MindgruveMacarta Data-Driven Marketing, Creative & Commerce

Food for Your Brain.
Latest Trends and Best Practices from our Thought Leaders and Industry Experts.

Video Marketing on Amazon

Every company selling on Amazon should include videos in their listings. Not only do customers want videos, but Amazon’s search algorithms prioritize pages with video over pages with just text. On top of that, the right video content can boost conversion and page engagement.  Producing videos may sound daunting to most brands, but it doesn’t…

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SEO – A Game of Patience

When working with companies, the same question comes up time and time again: “How long does SEO take?” To see noticeable results, it usually takes about three months, but it can take even longer. For a lot of people, SEO can seem like a bit of a mystery. This past June, Google’s John Mueller tried…

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Amazon OTT Advertising 101

As over-the-top (OTT) advertising continues to grow, Amazon has been working to set its brand and marketplace sellers up for success. By connecting hardware and software, Amazon gains greater insights into user behavior and thus has the ability to improve its marketing tactics. Here’s how it works.  IMDb TV — OTT Video Blockbuster IMDb TV,…

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Lead Grading: What Is It and Why Is It Important?

What is lead grading? How does it differ from lead scoring? While lead scoring and lead grading are often used interchangeably in the world of sales & marketing, they’re technically two different practices with their own unique objectives. What is Lead Scoring? Lead scoring focuses on the behaviors of a prospective lead and aims to…

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How to Optimize a Press Release – 12 Steps to Get Coverage

According to PR Newswire, 800 press releases are sent out via their service every day in the United States. WIth all of the noise, it’s hard to make your press release stand out. Here are 12 press release tips that will ensure your press release gets the most coverage. Press Release Dos Create a click-worthy…

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[First Look] Google’s Core Web Vitals

In May 2020 Google introduced a new ranking factor for search engines: Page Experience. While “mobile first” indexing (beginning in 2017 and finally completing in May 2021) was the first move toward using page experience as a factor in search engine ranking, the Page Experience rollout seeks to improve search results for users by providing…

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The Future of Ecommerce: How COVID-19 is Impacting Ecommerce in 2021

The pandemic – and its associated lockdowns and stay-at-home orders – have caused ecommerce to rise to an all time high. And with the increase in direct-to-consumer sales comes a strain on shippers and retailers to meet the growing expectations of consumers who want their orders fast, cheap, and environmentally friendly.  Yet, even as communities…

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Marketing on Clubhouse – is it worth it?

What is Clubhouse? Clubhouse is an invite-only, audio-only social media application that allows users to create, host and join chat rooms. The application has been compared to a virtual conference, with thousands of rooms and presentations that listeners can duck their head into to listen or raise their hand to participate in the discussion. At…

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Responsive Search Ads Are Now the Default

Google recently announced that its responsive search ads (RSA), which debuted just a few years ago, will now serve as the default format in Google Ads. Moving forward, advertisers can expect prompts to create them first instead of the longstanding expanded text ads (ETA). On the surface this seems to be an innocuous Google Ads…

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SEO is Going Mobile

The rapid increase of mobile device usage in recent years has dramatically shifted search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. According to Google, more than half of all website traffic occurs via smartphones and tablets. eCommerce businesses, in other words, must now account for the fact that half of all online visitors are on their mobile…

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TikTok Transitions Into eCommerce

To better compete in the social atmosphere, the fast-growing app TikTok has been making strides towards increasing their eCommerce options. As users have increased their daily TikTok usage since the app launched in 2016, brands and small businesses have profited largely from viral trends. According to an annual report of 2020 taken by App Annie,…

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Improve Mobile Marketing Lead Generation

Balancing the quality of leads versus quantity. Preventing abandonment. Keeping up with optimizations. When it comes to lead generation, the list of challenges goes on and on. Especially in the mobile marketing space, which has lagged behind desktop for years. Google, Facebook and LinkedIn are attempting to change course by creating a new type of…

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Mindgruve Lands at No. 234 on Inc. 5000 Regional List

With Nationals fast approaching, Mindgruve has earned a coveted spot on the 2021 Inc. 5000 Regional list for California. There are five others that span the U.S., including DC Metro, Florida, Midwest, New York Metro and Texas. Each list recognizes companies in their respective state or area for innovative achievements, sustained growth and job creation—no…

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A Closer Look at the Headless CMS

WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore and other traditional content management systems (CMSs) have long been considered the industry standard of website development. Also referred to as monolithic, regular or coupled, they were created to more easily manage online elements like content, images, HTML and CSS. But as brands continue to expand their content infrastructures, they need a…

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Navigating a Cookieless World Part II: The Latest from Google

Recently, we took a look into the near future at a Cookieless world and explored what cookieless tracking could mean for brands and their customers. In part two of this blog series, we break down Google’s recent announcement that solidified its approach.  What did we already know?  Google will be phasing out third-party Cookies on…

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Why Endemic Advertising Should Be Part of Your Media Mix

Also known as vertical advertising, endemic advertising refers to ad placements that are contextually relevant to the markets and websites they’re running on. While this might seem like a no-brainer, in the world of modern media endemic partners rarely come up when fleshing out a strategic media plan. The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is…

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Looking Into the Future of Television

2020 drastically shifted the baselines of TV viewership. What did we learn and what’s to come with next-generation TV experiences? The adoption of in-home lifestyle across work, fitness and entertainment is here to stay. In 2020, the TV industry saw several years of disruption and innovation compressed into just a few short months. “COVID has…

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Facebook & the Apple iOS 14 Update

Apple’s iOS 14 policy update started rolling out globally in January 2021. It’s meant to protect customer data from being used without permission.  While this is a step in the right direction for consumer privacy, citing its disagreement, Facebook announced its intention to move forward with the Apple Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) prompt associated with…

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Digiday Brand Summit Recap: A Consumer First Evolution

Mindgruve joined Digiday’s 2021 Brand Summit in January, which focused on marketing industry evolutions. The biggest marketing themes, more specifically, were bracing for change and putting the consumer first. After 2020, the industry won’t return to a pre-Covid normalcy. Brands will need to adapt, while staying true to who they are.  Theme 1: Listen to…

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