We’re excited and honored to receive the 2022 Innovation Award in recognition of our visionary mortgage point-of-sale software, Loanzify POS.
Loanzify is the modern originator’s epicenter for automating, mobilizing, and consolidating his origination workflow.
Awarded by PROGRESS in Lending, earning this honor was based on innovation’s overall impact on the mortgage industry including its significance, originality, and overall positive influence as well as the intangible efficiencies –such as cost and time-saving –achieved as a result of the innovation.
Read more information on the PROGRESS in Lending website along with the entire list of this year’s honorees.
Google will roll out vehicle ads to all U.S. advertisers beginning this month, the company announced Friday.
An example of vehicle ads in the Google search results. Image: Google.
Vehicle ads will roll out to advertisers in more countries at an undisclosed “later date,” Google said in the announcement.
How vehicle ads work. Vehicle ads are designed to allow auto advertisers to promote their entire vehicle inventory to potential customers on Google.com. This format includes an image of the vehicle, make, model, price, miles and the advertiser’s name (shown in the example above).
Google matches users with vehicle ads by using the details included in the advertiser’s vehicle inventory data feed (more on that below).
When a user clicks on a vehicle ad, they’re taken to the vehicle description page on the advertiser’s site. There, they can learn more and fill out a lead form. Advertisers can select which actions to measure, such as leads or store visits, and assign them a value.
Advertisers cannot use vehicle ads to promote vehicle parts, accessories, tires or services.
How to get started. To use vehicle ads, advertisers must create a vehicle inventory data feed and connect it to Google Merchant Center. This feed includes data on makes, models, prices, mileage and condition.
Image: Google.
Since this is done through Google Merchant Center, advertisers can track metrics like clicks over a given time period.
Why we care. Car prices have remained high as a result of supply shortages associated with the pandemic and increased consumer demand. And, last year, 16% of new car buyers purchased their car online, up from just 1% three years prior, according to Google.
Vehicle ads may help advertisers get in front of high-intent audiences. “Advertisers who complemented their existing Search campaigns with the vehicle ads beta saw a +25% average increase in conversions,” Google said in the announcement.
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Google’s not the only one with vehicle ads. Advertisers in this vertical may also be interested in Microsoft Advertising’s Automotive Ads, which also use data feeds to match ads to users’ searches and shows similar information.
80% of customers agree the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. That’s why enabling more human conversations through 1:1 personalized journeys drives loyalty and engagement for consumers, translating to growth and efficiency for your business.
But getting started on the personalization path is easier said than done, especially with competing priorities across your business’ teams.
Twitter has introduced a new experimental ecommerce feature it calls Twitter Shops. Brands who want to create a shop can curate up to 50 items to include, which Twitter uses can then buy via an in-app browser from the merchant’s website.
After a brand or business enables a Twitter Shop, a new “View shop” button will appear on its profile page, directly above its tweets. It looks like this:
For now, only iPhone users can view and interact with the shops. This is much the same way the Twitter Shop Module was rolled out last year. That feature was more limited, allowing brands to show up to five products on their profile, in the same location as the Twitter Shops “View shop” button.
Availability. Twitter only mentioned five brands that have enabled their shops. Those are:
@Verizon (showcasing 11 products, as of publishing)
Twitter Shops is only available to select merchants and managed partners in the U.S., according to Twitter’s blog post. Twitter isn’t charging brands to open a Shop.
What it looks like. A Twitter Shop contains a product image, product name, product type, and price.
What Twitter says about Shops. “People are already talking about products on Twitter. We want Twitter Shops to be the home for merchants on Twitter where they can intentionally curate a catalog of products for their Twitter audience and build upon the product discussions already happening on our service by giving shoppers a point of action where a conversation can become a purchase.”
Why we care. Social commerce is one of those areas that brands would love to crack. Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks have rolled out similar shops. While Twitter has fewer users than those networks, it’s all about getting your product in front of potential customers, wherever they are. So if your target customers use Twitter, it may be worth testing out Shops to see if it can help drive any sales.
If you’re just getting started with Google Data Studio, you’ve probably experienced blank-page syndrome.
You get your data source connected, open up a new file, and you have no idea what to do next.
There are no instructions. No guide rails. Just you and an empty page to fill.
And while you can start with a template (Google Data Studio Report Gallery has several), it’s still tough to know how to customize it to perfectly fit your needs.
Here are some tried-and-true elements to include in PPC dashboards and reports that will banish blank-page syndrome and give your stakeholders the insights they crave.
1. Titles, subheads and context
When you add a chart in Google Data Studio, you select the data source, dimensions, metrics and date range from the Data Panel to populate your visualization.
But your reader doesn’t see the Data Panel and won’t know what your chart is about unless you take an extra step to include it in your dashboard.
The two graphs below show identical data visualizations. Figure A includes only the chart, while Figure B includes written titles and context.
Figure A leaves questions in your reader’s mind that Figure B answers.
You can make your graphs and tables easier to understand at a glance with these tips:
Give your data visualizations a title.
Use subheadings and microcopy for additional context.
Use legends.
State the date range if it’s not included in the chart. (Note: “auto” date range defaults to last 28 days.)
If multiple data sources are used throughout your dashboard, clarify which is used in specific charts.
How to do it:
Add a text box and write out your titles and descriptions.
This will open up a “Text Properties” panel to edit fonts, text size, and styling elements.
It’s worth the small manual effort it takes to add a text box and include context!
2. KPI scorecards
You don’t need an article to tell you that your dashboard should include your key performance indicators (KPIs).
But while you’re planning out your dashboard, pay special attention to where to include them.
Your KPIs matter most in your report and deserve top billing.
That means showcasing your KPIs with scorecards like so:
Not as afterthoughts at the end of a table:
Not only do tables make it hard to identify KPIs, for languages that are read left to right, tucking KPIs on the far right of the table tells your reader these metrics are low priority.
Keep your reader focused on your key growth metrics like lead volume, revenue, or return on ad spend (ROAS), rather than vanity and traffic metrics like impressions and clicks.
How to do it:
Use Chart > Scorecard.
In the “metric” section of the Data Panel, add your KPI. Repeat as needed.
Control format and size in the Style Panel.
Having KPIs appear in tables and other charts isn’t a problem, but give them added attention by using scorecards.
3. Goal pacing
Some advertisers use fixed monthly or annual marketing budgets with no room for adjustments.
Others have sales or efficiency goals they need to hit with flexible budgets.
No matter what the approach, your dashboard should answer the question:
Are we meeting our objectives, and how do we know?
Account objectives aren’t standardized, and neither is the approach for including goal pacing in your dashboard.
Fortunately, Data Studio gives you many options for adding objectives and pacing, from literally charting against a goal to adding a written description of the target.
Here are some examples of how you might anchor performance to a goal:
How to do it:
Option: Add a header that states the objective
Option: Use a pacing chart such as bullet or gauge
Option: Add a calculated field with progress to goal (metric/target)
Including goal pacing gives your reader confidence in how to interpret performance data.
4. Trends and historical comparisons
Trends and historical comparisons let your reader know if things are improving – or need improvement – over time.
Maybe you fell short of the goal, but you always miss it because it’s unrealistic.
Maybe you hit your goal, but you’re down compared to last year, and you need to take corrective action.
Don’t make your reader wonder whether current performance is average, down or “best month ever.”
Snapshot (single-metric) comparisons
Tables and scorecards give you an easy way to show your reader how performance for this period compares to another, using color-coded arrows to indicate the direction of the change (delta).
How to do it:
Under “Date range,” select your comparison date range:
Fixed
Previous period
Previous year
Advanced
In the Style Panel:
Control the color of positive or negative change arrows
For Scorecards only, you can select whether to show absolute or percentage change and whether to include a description of the previous time period (comparison label).
You can get a complete picture of performance trends using time series charts.
Rather than just comparing this period to the last period, you’ve got an entire history revealing trends in seasonality, market impact and more.
You can use a continuous Time series chart (shown above) or designate a comparison time period.
Here’s how that same data looks as a Year over Year (YoY) Time series chart. Note that the comparison year will show as a lighter shade of this period’s line:
Another way to show historical performance is with a line chart that uses a time period as a breakdown dimension.
This Line chart is from a report comparing CPCs before and during the Covid-19 pandemic:
How to do it:
To compare two time periods: Use a Time series chart and select a comparison date range.
To compare three or more time periods (shown here for years):
Select a Line chart
Set the “Dimension” to Month
Set the “Breakdown Dimension” to Year
Set the “Sort” to Month
Set the “Secondary sort” to Year
A few important notes for trends and historical comparisons –
Only use these for your KPIs or metrics that directly contribute to your KPIs. Don’t add a CTR trend chart just for the sake of including a trend chart.
There’s almost never a reason to show daily granularity in these charts. Zoomed in that closely, you’ll miss the signal for the day-to-day noise. Look for trends at a monthly level.
5. Categorical tables
Okay, so tables aren’t that glamorous.
But if your Data Studio dashboard doesn’t have a table, something’s probably missing.
Why? Because there are times when your audience needs to compare multiple categories across multiple metrics. And nothing does that more efficiently than a table.
Tables are great for comparing default categories like:
Campaigns
Ad groups
Keywords
Search terms
Final URLs
And depending on the complexity of your PPC dashboard, you can create tables for:
Engines and platforms
Channels and networks
Funnels / intent / stages of awareness
Brand vs. nonbrand
Pivots of time segments, conversion types, and other categories
How to do it:
Chart > Table (or Pivot table)
Dimension(s): the category or categories you want to compare
Metrics: your KPIs and supporting metrics
From the Style Panel, you can format your table to include heatmaps, bars and targets
It’s easy to build tables and add metrics, and it’s easy to get carried away. Exercise some restraint and limit the number of metrics in your table, so it remains useful to your reader.
Bonus: Shiny charts
Our list constrained us to five categories, but here’s one bonus for making it to the end:
Shiny charts.
What are shiny charts?
Shiny charts are visualizations that your audience loves and gets excited about, even if they’re not super actionable.
Your readers may not learn anything new, but they’ll feel like they learned something new.
Maps are a great example.
Many dataviz experts say not to use map charts; there are better ways to communicate location data.
But try to find a client or stakeholder who doesn’t love to see performance data on a map. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Sure it’s a bit counterintuitive when you’re trying to build out an actionable dashboard. Maybe even a bit controversial. And you don’t have to do it. But a chart that makes your audience feel good just for seeing it has its own merit.
Putting it all together
While your Data Studio dashboard can technically include whatever you want, it should at a minimum include:
Title and context
KPI scorecards
Goal pacing
Historical comparisons
Categorical tables
These don’t need to (and can’t) all be discrete sections. One scorecard can include a title, KPI, pacing, and time comparison.
There are many other charts and visualizations that can take your PPC dashboard from good to great. Getting started with this list will set you up for success and give you a dashboard worth the time it took to build.
Effective management is important no matter what industry you’re in, but as a loan officer or a mortgage broker, it’s essential. In the lending industry, the way you manage your business does more than help make your dreams a reality. It helps your clients make their dreams come true.
Here are five reasons that effective business management is important for lenders:
Keeping You Focused on Your Common Purpose
Every business is guilty of a bit of “mission drift.” But as a lending institution, it’s vital to remain committed to your common goals. This need applies to the mission of your company itself, as well as the immediate goals of the projects you take on.
Your clients will appreciate a team that stays focused on customer needs. Staff members may also find greater satisfaction in contributing to this common purpose.
Promoting Consistency and Trustworthiness
Effective management creates consistency and transparency across all business processes. For your clients, this means that they know exactly what to expect, and this deepens their trust in you as a lender.
For example, if you’re a mortgage broker, it’s important to develop a rapport with your clients. Many borrowers are going through the process for the first time. Proper management allows you to be open and transparent about what is going on. This openness can deepen your clients’ confidence in you as well as the lending procedures.
Increasing Accuracy
Mistakes happen. But for a loan officer, mistakes can undermine the integrity of your institution. Effective management can standardize critical processes and introduce solutions that reduce errors.
Sometimes, this means using the latest technological resources to make improvements. It can also mean providing the tools and training your staff requires to reduce errors.
Encouraging Innovation
Sure, it’s helpful to adopt consistent practices. But it can also be helpful to introduce new ones.
Effective business managers find ways to bring new solutions to the workplace, but they also find ways to listen to the contributions of others. Your team may provide insight that improves the way you handle business or serve clients. By listening to these suggestions, you could change the way you do business.
Creating a Culture of Belonging
During the “Great Resignation” of 2021, many employees left their jobs in search of new ones. For some, it was a matter of money, but others felt motivated by their workplace culture.
Effective management creates a space where all team members feel valued and respected. This environment can be important for retaining strong staff members. It also attracts new ones.
The lending industry, as we’ve noted, demands consistency and accuracy. Retaining star employees ensures that you continue to meet these goals. It also means you’ll spend less time training new employees and can stay focused on your clients.
Tools for the Trade
The BNTouch CRM platform has helped over 700 mortgage lenders grow their businesses. Our tools can help you manage your team, as well as promote stronger customer engagement. See for yourself by requesting a demo, and learn how our tools can take your organization to the next level.
Google’s search results for Russian search queries related to Ukraine are almost entirely dominated by a handful of known Russian pro-Putin propaganda publications, such as Izvestia, Russia Today and Ria News.
How is this happening when several credible Ukrainian and Western publications deserving to rank? And how is this happening when Google has stated its commitment to fighting disinformation?
Here’s why Google needs to fix this.
Why Google’s search results matter for Russian speakers
For many Russian language speakers of all ethnicities and nationalities, accessing credible news that’s free from pro-Putin propaganda is difficult – even outside of Russia. And it seems even on Google.
I count myself among this group. I live in Canada and speak Russian. And yet, I was shocked to see publications that broadcast the state-sanctioned narrative ranking so well on Google:
Russian-language Google search results for Украина (Ukraine)
Again, this was just me searching on Google for “Ukraine” results from Canada. Not Russia.
It’s critically important for Russian speakers, many of whom might already find themselves isolated in information bubbles filled with propaganda and conspiracies that justify the war, to have access to accurate, vetted and balanced information about the war when they search for it. That isn’t happening right now.
Sold as a “liberation” and “peace-keeping” mission, the war has a 70% approval rating in Russia. Propaganda fuels a greater ideological divide, with grave consequences.
Russia’s state narratives dominate the Russian web
Russia’s disinformation campaigns are common knowledge. In recent days, western media and tech platforms started scaling back their operations with Russia or cutting ties altogether.
Facebook restricted access to the accounts of Russia’s top media publications, such as Zvijazda, RIA News, Sputnik, Russia Today, Lenta.ru, Gazeta.ru, and others. TikTok is said to have started to remove video content posted to the platform by RIA News, one of Russia’s largest news channels.
One would think that with more than 160 million Russian speakers globally, these restrictions might be a signal to seek better, more credible information elsewhere. But it appears that that “information divide” is also linguistic.
What’s most shocking? Many critical searches related to the events in Ukraine that are executed in Russian on Google return results filled with pro-Putin propaganda.
Among the highest ranking of these publications are RIA News (with more than 1,200 pages indexed for the term “denazification” in Google), Iz.ru, Russia Today, and Ukraina.ru.
Search query comparison: “Ukraine” vs. “United States”
There is a vast difference in the type of ranking content when you compare “Украина” versus “United States.”
An exact match Google search for “Украина” (Ukraine in Russian), returns a SERP where, aside from Wikipedia, almost of the results from Russian news sites. This is surprising, as one would expect more results that provide general information and are from Ukrainian domains.
These are the top 10 URLs that rank in Google’s organic results for the search query “украина” (“ukraine”):
Data via Ahrefs
And these are the top 10 results for the search query “United States”:
Data via Ahrefs
Search query: “что происходит на украине” (“what is happening in Ukraine”)
This is a less obvious search query, but search volume has risen within the past two weeks. It has also shown up within Google’s related searches and search suggestions. While there is occasional diversity in the video results, the top organic results are RIA, Izvestia and Russia Today.
Translated Google search results for [what-is-happening in ukraine]
Search Query: “украина новости” (“ukraine news”)
Search queries related to Ukraine news are beginning to see more Ukrainian sites appear in Google’s SERPs, but three out of the five top results are still Russian sites, including RIA and Izvestia.
Translated Google’ search results for [ukraine news]
A closer look: why are these sites ranking?
Did you notice that the ranking pages from Russia’s news sites have one thing in common? They are archive pages for tags that match “Ukraine,” not content pages. It’s generally an accepted SEO best practice to noindex archive pages. Many other news websites rank well with their journalistic content. But virtually all of the high-ranking Russian news sites have pursued the strategy of deliberate promotion and link building to their archive pages.
The pages from RIA News, Izvestia and Russia Today dominate the space for search queries (as well as variants and misspellings) of “Украина” (Ukraine), “новости украины” (ukraine news), and “что происходит на украине” (what is happening in ukraine). There is no significant difference between SERP positions based on location (Russia, Ukraine or United States).
RIA News
The best performer, RIA News, has a bare-bones archives page that includes article headlines, images, and other tags, and comes across as an internal linking tactic in itself. There are 20 headlines and over 100 links on the page. No other content.
RIA News organic keywords data via Ahrefs
Izvestia
Izvestia is also an archive page, but it contains more content than RIA. While there are no images, the 15 article snippets include headlines and descriptions. There is a right-hand navigation, as well as a header content block with the tag description, in this case, mentioning that modern Kyiv is in “confrontational relations with Russia” as well as the “military special operation aimed at protecting the civilian population of Donbas.” The page loads intermittently but is accessible via the WayBack Machine.
Izvestia organic keywords data via Ahrefs
Russia Today
An established entity with a global presence, Russia Today has the look and feel of a quality news site with good UX, large article snippets that include a headline, description, and image, as well as links to additional content in the right-hand menu.
Russia Todayorganic keywords data via Ahrefs
Ukraina.ru
This publication contains a mixture of original content and articles syndicated from other Russian websites. The mission statement that appeared on the site early in its existence, 11 years ago, said that the purpose of the project was to fill the gap in the minds of Russians about Ukraine and to allow Russia to “move West.”
Are there no relevant Ukrainian sites for Google to rank?
Is there any relevant content from Ukrainian sources that could compete with Russian results? Absolutely. Not even counting Russian language sites by BBC, Deutsche Welle and other credible news sources, there are many Ukrainian news websites that publish in the Russian language.
Microsoft Bing is far more inclusive of Ukrainian sites in its SERPs than Google. Five of the top six Bing results for “Ukraine News” (are Ukrainian (either in .ua TLD or owned by Ukrainians and otherwise located outside of .ru TLD).
Shouldn’t YMYL be a factor for Google?
In 2014, to fight disinformation, Google introduced YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) content category to its search quality rater guidelines. YMYL is a term used to describe pages and content that can potentially impact one’s happiness, health, finances, safety and more.
Quality thresholds are considerably higher for this type of content. Google states that “YMYL pages should come from reputable websites, and the content should be created with a high level of expertise and authority.”
According to Google, news publications are expected to measure up high journalistic standards, adhere to clear editorial policies, and present clearly researched, vetted and trustworthy information.
Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (September 2019) is very explicit about its instructions for content that is harmful to specified groups (7.2), as well as pages with harmfully misleading information (7.3).
Google needs to clean up its harmful, misleading results
Well, Google, it’s time to hold yourself to the same standards you want media and news publications to meet. It’s time for you to remove the Russian propaganda from your search results. And give Russian language speakers the trustworthy content and information they need.
Awarded by PROGRESS in Lending, earning this honor was based on innovation’s overall impact on the mortgage industry including its significance, originality, and overall positive influence as well as the intangible efficiencies –such as cost and time-saving –achieved as a result of the innovation.
