Marketing Letter - 💰 Cashing In On Q5’s Potential

Welcome back to the newsletter that lets you know every time Google says “Psyche”:

(h/t @NicheSiteLady)

Anyway, here’s what’s good this week:

→ Does Veo 2 Clear Sora? 👀
→ Cashing In On Q5’s Potential 💰
→ BREAKING NEWS: YouTube’s Crackdown on Clickbait Titles 🛑
→ more, obviously 💬

But first…

​This Week's Video 🗣️🎙️​

In this week's video, I dive into my plans to launch a WordPress hosting company in 2025. Drawing from my previous ventures, I see a huge opportunity in the managed WordPress hosting space, a field brimming with potential for innovation. I’ll document the journey openly, sharing challenges and wins to inspire collaboration and possibly find a partner. I aim to make hosting accessible, even for non-technical users, in a market ready for innovation. So tune in for more!

​YouTube​​

What’s Going Down @ Google 📊

→ Is Google “borrowing” from ChatGPT? A paper clip icon is being tested on Google Search and will be found right beside the voice search and lens icons. Supposedly, it’s there to let users "ask anything about a file."

→ According to Forbes, Google’s spam policies have forced the company to fire hundreds of freelance writers.

→ Tim Jensen just dropped his take on what GA4 Analytics marketers should be paying attention to including:

- Event Counts & Rates by channel and by source/medium and attribution model
- E-commerce Metrics like Transactions, Revenue, and Add to Cart
- Engagement Metrics like engaged sessions vs. total sessions, average engagement time, and new vs. returning users
- More stuff, too

Worth a look.

→ Transitioning over to AI, Google’s Whisk is a way to “visualize and remix ideas using images and AI.” Some are saying this is a fast track to “giving spammers tools to steal & re-purpose your images” which, for Google, does sound pretty on-brand.

AI Insight 🤖

→ Speaking of Google, Google just updated its Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy. According to Google, the update doesn't introduce any new policies or change enforcement at all, but is just about "simplifying the language, and categorizing prohibited behaviors in a way that makes more sense." Ok.

→ Maybe Google is getting more like ChatGPT, but the opposite is also true, as “OpenAI’s Ship-mas brings maps for Local Search, improved results for navigational queries, and live mode with Search.”

→ Early days and small sample size, but Google’s Veo 2 seems to be handling video generation better than OpenAI’s Sora.

→ BTW, Grok is now free for all X users, complete with search results and citations, an advanced new image model, API access, and more.

→ How’s this for news that would’ve given your ancestors an aneurysm to try and make sense of? Meta has announced New AI Functionality for its Ray-Ban glasses.

→ ICYMI: Google says that disavowing toxic links is a “billable waste of time” and only ever makes sense if you suffer a manual penalty or have reason to think you’re about to get one because of unnatural links you’ve set up.

Social Media Round-up 📲

→ Speaking of X, What’s your Q5 content strategy? Q5, obviously, is an absurd “quarter” if taken literally, but the term refers to the time period spanning from the day after Christmas to mid-January. X offers some tips for unlocking the hidden potential of Q5 in your marketing calendar. On X, Active User Seconds go up by 8%, CPMs go down 34%, and cost per engagement goes down -19%. Click through for details on how to capitalize.

→ YouTube says it is going to start “cracking down on videos with egregious clickbait titles” … in India, at least. “Egregious clickbait,” by definition, “occurs when the video’s title or thumbnail includes promises or claims that aren't delivered within the video itself, especially when that content focuses on breaking news or current events.”

→ Finally, re: YouTube, don’t see how this could get out of hand… YouTube’s latest test lets creators post voice notes as comments.

→ Speaking of YouTube, here are some SEO fundamentals that can help you make sense of conflicting statements from YouTube execs like “Our algorithm doesn’t pay attention to videos; it pays attention to viewers” and “You can optimize your videos to help viewers find your content easily and keep them engaged.” While proposing a customer-centric content strategy, this piece takes a close look at why people use YouTube, how many and how often they use it, how to measure traffic, leads, and sales, and so on.

Jacky Chou​
Founder of Indexsy
hello@indexsy.com
Let's Connect on Twitter👇

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