to TikTok for business and click on “Get Started.” On that screen, you’ll be prompted to add your business name, industry, website URL, current monthly ad spend, and phone number.

After this, you’ll verify your email address and complete the initial process.

While you could be done for now, it’s best if you finish the recommended setup steps: verifying your phone number, completing your Pixel setup for better targeting, and creating a catalog of your products. The final step is to add creative, but you can always do this later on, too.

Step 2: Choose a campaign objective

Now that your account is set up, you’re ready to determine your campaign objective. First, you’ll select brand awareness, sales, or lead generation.

It’s worth noting that this is the simplified view. You will have more options—and more to do—if you switch to the full version of the TikTok Ads Manager.

For each of these, you’ll need to drill down on a further goal selection:

• Brand awareness: Traffic, video views, or community interaction.
• Sales: Website conversion or TikTok shop conversion.
• Lead generation: Website form, TikTok form, or direct messages/phone calls.

Then, TikTok will ask for the campaign info. Here, you’ll name the campaign, review the objectives, and then confirm the placement selections.

Step 3: Create your ad creative

On the next screen, TikTok prompts you to select your ad content.

You’ll need to connect your TikTok advertising account to your TikTok account. Then, select your ad creative from existing content or upload a new video. (We’ll talk more about best practices in creating your ads below.)

Step 4: Build your target audience

The next step is to determine your targeting strategy. In the simplified mode, you have the choice between automatic and custom for targeting.

If you opt to customize your targeting, you can determine the age, gender identity, location, and language preferences of your ideal audience.

It’s worth noting here that you do sacrifice some options for ease with the streamlined, simple mode. If you need more targeting options—think demographics, interests, behaviors—you can use the advanced mode of TikTok ads manager and access the full suite of targeting options.

Step 5: Set your campaign budget and schedule

On the same screen, you’ll also set your campaign budget and your schedule.

First, you need to input your custom budget amount. You’ll select a daily limit or a lifetime limit. For a daily budget, the minimum spend is $20 USD, which means you’ll spend a maximum of $25 daily. For a lifetime, the minimum spend is $140 USD for the campaign.

After you set the budget, you need to finalize the schedule. TikTok recommends continuing the campaign for at least seven days. The other option is to set a custom schedule, and you can input the start and end dates.

Then, on the next screen, input your payment details.

Step 6: Launch your campaign

Finally, you’re ready to launch your campaign. Your ad won’t go live immediately because the ad creative goes through a review process that typically takes one day. Be sure to check back in to monitor results and ensure it’s live.

Use AI to scale your TikTok campaigns with help from our free guide on 14 no-brainer ways to use AI for social media, complete with over 20 copy-and-paste prompts!

5 best practices for your TikTok ads

Creating a TikTok ad isn’t the same as creating a Facebook ad or a traditional commercial. Users come to TikTok for entertainment, education, and authentic content—not polished sales pitches. The most successful TikTok ads feel native to the platform while still guiding viewers toward a specific action. Use the following best practices to create ads that capture attention, drive engagement, and generate results.

1. Focus on the first three seconds

There’s a commonly held belief that the first three seconds of a social media video need to be packed with information or a compelling cliffhanger because that’s all the attention you get from most viewers. But recent research from that suggests this might not be the case. According to The Drum, the study found that packing too much information in the first few seconds can harm, noting 17% lower engagement.

Instead of throwing as much as possible at your audience right away, focus on capturing attention in those first few seconds with a solid, compelling hook. You want to give them a reason to stop scrolling, to watch, to engage, and—even better—to act.

So avoid lengthy introductions, logos, graphics, broad opening statements, and, yes, millennial pauses.

Source

2. Leverage user-generated content (UGC)

We said this earlier, but it’s worth repeating: User-generated content consistently outperforms highly polished advertisements on TikTok. That’s because this type of content feels more casual, more authentic, and more trustworthy.

UGC can include customer testimonials, product reviews, unboxing videos, before-and-after transformations, or content created by influencers and brand advocates.

A super simple talking-to-the-camera testimonial ad from Datarails.

And even if you don’t have customers creating content yet, you can still replicate the UGC style by filming simple videos on a smartphone. Instead of focusing on perfect production quality, prioritize natural moments for connection and off-the-cuff experiences.

3. Create content for TikTok

We are all about repurposing content, but you still need to be mindful of the conventions of the platform. Your ads will perform better if they look like native TikTok videos. That means vertical, fast-paced videos that aren’t too polished.

Plus, be sure to use TikTok features, including audio and captions. Captions are particularly important, as they improve accessibility. Up to 75% of viewers watch TikTok videos without sound. With this in mind, use text overlays to highlight important points, product benefits, pricing information, or calls-to-action.

@charlesandivyWe’ve been working on something behind the scenes ♬ How You Like Me Now – The Heavy

A great example of a low-production investment, high-impact announcement from home and garden store Charles & Ivy.

And pay attention to trends. Whether it’s trending audio, current editing styles, or event video formats. The best TikTok ads will feel like all the other videos in the feed—and encourage similar engagement.

4. Use strong calls-to-action

You need to tell your audience what you want them to do. That’s why every TikTok ad should include a clear and specific call-to-action that aligns with your campaign objective.

TikTok lets you customize the appearance of the CTA button, including choosing from static text or dynamic CTAs based on the audience.

In general, though, you want to make your CTA strong and specific. Instead of generic phrases like “Learn More,” consider using action-oriented language such as “Book Your Free Consultation,” “Get Your Quote Today,” “Shop the Collection,” or even “Claim Your Discount.”

Remember, your CTA should clearly communicate the next step you want the viewer to take.

Try our call-to-action generator to get a quick start:

/ CTA Generator

Write a CTA that actually converts — in seconds.

Tell us what you're promoting and the tone you want. We'll generate six best-practice CTA ideas you can use as CTA inspiration for your landing page or email.

1Tell us about your offer

What are you promoting? requiredStart here

Enter a brand name or a descriptive product name.
✓ Brand: Slack, Google Ads Grader, Mailchimp.
✓ Descriptive: Audio Transcription Comparison Tool — we'll add "the" in front automatically so the CTA reads naturally.

What will it help them do? short verb phrase

Keep it short — 2 to 4 words, starting with a verb. Think of the end-benefit, not the feature.
✓ grow revenue, save time, rank higher, cut ad spend.
✗ compare audio transcription costs (too long — try cut transcription costs instead).

Who is it for? optional

2Pick a goal and tone

Primary goalStart a free trialDownload a guide / resourceCreate an account / sign upBook a demo or consultationBuy / shop nowSubscribe to a newsletter

Tone / styleDirect — clear and outcome-ledBold — confident power wordsRelatable — casual and humanSubtle — low-commitmentReverse psychology — the anti-CTAFunny — playful and punny

Add an urgency or scarcity cue

3Generate your CTAs

Generate 6 CTAs

No signup. Updates instantly.

The 4 principles behind every CTA we generate

1. Anchor the CTA to an outcome. Don't tell people what to do — tell them what they'll get. "Reduce foot pain" beats "Click here."
2. Use value words. More than half of top-ranked Google Ads include at least one power word like free, now, or quality.
3. Match CTA strength to intent. Cold audiences get low-commitment asks. Pricing-page visitors get "Get a quote" or "Start your free trial."
4. Add microcopy to kill hesitation. One short line under the button — "No credit card required," "Takes 2 minutes" — quietly saves conversions.

Built on the principles in WordStream's 31 Call to Action Examples and 36 Best Call to Action Phrases.

Copied!

5. Test multiple creative variations

Once you’re up and running, make sure to start testing your TikTok ad creative. This is one of the fastest ways to improve TikTok advertising performance. Focus on one ad, but create multiple variations that test different hooks, visuals, captions, offers, and CTAs.

These small changes can produce significant improvements in video watch time, click-through rates, and even conversions. You may find that one opening hook dramatically outperforms another or that a customer testimonial generates more sales than a product demonstration. Just be sure to test one variation at a time so that you can confidently identify what works for your audience—and then double down to keep improving.

How to measure TikTok ad performance

Once your campaign is up and running, you need to measure performance.

TikTok ads manager offers reporting and analytics that provide some great insight into performance, plus recommendations from the platform. To view the performance of your campaign, head to the dashboard. You’ll be able to see an overview of metrics, the status of ad groups, as well as recommendations and insights.

If you want to look at specific campaigns, head to the campaigns tab. If you have lots of ads or campaigns, use the search function to find the one you’re looking for. Then, you can click on the name to see the full report.

Source

These are the metrics supported by TikTok Ads Manager:

• Attribution metrics: These will help you determine the actions people take after they see your ads.
• In-app events: This lets you track the interactions with your app after people saw your ad.
• Page event metrics: This will let you track the interactions with your website after people saw your TikTok ad.
• Video play metrics: This will help you measure how people interact with your in-feed video ads.
• Onsite events metrics: This lets you track user behavior on-site.

TikTok ads FAQs

Here are the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about TikTok advertising.

1. Are TikTok ads worth it for small businesses?

Yes. You don’t have to be a giant corporation to find success on the platform. TikTok ads can be incredibly effective for small or medium-sized businesses, especially if you’re looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive online sales. In fact, 88% of small businesses report increased sales after promoting via TikTok, and 74% even say they sold out of a product tied to TikTok activity.

Unlike some advertising platforms that require polished creative assets and large budgets, TikTok rewards authentic, engaging content—regardless of the appearance. Small businesses that create relatable videos often compete successfully with larger brands. You just need to understand your audience and make sure your content feels native to TikTok.

2. Which type of TikTok ad is best for my business?

The answer to this TikTok advertising FAQ will vary depending on your business goals, so there isn’t necessarily one best TikTok ad format you should default to. Each of the different types of TikTok ads can be effective in promoting your business. In fact, you’ll probably want to have a few different TikTok ad formats running for a well-rounded approach to TikTok advertising. Here is the complete comparison chart for all 11 TikTok ad types.

Ad format	Primary goal	Best for	Cost level	User interaction
In-feed ads	Conversions, traffic, sales	Most advertisers	Lower	Likes, comments, shares
TopReach ads	Reach and awareness	Maximum visibility	Premium	Limited
Branded mission ads	User-generated content	Creator partnerships	High (minimum $10K)	Creator participation
Branded hashtag campaigns	Engagement and awareness	Viral campaigns	Very high (often $100K+)	High
Branded effects	Brand awareness	Interactive experiences	Moderate to high	High
Logo takeover ads	Mass awareness	Major launches and announcements	Premium	Limited
Carousel ads	Product discovery	Showcasing multiple products or features	Moderate	Users swipe through cards
Spark ads	Engagement, trust, conversions	Boosting organic content	Flexible	Retains existing engagement
Catalog ads	Shopping and sales	Ecommerce businesses	Flexible	Primarily product-focused
Prime time ads	Storytelling and awareness	Sequential brand messaging	Premium	Limited
Pulse ads	Contextual awareness	Brand-safe content alignment	Moderate to high	Depends on placement

3. How much should I spend on TikTok ads?

Your ideal budget will be specific to your business, since it depends on your goals, industry, audience size, as well as your advertising plans and budget on other platforms. Many small businesses start with $20–$50 per day to test different audiences and ad creatives before scaling. For lead generation or ecommerce campaigns, it’s common to gradually increase spending once you identify ads that deliver strong results.

4. Do TikTok ads work for local businesses?

Absolutely. TikTok’s targeting capabilities allow local businesses to reach users within specific geographic areas. Restaurants, gyms, salons, real estate agents, home service providers, and healthcare practices can all use TikTok ads to attract nearby customers.

Local businesses often see the best results when they combine geographic targeting with videos showcasing their location, staff, services, or customer experiences.

5. Can I run TikTok ads without a website?

Yes. Having a website isn’t required, even though it gives you more conversion opportunities. TikTok offers lead generation ads that collect customer information directly within the app, so you don’t need a separate site. You can also direct users to a phone number, app download page, TikTok profile, or messaging platform, depending on your objectives.

But that being said, we recommend getting a website up and running as a key part of setting up your business online.

6. How long should TikTok ads be?

Most high-performing ads on TikTok are between 15 and 30 seconds long.

Again, focus on the first few seconds and nail your hook. You want to provide value and encourage engagement—not overload your viewer with information. Your goal is to capture their attention immediately, delivering your message quickly, and ending with a clear call to action. If your content is highly engaging, longer videos can also perform well.

7. What’s the biggest difference between TikTok Ads, Facebook Ads, and Google Ads?

The biggest difference is user intent. Here’s the breakdown:

• TikTok ads are excellent for discovery. Users don’t need to be actively searching for products, but engaging content can introduce your brand to entirely new audiences.
• Facebook ads offer powerful targeting, and they often work well for lead generation, retargeting, and reaching established demographic segments.
• Google Ads are perfect for existing demand. Users are actively searching for products, services, or solutions, making Google particularly effective for high-intent conversions.

Users are spending the most time per day on TikTok.

Remember, most businesses see the best results by using all three platforms strategically: TikTok for awareness, Facebook for nurturing and retargeting, and Google for capturing ready-to-buy customers. These platforms should all be a part of your overall marketing strategy, not an either-or decision.

Start running ads on TikTok

There you have it: step-by-step directions for getting set up with a TikTok ad manager account and launching your first campaign on the platform. Plus, tips to keep improving. The only thing left for you to do is get started. For more help navigating your business’s TikTok advertising journey, check out our solutions!

The post How to Advertise on TikTok: The Complete Guide appeared first on WordStream.

That means there are fewer opportunities for a local business to get mentioned organically in Google results.

Here’s the good news. While AI features are squeezing out local business websites and profiles, a study by Birdeye found that despite a 54% reduction in impressions on Google Business Profiles, there was only a 5% drop in actions.

All of that is to say: local SEO has gotten harder, but it is still a great channel to drive leads and sales.

I’ve been doing SEO for over 15 years and am constantly analyzing search results. Below you’ll find my best tips for seeing real impact in local SEO in 2026 based on what’s actually working and important right now.

Contents

• 13 best local SEO tips that still work in 2026
  • Nail the basics
  • Build a process for consistent review volume
  • Focus on review language and location
  • Respond to your reviews
  • Pick the right primary GBP category
  • Implement hours properly
  • Update your profile regularly
  • Go beyond Google
  • Increase branded search volume
  • Add local links
    • Local Backlink Idea Generator
  • Build and update location pages
  • Leverage LocalBusiness schema
    • LocalBusiness Schema Generator
  • Encourage Google Maps direction requests
• Local SEO ROI calculator
• Local SEO FAQs

13 best local SEO tips that still work in 2026

A lot has changed in online search in just the last couple of years, especially now that many search users get answers from AI without clicking through to websites. But that hasn’t reduced the need for SEO. In fact, it’s increased it.

“Local SEO is still a foundational strategy because it drives trust and discoverability at multiple stages of the customer journey,” Dennis Wilson, VP of Product Management at LocaliQ, said.

“Even though AI is changing the interface of search, the underlying signals (authority, consistency, and relevance) still determine what businesses are recommended, and most importantly, which ones earn a customer’s consideration.”

These local SEO tips will help you rank higher on search engines and gain visibility on AI platforms.

1. Nail the basics

The most important local SEO “tip” is to focus on the core tactics that will drive most of your results in local SEO:

1. Fill out your Google Business Profile (GBP) completely and accurately.
2. Build citations for your business, and make sure the data across them is consistent across profiles.
3. Build links (particularly local links) to your website.
4. Get lots of reviews, and have processes in place to get them consistently.

There are a lot of other specific tactics and ongoing processes you can set up that will help you grow leads and sales, but if you focus on really nailing these four, you’ll be ahead of most of your competitors.

Get citations in as many relevant directories as possible.

Want more search ranking tips? Get your copy of How to Do SEO Right—Right Now!

2. Build a process for consistent review volume

Having a large volume of good reviews is the only way to have your local business rank for competitive terms, and generally, getting more reviews is critical for growing local SEO traffic.

Beyond just total volume, having recent reviews is crucial for ranking consistently for competitive terms. As a result, you need to have a process in place for asking for these reviews:

• Make sure that technicians ask for the review at the end of a job: Have a tablet available and make the process for your customers to leave a review as easy as possible.
• If you’re a storefront, have the review information displayed prominently and make it easy there as well: Use a QR code so customers can quickly give you the review on their phone with minimal friction.
• Find ways to incentivize your employees: Make sure they’re asking happy customers for reviews.

Try adding a page on your website that shows off and asks for Google reviews.

As always, be careful not to run afoul of Google’s guidelines (e.g., incentivizing customers to leave reviews).

3. Focus on review language and location

As you’re thinking through this process, you want to note that:

• The language customers use when leaving a review matters. Instead of leaving the customer to their own devices to leave a review like “Joe did a great job!” you might consider offering a simple template so that you get reviews like ”Joe’s Roofing came and replaced the roof on our house in Calamazoo. Joe and his team were professional and affordable and did a great job.”
• Where reviews are received matters. If you can get more of your reviews in your storefront, or in the actual area you want to get more leads from (like the actual site of the job you worked on), you’re more likely to rank well for queries in and about that specific area.

4. Respond to your reviews

Respond to every review as quickly as you can. Again, build in a process to have someone consistently responding to reviews as they come in on your GMB.

Keep those reviews rolling in! Download How to Get More Reviews: 8 Tips to Boost Ranking, Reputation, & Revenue

5. Pick the right primary GBP category

Being deliberate about your GBP category is a core local SEO tactic for getting the right kinds of rankings, traffic, and leads. Two key considerations:

• Pick a narrow, core category: If most of your revenue comes from roofing work and you also do general construction, demolition, skylight installation, and ice dam removal, your primary category should be roofing.
• Add relevant secondary categories: You can add secondary categories (up to nine) for any other work you’d want to get as leads. Don’t just add categories that are close to what you do that you don’t offer services for—you may get dissatisfied leads and dilute your ability to show up in search results.
• Bonus tip: you can easily see what services your competitors are listing by searching their name, clicking their GBP, and clicking to see their list of services:

Again, you shouldn’t blindly copy these if you don’t actually offer the services, but it’s a great place to get ideas for services to list, particularly if you have a competitor who you know is driving a lot of leads through local search.

6. Implement hours properly

One of the core things Google considers when determining whether to return your business for a search is whether it’s open.

When thinking about your hours:

• Make sure that your hours, holiday hours, and special hours are accurate and up to date.
• If you’re a services business and you have an answering service, consider updating your hours to be the time frame you’re able to accept calls and book jobs, not just the time frame you may be in the office. This is particularly worth considering if you offer emergency services during off-hours.

7. Update your profile regularly

You can help boost visibility for your GBP and signal to prospects that your business is active by leveraging the repeatedly updated elements within your profile. Specifically:

• Consistently update your profile’s photos. This could be photos from a job your company completed, a cake your bakery made, or new photos of something that was added or updated at your property.
• Use posts to provide consistent updates about your business. Include new deals or offers you’re running, jobs you’re completing, findings you have from a specific project, etc.
• Seed the Q&A section with actual questions your customers are asking. Talk to your team and note what customers ask during the sales process. Add them ot you profile.

Weekly updates to these elements of your profile can help send freshness signals to both Google and potential customers.

8. Go beyond Google

Regardless of your business type, a (growing) percentage of your prospects are likely looking for services like yours on AI platforms like ChatGPT. ChatGPT specifically uses Bing data in response to these searches, so making sure your information is up to date and that you’re generating reviews on that platform is critical for increased AI visibility.

As you can see in the data above, many consumers are still looking at reviews on Google, but many are now also looking for information across multiple platforms. So having information on multiple platforms is increasingly important.

9. Increase branded search volume

Google patents and leaks have explicitly called out branded search volume (and how visitors navigate to and interact with your site) as factors in ranking your site in Google results. So getting people to search for your brand in Google can help drive overall local search traffic (and can help that traffic convert better when it does come to your site or when your map pack listing is viewed).

This isn’t a typical “local SEO hack” because a lot of the activity you can take to help drive branded traffic happens offline, such as:

• Billboard advertising
• Sponsoring local events
• Wrapping your trucks and having your staff wear branded shirts
• Leveraging yard signs, door hangers, and flyers

10. Add local links

While general link building and citation building are important, getting local links is particularly powerful in improving local SEO rankings.

There are lots of great ways to get links from locally focused sites:

1. Partnerships with other local businesses (particularly those you already work closely with),
2. Sponsorships of local events and organizations
3. Local resource pages
4. Local press and publications

If you’re not sure where to start here, check out the free local link idea generator we built below:

11. Build and update location pages

Targeting {town/city} + {service/business type} with location pages for areas that you service (even if you aren’t located there) is very valuable. Again, vary the text you use on-page and with links, and look at all of your competitors who are creating similar pages and create something better than what they have.

For example, here are items you could include for an HVAC company:

• Multiple videos
• Information about costs
• Information about service types
• Information about HVAC size and efficiency in specific areas of the home
• Information about license requirements in Dallas
• Points of differentiation for your HVAC company
• Map embed

In general, look at your competitors on the first page of results and see which is the most comprehensive page (even if it’s not ranking first), you have a rough model and “bar” for your location pages.

Include local keywords and service descriptions on your location pages to help them rank for hyper-local searches.

Note: Don’t just grab the first result here. It may be a site’s home page, or if it is a location page, it may be ranking for reasons other than how comprehensive the content is.

12. Leverage LocalBusiness schema

LocalBusiness schema allows you to give a lot of granular data about your business in a structured way. You can validate that you’ve structured the data properly using Google’s rich results tool, and to generate the actual schema, we’ve created a free tool you can use below:

13. Encourage Google Maps direction requests

Another engagement metric Google uses to help rank Google Maps listings is driving direction requests to a specific business.

Here’s a fun way to increase your chances of showing up in Map searches. Every time you, your employees, your friends, or family members drive to you location, make sure you and they use Google Maps (even if they know the route by heart).

All that extra traffic tells Google that your business is busy and worth mentioning.

Every morning your employees drive past your competition, pull into your parking lot, and waste the easiest GOOGLE MAPS RANKING HACK that exists.

It takes 4 seconds. It costs you nothing. And it directly manipulates the algorithm that decides who shows up in the Map Pack.

I’m… pic.twitter.com/2Qjm6FAqWy

— Bodhi- Local SEO (@irentdumpsters) May 16, 2026

Local SEO ROI calculator

Not sure of the overall return on investment for leveraging these tips and seeing local SEO growth? You can get a rough sense of the ROI you can expect from improvements in your local SEO traffic with the free local SEO ROI calculator we built below:

Local SEO FAQs

Let’s take a minute and review some of the most commonly asked questions about local SEO.

What are the most important local SEO ranking factors right now?

The most important local SEO ranking factors right now are Google Business Profile completeness (especially primary category accuracy), review volume plus recency, citation consistency across platforms, local backlinks, and on-page signals from optimized location pages.

How long does local SEO take to work?

Local SEO typically takes three to six months to produce meaningful traffic and lead movement. The fastest wins come from Google Business Profile changes and sometimes simple technical SEO or on-page fixes (like changing the title tag on your site’s home page), which can show within weeks. New domains, highly competitive markets, and businesses without an existing review base sit on the longer end of that range.

How do I rank #1 in the Google local 3-pack?

Ranking #1 in the Google local 3-pack depends on how competitive your market is, and broadly requires four things working together: a fully optimized Google Business Profile with the narrowest accurate primary category, a steady flow of recent reviews using location and service language, consistent NAP citations across platforms, and local backlinks. Map direction requests and branded search volume are the two engagement signals that separate the top spot from positions two and three.

Do citations still matter for local SEO?

Yes, local citations still matter for local SEO. A steady volume of local citations with consistent information across citations still has a significant local SEO impact.

Does branded search volume affect local SEO rankings?

Yes, branded search volume is a confirmed local SEO ranking factor, called out explicitly in Google patents and the 2024 Content Warehouse API leak. When prospects search your business name and click through to your site or Google Business Profile, that signals real demand to the algorithm. The biggest lever is offline activity: billboard ads, local event sponsorships, branded vehicle wraps, staff uniforms, yard signs, and door hangers all drive branded search.

How does AI Mode change local SEO?

AI Mode and AI Overviews now appear on 57% to 80% of local searches according to Whitespark, and AI-powered local packs show on roughly 22% of tracked queries per Sterling Sky. The practical implication: Google Business Profile completeness is still the highest-leverage input because AI systems pull heavily from it. ChatGPT uses Bing data for local recommendations, so claim your Bing Places listing and earn reviews across multiple platforms, not just Google.

How do I do local SEO for a service-area business with no storefront?

For a service-area business with no storefront, use the service area field on your GBP to list the cities and ZIP codes you serve. On your website, build dedicated location pages for each meaningful service area (city plus service type) with unique content per page covering local pricing, license requirements, embedded maps, and customer testimonials specific to that area. Avoid thin doorway pages with swapped city names.

What gets a Google Business Profile suspended?

Google Business Profile suspensions happen most often for: using a virtual office or mailbox address, claiming a location where you don’t physically operate, keyword-stuffing the business name, running multiple GBPs at the same physical address, review gating (asking only happy customers for reviews), incentivizing reviews in violation of Google’s policies, and operating in a category that violates Google’s prohibited content rules. Strict adherence to Google’s local guidelines is the fix.

Is local SEO worth it for a small business?

Yes, local SEO is still one of the highest-ROI marketing channels for any small business serving a defined geographic area.

Use these local SEO tips and get found on search

Yes, the available options to get linked in organic search results are shrinking. But the data shows there’s still plenty of benefit in ranking at the top.

The tips in this guide are based on the latest information about search algorithms and AI rules. Try them out and see which moves the needle fastest for your business.

For support in all of your digital marketing efforts, reach out.

The post Our Best Local SEO Tips to Rank Higher in 2026 appeared first on WordStream.

That five-group framing is grounded in the May 2024 Google Content Warehouse API leak, which exposed more than 14,000 internal attributes and finally let SEOs name what Google’s ranking systems are measuring under each of those buckets.

As someone who has been doing SEO for more than a decade and a half and looks at the most recent search results every day, I’ll take you through the most important Google ranking factors to be aware of, along with how they impact your site and how you can optimize for them.

Contents

• How do we know what ranking factors Google considers?
  • Google Leak Attribute Glossary
• Google ranking factors for 2026
  • Domain authority
  • Topical authority
  • Document quality
    • Content Effort Scorecard
    • Title Tag Match Score Checker
  • Freshness
  • Engagement
• What Google ranking factors should you fix first?
• Google rankings factors FAQs

How do we know what ranking factors Google considers?

This is an important question, as there are lots of articles around the web with lots of things listed as “ranking factors.” How do you know what Google actually uses to rank web pages in search results? The best sources of truth tend to be:

1. Google patents. While something mentioned in a patent may not actually be used in the live algorithm, it’s obviously a great indication that considers it either valuable now, or to be something they may want to incorporate.
2. DOJ testimony. Google’s PR efforts may or may not be truthful, but what they say under oath in DOJ testimony obviously carries a much heavier downside to being dishonest and subsequently more weight.
3. Leaked documents. The 2024 leak of different “attributes” doesn’t give a complete picture or simple roadmap to ranking in Google, but it does give a ton of information as to what Google’s actually keeping track of, along with some information about how they’re leveraging that information.

If you’re looking to learn more about the 2024 leak specifically, you can check out Mike King’s analysis at iPullRank, as well as Shaun Anderson’s deep dive at Hobo SEO.

And, if you want to dive deeper into any specific element of the Google leak, we created an interactive glossary tool to help you understand the most important leaked features:

Need help understanding the modern rules for SEO? Download our free guide >> How to Do SEO Right—Right Now!

2026 Google ranking factors

Let’s walk through the 11 ranking factors—bucketed into five high-level categories—that are most important if you want to rank well in Google.

Domain authority

Maps to: siteAuthority, chromeInTotal

What Google is measuring

• siteAuthority is Google’s internal site-wide link-popularity score, operating like a modernized PageRank applied at the domain level.
• chromeInTotal aggregates Chrome browser data covering site-visit frequency, on-site experience, and direct traffic, a signal Google publicly denied using for over a decade.

Is this an issue for your site?

You can look at a few different metrics here:

• Your site’s domain authority.
• Your site’s branded search traffic (particularly mapped over time).
• Your site’s estimated traffic (overall traffic: not just search traffic–again mapped over time).

Compare those to your primary competitors in search results. If you’re consistently losing on those metrics in those SERPs, this may be a ranking factor that’s negatively impacting you.

How can you “optimize” for authority?

There isn’t really a “hack” or series of on-page or technical optimizations you can execute to help improve your site’s authority or Chrome metrics (which is likely one of the reasons Google likes them!), but you can take some actions to help with these metrics:

1. Digital PR through HARO and Qwoted: Get featured in journalist queries and earn editorial links from publications already covering your topic.
2. Create and promote research-backed content: Benchmark articles, original studies, and data-led pieces have the highest reply rate because they give journalists something concrete to cite, and these also give you data points to weave through your site’s content. This can include anonymized client data, surveys, and year-over-year trend studies.
3. Traditional link building: Activities like guest post placements or resource list outreach still work for building links and site authority.

Most sites should avoid risky link-building tactics or buying traffic for traffic’s sake, as bouncing traffic or low-quality links can hurt more than they help.

Topical authority

Maps to: siteFocusScore, siteRadius

What Google is measuring

• siteFocusScore measures how concentrated a site is on a single topic.
• siteRadius measures how far an individual page strays from the site’s topical center. Pages outside the radius get weighted less; sites with low focus scores lose relevance for topics they could otherwise own.

Is this an issue for your site?

This is a lot trickier to measure. There are tools that can help you map vector embeddings to see what content has overlap or if pages have a lack of topical focus, but how useful those tools are can have to do with how big your site is, how many topics you cover, etc., and it’s difficult to measure precisely against competitors at scale.

How can you “optimize” for topical authority?

Pick a core topical focus and lean into it:

1. Identify the topic where you’re already aligned. A simple place to start here is to ask tools like ChatGPT and Gemini what they think your site is about. You can also crawl your site and analyze what topics you write about most frequently, look at your analytics and determine which pages are performing well and growing over time, and how closely aligned those topics are with the core focus of your site.
2. Make the focus prominent across navigation, internal linking, and homepage messaging.
3. Direct new content effort there. Focus your net new content efforts on going deeper into areas that align with the topical focus of your site.
4. Direct link building into pages within the focus from topically aligned sources.

You can also look for under-performing pages that aren’t driving traffic and strong engagement signals—particularly those outside your core topical focus—and consider noindexing or redirecting those pages to tighten your siteRadius and increase your siteFocusScore.

What are the biggest challenges businesses are facing with their websites and SEO? Free download >> Small Business Website Trends Report

Document quality

Maps to: title and body match, contentEffort, titlematchScore, pandaDemotion

What Google is measuring

• Title-tag and body-content alignment with the query.
• contentEffort. This is an LLM-estimated score for human effort, scanning for original data, custom visualizations, expert quotes, and content differentiated from what already ranks.
• pandaDemotion. This is the live penalty for thin or duplicate content.

Is this an issue for your site?

Again, this can be difficult to measure, but a good test is to look at your content and think, “Could AI have generated this content?” Even if your content is human-written and comprehensive, if it doesn’t offer any expertise, proprietary data, custom visuals, or custom functionality, then it’s not likely to appear “high effort” to Google.

Additionally, think about “information gain:” What can a visitor get or learn on your page that they can’t get anywhere else (particularly from the other sites in the search result).

To help you measure the content effort of your own pages, we built this free tool, which scores your content and gives you specific suggestions for elements to add to upgrade your page’s content effort:

How can you “optimize” for document quality?

There are a number of ways to start to bake more “content effort” and “information gain” into your content:

1. Front-load proprietary data. Lead with a statistic, even better if it’s data that you’ve published.
2. Add a clear author profile. Link to a credible bio with named credentials. This goes to “information gain” because the reader is getting a perspective that’s specific, credentialed, and that they can’t get anywhere else.
3. Write in first-person from named expertise. “We tested 350+ mattresses” beats “according to studies.” Demonstrate specific work over a specific time horizon.
4. Work in expert quotes from named practitioners where original research or an experienced author is not feasible.
5. Front-load custom visualizations and video. Stock images don’t raise contentEffort. Charts you built, screenshots from your tools, and short explainers do.
6. Make the methodology visible. Pages that mention and show sample sizes, time horizons, and the general process and effort behind a piece of content signal effort that templated AI content cannot replicate.

If you’re looking to evaluate and upgrade your title tag, we also built this free tool to help you evaluate how aligned your current title tag is based on titlematchScore:

Freshness

Maps to: lastSignificantUpdate

What Google is measuring

• Whether a page reflects a meaningful content change or a cosmetic edit.
• Google appears to apply freshness as a late-stage layer on top of other ranking calculations, so the boost (or demotion) can swing rankings even when underlying quality is unchanged.

Is this an issue for your site?

Looking at dates in search results can help you understand if your competitors in search results may be getting a “freshness” boost or not. The dates Google is using in a search result can help indicate if they “accepted” your changes as significant:

If this site had made an update since January, they could submit the page to be indexed via GSC, and if they see that the page has been crawled via URL inspection, it’s likely Google didn’t consider their updates “significant.”

How can you “optimize” for freshness?

There are a few core steps you can take to help freshen your content if this is something that’s costing you rankings:

1. Use the 30% rule. A republish should reflect roughly a 30% content change. Cut fluff readers can find elsewhere, add substantive new sections (information-gain enhancements, fresh stats, updated examples), and let the trimmed result reflect actual editorial work.
2. Set a cadence for substantive updates on priority pages. This will depend on the query space and your resource, but crucial pages that drive significant results for your site should probably be updated every 3-6 months
3. Cut net-new content production outside your core topical focus. Consider reallocating some of your net new content investment into content maintenance.

Looking for more ways to drive people to your site? Free guide >> 25 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website

Engagement

Maps to: navBoost, clutterScore, violatesMobileInterstitialPolicy

What Google is measuring

• navBoost: Click-through and post-click satisfaction signals (goodClicks, badClicks, lastLongestClicks)
• clutterScore: Density of interstitials, pop-ups, and on-page distractions
• violatesMobileInterstitialPolicy: Mobile UX intrusion flag

Is this an issue for your site?

This is difficult to measure versus your opponents, but a good approach here is to benchmark the things you can measure (bounce rate, time on site, page performance metrics) and work to improve them over time, particularly on your most important pages and in areas that will impact every page on your site.

How can you “optimize” for engagement?

Focus on making your pages more useful, more interactive, and stickier:

1. Bake filtering and personalization into common page templates. Build features into your pages that let your visitors filter recommendations or input their own info to get recommendations, even if the focus of the page is not to be a “tool” strictly speaking.
2. Convert static lists into interactive selectors. Where a page has lists of tips, products, or platforms tagged by audience, content type, or goal, build a small drop-down widget that a user can interact with rather than just scroll by.
3. Audit clutter on top pages. Sticky widgets, full-screen interstitials, pop-up overlays, and aggressive in-content ads all feed clutterScore. Anything that intercepts the user before they reach the answer is something to reconsider.
4. For every key page, ask: “what tools would a user find helpful?” Interactive checklists, calculators, comparison tables, taxonomies, and journey maps are all strong candidates.

The interactive visual below can help illustrate how historical performance–and specifically click quality–can impact a site’s navBoost:

What to fix first?

Google ranking factors FAQs

Here’s a deeper look at frequently asked questions about Google ranking factors.

1. What are the most important Google ranking factors in 2026?

The most important Google ranking factors in 2026 fall into five groups:

1. Domain authority (measured by siteAuthority and chromeInTotal)
2. Topical authority (siteFocusScore and siteRadius)
3. Document quality (title and body match, contentEffort, pandaDemotion)
4. Freshness (lastSignificantUpdate)
5. Engagement (navBoost, clutterScore, violatesMobileInterstitialPolicy)

These groups are grounded in the May 2024 Google Content Warehouse API leak and in Pandu Nayak’s testimony during the DOJ antitrust case.

2. What did the 2024 Google Content Warehouse API leak reveal?

The May 2024 Google Content Warehouse API leak surfaced more than 14,000 internal attributes used by Google’s ranking systems. Among the most consequential were siteAuthority (a site-wide link-popularity score), navBoost (click-driven re-ranking with goodClicks and badClicks), contentEffort (LLM-estimated page effort), siteFocusScore and siteRadius (topical authority), and chromeInTotal (aggregated Chrome browser data).

Several signals Google had publicly denied using for years were named directly in the leaked documentation.

3. What is siteAuthority, and how is it different from “Domain authority”?

siteAuthority is Google’s internal site-wide link-popularity score, surfaced in the May 2024 Content Warehouse API leak. It operates like a modernized PageRank applied at the domain level.

It is not the same as “domain authority,” the metric used by third-party tools: third-party DA is an external estimate, while siteAuthority is the actual attribute Google appears to use inside its ranking systems. Both rise with high-quality, topically aligned inbound links, but only siteAuthority directly influences rankings.

4. What is siteFocusScore, and how do I improve it?

siteFocusScore is a leaked Google attribute that measures how concentrated a site is on a single topic. To improve it, create new content aligned with your site’s core focus and cull or consolidate pages outside the focus.

5. What is contentEffort, and how can I raise the score on my page?

contentEffort is a leaked Google attribute that uses an LLM to estimate the human effort behind a page, looking for originality, multimedia, citations, and content differentiated from the SERP.

Raise it by front-loading proprietary data, adding named author profiles, writing in first-person from specific expertise, including expert quotes, embedding custom visualizations and video, and making your testing or research methodology visible.

6. Does Google use click data to rank pages?

Yes. Google uses click data through a system called NavBoost, which Pandu Nayak confirmed under oath during the DOJ antitrust case.

NavBoost weighs goodClicks (satisfied clicks), badClicks (pogo-sticks back to the SERP), and lastLongestClicks (the user’s final satisfied click). It also draws on chromeInTotal, aggregated Chrome browser data.

7. How often should I update content for Google freshness signals?

How often to update a page depends on the query/topic area. The leaked lastSignificantUpdate attribute appears to detect cosmetic date swaps and downweight them, so a real update should reflect roughly a 30% content change: cut fluff, add new sections with information gain (fresh stats, examples, expert quotes), and treat each refresh as a content sprint.

Scheduling your most valuable pages to be updated quarterly is a good rule of thumb for most sites.

8. Are backlinks still a Google ranking factor in 2026?

Yes. Backlinks remain a major Google ranking factor in 2026, and the leaked siteAuthority attribute confirms Google scores site-wide link authority. Quality and topical relevance matter more than raw count: Semrush’s ranking factors study found URL and domain organic-traffic metrics outscore raw link counts.

Focus on the right Google ranking factors in your strategy

We’ve covered the top Google ranking factors you need to know to structure your strategy to get found in search. By focusing on these five areas, you can increase your chances of appearing for queries related to your business.

For more help keeping your SEO strategy up to date, reach out to our team.

The post The Most Important Google Ranking Factors for 2026 appeared first on WordStream.

There’s a lot of nuance in online advertising costs to consider. Your goals, your industry, and your target customer will all affect the price for ads, where you spend it, and how much you budget to grow.

That’s why we built this guide. It provides clear insights into the costs of online advertising to help you set expectations, plus plenty of examples and tips to help you keep those costs in line while getting every lead and sale possible from your investment.

Contents

• Online advertising costs overview
• How much do Google Ads cost?
• How much do social media ads cost?
  • Facebook advertising costs
  • Instagram advertising costs
  • TikTok advertising costs
  • LinkedIn advertising costs
  • YouTube advertising costs
• How much do display ads cost?
• 7 tips to control the cost of your online ads
• Online advertising cost FAQs

Online advertising costs overview

We reviewed a deep set of online advertising cost data across our own benchmark studies and several outside sources. Here’s what we found:

Let’s dig into the context of these costs and learn more about each advertising channel.

How much do Google Ads cost?

Search ads, including Google Ads, are an incredibly popular marketing channel because they deliver leads with a high purchase intent. When someone searches for “the best plumber,” they’re very likely to schedule service.

A typical example of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on a Google search engine results page (SERP).

The average small business spends about $3,000 per month on Google Ads. The way they’re charged is often either in a cost per click model or a cost per lead model. Let’s look the average costs for both.

Are your Google Ads running at peak performance? Find out with our Free Google Ads Grader

Cost per click in Google Ads

The average CPC in Google Ads is $5.42.

CPC is a pricing model where the advertiser is charged a small amount every time someone clicks on an ad.

Your cost per click is calculated on the fly every time your ad appears, according to a process known as the ad auction. The ad auction is Google’s way of deciding which ads to display when someone performs a keyword search, what order to rank the ads in, and how much each online advertiser pays per click. This guide to the Google Ads auction explains the process in detail.

Average Google Ads CPC by industry

How much are other businesses in your industry paying for a click on Google Ads? Knowing that will help you set goals and audit your Google Ads performance.

Here are the average Google Ads CPCs by industry:

On average, businesses in the Arts & Entertainment market will pay $1.63 for a click, while the CPC for Attorneys and Legal Services is nearly $10.

Cost per lead in Google Ads

The average CPL in Google Search Ads is $66.69.

In CPL pricing, an advertiser is charged every time a viewer takes a specific conversion action as determined by the advertiser. For example, a conversion from a Google Ad could mean someone fills out a lead form, downloads an ebook, or subscribes to a newsletter.

CPL is the “money metric” in Google Ads because it links your ad performance directly to your business’s bottom line.

Average Google Ads CPL by industry

Just like clicks, the industry you’re in will help determine the price you’ll pay for a lead. Some industries, like real estate, are highly competitive, so their CPLs are higher than the overall average.

Google Ads is still one of the best ways to grow your business. In recent years, though, we’ve seen its dominance challenged by social media. Let’s look at the cost to advertise on the most popular social networks.

How much do social media ads cost?

Social media has grown into a huge advertising channel, rivaling even search engines. In fact, Emarketer projects that Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) will soon overtake Google in advertising revenue.

It’s no surprise that when we asked small businesses which advertising channels they use, social media ranked at the top.

Each social media platform uses different methods for pricing and delivering ads. Here’s how they break down.

Facebook ad costs

Facebook remains the largest social network based on total users. That, and its flexible advertising options, make it a valuable channel for many businesses.

Great Facebook ads can include images, video, and copy to engage their audience.

Facebook’s advertising works similarly to Google’s in that advertisers place a bid in an auction (although the auctions themselves use different criteria to determine the winners). This comprehensive guide to Facebook advertising explains it well.

To review Facebook advertising costs, it’ll be helpful to break them down by campaign goal, since they deliver different outcomes for key metrics.

Spending too much on Facebook Ads? Learn now with our free Facebook Ads Grader

Traffic campaigns

Traffic campaigns on Facebook prioritize driving website traffic. That means Facebook guides these campaigns to serve ads to audiences most likely to click. And the most important metric to measure them is cost per click.

The average CPC in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns is $0.70.

Here are the CPCs of Facebook ads by industry:

On Facebook, businesses in the Finance & Insurance industry pay the most for clicks, on average, while those in the Shopping, Collectibles, & Gifts industry pay the least.

Leads campaigns

Facebook campaigns using the leads objective focus on showing ads to maximize leads and conversions. You do that by creating Facebook Lead Ads, which let you get leads directly from the platform.

The average CPL in Facebook ads for lead campaigns is $27.66.

Like we’ve seen in other ad costs, CPL varies by industry here.

We see Dentists & Dental Services businesses paying the highest average cost for leads on Facebook ads. The Restaurants & Food industry pays the lowest average cost per lead.

Instagram advertising costs

As part of Facebook, Instagram’s advertising pricing models function very similarly to those of Facebook ads themselves.

This is great news for newcomers and experienced Facebook advertisers; if you’ve never advertised on either platform, it’s easy to get started, and if you’re already familiar with Facebook Ads, launching your first Instagram campaign will be very straightforward.

A successful Instagram ad has a strong call to action, engaging visuals, and compelling copy.

Based on several studies:

• The average CPC of Instagram ads is between $0.40 and $2.
• The average cost per engagement (CPE) of Instagram ads is between $0.03 and $0.08.
• The average CPM of Instagram ads is $2 and $6.

Get more customers from every ad click! Download 14 Super-Fast Ways to Boost Conversions

TikTok advertising costs

TikTok has evolved into an important marketing channel that spans interests and generations. Ads on the platform actually now have a higher click-through rate than ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Influencer partnerships are a common type of TikTok ad.

It’s good to note that TikTok counts a click whenever someone taps your call to action button, nickname, profile picture, or “Learn More” link. You won’t pay if someone just taps to like or comment on an ad. Also, it considers a view to occur as soon as a video starts playing.

TikTok has its own ad bidding system, offers several types of ads, and has rules like a minimum budget requirement. You can learn all about how these ads work and how to get started on TikTok here.

As for ad costs on the platform, current data shows:

• The CPC of TikTok ads is between $0.30 and $1.50.
• The CPV of TikTok ads is between $0.01 to $0.07.
• The CPM of TikTok ads is between $4 and $10.

LinkedIn advertising costs

LinkedIn is still a B2B advertising powerhouse, but the lines are getting blurred. Many B2C brands now use the platform to build brand awareness with a professional audience.

LinkedIn ads rely on an auction and a relevancy score to determine which advertiser gets the ad spot. It also offers several campaign objectives to choose from. When you’re ready to give it a try, this guide to optimizing LinkedIn ads is a great place to start.

When you average the available LinkedIn ad cost data, you find that:

• The average CPC of LinkedIn ads is between $5 and $10.
• The average CPM of LinkedIn ads is between $25 and $45.
• The average CPL of LinkedIn ads is between $45 and $120.

YouTube advertising costs

YouTube is part search engine, part streaming service, and part social media network. That’s led more than 90% of consumers to say they’ve discovered new products and brands on the video-sharing platform.

YouTube ads work for large national brands and local businesses.

The cost of YouTube ads varies greatly by the type of ad. In fact, different ad types come with different goals. For example, a skippable in-stream ad uses the CPV model while a non-skippable ad is charged on a CPM basis.

If you want to learn how to run effective YouTube ads from scratch (or want a refresher on the basics), this starter guide to YouTube advertising will help.

Since YouTube is video-focused, its costs are centered around views, impressions, and clicks. Looking at relevant studies, we see that:

• The average CPM on YouTube ads is between $4 and $10.
• The average CPC on YouTube ads is between $0.50 and $3.
• The average CPV on YouTube ads is between $0.10 and $0.30.

How much do display ads cost?

Display ads are visual online ads that appear in designated placements across websites and mobile apps. There are several versions, like static banner ads, videos that play along the side of the screen, or full-screen takeovers.

Display ads, like the ones here in the red box, can show up just about anywhere on a web page.

While search ads appear when someone types in a relevant query, display ads show proactively based on targeting options like demographics, interests, or previous behavior. That makes banner ads excellent for building brand and product awareness.

Ads on the Google Display Network are a great complement to its Search Ads. Where Search Ads show for people ready to buy, display ads have an enormous reach. The GDN includes over 35 million websites, plus Google-owned properties like YouTube and Gmail.

The cost for display ads ranges greatly depending on where they show up, the industry they’re targeting, the type of ad, and other factors. For ads purchased through the Google Display Network:

• The CPM of display ads is between $3 and $10.
• The CPC of display ads is between $0.50 and $1.

While the Google Display Network is one of the largest, there are many other options out there. For example, the USA TODAY Network offers several advertising options placed on hundreds of websites reaching over 126 million people.

7 tips to control the cost of your online ads

Now that we have an idea of how much online advertising costs, let’s look at some ways to make each ad more efficient.

Make your ads more relevant

Ad relevancy means making the offer, copy, and ad creative meaningful to your intended audience and making sure it aligns with the landing page they’ll click to.

Relevance has two important effects on online advertising costs. First, a highly relevant ad will get more clicks from the people actually interested in buying and fewer from those who aren’t. That’ll keep your overall campaign spend down while increasing its ROI.

Second, ad platforms like Google and TikTok consider ad relevance in their auction process. If your ads meet their relevance criteria, you may win placements even against higher bids.

Use negative keywords

Negative keywords are words or phrases you add to a search campaign to stop your ads from showing up for searches that aren’t relevant to your business.

In our recent study of over 15,000 Google Ads accounts, we found that accounts using at least one negative keyword in their campaigns saw 3X higher conversion rates than those that didn’t.

Give your online ads a big boost with negative keywords.

Check your bidding strategies

Your bid is how much money you’re willing to spend to get a result like a click or lead. Bid too low, and you’ll miss out on visibility. Bid too aggressively, and you’ll drive up costs without added return.

There are several bid strategies, both manual and automated, available on each ad platform, and the one you choose will depend on your goals and comfort level with managing ads. It’s good to understand each.

Use these resources to make sure you’re bidding for maximum results:

• The 5 Facebook Bidding Strategies Explained: Pros, Cons, & How to Choose
• Google Ads Smart Bidding: Every Strategy to Know
• The Pros & Cons of Every Automated Bidding Strategy in Google
• TikTok Ads Bidding Strategies (Which is Best for You?)

Tighten your targeting

Before you begin any campaign, make sure you know your target audience. What they like, where they live, how they earn a living—the more information you can use to identify likely buyers, the more efficiently you can target your ads.

When you know your audience, you can better target ads that find them.

Just like bidding strategies, each platform offers its own targeting options. Many offer highly effective targeting tactics like geotargeting and lookalike audiences. Make sure to use them when possible.

We’ve created guides to help you get the most out of each platform’s targeting options:

• Google Ads Audience Targeting: 14 Powerful & Underused Strategies
• Facebook Ad Targeting: Every Option to Reach Your Audience
• Every Instagram Ad Targeting Option to Reach Your Audience
• YouTube Display Ads 101: How to Target Placements & Boost Conversions

Use remarketing often

Remarketing (AKA retargeting) lets you show ads specifically to people who have already visited your website or interacted with your business, so you can bring them back when they’re closer to making a decision.

Remarketing ads appear as display ads but are targeted using prior behavior.

These types of ads are extremely effective. Users who see retargeting ads are 70% more likely to convert than first-time visitors who don’t see retargeting ads. Google offers remarketing ad options, as does Facebook.

Create dedicated landing pages for your campaigns

A dedicated landing page is a standalone web page built specifically for an ad campaign. It’s designed to match what the ad promised and motivate visitors to take one specific action, like filling out a form or making a purchase, without the distractions of a full website.

The ad associated with this landing page would highlight dental pain.

Businesses that use well-optimized, dedicated landing pages can see up to 220% boost in conversion rates compared to sending ad traffic to generic web pages.

Even though landing pages serve a straightforward purpose, there’s a lot to consider when building one that’ll convert more customers. We’ve created a landing page checklist and list of tips to help you do it.

Try adding power words to your ad copy

A strong targeting and bid strategy can help keep your online advertising costs reasonable. But even those tactics will stall if your ad copy isn’t strong enough to catch attention and generate clicks.

We recently completed a study of 180 top-ranked Google Ads and found some important patterns common among them. For example, we found that a high percentage of the Ads included certain power words in the copy.

You can read the whole study and get more ideas for high-converting ad copy (like using numbers for specificity) in this guide.

Online advertising cost FAQs

Here are answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about online advertising costs.

What variables affect online ad costs?

There are several factors that help determine how much you’ll pay for online advertising, including:

• Your industry
• Your target audience characteristics and size
• The advertising platform
• Time of day and year your ads run
• How relevant and well-optimized your ads are

What are the most common online ad pricing models?

The most common online ad pricing models are:

• CPC (cost per click): You pay each time someone clicks your ad. This is common for search ads where you’re targeting people ready to take action.
• CPM (cost per thousand impressions): You pay for every 1,000 times your ad is shown, regardless of clicks. CPM is typical for display and awareness campaigns.
• CPA (cost per acquisition): You pay only when someone completes a specific action, like a form fill or purchase. These ads have a higher cost per event, but you’re only paying for results.
• CPL (cost per lead): Similar to CPA but focused specifically on capturing contact information. CPA ads are common in service-based industries where the sale happens offline.
• CPV (cost per view): You pay each time someone watches your video ad, usually past a certain threshold. This is a standard for YouTube and video campaigns.

How much should you spend on Google Ads?

While there’s no universal answer, our experts suggest starting with a budget of at least $1,000 to $2,500 on Google Ads per month. Google Ads work best with data, so you’ll need to spend around that much to generate data that it can use to bid and target efficiently.

Keep your online advertising costs under control

Online advertising offers an incredible opportunity to build awareness and find new customers. The targeting, creative options, and sheer size of the audience make it a must-use for most businesses.

But it’s true that without good strategies and proper controls, advertising costs can spin out of control—or at least not deliver results efficiently.

The data and tips in this guide will help you set benchmarks and manage your ad costs. If you’d like a hand getting the most out of your advertising budget, reach out. We can show you how our digital advertising solutions can help.

The post The Comprehensive Guide to Online Advertising Costs for 2026 appeared first on WordStream.

Email marketing has changed in the last 24 months. Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) now pre-fetches the open pixel for roughly 64% of Apple Mail users, so open rate is no longer a reliable headline KPI. In February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo started enforcing three sender requirements for anyone sending 5,000 or more messages a day: authenticate with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC; offer one-click unsubscribe; and keep your spam complaint rate under 0.3%. Microsoft followed with the same rules for Outlook.com and Hotmail in May 2025.

With the proliferation of generative AI tools, the problem of email spam will become even more complex, and email providers will likely respond with more complicated rules and restrictions.

As someone who has spent 10+ years working across a variety of different types of email marketing campaigns, I’ve created this guide to be a current look at email marketing: what to build, what to measure, and what to retire.

Contents

• What is email marketing?
• How email marketing works in 30 seconds
• Why email is still effective in 2026
  • Email Marketing ROI Calculator
• Types of email marketing
• How to build an email list
• Email marketing segmentation and personalization
• Email marketing deliverability
  • Email Deliverability Health Check
• How to write and design emails that get opened and clicked
  • Email Subject Line Scorer
• What to know about automation, drip campaigns, and lifecycle email
• KPIs and benchmarks in the post-MPP era
• Understanding compliance: CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL, CCPA
• How to choose an email service provider (ESP)
  • WordStream Email ESP Evaluation Tool
• What to know about AI in email marketing
• Common email marketing mistakes to avoid
• Email marketing FAQs

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is the practice of sending opt-in commercial or relationship-based emails to a permission-based subscriber list, with the goal of driving revenue, retention, or engagement.

An example of an email marketing message.

The list belongs to you. Other digital marketing channels are rented from a platform that can change its rules tomorrow.

What separates email marketing from spam is consent. Marketing email requires explicit opt-in, identifies the sender, and gives the recipient a one-click way to leave the list. Spam does none of those things, and the line is now enforced by both law (CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL) and by Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s deliverability rules.

Get everything you need for great emails >> The Complete Email Marketing Toolkit: Free Email Templates, Subject Lines & Tips

How email marketing works in 30 seconds

Every email program runs the same five-step loop:

1. Capture consent through a signup form, a checkout opt-in, or a gated content download.
2. Store and segment the subscribers in your email service provider (ESP) or CRM.
3. Design and send either a scheduled campaign (newsletter, promo) or an automated message triggered by behavior (welcome, cart, post-purchase).
4. Measure click-through rate, conversion rate, revenue per email, and spam complaint rate.
5. Iterate. Cut what does not work, double down on what does.

The three-layer chart below explains why most email programs leak money: marketers invest in the visible campaign layer without investing in the lifecycle layer or the deliverability foundation underneath it.

Why email is still effective in 2026

Email marketing is still the highest-ROI digital channel for most small and mid-market programs in 2026, and it reaches an estimated 4.7 billion users worldwide.

Email is a fully owned digital channel. Your subscriber list belongs to you. Google can change a ranking algorithm, Meta can raise its CPMs by 40% next quarter, an iOS update can break your retargeting overnight, and your email list still works the same way it did the day before.

That is exactly why email got more important after Apple’s iOS privacy changes and the cookieless squeeze, not less. As paid acquisition got more expensive and harder to measure, the channel you already own at zero marginal cost is the channel that compounds. You can run the numbers for the ROI of your own list below.

Types of email marketing

Email marketing breaks into two high-level buckets: campaign emails (one-to-many broadcasts sent on a schedule to a list segment) and lifecycle emails (one-to-one messages triggered automatically by user behavior or lifecycle stage).

Lifecycle email flows typically generate roughly 41% of total email revenue from just 5.3% of sends, per Klaviyo’s 2026 Email Marketing Benchmarks, which is why lifecycle is the highest-leverage place to invest after the foundation is built.

Campaign emails (one-to-many broadcasts)

Campaign emails go out on a schedule to a list segment, regardless of what any individual subscriber has done recently.

Lifecycle/triggered emails (one-to-one, behavioral)

Lifecycle emails fire automatically when a subscriber takes an action or hits a milestone. They are the highest-ROI flows in most programs.

Pick the four or five flows that match your business and ship those before adding new campaigns.

How to build an email list

To build an email list, you want to capture explicit opt-in consent through a clear form, route every subscriber into your email service provider (ESP) tagged with their source, deliver the value you promised, without buying or scraping addresses.

Permission-based lists drive engagement; bought lists can be effective in well-executed cold email campaigns, but can also drive spam complaints and can get your sending domain blocked.

Permission-based list building

Offering something of value (like a free download or newsletter subscription) is the safest way to build a high-value email list. Cold email tactics and buying or scraping email addresses can be effective for some companies, but can also kill a program before it starts. Recipients have no idea who you are, may hit “Report Spam,” and once your complaint rate clears 0.3%, Gmail and Yahoo will throttle or block your mail.

Single vs. double opt-in

A core consideration as you set up your email marketing campaigns is single versus double opt-in:

• Single opt-in adds the subscriber the moment they submit the form.and bots.
• Double opt-in requires the subscriber to click a confirmation link before they are added. This can lead to smaller lists and limited reach, but also a cleaner list, lower bounce rate, fewer spam complaints, and is required de facto under GDPR.

An example of a double opt-in.

For most SMBs in 2026, double opt-in is the safer default. The deliverability gain pays back the volume loss.

Lead magnets that work in 2026

Lead magnets that convert in 2026 are specific, not generic. A “free guide to marketing” gets ignored. A “five-minute checklist for fixing your Google Business Profile” gets signups. Interactive assets (quizzes, calculators, benchmark scorers) outperform static PDFs because they feel earned. Match the magnet to a real, narrow problem your reader has.

Capture email anywhere a visitor is already paying attention:

• Site signup forms (above the fold, exit-intent, embedded mid-content)
• Checkout opt-in (a single consent box, where permitted)
• Gated content (the lead-magnet download)
• Webinar or event registration
• In-store or POS signup if you’re a local business

Email marketing segmentation and personalization

Email segmentation is the practice of dividing your subscriber list into smaller groups based on shared traits (lifecycle stage, behavior, purchase history, source, geography, declared preferences) and sending each group content that fits its context.

Segmented campaigns outperform blasts on every metric that matters (click-through rate, conversion rate, revenue per email, unsubscribe rate), because every recipient is closer to the offer.

Blasting the same email to your full list is the cheapest way to send an email and the most expensive way to lose subscribers.

Segmentation dimensions to start with

Segmented email campaigns generate roughly 30% more opens and 50% more clicks than unsegmented sends, and on the revenue side, segmented campaigns have been reported to drive substantially more revenue per send than blasts (Mailchimp/Campaign Monitor benchmark data).

Six segmentation dimensions cover most of the practical value for SMB programs.

Start with lifecycle stage and engagement recency. Layer the others in once those two are working reliably.

Personalization beyond first name

Real personalization is not “Hi Joe.” It is sending different content to different segments based on what you know about them. Four tactics that can impact performance:

1. Dynamic content blocks that swap copy or imagery based on segment.
2. Product recommendations drawn from purchase or browse history.
3. Send-time optimization that delivers each message at the recipient’s most-likely-open hour.
4. Behavioral triggers that fire when a subscriber takes a specific action (visits a page, abandons a cart, downloads a guide).

An example of a product recommendation email.

AI-powered predictive segmentation in 2026

Most major ESPs now ship predictive segmentation: churn risk scores, predicted next purchase, propensity to buy, AI-optimized send times. These work, but they need volume to be valuable. If your list is under 10,000 active subscribers, focus on the six segments above before turning on predictive features.

Want to use AI the right way? Free download >> The Complete Guide to AI for Marketing

Email deliverability: The foundation most marketers skip

Email deliverability is the share of your sent messages that actually reach the inbox, and as of February 2024 it depends on three things: sender authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), one-click unsubscribe, and a spam complaint rate under 0.3%, per Google’s Email Sender Guidelines. Miss any one of those three and Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft will throttle, junk, or block your mail.

Sender authentication explained (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI)

Authentication is how an email provider verifies that you actually own the domain in your From: address. Four protocols, plain-English:

You need all three of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. BIMI is a nice-to-have once the other three are clean.

Sender reputation, IP warming, and list hygiene

Sender reputation is the running score every mailbox provider keeps on your sending domain and IP. Three habits protect it.

• Sunset inactive subscribers. Anyone who has not opened or clicked in 90 to 180 days goes through one re-engagement attempt, then moves to a suppression list.
• Remove hard bounces immediately. Hard-bouncing addresses are dead. Continuing to mail them tanks your reputation.
• Warm new IPs slowly. If you change ESPs or add a dedicated IP, ramp volume over two to four weeks. Mailbox providers treat brand-new senders with suspicion.

What to do if you are already in spam

If your mail is landing in spam, diagnose before remediating. Check Google Postmaster Tools and Yahoo’s Sender Hub for your current spam rate, authentication status, and reputation score.

The fix usually has three steps:

1. Pause sends to your least engaged segment for two weeks.
2. Fix the underlying cause (authentication, list quality, or content).
3. Ramp volume back up slowly against your most engaged subscribers first.

To get a general deliverability health check, you can use our free tool:

Writing and designing emails that get opened and clicked

The fundamentals of email creative in 2026 are simple: a 30 to 50 character subject line that says what is inside, one primary call to action per message, and a layout that loads cleanly on a phone before it loads on a desktop. Treat every email as something a busy person will read in quickly on their commute.

Subject lines

A good email subject line is specific, 30 to 50 characters long, and clear about what is inside the message. Clarity beats cleverness. The preheader (the snippet of text that appears next to the subject in most inboxes) acts as a second subject line and should expand on the hook, not repeat it.

AI tools (your ESP’s built-in subject-line scorer, the WordStream Subject Line Scorer below, or any LLM you trust) are useful for generating variants and pressure-testing your lines. Never ship a generated subject line without an editor’s pass.

Avoid the patterns that filters and humans both flag: ALL CAPS, manipulative urgency, multiple exclamation marks, “FREE!!!” style hooks, and any phrase that would feel sleazy out loud.

Email body structure

Every marketing email should have one goal and one primary call to action. If a message is asking the reader to do two things, they may not take action on either.

Six practical rules:

1. Write to one reader (not “a list”)
2. Put the most important content above the fold
3. Use a clear visual hierarchy with one headline
4. One supporting image, and one primary button
5. Keep body font at 14 pixels or larger
6. Make every tap target at least 44 by 44 pixels so it works on a phone

Visual design, dark mode, and accessibility

Most subscribers will open your email on a phone, often in dark mode. Three habits keep your design from breaking.

• Alt text on every image. Half your audience may be reading with images blocked.
• Semantic HTML and high color contrast. Aim for WCAG AA at minimum (4.5:1 ratio for body text).
• Test dark mode before you send. Logos and dark-on-dark text can disappear; use transparent PNGs and check the rendering in your ESP’s preview pane.

All about automation, drip campaigns, and lifecycle email

Email automation is the practice of sending pre-built sequences triggered by user behavior or lifecycle stage (signup, purchase, cart abandonment, inactivity) rather than scheduling each send manually. Lifecycle email flows generate roughly 41% of total email revenue from just 5.3% of sends, per Klaviyo’s 2026 Email Marketing Benchmarks, which is why automation is the highest-leverage place to invest after deliverability is solid.

The starter five automations every SMB should run

Build these five before adding anything fancier.

• Welcome series. 4 to 6 messages over the first 14 days. Sets frequency expectations, delivers the lead magnet, introduces your best content, and asks for a first conversion.
• Cart abandonment (ecommerce) or lead nurture (B2B / SaaS). Triggers when a shopper leaves items in the cart, or when a lead fills a form but does not convert. Typically the single highest-ROI flow in an ecommerce program.
• Post-purchase. Confirms the order, sets delivery expectations, asks for a review at the right moment, and primes the next purchase.
• Re-engagement / win-back. Fires when a subscriber goes 60 to 90 days without an open or click. Recovers the still-engaged and sunsets the rest, which protects your sender reputation.
• Transactional. Order confirmations, password resets, shipping notifications. Legally distinct under CAN-SPAM, and the place subscribers actually pay attention.

How to design a drip sequence

Every drip sequence has the same five-part anatomy. Design each one before you write the first email.

1. Trigger. What user action or lifecycle event starts the sequence.
2. Goal. The single outcome the sequence is meant to drive (first purchase, demo booked, review submitted).
3. Step count. 4 to 6 messages is typical. More steps is rarely better.
4. Timing. A common welcome cadence is Day 0, Day 1, Day 3, Day 7, Day 14.
5. Exit criteria. What stops the sequence (conversion, unsubscribe, manual tag).

KPIs and benchmarks in the post-MPP era

Open rate is no longer a reliable headline KPI for email marketing because Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) pre-fetches the tracking pixel for approximately 64% of Apple Mail users, inflating reported opens regardless of whether the message was actually read.

The KPIs that still tell you the truth in 2026 are click-through rate, conversion rate, revenue per email, list growth, unsubscribe rate, and spam complaint rate.

Treat open rate as a directional signal, not a primary target.

The KPIs that still matter

Track these nine email marketing KPIs. The first four tell you whether the program is working, the next three tell you whether it is sustainable, the last two tell you whether you are growing.

• Click-through rate (CTR). Clicks divided by delivered messages.
• Click-to-open ratio (CTOR). Clicks divided by opens; useful for testing creative, even with inflated opens.
• Conversion rate. The share of clickers who take the goal action.
• Revenue per email (RPE). Total revenue divided by emails sent. The cleanest top-level health metric for ecommerce.
• Unsubscribe rate. Percentage of people who opt out of your email list. Target under 0.5% per send.
• Spam complaint rate. Target under 0.1%, hard ceiling at 0.3% under the Gmail and Yahoo February 2024 rules.
• Deliverability/inbox placement rate. Share of sends that land in the primary inbox versus spam or promotions.
• List growth rate (net). New subscribers minus unsubscribes minus bounces.
• Engaged subscriber percentage. Share of the list that opened or clicked in the last 60 to 90 days.

How to handle opens when you still need them

You still need opens for two things: subject-line A/B testing and engagement segmentation. Two ways to handle MPP noise:

• Exclude MPP-flagged opens where your ESP supports it. Most major ESPs now flag pre-fetched opens explicitly.
• Move to click-based engagement segmentation. Define your “engaged” segment as anyone who clicked in the last 60 to 90 days, not anyone who “opened.” Clicks are still a real signal.

Benchmarks

Industry benchmarks are useful for direction, but not for goal-setting.

• Average open rates run roughly 30 to 45% across industries (heavily inflated by MPP).
• Average click-through rates land between 1-5% by industry.
• Revenue per email varies by an order of magnitude depending on category, list quality, and program maturity.

Use your own previous 90 days as the baseline you measure against, not an industry average. Some sources to reference include Klaviyo 2026 Benchmarks (ecommerce) and Mailchimp Email Marketing Benchmarks (multi-industry).

Compliance: CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL, CCPA

Four laws govern marketing email in the major English-speaking and EU markets, and they sit on a spectrum from permissive to strict:

1. CAN-SPAM (United States, opt-out)
2. CCPA/CPRA (California, opt-out plus data rights)
3. CASL (Canada, express opt-in)
4. GDPR (European Union/EEA, lawful basis with explicit consent in most marketing cases)

If you mail anyone in any of these regions, you are under the rules for that region, regardless of where your business is based.

The table below summarizes the consent model, what each email must include, and the penalty range for each law.

The practical operator rule: build to the strictest law you are subject to. If you send to anyone in the EU, run a GDPR-compliant program globally. The added rigor will not hurt your US or Canadian deliverability, and it will protect you when an EU subscriber slips onto your list through a partner integration or a referral.

California DROP took effect January 1, 2026

California’s Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) lets consumers submit a single request that propagates to every data broker registered in the state, requiring them to delete the consumer’s personal information. If your business sells or shares California consumer data, you have to honor DROP requests on the same timeline as a direct CCPA deletion request. Flag this with your legal team if it applies to you.

Choosing an email service provider (ESP)

The best email service provider (ESP) for your business is the one that matches your use case, not the one with the most features on a comparison chart. Evaluate every ESP on nine dimensions: deliverability infrastructure, segmentation and automation depth, integrations with your CRM and ecommerce stack, reporting, pricing model, compliance tooling, AI features, support, and data export and portability.

There is no universal “best” ESP. There is the right one for ecommerce, the right one for B2B SaaS, and the right one for a local SMB, and they are rarely the same tool.

What to evaluate

Score every candidate on these nine criteria before you sign anything.

• Deliverability infrastructure. Dedicated IP options, authentication setup, and postmaster integrations.
• Segmentation and automation depth. Can you build the lifecycle flows you actually need without external glue?
• Integrations. CRM, ecommerce platform, ad platforms (Google Customer Match, Meta Custom Audiences).
• Reporting. Cross-flow revenue reporting, not just per-send metrics.
• Pricing model. By contacts, sends, seats, or hybrid. The right model depends on your list-growth shape.
• Compliance tooling. Consent records, GDPR data export requests, suppression lists.
• AI features. Subject-line variants, send-time optimization, predictive segmentation (useful only at scale).
• Support. Whether a human answers in hours or days when something breaks.
• Data export and portability. You should be able to leave on a weekend.

Match to use case

Local SMBs and event-driven businesses lean toward Constant Contact, Mailchimp, or Brevo. Ecommerce teams typically pick Klaviyo or Omnisend for the lifecycle-flow depth. B2B and SaaS teams lean toward HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, or Customer.io for the CRM integration. Agencies managing multiple accounts pick a multi-client platform. Enterprise programs go to Marketing Cloud, Iterable, or Braze.

CRM and attribution integration

ESP-native reports tell you what happened inside the email tool. They do not tell you whether email closed a deal or drove a repeat purchase six weeks later. Connect email engagement events to your CRM and your analytics so revenue gets credited correctly. That single integration is what separates a program that “looks good in Mailchimp” from one you can defend in a budget meeting.

AI in email marketing: What’s actually useful in 2026

AI is impacting five specific places in email marketing in 2026: subject-line variants and pre-flight scoring, first-draft body copy, predictive send-time optimization, predictive segmentation and churn scoring, and image generation for hero or lifestyle imagery. The places it is still overhyped are the ones that promise to replace the work, not augment it.

Where AI is valuable

• Subject-line variants and scoring. Generate5-10 options, score them, and ship the best after a human edit.
• First-draft copy. Speeds up the blank-page problem. Treat the output as a starting point, not the final draft.
• Predictive send time. Delivers each message at the recipient’s most likely open hour. Works at list sizes above ~10,000 active subscribers.
• Predictive segmentation and churn scoring. Identifies who is about to lapse so you can pull them into a re-engagement flow before they do.
• Image generation for hero and lifestyle imagery. Useful for variant testing and seasonal swaps. Still inconsistent for product photography.

Where AI is overhyped (for now)

Full set-and-forget campaign generation. AI replacing human strategy. AI-generated subject lines shipped without an editor’s pass. These all promise to remove the work, and they all currently deliver lower-quality output than a human plus an AI assistant would produce.

Common email marketing mistakes to avoid

The most common email marketing mistakes in 2026 are buying or scraping email lists, skipping sender authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), treating open rate as a primary KPI in the post-MPP era, blasting the same email to the full list, hiding the unsubscribe link, sending from a no-reply@ address, running a one-and-done welcome email instead of a series, ignoring list hygiene, and optimizing only for desktop preview.

Email marketing FAQs

What is email marketing in simple terms?

Email marketing is the practice of sending commercial or relationship-based email to a permission-based subscriber list, with the goal of driving revenue, retention, or engagement. Unlike spam, it requires consent from the recipient, identifies the sender, and gives recipients a clear way to opt out. Common examples include newsletters, promotional offers, welcome series, and abandoned-cart reminders.

Is email marketing still effective in 2026?

Yes. Email marketing returns roughly $36 for every $1 spent, per Litmus’s 2025 State of Email Survey, and email reaches an estimated 4.7 billion users worldwide. Because email is an owned channel rather than a rented one, it has become more important as cookies, paid social CPMs, and platform algorithms have grown less reliable.

What is the ROI of email marketing?

Email marketing returns roughly $36 for every $1 spent, per Litmus’s 2025 State of Email Survey. Variance is wide: top-quartile programs see significantly higher returns, while poorly segmented programs may only break even. Automated lifecycle flows (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase, win-back) typically generate the highest ROI within a program.

How do I start email marketing?

To start email marketing: 1) pick an email service provider (ESP) like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or Constant Contact, 2) authenticate your sending domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, 3) build a permission-based list with an opt-in form and a lead magnet, 4) launch a welcome series and one campaign, 5) measure click-through rate, conversion, and revenue per email.

What is a good open rate for email marketing in 2026?

Industry averages for email open rates range roughly 30 to 45%, but open rate is unreliable after Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), which pre-fetches the tracking pixel for approximately 64% of Apple Mail users. Click-through rate (around 1 to 5% by industry), conversion rate, and revenue per email are more reliable metrics.

What changed with Gmail and Yahoo’s 2024 bulk sender requirements?

Starting February 2024, senders mailing 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail or Yahoo must authenticate with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, offer one-click unsubscribe (RFC 8058, enforced June 2024), and keep spam complaint rates under 0.3% (target under 0.1%). Microsoft added the same requirements for Outlook.com and Hotmail in May 2025.

Do I need permission before sending marketing emails?

Yes, in most cases. CASL (Canada) and GDPR (European Union) require express opt-in consent before sending marketing emails. CAN-SPAM (United States) technically allows opt-out, but Gmail and Yahoo’s spam-rate enforcement makes consent practically mandatory. Use double opt-in (a confirmation click) for cleaner lists and better inbox placement.

What email marketing software should small businesses use?

The best email marketing software for a small business depends on the use case. Ecommerce programs typically choose Klaviyo or Omnisend; local services and event-driven businesses pick Constant Contact or Mailchimp; B2B teams lean toward HubSpot or ActiveCampaign. Evaluate on deliverability, automation depth, integrations (CRM, ecommerce, ads), pricing, and compliance tooling rather than feature count alone.

What is the difference between a newsletter, a promotional email, and a transactional email?

A newsletter is recurring informational content sent to subscribers (a weekly digest, a monthly roundup). A promotional email pitches a specific product, offer, or campaign. A transactional email is triggered by a user action like an order confirmation or password reset, and is legally distinct under CAN-SPAM (no unsubscribe link required, though it should still feel on-brand).

Make email marketing part of your strategy

Now, you’re armed with everything you need to know about email marketing, including tips and tools, so you’re ready to build your email list and execute a successful campaign.

For support running effective email marketing campaigns, let’s talk.

The post Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing in 2026 (+Free Tools) appeared first on WordStream.