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6 Best Ad Intelligence Software to Outsmart the Competition

November 12, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design News/by

Ad intelligence software promises to show you everything your competitors are doing: their keywords, budgets, creatives, and landing pages.

But many surface insights you could get for free.

Meta’s Ad Library shows what advertisers are currently running. Google’s Transparency Center does the same for search and YouTube. TikTok’s Creative Center reveals top performers by industry.

So, when does paid software earn its cost?

You’re tracking multiple competitors across platforms and losing hours to manual checks
You need historical data on which ads they tested and killed
You rely on spend benchmarks and real-time alerts to catch shifts before your clients do

That’s the gap paid tools fill. If they’re good.

Many aren’t. They bury useful insights under dashboards that create more work than they save. The data looks complete until you actually try to use it.

This guide covers six platforms that deliver real intelligence (if you know what you’re looking at).

We’re not promising magic improvements. We’re showing what each tool reveals, who it’s built for, and what you give up at each price point.

What Is the Best Ad Intelligence Software?

Ad Intelligence Tools	Best For	Price
Similarweb	Best for stalking competitors’ ads at scale — plus, their SEO, traffic, and market moves	$649+/month. (Only higher-tier plans come with ad intelligence.)
Semrush Advertising Toolkit	Best for multi-platform ad intelligence, from Meta and TikTok to Google Shopping	$99-$220/month
SpyFu	Best for affordable Google Ads intelligence with deep historical data	$39-$249/month
PowerAdSpy	Best for analyzing ad engagement across social media platforms	$69-$399/month
Adbeat	Best for tracking competitor display ads and landing pages	$249+/month
Pathmatics	Best for enterprise-level ad spend intelligence across mobile, social, and video	Pricing is not publicly available

1. Similarweb

Best for stalking competitors’ ads at scale — plus, their SEO, traffic, and market moves

Similarweb reveals your competitors’ complete paid strategies, from their winning ad creatives to their most successful publishers.

It also includes SEO and competitive intelligence tools in every subscription, so you get the full picture of how your rivals attract and convert traffic across every channel.

This cross-channel context is especially helpful if you already use native ad libraries but want scalable intel that ties everything together.

Learn Your Competitors’ Highest-Performing Publishers and Ad Networks

If your competitors are running ads, Similarweb shows you where (and how to beat them).

You’ll see:

Which ad networks and placements work best for your top competitors
Where their ad budgets go, broken down by channel
Industry-wide trends that reveal missed opportunities

Similarweb – The Spruce – Website Intelligence

Say Similarweb shows that multiple competitors spend over 50% of their display budgets on a single publisher.

That’s a data-backed signal you can’t ignore.

Use that data to target the same publisher to test similar placements. Or find underused publishers in the same category for more affordable traffic.

Similarweb – Huffpost – Publisher Performance

Get Inspired by Proven Ad Creatives

Similarweb’s database makes it easy to browse display ads by publisher, network, and format.

See the messaging and offers competitors use to get conversions
Learn how many days each ad was active, so you know which ones excelled (and which ones failed)
Find out which formats your competitors are using, including product, display, and video ads

Of course, copying your competitors’ ads word-for-word isn’t the goal.

The real value is in spotting patterns: the hooks they repeat, the formats they invest in, and the offers they continually test.

These insights let you design campaigns that build on what already works in your market.

When you’re juggling multiple accounts, this saves hours of creative testing, and points you directly toward proven formats.

Reverse-Engineer Competitors’ Search and Shopping Campaigns

Similarweb shows you which keywords your competitors bid on and how much they’re spending.

This helps you identify high-value keywords that drive conversions and avoid wasting budget on terms that don’t perform.

From there, you can build stronger landing pages that target your competitors’ most successful keywords and match intent.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Tracks 500M+ ads across publishers, networks, and formats for deep competitive insights	Ad intelligence tools only available with the most expensive plan
Uncovers competitors’ top-performing publishers and ad placements	Can feel overwhelming for smaller teams due to the platform’s depth
Includes SEO, traffic, and market data for a full competitive picture	If you only want ad intelligence, you’ll be paying for much more than you need

Pricing

Similarweb offers multiple plans, but only the most expensive one includes dedicated tools for ad intelligence.

This plan costs $649/month ($540 billed annually). Similarweb also offers business and enterprise plans, but pricing and tools are not publicly available online.

Further reading: How to Use Similarweb for SEO and Content Marketing

2. Semrush Advertising Toolkit

Best for multi-platform ad intelligence, from Meta and TikTok to Google Shopping

Semrush – Advertising Research – Ebay – Positions

When you’re managing multiple clients or campaigns, switching between Meta, TikTok, and Google dashboards gets messy fast.

Semrush’s Advertising Toolkit consolidates that chaos into one workspace — letting you analyze competitor campaigns and build your own in the same place.

You’ll get deep intel on keywords, budgets, ad copy, and creative trends.

Plus, actionable advice on how to turn that data into high-performing campaigns.

Track Competitor Keywords and Budgets

The Advertising Research tool reveals everything, and we mean everything, about your competitors’ Google Ads strategies.

Enter any domain and you’ll see:

Estimated ad traffic
Cost per click (CPC)
Highest- and lowest-performing keywords
Organic search position
Keyword difficulty
URL

No more wasting ad budget on terms that don’t perform. You’ll know exactly which ones to target in your next campaign.

Semrush – Advertising Research – Ebay – Position Changes

The tool also tracks keyword trends over time.

See which keywords competitors continuously invest in month after month.

When a keyword consistently appears in their paid strategy with stable or growing volume, that’s a clear sign it’s profitable.

Semrush – Advertising Research – Ebay – Paid Search Trends – Keywords

With this data, you might test variations of the keyword in multiple ads to capitalize on its success.

Or use them to inform your broader content strategy beyond paid campaigns.

Spy on Google Shopping Ads

Have an ecommerce brand?

The PLA Research tool shows you which products your competitors promote most heavily in Google Shopping.

You’ll see position, volume, price, product titles, URLs, and trend data for each listing.

When a product shows up month after month, it’s likely a top seller.

Semrush – PLA Research – Ebay – PLA Positions

If you don’t carry that product yet, you might consider adding it to your catalog.

Already sell it? Increase your Shopping ads to compete directly.

You can also view all of your competitors’ Google Shopping ads in one place.

Semrush – PLA Research – Ebay – PLA Copies

Analyze their copy, images, and offers.

Then, apply these insights to your own listings:

Adjust your product titles to match high-performing formats
Test pricing strategies that undercut or match theirs
Prioritize ads for products where you have a competitive advantage. Think better reviews, faster shipping, or exclusive features they don’t offer.

Here’s another cool feature:

Instead of bouncing between tools, Semrush’s AI-powered Ad Launch Assistant lets you create and optimize Google and Meta ads directly inside the platform.

The tool generates copy and visuals tailored to your brand, from attention-grabbing headlines to conversion-focused descriptions.

Instead of writing everything from scratch, all you have to do is review each element:

Headlines
Descriptions
Site links
Callouts
Images
Videos

Simply refine the voice and messaging as needed. You’ll be able to test multiple variations in minutes instead of hours.

Unlock Deeper Insights with AdClarity

AdClarity is Semrush’s advanced cross-channel ad intelligence tool.

Need complete visibility into competitor display, social, and video campaigns?

This is where you’ll find it.

You’ll get a lot of data with this tool.

Including how much rivals spend, which publishers drive the most impact, and the exact creatives they’re using across platforms:

Facebook
Instagram
X
Google Display
Pinterest
YouTube
TikTok
LinkedIn

Say a competitor suddenly doubles their TikTok spend. You’ll spot the shift immediately and can adjust your strategy in real time.

Semrush – AdClarity – Advertising Intelligence

AdClarity also automatically identifies your competitors’ top publishers and campaigns.

So there’s no guessing or testing which ones work well for your target audience.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Combines robust multi-site ad intelligence with Meta and Google campaign execution in one platform	The base plan includes only Google and Meta ad intelligence
Google Shopping insights are especially strong for ecommerce brands	AdClarity is only included the higher-tier plan
AdClarity offers advanced ad intelligence across display, social, and video	Doesn’t include SEO tools; you’ll need a separate toolkit for that

Pricing

The Semrush Advertising Toolkit is $99 per month.

It includes Advertising Research, PLA Research, Ads Launch Assistant, and more.

The higher-tier plan ($220/month) includes AdClarity, along with all of the above.

3. SpyFu

Best for affordable Google Ads intelligence with deep historical data

SpyFu is built for one thing: uncovering Google Ads strategies.

If your strategy leans heavily on Google, it’s one of the most detailed and budget-friendly advertising intelligence software options available.

Download Competitor Keywords Without Limits

SpyFu shows you everything your competitors do on Google Ads — and lets you export it all with no limits.

Many ad intelligence platforms cap your keyword downloads, so this is a plus.

Type in any competitor’s domain and you’ll see:

Every keyword they’ve ever bought on Google Ads
Estimated monthly clicks and CPC
Total spend on paid search

For example, say you’re in SaaS project management and Asana is your top competitor.

Search their domain, and SpyFu shows you their current and historical ad keywords. We’re talking thousands of terms, not just the top 50 or 100.

Download the complete dataset and…

Feed it into your analytics tools or Google Sheets
Share it with your team for campaign planning
Build custom reports for leadership
Cross-reference it with your CRM to see which keywords actually convert

SpyFu – Asana – Most Successful Paid Keywords

Spot Overlaps and Waste in PPC Strategies

SpyFu’s Kombat tool compares your PPC strategy against up to two competitors at once.

But instead of having to sift through 10,000 keywords, the ad intelligence tool automatically groups them into helpful buckets:

Core Keywords: Terms all competitors are bidding on
Consider Buying: Valuable keywords they use, but you don’t
Potential Ad Waste: Terms that neither competitor uses but you do

So, you know exactly which terms to focus on (and which to remove from your campaigns).

This is especially helpful if you’re newer to paid campaigns.

Or have limited time (or tolerance) for turning data into actionable insights.

SpyFu also tags certain terms as “Great Buys” and estimates how many impressions you’ll get for each one.

Plus, it shows which competitors already bid on them, so you can piggyback on proven opportunities.

For example, the report below reveals that Asana’s competitor, Monday.com, uses “top task management apps” and “work time tracker app” in its ad strategy.

Asana could (and probably should) target both terms since SpyFu’s data shows they’re worth the investment.

SpyFu – Asana – Top Google Ads Buy Recommendations

Learn From Ads That Worked (or Failed)

SpyFu’s Ad History tool shows every ad variation competitors have tested for a given keyword.

If an ad copy ran for 14 consecutive months, you know it was effective.

If it vanished after a week? Probably a dud.

This kind of insight lets you write ads with fewer flops and faster wins.

This is especially valuable if you handle multiple accounts. You can skip obvious mistakes and start from proven winners.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Unlimited keyword exports with no download caps	Focused exclusively on Google Ads; no social or display coverage
10+ years of historical ad data for deep competitive analysis	Historical data (10+ years) requires paying for higher-tier plans
Kombat tool automatically identifies keyword overlaps and wasted spend	The base plan doesn’t come with unlimited downloads

Pricing

SpyFu offers three main plans, all of which come with ad intelligence and SEO reports.

The most affordable plan is $39 per month.

However, you’ll need to upgrade to a higher tier to get 10+ years of historical insights ($59-$249/month).

Further reading: SpyFu Guide: How to Get the Most Out of This SEO Tool

4. PowerAdSpy

Best for analyzing ad engagement across social media platforms

PowerAdSpy specializes in social advertising intelligence with one key differentiator: engagement data that shows what’s actually resonating.

You’ll see which competitor social ads are getting likes, shares, and comments across 11 platforms:

Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
Google
Google Display Network
Native
Quora
Reddit
Pinterest
LinkedIn
TikTok

If you need to understand which creatives are worth replicating at scale, PowerAdSpy is a strong option.

Search Ads by Keyword, Competitor, or Domain

Want to know which competitor ads crush it on Instagram Reels?

Or which offers rivals push hardest on YouTube or TikTok?

Plug in a keyword, competitor’s name, or domain, and you’ll instantly see all of their active and historical campaigns.

That single search can replace hours of platform hopping between ad libraries.

PowerAdSpy – Domain, Advertiser, Keyword – Filter

Reveal What’s Actually Driving Engagement

Every ad includes engagement data specific to the platform you’re analyzing.

Assessing competitors’ or clients’ Facebook ads? Sort by likes, comments, impressions, and popularity.

You can also filter by ad type and call to action, depending on the platform.

This is especially useful for spotting:

Whether video or static images dominate your niche
Which CTAs (“Learn More” vs. “Sign Up”) consistently get clicks
What ad hooks (“Free trial” vs. “Save 50%”) keep resurfacing across competitors

See How Competitors Win Attention on Reddit and Quora

PowerAdSpy tracks sponsored posts on Reddit and Quora.

These platforms matter because buying decisions often start there.

Conversations on these sites can also influence how LLMs (such as ChatGPT and Perplexity) surface your brand in answers.

By analyzing these ads, you’ll see:

Which threads your competitors target (like “best project management software” on r/productivity)
How they position offers in Q&A format
Which ads earn upvotes, shares, and comments

See what competitors are saying and which conversations are shaping buyer intent.

Spot content angles that consistently earn engagement. Identify threads or audiences they’re overlooking.

Another helpful feature?

Search by topic, like “games,” to find the competitors dominating that ad niche.

Include a custom “like” range so you narrow results to the level of popularity you prefer.

Then, zero in on the highest-performing ads and gather details such as ad copy and social engagement to improve your campaigns.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Large, frequently updated database of social ads across 10+ major platforms	Mainly focused on social media; lacks advanced search or display ad data
Engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments) reveal which creatives actually resonate	Advanced filtering options are locked behind higher plans
Powerful filters for ad type, placement, geography, and CTA performance	Only the highest-tier plan includes insights from all 11 platforms

Pricing

PowerAdSpy has six different plans.

The one you choose depends on the social platforms you want to analyze, and the features you need.

Only need Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube?

(And don’t mind missing out on features like ad budget, ad type filter, and advanced analytics?)

The most affordable plan ($69/month) might work for you.

Need all the features and platforms? You’ll pay $399 per month.

5. Adbeat

Best for tracking competitor display ads and landing pages

Adbeat specializes in display, native, and programmatic advertising.

But it goes beyond ad creatives.

You’ll also see landing page insights, so you get intel on the complete customer journey.

See Which Landing Pages Are Actually Converting

Adbeat shows you which landing pages drive the most ad traffic. And how long each page has been live.

For example, Squarespace’s longest-running landing page has been active for 794 days.

That’s over two years.

When a page stays live that long, you know it’s consistently converting.

This intel helps you see which page layouts, offers, and messaging are worth replicating.

If you work for an agency and have multiple clients, this is particularly valuable. It’s a fast way to benchmark what “good” looks like in each vertical.

Reveal Media Buying Strategies and Publisher Insights

The Advertiser Dashboard breaks down where competitors allocate their budgets across channels, networks, and publishers.

You’ll also see share-of-voice data to understand their market presence.

For example, Adbeat found that Squarespace ran 524 ads in one month.

And 78% of their spend went to programmatic ads.

Details like this highlight which channels matter most in your niche. And where you can reallocate budget to get better performance for your own campaigns.

Adbeat – Squarespace – Ad Channels breakdown

Benchmark Campaign Performance and Spot Trends

Adbeat’s ad intelligence software lets you monitor how your competitors’ budgets shift over time.

But what’s especially helpful is that they break it down by ad type: standard, native, and video.

For example, Squarespace’s longest-running video ad has been live for 413 days.

If they’ve kept it running that long, it’s a moneymaker.

In other words, it’s worth considering if you’re investing enough in video ads. And studying individual high performers for hooks, visuals, and offers.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Lets you analyze ads and landing pages together for complete funnel insights	Limited coverage of search and social campaigns
Reveals media spend, publisher performance, and traffic sources	Pricing is higher than ad-creative-only tools
Great for agencies, affiliate marketers, and display-heavy advertisers	Enterprise pricing is not publicly available

Pricing

Adbeat’s pricing starts at $249 per month for display, programmatic, and native ad intelligence.

For advanced filters, alerts, and historical data, you’ll need the higher plan ($399 per month).

There’s also an enterprise plan, but pricing isn’t listed publicly.

6. Pathmatics by Sensor Tower

Best for enterprise-level ad spend intelligence across mobile, social, and video

Pathmatics is built for large teams and big brands.

Household names like P&G and Unilever use this platform, so expect enterprise-level pricing and complexity.

But if you’re managing high-volume spend or reporting to leadership, it offers the transparency and benchmarking you can’t get from native tools.

Uncover Competitors’ Ad Spend Across Every Channel

Pathmatics shows you where every ad dollar goes in a pretty granular way.

It breaks down spend by platform, campaign, or creative — and tracks impressions, reach, and frequency over time.

Say you notice a competitor’s Instagram spend suddenly increased by a significant amount in a single week during Q4.

That signals a major campaign launch — possibly holiday shopping or Black Friday prep.

With this data, you can adjust your strategy immediately. And compete head-to-head with your main competitors.

Pathmatics also lets you benchmark your ad spend against multiple competitors at once.

If you’re investing $500K on display while your top three competitors each spend $2M+, you’ll see that gap.

Pathmatics – Identify seasonal advertising trend

Use this data to justify budget increases to leadership.

Or to identify where smaller reallocations could close the gap faster.

Benchmark Market Share and Share of Voice

Pathmatics tracks your share of voice against competitors in your industry and region.

If three brands dominate 80% of impressions in your category, you’ll see who owns what percentage.

This data helps you understand your position in the market.

Are you a distant fourth? Or neck-and-neck with the leader?

You can also identify which competitors dominate specific channels and spot opportunities where they’re underinvesting.

If the market leader owns Facebook but ignores TikTok, that’s your opening.

Evaluate Creatives That Resonate

Every ad includes details like format, placement, messaging, CTAs, and audience profiles.

See which creatives competitors keep running and which ones they kill after a few days.

Track the exact messaging and offers that stick around for months or years.

Use these insights to refine your own creative strategy.

Double down on formats that consistently deliver, and try localized messaging in new markets where your competitors are seeing success.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Provides cross-channel visibility across social, display, mobile, video, and OTT	Pricing is custom and can be expensive for smaller teams and startups
Combines creative data with detailed spend, reach, and audience insights	Steeper learning curve due to platform depth and data complexity
Ideal for enterprise-level teams, app publishers, and multi-channel marketers	Some users report data accuracy issues

Pricing

Pathmatics’ pricing is custom.

Request a quote if you’re interested.

Turn Competitive Intel into Campaign Wins

The right ad intelligence software isn’t the one with the most features.

It’s the one you can trust.

This means reliable data, less manual work, and the ability to scale campaigns across platforms with ease.

On a budget and focused mainly on Google Ads? Start with SpyFu.

Need deep, multi-site advertising intelligence across search and social with campaign execution built in?

Go for Semrush’s Advertising Toolkit.

Once you’ve picked your platform and gathered competitive intel, the next step is making sure your paid and organic strategies work together.

Learn how to align SEO and PPC to maximize visibility, reduce wasted spend, and improve your ROI.

The post 6 Best Ad Intelligence Software to Outsmart the Competition appeared first on Backlinko.

Read more at Read More

October 2025 Digital Marketing Roundup: What Changed and What You Should Do About It

November 11, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

October showed just how fast AI is reshaping how brands connect, convert, and stay visible. OpenAI turned chats into checkout experiences. Google tested AI-written snippets and agent-driven search. The line between platforms, ads, and transactions keeps disappearing.

Creators gained new credibility. Rebrands proved riskier than ever. Data-driven PR entered a new era.

Here’s what mattered most and how to stay ahead.

Key Takeaways

• AI is officially a channel, not a tool. Search, shopping, and PR are all happening inside AI environments now.
• Authenticity outperforms aspiration. Whether you’re selling luxury goods or refreshing your brand, identity, and connection drive growth.
• Visibility depends on AI citations and structure. The brands getting mentioned in AI results are building more trust and traffic everywhere.
• Automation is powerful, but it still needs control. As Google’s AI Max expands, you need to balance efficiency with oversight to protect budgets and brand safety.
• Every brand action is a public statement. From rebrands to creator partnerships, perception moves fast. Plan your narratives or risk losing control of them.

Search & AI Evolution

Search has moved beyond discovery. October’s updates from OpenAI and Google show how AI is collapsing the gap between queries and actions. Visibility means something different now.

OpenAI launches in-chat purchases

OpenAI rolled out Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. U.S. users can now buy products directly inside the chat. Powered by Stripe, the feature starts with Etsy listings and will expand to more merchants soon. Sellers on Shopify are auto-enrolled. Others can join by connecting product feeds and enabling Stripe checkout.

Our POV: ChatGPT shopping changes product discovery completely. If your product data isn’t complete, detailed, and conversational, you won’t show up. The most visible listings will have rich attributes and language that reflects how users naturally describe what they want.

What to do next: Audit your product feeds. Fill every field. Use detailed, long-form descriptions that anticipate real-world queries. Give the e-commerce agent what it needs to surface your products.

<h3> Google tests AI-written meta descriptions <h3>

Google began testing AI-generated snippets powered by Gemini. Instead of pulling your written meta description, the model writes or summarizes one based on on-page content.

Our POV: Google’s been rewriting descriptions for years. AI just made it smarter and less predictable. Treat your page intros as the new meta description because that’s what AI will pull from.

What to do next: Front-load the first 150 words of each key page with a clear summary of what the page delivers and why it matters. Tighten headings and intros, monitor CTR shifts, and adjust language when AI summaries drift from your brand’s tone.

<h3> Google Search Labs adds Agentic AI <h3>

Google’s AI Mode now lets users book restaurants and other services directly from results. Search is moving from recommending to acting.

Our POV: This isn’t a traffic killer. But signals are shifting. AI will handle the click path. The brands that win will have structured, verified, action-ready data.

What to do next: Audit structured data, integrate local feeds, and make sure your listings are up to date across booking platforms. When the search agent starts acting on your behalf, data hygiene becomes your conversion strategy.

Paid Media & Automation

AI is taking over ad delivery. Control is the new currency. You have to balance efficiency with visibility to keep performance from becoming unpredictable.

Google doubles down on AI Max

Google refreshed its AI Max ad pitch. The system is fully automated: it matches intent, rewrites copy, and routes users to brand assets. Powerful, but still a black box.

Our POV: Automation doesn’t replace strategy. Advertisers need visibility, not just results. Without strict guardrails, budgets can leak into low-value placements or off-brand creative.

What to do next: Run low-risk tests first. Add negative keyword lists, set URL exclusions, and manually review creative. Monitor performance closely until you can prove control before scaling.

Apple launches dedicated Games app

Apple introduced a standalone Games app with iOS 26, bridging Game Center and the App Store. Developers can now feature their games, run dual search visibility, and analyze engagement with new metrics later this year.

Our POV: This isn’t a small tweak, Apple’s essentially building a second storefront. Game publishers who adapt early will own discoverability.

What to do next: Refresh creatives, optimize In-App Events, and plan for dual indexing between the Games app and App Store. When analytics arrive, use them to refine ASO and campaign timing.

Social & Content Trends

Creators and consumers are rewriting the rules. Authenticity, identity, and emotional connection drive engagement across platforms that once ran on aspiration and polish.

TikTok reframes luxury branding

TikTok’s new research shows luxury audiences care more about self-expression than status. It’s about showing who you are, not showing off.

Our POV: That shift goes way beyond luxury. Audiences in every category now expect brands to reflect their identity. Connection beats aspiration. Authenticity beats polish.

What to do next: Reevaluate your brand’s emotional identity. Work with creators who reinterpret your message through their lens. Build content that feels participatory, not performative.

UK YouTubers contribute £2.2B to the economy

YouTube creators generated £2.2 billion for the UK economy last year, supporting over 45,000 jobs. Parliament even launched a cross-party group to represent them.

Our POV: Creators aren’t influencers anymore. They’re small businesses with real economic weight. Partnering with them means investing in industries, not individuals.

What to do next: Build collaborations that help creators grow beyond campaigns. Shared education, joint products, or community-driven initiatives create deeper, longer-term value.

PR, Reputation & Brand Risk

Reputation management has become real-time and AI-measurable. From LLM citation tracking to brand backlash, every communication choice now echoes faster and louder.

Notified + Profound launch AI-driven PR monitoring

A first-of-its-kind industry partnership between these two companies now offers a tool that tracks how often press releases are cited by LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini. It finally gives brands visibility into their “AI footprint.”

Our POV: PR just gained a measurable seat in AI discoverability. Knowing when AI cites your releases helps you shape future narratives.

What to do next: Integrate AI citation metrics into your analytics stack. Identify which stories get surfaced and refine future language to match the tone that earns citations.

Rebrands are riskier than ever

Cracker Barrel’s attempted rebrand backfired almost instantly. Modest design updates triggered outrage and political backlash—proof that brand refreshes now carry reputational stakes.

Our POV: Rebrands still matter, but they demand foresight. A design tweak is a message, whether you mean it or not.

What to do next: Before launching a new look, test reactions across audience segments and scenario-plan your communication strategy. Shape the story before the internet does.

Olivia Brown automates PR outreach

A new AI platform called Olivia Brown is automating nearly every part of digital PR, from writing press releases to pitching journalists and sending aggressive follow-ups. It promises to “democratize publicity,” but its bulk-send approach is flooding inboxes and straining relationships between brands and reporters who value relevance and trust.

Our POV: Rebrands still matter, but they demand foresight. A design tweak is a message, whether you mean it or not.

What to do next: Before launching a new look, test reactions across audience segments and scenario-plan your communication strategy. Shape the story before the internet does.

SEO 2.0: The New Search Game

Traditional rankings are giving way to AI visibility. The brands that master structure, credibility, and omnichannel authority are the ones AI systems will learn to trust and users will keep choosing.

Rankings + AI Citations

Traditional SEO metrics can’t capture how visible you are inside AI systems. NP Digital’s SEO 2.0 approach tracks AI citations alongside rankings to see how content performs in generative search.

Our POV: Rankings aren’t the endgame anymore. Visibility inside AI summaries is. The brands that get cited are the ones shaping what users read next.

What to do next: Create original, data-backed content that builds authority across multiple platforms: YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, and forums. These are the signals AI models use to decide who to trust.

<America’s favorite new query: “Is it good or bad?”

SEMrush found that U.S. users are now searching in binary terms. Tens of millions of queries every month ask if something is “good” or “bad.”

A graphic showing the main topics behind "Good/Bad" searches from SEMrush.

Source

Our POV: AI Overviews have trained users to expect clear answers. If your content hedges or buries the lead, you’ll lose clicks and credibility.

What to do next: Structure pages for speed and certainty. Use FAQ blocks, schema markup, and straightforward intros that deliver the verdict early. This is how you earn trust in zero-click environments.

Conclusion

AI is rewriting the rules of visibility, discovery, and trust. Success no longer depends on who publishes most. It depends on who provides the clearest data, most credible voice, and strongest structure. The brands investing in AI-ready content, authentic storytelling, and measurable strategy will own the next wave of search, social, and PR.

Need help applying these insights? Talk to the NP Digital team. We’re already helping brands adapt as things develop.

Read more at Read More

SEO vs. AI search: 101 questions that keep me up at night

November 11, 2025/0 Comments/in Search Engine Land, Web Design News/by

Look, I get it. Every time a new search technology appears, we try to map it to what we already know.

When mobile search exploded, we called it “mobile SEO.”
When voice assistants arrived, we coined “voice search optimization” and told everyone this would be the new hype.

I’ve been doing SEO for years.

I know how Google works – or at least I thought I did.

Then I started digging into how ChatGPT picks citations, how Perplexity ranks sources, and how Google’s AI Overviews select content.

I’m not here to declare that SEO is dead or to state that everything has changed. I’m here to share the questions that keep me up at night – questions that suggest we might be dealing with fundamentally different systems that require fundamentally different thinking.

The questions I can’t stop asking

After months of analyzing AI search systems, documenting ChatGPT’s behavior, and reverse-engineering Perplexity’s ranking factors, these are the questions that challenge most of the things I thought I knew about search optimization.

When math stops making sense

I understand PageRank. I understand link equity. But when I discovered Reciprocal Rank Fusion in ChatGPT’s code, I realized I don’t understand this:

Why does RRF mathematically reward mediocre consistency over single-query excellence? Is ranking #4 across 10 queries really better than ranking #1 for one?
How do vector embeddings determine semantic distance differently from keyword matching? Are we optimizing for meaning or words?
Why does temperature=0.7 create non-reproducible rankings? Should we test everything 10 times over now?
How do cross-encoder rerankers evaluate query-document pairs differently than PageRank? Is real-time relevance replacing pre-computed authority?

These are also SEO concepts. However, they appear to be entirely different mathematical frameworks within LLMs. Or are they?

When scale becomes impossible

Google indexes trillions of pages. ChatGPT retrieves 38-65. This isn’t a small difference – it’s a 99.999% reduction, resulting in questions that haunt me:

Why do LLMs retrieve 38-65 results while Google indexes billions? Is this temporary or fundamental?
How do token limits establish rigid boundaries that don’t exist in traditional searches? When did search results become limited in size?
How does the k=60 constant in RRF create a mathematical ceiling for visibility? Is position 61 the new page 2?

Maybe they’re just current limitations. Or maybe, they represent a different information retrieval paradigm.

The 101 questions that haunt me:

Is OpenAI also using CTR for citation rankings?
Does AI read our page layout the way Google does, or only the text?
Should we write short paragraphs to help AI chunk content better?
Can scroll depth or mouse movement affect AI ranking signals?
How do low bounce rates impact our chances of being cited?
Can AI models use session patterns (like reading order) to rerank pages?
How can a new brand be included in offline training data and become visible?
How do you optimize a web/product page for a probabilistic system?
Why are citations continuously changing?
Should we run multiple tests to see the variance?
Can we use long-form questions with the “blue links” on Google to find the exact answer?
Are LLMs using the same reranking process?
Is web_search a switch or a chance to trigger?
Are we chasing ranks or citations?
Is reranking fixed or stochastic?
Are Google & LLMs using the same embedding model? If so, what’s the corpus difference?
Which pages are most requested by LLMs and most visited by humans?
Do we track drift after model updates?
Why is EEAT easily manipulated in LLMs but not in Google’s traditional search?
How many of us drove at least 10x traffic increases after Google’s algorithm leak?
Why does the answer structure always change even when asking the same question within a day’s difference? (If there is no cache)
Does post-click dwell on our site improve future inclusion?
Does session memory bias citations toward earlier sources?
Why are LLMs more biased than Google?
Does offering a downloadable dataset make a claim more citeable?
Why do we still have very outdated information in Turkish, even though we ask very up-to-date questions? (For example, when asking what’s the best e-commerce website in Turkiye, we still see brands from the late 2010s)
How do vector embeddings determine semantic distance differently from keyword matching?
Do we now find ourselves in need to understand the “temperature” value in LLMs?
How can a small website appear inside ChatGPT or Perplexity answers?
What happens if we optimize our entire website solely for LLMs?
Can AI systems read/evaluate images in webpages instantly, or only the text around them?
How can we track whether AI tools use our content?
Can a single sentence from a blog post be quoted by an AI model?
How can we ensure that AI understands what our company does?
Why do some pages show up in Perplexity or ChatGPT, but not in Google?
Does AI favor fresh pages over stable, older sources?
How does AI re-rank pages once it has already fetched them?
Can we train LLMs to remember our brand voice in their answers?
Is there any way to make AI summaries link directly to our pages?
Can we track when our content is quoted but not linked?
How can we know which prompts or topics bring us more citations? What’s the volume?
What would happen if we were to change our monthly client SEO reports by just renaming them to “AI Visibility AEO/GEO Report”?
Is there a way to track how many times our brand is named in AI answers? (Like brand search volumes)
Can we use Cloudflare logs to see if AI bots are visiting our site?
Do schema changes result in measurable differences in AI mentions?
Will AI agents remember our brand after their first visit?
How can we make a local business with a map result more visible in LLMs?
Will Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT web answers use the same signals?
Can AI build a trust score for our domain over time?
Why do we need to be visible in query fanouts? For multiple queries at the same time? Why is there synthetic answer generation by AI models/LLMs even when users are only asking a question?
How often do AI systems refresh their understanding of our site? Do they also have search algorithm updates?
Is the freshness signal sitewide or page-level for LLMs?
Can form submissions or downloads act as quality signals?
Are internal links making it easier for bots to move through our sites?
How does the semantic relevance between our content and a prompt affect ranking?
Can two very similar pages compete inside the same embedding cluster?
Do internal links help strengthen a page’s ranking signals for AI?
What makes a passage “high-confidence” during reranking?
Does freshness outrank trust when signals conflict?
How many rerank layers occur before the model picks its citations?
Can a heavily cited paragraph lift the rest of the site’s trust score?
Do model updates reset past re-ranking preferences, or do they retain some memory?
Why can we find better results by 10 blue links without any hallucination? (mostly)
Which part of the system actually chooses the final citations?
Do human feedback loops change how LLMs rank sources over time?
When does an AI decide to search again mid-answer? Why do we see more/multiple automatic LLM searches during a single chat window?
Does being cited once make it more likely for our brand to be cited again? If we rank in the top 10 on Google, we can remain visible while staying in the top 10. Is it the same with LLMs?
Can frequent citations raise a domain’s retrieval priority automatically?
Are user clicks on cited links stored as part of feedback signals?
Are Google and LLMs using the same deduplication process?
Can citation velocity (growth speed) be measured like link velocity in SEO?
Will LLMs eventually build a permanent “citation graph” like Google’s link graph?
Do LLMs connect brands that appear in similar topics or question clusters?
How long does it take for repeated exposure to become persistent brand memory in LLMs?
Why doesn’t Google show 404 links in results but LLMs in answers?
Why do LLMs fabricate citations while Google only links to existing URLs?
Do LLMs retraining cycles give us a reset chance after losing visibility?
How do we build a recovery plan when AI models misinterpret information about us?
Why do some LLMs cite us while others completely ignore us?
Are ChatGPT and Perplexity using the same web data sources?
Do OpenAI and Anthropic rank trust and freshness the same way?
Are per-source limits (max citations per answer) different for LLMs?
How can we determine if AI tools cite us following a change in our content?
What’s the easiest way to track prompt-level visibility over time?
How can we make sure LLMs assert our facts as facts?
Does linking a video to the same topic page strengthen multi-format grounding?
Can the same question suggest different brands to different users?
Will LLMs remember previous interactions with our brand?
Does past click behavior influence future LLM recommendations?
How do retrieval and reasoning jointly decide which citation deserves attribution?
Why do LLMs retrieve 38-65 results per search while Google indexes billions?
How do cross-encoder rerankers evaluate query-document pairs differently than PageRank?
Why can a site with zero backlinks outrank authority sites in LLM responses?
How do token limits create hard boundaries that don’t exist in traditional search?
Why does temperature setting in LLMs create non-deterministic rankings?
Does OpenAI allocate a crawl budget for websites?
How does Knowledge Graph entity recognition differ from LLM token embeddings?
How does crawl-index-serve differ from retrieve-rerank-generate?
How does temperature=0.7 create non-reproducible rankings?
Why is a tokenizer important?
How does knowledge cutoff create blind spots that real-time crawling doesn’t have?

When trust becomes probabilistic

This one really gets me. Google links to URLs that exist, whereas AI systems can completely make things up:

Why can LLMs fabricate citations while Google only links to existing URLs?
How does a 3-27% hallucination rate compare to Google’s 404 error rate?
Why do identical queries produce contradictory “facts” in AI but not in search indices?
Why do we still have outdated information in Turkish even though we ask up-to-date questions?

Are we optimizing for systems that might lie to users? How do we handle that?

Where this leaves us

I’m not saying AI search optimization/AEO/GEO is completely different from SEO. I’m just saying that I have 100+ questions that my SEO knowledge can’t answer well, yet.

Maybe you have the answers. Maybe nobody does (yet). But as of now, I don’t have the answers to these questions.

What I do know, however, is this: These questions aren’t going anywhere. And, there will be new ones.

The systems that generate these questions aren’t going anywhere either. We need to engage with them, test against them, and maybe – just maybe – develop new frameworks to understand them.

The winners in this new field won’t be those who have all the answers. There’ll be those asking the right questions and testing relentlessly to find out what works.

This article was originally published on metehan.ai (as 100+ Questions That Show AEO/GEO Is Different Than SEO) and is republished with permission.

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Home Services Digital Marketing Strategies

November 10, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design/by

Over 2.5 million home services businesses operate in the U.S., from HVAC companies and plumbers to pest control specialists and landscapers. Most compete within a 10-15 mile radius, fighting for the same local customers.

Here’s the problem: your potential customers need help right now. A burst pipe. A broken AC in July. A wasp nest over the front door. They’re Googling “emergency plumber near me,” asking ChatGPT for recommendations, or searching through Google’s AI Overviews for “same-day HVAC repair.” They’re calling the first business that looks trustworthy.

If you don’t show up in those searches, either traditional Google results or AI-generated answers, with strong reviews and clear contact info, you’ve already lost the job.

Home services marketing gets you in front of customers at the exact moment they need you, across every platform they’re using. This guide breaks down the specific tactics that work for local service businesses.

Key Takeaways

Home services marketing drives visibility when customers search during emergencies or urgent needs in your local area.
Reviews and your Google Business Profile directly impact whether customers call you or scroll to the next listing.
Effective home services marketing combines local SEO, paid search for high-intent keywords, and reputation management.
Mobile-optimized websites with click-to-call functionality are critical since most home services searches happen on phones.
AI search tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews now influence how customers find local service providers.
Tracking call volume, form submissions, and cost per lead helps you invest in what actually brings customers through the door.

Why Do Home Services Businesses Need Marketing?

Referrals and repeat customers built your business. But what happens when your best referral source retires? Or when a new competitor opens two miles away and starts undercutting your prices?

Marketing creates a predictable lead pipeline that doesn’t depend on word-of-mouth alone.

Here’s what effective marketing does for home services businesses:

Generates leads during slow seasons. HVAC companies can’t survive on summer AC calls alone. Marketing keeps your calendar full with maintenance appointments, system upgrades, and off-season work.
Captures customers before they call your competitor. When someone searches “24-hour electrician,” three businesses appear in Google’s map pack. Marketing gets you in that top three instead of buried on page two.
- Look at the example below. These three electricians dominate the local map pack for emergency searches. Notice how each has over 100 reviews, clear phone numbers, and “Open 24 hours” indicators. The businesses below this fold get far fewer calls.

Google results for "24 hour electrician Phoenix."

Builds pricing power through reputation. When you have 200+ five-star reviews and your competitor has 15, customers stop shopping on price alone. They’ll pay more for the business that looks trustworthy and established.
Lets you choose your customers. Good marketing attracts the right jobs at the right price points. You’re not just taking whatever walks through the door.

Without marketing, you’re reacting. With it, you’re in control of your growth.

What Makes Home Services Marketing Unique?

Home services marketing operates differently than retail, ecommerce, or B2B software. You’re selling an in-person service that requires customers to let strangers into their homes, often during stressful situations.

That creates three unique challenges:

Hyper-local competition. You’re not competing nationally. You’re fighting for visibility against 15-30 other plumbers, electricians, or HVAC companies within a 10-mile radius. Your customer in Austin doesn’t care about the best roofer in Dallas.

Trust is the primary buying factor. Customers research your business before opening their door. They check if you’re licensed, read what other homeowners say about you, and look for proof you won’t rip them off or do shoddy work.

Look below for an example of what customers see when researching a home services business. This HVAC company’s Google Business Profile displays detailed reviews mentioning specific technicians and response times. These trust signals matter more than flashy branding.

Speed matters more than polish. Most home services searches are urgent. Customers need someone today, not next week. They’ll call the first business that answers the phone and can schedule them quickly. A beautiful website means nothing if your contact info is buried or your phone goes to voicemail.

This means your marketing needs to prioritize:

Mobile-first design since 70% of home services searches happen on phones.
Click-to-call buttons on every page, above the fold.
Service area pages for each city or neighborhood you cover.
Real customer photos showing your team, trucks, and completed work.
Fast page load times because impatient customers bounce quickly.

Digital Marketing Strategies For Home Services

Winning in local home services marketing requires a mix of visibility tactics and trust-building. You need customers to find you when they search, trust you enough to call, and remember you for future jobs.

The strategies below work specifically for home services businesses. Each section covers what the tactic does, why it matters for local service companies, and how to implement it without wasting money on tactics built for other industries.

Home Services LLM Marketing

Large Language Model (LLM) marketing optimizes your content to appear in AI-generated search results from tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.

When someone asks ChatGPT “Who’s the best emergency plumber in Austin?” or uses AI Overviews to search “how to choose an HVAC company,” you want your business cited in those responses.

How to optimize for LLMs:

Answer specific questions clearly. Create content that directly answers common home services questions: “How much does furnace replacement cost in Chicago?” or “What causes low water pressure?” AI tools favor content that gets straight to the answer in the first paragraph.

Use structured data markup. Add schema markup (LocalBusiness, FAQPage, HowTo) to help AI understand your services, location, and expertise. This increases your chances of being cited as a source.

Build authority with detailed guides. Publish comprehensive resources like “Complete Guide to Emergency Plumbing Repairs” or “HVAC Maintenance Checklist for Homeowners.” AI models pull from authoritative, in-depth content when generating recommendations.

Check out this Google’s AI Overview for landscaping companies near Seattle. These businesses earned placement by creating structured, authoritative content that AI can parse and reference.

An AI Overview for landscaping companies near Seattle.

Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile. AI tools often reference Google’s local business data when making recommendations for service providers.

Home Services Content Marketing

Content marketing for home services means creating blog posts, videos, and guides that answer customer questions, build trust, and improve your local SEO rankings.

Customers research before calling. They want to know what the job costs, how long it takes, and whether they can trust you. Content answers those questions and positions you as the expert.

What works for home services:

Location-specific service pages. Create dedicated local landing pages for each service in each city you cover: “Emergency Plumbing in Austin, TX” or “AC Repair in Round Rock.” Include local details like average response times, areas served, and city-specific regulations.

Educational blog posts targeting search queries. Answer questions customers actually ask: “How do I know if my water heater needs replacing?” or “Why is my AC blowing warm air?” These posts drive organic traffic and demonstrate expertise.

Video content showing your work. Film your technicians diagnosing problems, completing repairs, or explaining maintenance tips. Video builds trust faster than text. The River Pools YouTube channel is a good example, showing repair tutorials and walkthroughs..

FAQs on every service page. Add 3-5 frequently asked questions at the bottom of each service page. This helps with SEO and reduces pre-call questions.

Paid Media for Home Services

Paid search (PPC) puts your business at the top of Google instantly, above the map pack and organic results. For urgent home services searches, paid ads capture customers who need help now and will call the first number they see.

Home services keywords are expensive. “Emergency plumber” or “AC repair near me” can cost $15-$75 per click in competitive markets. That’s why your campaigns need tight targeting and strong conversion tracking.

Here are some best practices for home services PPC:

Target hyper-local, high-intent keywords. Bid on “emergency electrician in [neighborhood]” or “same-day HVAC repair [city].” Skip broad terms like “plumbing tips” that attract researchers, not buyers.

Use call extensions and location extensions. Make your phone number and address visible in every ad. Most home services customers call directly rather than visiting your website first.

Run call-only campaigns for mobile. Over 70% of home services searches happen on phones. Call-only ads display just your phone number and business info with a tap-to-call button.

In the paid ads for “emergency plumber NYC,” you can see book buttons, star ratings, and location info. Notice how these ads dominate the top of results before any organic listings appear.

Sponsored listings for "Emergency Plumber NYC."

Track phone calls, not just clicks. Use call tracking software like CallRail to measure which keywords drive actual phone inquiries and booked jobs.

Home Services SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) helps your business rank organically in Google without paying for every click. For home services, local SEO drives the most valuable traffic because customers search for providers in their immediate area.

Local SEO focuses on appearing in the map pack (the top three businesses with pins) and ranking for city-specific keywords. Getting into that map pack means more calls.

How to optimize local SEO for home services:

Optimize your Google Business Profile completely. Fill out every section: business description, service areas, hours, attributes (veteran-owned, emergency services, etc.), and upload at least 10 photos. Add posts weekly to stay active.

Create dedicated pages for each service and location. If you serve five cities, create five separate pages for “AC Repair in [City].” Include local landmarks, neighborhoods, and zip codes in your content.

Build local citations. Get your business listed on Yelp, Angi, BBB, Chamber of Commerce, and industry directories. Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) across all sites signals legitimacy to Google.

The example below shows a location-specific service page optimized for local SEO. Notice how the plumbing company includes the city name in the H1, mentions specific neighborhoods served, references local weather patterns, and includes a map showing their service area.

A location-specific page for a plumbing company.

Optimize for mobile speed. Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights and fix any issues slowing load times. Slow sites lose impatient mobile customers.

Social Media For Home Services

Social media for home services builds local recognition and trust. You’re not trying to go viral. You’re staying visible so customers think of you first when their water heater breaks or their AC stops working.

Focus on Facebook and Instagram for residential customers, and add YouTube for educational content. LinkedIn works if you target commercial property managers or businesses.

What works for home services social media:

Post before-and-after photos of completed jobs. Show the clogged drain versus the clean pipe. The old HVAC unit versus the new installation. Visual proof builds credibility and gives customers confidence in your work quality.

Share customer testimonials and video reviews. Ask satisfied customers to record a 30-second video explaining their experience. Video testimonials feel more authentic than text reviews and perform better on social platforms.

Show your team and trucks in action. Post photos of your technicians arriving at jobs, working on repairs, or attending training. This humanizes your business and helps customers recognize your branded vehicles in their neighborhood.

The example below shows a foundation repair company’s Instagram feed with informational content, team photos, and customer shoutouts.

A foundation repair company's Instagram page.

Engage with local community content. Share local events, sponsor youth sports teams, or highlight neighborhood news. This positions you as a community business, not just a service provider.

Post 3-4 times per week minimum. Consistency matters more than perfection.

Email Marketing For Home Services

Most home services businesses ignore email marketing, which leaves money on the table. Email keeps you connected with past customers and turns one-time jobs into repeat business.

Home services have natural repeat cycles. HVAC systems need annual maintenance. Gutters need cleaning twice a year. Pest control requires quarterly treatments. Email reminds customers to book before they call someone else.

How to use email for home services:

Send seasonal maintenance reminders. Email past customers in April about AC tune-ups before summer heat. In October, remind them about furnace inspections before winter. These emails generate easy repeat bookings.

Automate post-job follow-ups. Three days after completing a job, send an automated email asking for a review with direct links to your Google Business Profile. Follow up 30 days later with maintenance tips or related service offers.

Share monthly tips in newsletters. Send seasonal advice like “How to prevent frozen pipes” or “Signs your water heater is failing.” Educational emails keep you top-of-mind without being pushy.

The screenshot below shows a house cleaning company’s new stripping and waxing service seasonal email reminding customers to book spring maintenance. Notice the clear call-to-action button, features, and service photos.

A seasonal email from a house cleaning company.

Win back inactive customers. Email customers who haven’t booked in 12+ months with a special offer.

Home Services Reputation Management

Your online reputation directly impacts whether customers call you or scroll to the next business. Studies show 97% of consumers read customer reviews before choosing a local service provider. For home services, where customers invite strangers into their homes, reviews matter even more.

A competitor with 150 five-star reviews will get calls over you, even if your prices are lower and your service is better. Reputation management isn’t optional.

How to manage your reputation:

Ask for reviews immediately after completing jobs. Send a text or email within 24 hours with direct links to your Google Business Profile and Yelp. Happy customers forget to leave reviews if you wait too long. Make it easy with one-click links.

Respond to every review within 48 hours. Thank customers for positive reviews and mention specific details (“Glad Tom could solve your drainage issue so quickly”). For negative reviews, respond professionally, acknowledge the problem, and offer to make it right offline.

Display reviews prominently. Add a reviews widget to your website homepage. Screenshot your best Google reviews and share them on social media. Ideally, you should have as many ways as possible to feature testimonials.

Monitor mentions across platforms. Use tools like Podium, Birdeye, or Google Alerts to track when your business is mentioned online.

Home Services Mobile/SMS Marketing

SMS marketing works exceptionally well for home services because customers open 98% of text messages within minutes. For time-sensitive communications like appointment confirmations and service updates, texting beats email every time.

How home services use SMS effectively:

Send appointment confirmations and reminders. Text customers 24 hours before scheduled service: “Reminder: Tom will arrive tomorrow at 2pm for your AC repair. Reply C to confirm or R to reschedule.” This reduces no-shows significantly.

Update customers on technician arrival. Text “Your technician is 15 minutes away” when your crew is en route. This courtesy builds trust and reduces anxious phone calls asking “Where are you?”

Request reviews via text. Send a review request within hours of completing a job: “Thanks for choosing us! How did we do? Leave a review: [link].” SMS review requests get 3x higher response rates than email.

Send seasonal promotions to past customers. Text previous clients with limited-time offers: “Spring AC tune-up special: $79 (reg $129). Book by 4/30. Reply BOOK to schedule.”

Keep messages short, personalized, and always include an opt-out option to stay compliant with

Measuring Your Home Services Marketing Success

Tracking results tells you what’s working and where to invest more budget. Home services businesses should focus on metrics that directly tie to revenue: calls, bookings, and cost per customer.

Key metrics to track:

Phone call volume and source. Use call tracking software like CallRail or CallTrackingMetrics to see which marketing channels drive calls. Tag different phone numbers for your website, Google ads, and Facebook page to identify your best sources.

Form submissions and online bookings. Track how many people fill out contact forms or book appointments through your website. Set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics to measure this.

Google Business Profile insights. Check your profile’s dashboard monthly to see how many people viewed your listing, clicked for directions, called your business, or visited your website. This shows your local visibility trends.

Cost per lead and cost per customer. Calculate how much you spend to acquire each lead and each paying customer. If your Google ads cost $2,000/month and generate 40 leads with 10 becoming customers, your cost per customer is $200.

The screenshot below shows a CallRail dashboard tracking phone calls by source. Notice how it attributes calls to specific campaigns (Google Ads, organic search, Facebook) so you know exactly what’s driving results.

Source

Use Google Analytics, Ubersuggest, and your CRM to centralize this data in one dashboard.

FAQs

What is home services marketing?

Home services marketing is the process of promoting businesses like HVAC, plumbing, roofing, pest control, and other similar categories. It includes strategies like SEO, paid ads, local listings, email, and referral programs to attract and retain customers.

How to market home services?

Start with the basics: claim your Google Business Profile, build a review strategy, create local SEO-optimized service pages, and run targeted PPC campaigns. From there, test channels like email and SMS to nurture leads and win repeat business.

Conclusion

More leads, more reviews, and a full calendar don’t happen by accident. Home services marketing builds the visibility and trust that turn searchers into paying customers.

Start with local SEO and your Google Business Profile. These give you the foundation to appear when customers search for help. Add customer reviews to build credibility, then layer in paid ads and content to capture customers at every stage.

Track your results monthly. Know which channels drive calls and which waste budget. Double down on what works.

If you need help building a marketing strategy that fills your schedule, NP Digital works with home services businesses to create campaigns that generate real ROI.

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Google adds asset-level reporting to display campaigns

November 10, 2025/0 Comments/in Search Engine Land, Web Design News/by

Inside Google Ads’ AI-powered Shopping ecosystem: Performance Max, AI Max and more

Google is rolling out asset-level reporting for Display campaigns, giving advertisers a clearer view of how individual creative assets perform — a move that brings Display closer to the visibility already seen in Performance Max campaigns.

Why we care. Until now, Display campaign insights have been limited to overall ad performance. With this update, advertisers can analyze results at the asset level — images, headlines, descriptions — to pinpoint what’s driving engagement and what’s not.

How it works. A new Assets tab in Google Ads will let users:

Compare performance of each creative asset.
View when assets were last updated to track iteration history.
Decide which assets to keep, refresh, or remove based on data.

The details. A new Google support page, “About asset reporting in Display,” outlines the update with links to:

Get started
How it works
Asset reporting for your Display campaigns
Evaluating asset performance

Between the lines. This upgrade mirrors reporting tools available in Performance Max, signaling Google’s continued effort to unify insights across campaign types and improve transparency in automated advertising.

What’s next. The feature hasn’t been spotted live yet, but its appearance on Google’s help center — first noticed by PPC News Feed founder Hana Kobzová — suggests a wider rollout is imminent.

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Top 9 Men’s Fashion Affiliate Programs

November 10, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design News/by

The men’s fashion world has evolved into a thriving online marketplace, ranging from timeless tailoring and premium streetwear to sustainable basics and cutting-edge accessories.

For creators, bloggers, and influencers, joining the right affiliate program can turn style expertise into a consistent income stream.

But finding the perfect fit isn’t about volume; it’s about choosing brands that align with your audience’s lifestyle, values, and spending habits.

Whether your focus is minimalist menswear, high-end luxury, or casual everyday essentials, there’s a men’s fashion affiliate program tailored to your platform.

We’ve curated a list of the top men’s fashion affiliate programs to help you partner with reputable brands, earn steady commissions, and grow your content authentically.

What to Look for in a Men’s Fashion Affiliate Program

So, what separates a strong affiliate partnership from a forgettable one?

Competitive commission rates: Higher earnings per sale make all the difference in a market where product prices can vary widely.

Brand credibility: Collaborating with trusted, well-known names increases your audience’s confidence and boosts conversion rates.

Diverse product ranges: Programs that include apparel, footwear, accessories, and grooming essentials give affiliates more room for authentic promotion.

Long cookie durations and prompt payments: These ensure consistent, fair compensation for your promotional work.

Marketing materials and support: Access to high-quality visuals, data insights, and dedicated affiliate teams can help refine your strategy and maximize reach.

Top 9 Best Men’s Fashion Affiliate Programs

Mr Porter – Best for luxury menswear
ASOS – Best for trend-driven, affordable fashion
Mott & Bow – Best for premium denim
Nordstrom – Best for multi-brand variety
Huckberry – Best for outdoor and lifestyle fashion
Taylor Stitch – Best for sustainable craftsmanship
Farfetch – Best for global designer labels
Mizzen+Main – Best for performance dresswear
Allbirds – Best for eco-conscious footwear

#1 Mr Porter

Best for luxury menswear

Screenshot Mr Porter

Commission rate: 6% (3% for luxury watches and sale items)

Payment method: Affiliate network (Rakuten or Awin)

Cookie duration: 14 days

URL to join: Mr Porter Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Mr Porter is a well-regarded luxury men’s fashion company, carrying over 500 high-end designer brands, including Tom Ford, Gucci, and Brunello Cucinelli.

High average order values mean that even with moderate commission rates, affiliates can earn substantial returns per sale.

The brand’s global recognition and trusted reputation among premium shoppers result in higher conversion rates among affluent audiences.

Affiliates benefit from frequent seasonal campaigns, curated gift guides, and professional marketing materials, making content creation easier and more refined.

Cons:

The 14-day cookie duration is shorter than average for luxury retailers, which may limit earning opportunities on delayed purchases.

The luxury price range appeals to a smaller, more selective audience, which can slow down conversions.

Additionally, Strict branding guidelines may restrict creative flexibility.

#2 ASOS

Best for trend-driven, affordable fashion

Screenshot ASOS

Commission rate: Up to 7% (depending on affiliate networks)

Payment method: Affiliate network

Cookie duration: 30 duration

URL to join: ASOS Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

ASOS offers one of the largest selections of men’s fashion online, with thousands of styles spanning apparel, footwear, accessories, and grooming.

The brand’s frequent product drops and trend-focused collections provide affiliates with endless content opportunities.

ASOS caters to a wide audience, increasing overall reach and conversion potential.

The 30-day cookie window allows more flexibility for delayed purchase decisions.

Cons:

Frequent promotions and discount cycles can reduce individual commission values.

Competition is high among affiliates due to ASOS’s popularity.

While the range is broad, the emphasis on fast fashion may not appeal to audiences looking for premium or sustainable brands.

#3 Mott & Bow

Best for premium denim

Screenshot Mott & Bow

Commission rate: Up to 30%

Payment method: Affiliate network

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Mott & Bows Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Mott & Bow is renowned for its premium denim and elevated wardrobe staples, blending luxury quality with approachable pricing.

The program’s high commission potential (up to 30%) is one of the most generous in the men’s fashion niche.

Affiliates gain access to professional creative assets and early product updates, supporting polished, high-quality content.

Ideal for creators emphasizing craftsmanship, minimalist design, or slow fashion values.

Cons:

The smaller catalog means fewer cross-promotional opportunities compared to larger retailers.

As a niche denim brand, content may need to focus more narrowly on fit and quality rather than variety.

Shipping is primarily US-focused, limiting international affiliate opportunities.

#4 Nordstrom

Best for multi-brand variety

Screenshot Nordstrom

Commission rate: 2% to 10% (varies by product category)

Payment method: Rakuten

Cookie duration: 14 days

URL to join: Nordstrom Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Nordstrom offers an extensive range of men’s fashion brands, including designer labels and everyday basics, providing broad promotional flexibility.

Affiliates can capitalize on strong seasonal sales and events like the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale, which drives high conversion volumes.

The retailer’s trusted reputation and excellent customer service enhance buyer confidence, increasing affiliate credibility.

Additionally, the program includes regular newsletters, banners, and promotional resources for affiliates.

Cons:

The 14-day cookie duration is shorter than many fashion affiliates, reducing long-term earning potential.

Commission rates can vary widely by category and campaign.

As a major retailer, competition among affiliates is intense, and differentiation requires high-quality content.

#5 Huckberry

Best for outdoor and lifestyle fashion

Screenshot Huckberry

Commission rate: 5% to 10%

Payment method: Affiliate Network

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Huckberry Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Huckberry’s curated mix of rugged menswear, outdoor gear, and lifestyle essentials makes it ideal for adventure and travel influencers.

The brand’s authentic storytelling, editorial-style marketing, and community-driven content help affiliates connect deeply with audiences.

High customer loyalty and repeat purchases create strong long-term earning potential.

The mid-range price point appeals to both style-conscious and practical consumers.

Cons:

The brand’s aesthetic may not resonate with audiences seeking formal or fashion-forward looks.

Some exclusive products or collaborations sell out quickly, reducing ongoing promotion options.

Global reach is limited compared to international luxury platforms.

#6 Taylor Stitch

Best for sustainable craftsmanship

Screenshot Taylor Stitch

Commission rate: 6.4% to 8%

Payment method: Direct deposit, PayPal, or wire transfer.

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Taylor Stitch Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Taylor Stitch is known for its sustainability-first approach, producing ethically sourced, durable menswear.

Its “Workshop” crowdfunding model encourages customer engagement and transparency, which is a great storytelling angle for affiliates.

The moderate-to-high commission rate rewards affiliates who target conscious consumers.

The brand offers solid creative assets and affiliate support for marketing campaigns.

Cons:

Higher price tags may deter impulse buyers.

Its product line focuses primarily on casual and workwear-inspired pieces, limiting appeal for formalwear audiences.

Slower product turnaround means fewer “new arrivals” to promote compared to fast-fashion competitors.

#7 Farfetch

Best for global designer labels

Screenshot Farfetch

Commission rate: 5% to 13%

Payment method: Affiliate Network

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Farfetch Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Farfetch connects affiliates to a vast marketplace of over 700 boutiques and luxury brands, offering endless content opportunities.

Strong international presence and brand prestige increase trust and conversion rates among global audiences.

High average order values make commissions especially rewarding on big-ticket items.

Frequent designer collaborations and sales events provide excellent campaign opportunities.

Cons:

Competition among affiliates is fierce due to Farfetch’s popularity and broad reach.

Strict branding standards can limit customization in promotional content.

#8 Mizzen+Main

Best for performance dresswear

Screenshot Mizzen+Main

Commission rate: Variable

Payment method: Affiliate network

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Mizzen+Main Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Mizzen+Main combines innovation and style with moisture-wicking, wrinkle-resistant fabrics, which are ideal for modern professionals.

The brand’s growing popularity among business travelers and executives makes it highly targetable for niche audiences.

Quality imagery, strong branding, and a clean aesthetic make their products easy to promote across digital platforms.

The performance-driven angle differentiates it from traditional dresswear brands.

Cons:

Limited product variety beyond shirts and polos may restrict broader content opportunities.

The higher price range could deter entry-level shoppers.

Occasional restock delays can affect availability for affiliate campaigns.

# Allbirds

Best for eco-conscious footwear

Screenshot Allbirds

Commission rate: Up to 15%

Payment method: Affiliate network

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Allbirds Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Allbirds is a leading name in sustainable fashion, using eco-friendly materials like merino wool and eucalyptus fiber.

The brand enjoys exceptional customer loyalty, resulting in repeat purchases and long-term affiliate gains.

High brand recognition and minimalist appeal make it suitable for various niches, from casual style to environmental lifestyle content.

Affiliates benefit from strong marketing assets and collaborations that emphasize sustainability.

Cons:

Product range remains limited primarily to footwear and a few apparel basics.

High competition within the sustainable fashion affiliate niche.

The brand’s minimalist aesthetic may not appeal to audiences favoring luxury or bold fashion.

Common Mistakes When Picking Affiliate Programs

Even in a booming industry like men’s fashion, not all programs deliver equal value.

Avoid joining affiliate networks with poor brand reputations or low-quality products, as they can harm your credibility.

Likewise, ultra-low commission rates may not justify your effort unless the brand offers high conversion rates or repeat customers.

Finally, check for transparent payment systems and clear reporting tools. Reliable data and timely payouts are essential for sustainable income.

Top Tips for Success in Men’s Fashion Affiliate Marketing

Promoting men’s fashion products effectively takes more than posting stylish photos. It’s about earning trust, demonstrating real value, and using smart digital marketing tactics to stand out in a crowded space.

Here’s how to refine your affiliate strategy and boost your conversion potential:

Know your audience’s style preferences – Identify whether your followers lean toward luxury tailoring, streetwear, or casual essentials, then tailor your promotions accordingly.

Create content that adds value – Write comparison guides (“Best dress shirts for travel”), outfit breakdowns, or styling tutorials. Incorporate natural SEO keywords like “best men’s jeans for work” or “affordable minimalist sneakers”.

Use diverse content formats – Go beyond blogs and experiment with YouTube lookbooks, Instagram outfit posts, TikTok style reels, and Pinterest boards.

Be transparent and authentic – Disclose affiliate links and give honest feedback. Readers trust affiliates who recommend products they genuinely believe in.

Leverage SEO tools strategically – Use keyword tools (like Semrush) to identify trending searches, track rankings, and refine your fashion content strategy.

Pro Tip:

If you want to grow your men’s fashion affiliate revenue, combine SEO-driven blogging with visual storytelling on social media. The mix of authenticity, visibility, and consistency will turn your style influence into sustainable affiliate income.

Final Thoughts

The men’s fashion space is full of opportunity, from luxury designers to sustainable startups.

By partnering with the right affiliate programs, you can align your content with brands that reflect your audience’s identity and values.

Whether your strength lies in tailored elegance, modern streetwear, or timeless basics, these top affiliate programs can help you turn your style expertise into steady income, authentically and profitably.

The post Top 9 Men’s Fashion Affiliate Programs appeared first on Backlinko.

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Top 10 Beauty Affiliate Programs

November 10, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design News/by

With beauty enthusiasts constantly searching for the next must-have product, niche affiliate programs are the ultimate secret weapon for creators looking to turn passion into profit.

But the real challenge isn’t finding programs – it’s finding the right ones that truly align with your audience and deliver real rewards.

The beauty industry is vast, ever-changing, and inclusive, spanning everything from luxury skincare and high-end cosmetics to affordable everyday essentials. No matter your niche, whether it be makeup tutorials, skincare reviews, or holistic wellness, there’s a beauty affiliate program perfectly suited to your platform.

We’ve rounded up a curated list of the best beauty affiliate programs designed to help you earn more. By providing insights like commission rates and cookie durations, you can make your partnership both profitable and authentic.

What to Look for in a Beauty Affiliate Program

What makes a beauty affiliate program truly stand out?

High commission rates are often the headline, giving creators the chance to earn more per referral.

Partnering with reputable, trusted brands also boosts credibility and conversion rates, as audiences are more likely to buy from names they recognize.

Programs that offer a wide range of products from skincare to cosmetics allow affiliates to promote items that genuinely match their content and audience interests.

Add in long cookie durations, reliable payment terms, and strong marketing support, and you have a program that’s both profitable and sustainable.

Top 10 Best Beauty Affiliate Programs

Paula’s Choice – Best for ingredient-conscious consumers.
Sephora – Best for product variety.
Charlotte Tilbury – Best for high-end luxury beauty.
L’Oreal – Best for global mass-market beauty.
Ulta Beauty – Best for everyday essentials.
Morphe – Best for influencer collaborations.
Fenty Beauty – Best for celebrity-backed beauty products.
Beauty Pie – Best for value-driven beauty
BH Cosmetics – Best for a long cookie duration.
The Body Shop – Best for ethical, cruelty-free beauty.

#1 Paula’s Choice

Best for ingredient-conscious consumers

Screenshot Paula's Choice

Commission rate: 7%

Payment method: Partnerize or LTK (RewardStyle)

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Paula’s Choice Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Paula’s Choice is a strong, well-known skincare brand with a reputation for credibility and science-backed formulations, which helps build trust with audiences.

The program offers a competitive 30-day cookie duration, giving affiliates a reasonable window for earning commissions on referred sales.

Additionally, affiliates benefit from access to promotional materials and dedicated support, making it easier to create high-quality, branded content.

Cons:

The program’s features and commission thresholds can vary by region, meaning affiliates in certain geographies may have fewer options or benefits.

Additionally, while the commission rate is fair, it’s moderate rather than exceptionally high compared to some of the best beauty affiliate programs.

#2 Sephora

Best for product variety

Screenshot Sephora

Commission rate: 5%

Payment method: Direct deposit/PayPal

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Sephora Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Sephora’s affiliate program offers access to over 200 brands and more than 13,000 products, backed by an exceptional reputation and strong affiliate support.

Its powerful brand recognition and extensive product range create high conversion potential, especially for affiliates with diverse beauty audiences.

This is an excellent choice for creators who cover multiple beauty categories, including makeup, skincare, and fragrance.

Cons:

The commission rate is relatively low compared to many niche beauty brands, which may reduce overall earnings potential.

#3 Charlotte Tilbury

Best for high-end luxury beauty

Screenshot Charlotte Tilbury

Commission rate: 8 to 10%

Payment method: Via affiliate network

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Charlotte Tilbury Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Charlotte Tilbury is a premium beauty brand with a high average order value, meaning each successful referral can result in a significant commission.

The brand enjoys strong visibility and desirability within the influencer and luxury beauty space, making it easier to attract engaged, high-intent audiences.

Cons:

The program may perform best with a more niche audience that has a genuine interest in luxury cosmetics, which can limit broader appeal.

#4 L’Oreal

Best for global mass-market beauty

Screenshot L'Oreal

Commission rate: 5 to 7%

Payment method: PayPal, ACH (U.S.), check, wire

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: L’Oreal Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

L’Oréal is a globally recognized brand, which helps build trust and improve conversion rates for affiliates promoting its products.

Its broad product range, spanning skincare, haircare, and cosmetics, offers multiple entry points for different types of beauty content creators.

Cons:

Commission tiers can vary depending on the product category or region, potentially affecting overall earnings.

Additionally, because L’Oréal is such a large and well-established brand, affiliates may face more competition when targeting similar audiences.

#5 Ulta Beauty

Best for everyday essentials

Screenshot Ulta

Commission rate: 1 to 5%

Payment method: PayPal, ACH, wire, bank transfer

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Ulta Beauty Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Ulta Beauty offers a huge selection of products and brands, giving affiliates plenty of promotional opportunities across multiple beauty categories.

Its strong retail reputation and widespread customer trust make it easier to drive conversions and build credibility with audiences.

Cons:

The standard commission rate is relatively low compared to niche or high-end beauty brands, which may limit overall earnings.

While some special campaigns or promotions can offer higher commissions, the base rate remains modest for most affiliates.

#6 Morphe

Best for influencer collaborations

Screenshot Morphe

Commission rate: 5 to 10%

Payment method: Affiliate network

Cookie duration: 14 days

URL to join: Morphe Artistry Collective Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Morphe is a trendy beauty brand with strong appeal among younger and makeup-focused audiences, making it highly relevant for influencer marketing.

Its affordable price points lower the barrier for purchase, which can help improve conversion rates for affiliates.

Cons:

The commission rate can be modest compared to luxury beauty programs, which can limit total earnings.

Additionally, stock availability can sometimes fluctuate due to high demand for influencer collections.

#7 Fenty Beauty

Best for celebrity-backed beauty products

Screenshot Fenty

Commission rate: 8%

Payment method: Affiliate network

Cookie duration: 7 days

URL to join: Fenty Beauty Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Fenty Beauty has a very strong brand identity and high desirability, making it an excellent choice for affiliates with curated and style-conscious audiences. As a celebrity-backed brand led by Rihanna, it benefits from higher levels of trust and engagement, which can lead to stronger conversion rates.

Cons:

The program’s shorter cookie duration of seven days limits the conversion window, meaning affiliates have less time to earn commissions from referred traffic.

#8 Beauty Pie

Best for value-driven beauty

Screenshot Beauty Pie

Commission rate: 6% for new member sign-ups

Payment method: Affiliate network (Awin or Partnerize)

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: Beauty Pie Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Beauty Pie offers a membership-based model that provides luxury beauty products at cost prices, appealing to savvy, value-driven audiences.

Affiliates benefit from promoting a brand with a clear, disruptive message in the beauty space and strong customer loyalty.

The program also includes steady support from established affiliate networks.

Cons:

Initial commission rates are lower than some traditional affiliate programs, especially for repeat customers.

The membership model may require more explanation to convert new users unfamiliar with the brand’s pricing structure.

#9 BH Cosmetics

Best for long cookie duration

Screenshot BH Cosmetics

Commission rate: 8%

Payment method: Direct deposit or via affiliate network

Cookie duration: 60–90 days (varies by region)

URL to join: BH Cosmetics Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons
Pros:
BH Cosmetics is well-known for its fun, affordable, and cruelty-free makeup products, making it a great fit for beauty bloggers who cater to younger or budget-conscious audiences.

The program offers a long cookie duration of up to 90 days, which increases the chance of earning commissions on returning customers.

Its vibrant branding and frequent product launches provide plenty of fresh content opportunities for affiliates.

Cons:

Because the brand focuses on affordable products, the average order value (AOV) tends to be lower, resulting in smaller commissions per sale.

Additionally, the program may not offer as many luxury or skincare items compared to other beauty retailers.

#10 The Body Shop

Best for ethical, cruelty-free beauty

Commission rate: Up to 8%

Payment method: Through affiliate network (Awin, FlexOffers, or Rakuten)

Cookie duration: 30 days

URL to join: The Body Shop Affiliate Program

Pros & Cons

Pros:

The Body Shop has a long-standing reputation for ethical sourcing, cruelty-free formulations, and sustainability, appealing to eco-conscious consumers.

Its wide range of skincare, body care, and haircare products gives affiliates plenty of promotional versatility.

The trusted brand name helps drive consistent conversions for affiliates focused on natural or conscious beauty.

Cons:

Product pricing is mid-range, so commissions per sale may be smaller than with high-end luxury brands.

Common Pitfalls in Choosing Affiliate Programs

While the beauty affiliate space is full of opportunity, not all programs are created equal.

One of the biggest mistakes new affiliates make is joining programs with poor reputations. Brands that deliver low-quality products or have weak customer service can damage your credibility fast.

Similarly, programs offering very low commission rates may not be worth your time, especially if the conversion rate or average order value is small.

Finally, always research a program’s payment structure and reliability. Delayed or inconsistent payouts can undermine your hard work.

Choosing reputable, transparent partners ensures your efforts translate into consistent, long-term earnings.

Tips for Succeeding in Beauty Affiliate Marketing

Promoting beauty products successfully goes beyond sharing pretty pictures – it’s all about building trust, showcasing results, and using smart digital marketing strategies to stand out.

Here’s how to elevate your affiliate marketing content and maximize conversions:

1. Understand your audience’s beauty preferences

Before recommending a product, get clear on what your audience values most, whether this be clean ingredients, luxury formulas, or affordable everyday staples. Use polls, engagement metrics, and feedback from your followers to guide your content.

When your recommendations feel personalized, conversions rise naturally.

2. Create authentic, SEO-optimized content

Write product reviews, skincare routines, and tutorials that answer your audience’s real questions:

“Is this worth it for oily skin?”

“What’s the best dupe for X?”

“Are drugstore moisturizers as effective as luxury ones?”

Incorporate relevant keywords naturally to make your content discoverable. Tools like Semrush can help you find high-intent beauty keywords, analyze competitor content, and identify SEO gaps you can fill.

3. Diversify your content formats

Don’t just rely on blog posts. Experiment with TikTok demos, Instagram Reels, YouTube reviews, and Pinterest boards.

Beauty is a visual niche, so showing products in action (texture, finish, results) builds credibility and drives clicks through affiliate links.

4. Build trust through transparency

Be upfront about affiliate links and share genuine product experiences.

Audiences can tell the difference between a sales pitch and an honest recommendation. Focus on long-term relationships, not one-time clicks.

5. Use SEO insights to plan content strategically

With Semrush, you can uncover trending beauty searches, track ranking keywords, and monitor which pages are driving the most organic traffic.

These insights let you target the exact beauty topics your audience is already searching for, from “best vitamin C serums” to “clean beauty brands with affiliate programs.”

Pro Tip:

If you’re serious about growing your beauty affiliate income, try Semrush to refine your keyword strategy, analyze competitors, and boost your visibility across search and social. Strong SEO = more eyes on your content and more commissions in your pocket.

Final Thoughts

Now that you’ve explored the best beauty affiliate programs, you can choose the ones that best fit your content and audience.

Whether you favor global brands with steady sales or niche companies with higher commissions, alignment is key. Partner with brands that reflect your style and values to build trust, boost engagement, and maximize your affiliate earnings.

The post Top 10 Beauty Affiliate Programs appeared first on Backlinko.

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LLM Sources Shifted 80% in 2 Months. Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Panic

November 7, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design News/by

AI search is still moving. What’s cited today across Google (AI Mode + AI Overviews) and ChatGPT might look different in a month.

But there’s no need to scramble.

For example, a dip in Reddit citations isn’t a reason to abandon conversational marketing or rebuild your plan from scratch.

(Plus, it’s likely things aren’t always what they seem, like this speculation from John-Henry Scherck about Reddit and ChatGPT.)

LinkedIn – Jhtscherck – Reddit in ChatGPT

Instead, stick to doing the basics — getting mentioned by the major players in your industry as well as hyper-relevant/niche ones — while keeping tabs on macro changes that should impact your go-forward strategy.

LLM Sources Aren’t Set in Stone

The “who gets cited” list keeps changing, especially in ChatGPT.

Just comparing August 2025 to October 2025, ChatGPT increased the number of sources it uses by ~80%, signaling a push toward more diverse evidence in each answer.

This is a dramatic shift in just a couple of months.

But if you’re an SEO, semi-regular algorithm shifts should sound very familiar.

Over the years, Google has made thousands upon thousands of changes to how it finds and ranks pages.

AI will be no different. LLMs will want to continuously improve its output and user experience.

In SEO, we say to stick to the basics in light of algorithm updates, so there’s no need to treat AI SEO differently.

Explore a deeper analysis and get actionable strategies on how to win in AI search: Get the full Semrush AI Visibility Index.

What This Means for Marketers

When sources are in flux, you win by doubling down on durable authority and adding a light, recurring layer of measurement to stay apprised of changes.

The goal should be to keep your foundation strong. Google’s own guidance for AI features emphasizes usefulness, experience, clear structure, and trust signals.

Those are the same qualities humans respond to and the same signals LLMs can verify.

But, while working on the fundamentals, it’s good to keep an eye on LLM trends.

Below we’ll share four tips that will help you sustainably optimize for LLM answers and citations while simultaneously tracking significant, noteworthy shifts in LLM behavior.

Tip #1: Check ChatGPT Sources Monthly for Target Prompts

As we’ve seen, ChatGPT’s citations change. Sometimes quickly.

Rather than seeing this as a race, consider it an opportunity.

Every time an LLM adds new sources into the mix, they’re providing new ideas for where you can earn media and build brand visibility and authority.

And you don’t need a complex dashboard to track the changes. You just need a simple spreadsheet that shows which domains it’s using for your money prompts.

Start by choosing prompts that map to your funnel.

For example:

“What is ___?”
“Best ___ for ”
“ vs ___”
“How to set up ___”
“Pricing for ___”

Perplexity – What are the best SEO blogs

Run them in an LLM the same way a buyer would. Note the sources. Track in a shared living document month over month.

You’re looking for two things: new entrants and rising domains. Both provide ideas on where to place your best evidence next.

So, what does this look like in practice?

Create a one-page tracker and update it every 30 days:

Prompts: 25-100 that reflect real buyer questions
Sources: Every domain cited, in order of appearance
Changes: New, up, down, gone
Action: One line per change (“Pitch reviewer X,” “Add methodology to pricing guide,” “Publish teardown with benchmarks”)

Again, the goal is to identify broader trends and not worry about every little change.

After a few months of this type of tracking, you may notice similarities in the types of sites or content being prioritized. Those are the ones worth adding to your strategy.

Tip #2: Still Perform Backlink Competitive Analyses to Identify Where Else Competitors Are Being Cited

LLMs lean on trusted third-party sites. Some of those sites already vouch for your competitors.

Backlinks show where that trust lives.

Use traditional backlink gap analyses to find new ideas as to where you can earn external authority signals. You can also gain insight about the type of content that’s worth citing.

Start simple. Pick 5–10 competitors and pull their new referring domains from the last 3-6 months.

For example, using Semrush’s Backlink Gap tool, we compared Backlinko’s backlinks to leading SEO tools and noticed they have links from VistaPrint while Backlinko doesn’t.

So we checked out the content and the page they linked to, which in this example turned out to be an informational blog post about the marketing funnel.

When we put this URL into Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool, we found that this specific page has 344 referring domains pointing to it.

Many of the linking pages are informational about marketing and are relying on Semrush’s expertise to support their own articles.

Backlink Analytics – Marketing funnel backlinks

This indicates the piece of content is strong and worth evaluating for insight into what makes it high quality.

As it turns out, the page is very robust with a lot of visual appeal. It’s full of useful graphics, screenshots, and actionable takeaways that make what can be a convoluted topic into something straightforward.

In this example, we’ve learned some sites that talk about marketing fundamentals and may be worth targeting (VistaPrint, GoDaddy, etc.), and we’ve gained inspiration as to what makes that content appealing to link to.

When doing this kind of analysis yourself, look for patterns:

Formats that win links: Research studies, graphics, benchmarks, calculators, templates, product docs, API guides, teardown posts, expert Q&As.
Topics that attract citations: “How it works,” “costs and trade-offs,” “setup steps,” “common mistakes,” “comparison X vs Y.”

Pro tip: Mid-tier niche outlets often outperform top-tier media for earning durable, evergreen citations. They publish faster, go deeper, and link more generously when you bring real substance.

Tip #3: Refresh Audience Research to Learn Which Publications, Sites, and Podcasts Your Buyers Trust

Models evolve. People move faster.

If your buyers shifted from big media to niche reviewers or podcasts, your distribution plan has to follow.

Ask recent customers one question: “What did you read, watch, or listen to before choosing a tool like ours?”

Keep it lightweight. Add it to onboarding and to quarterly interviews. Log their responses and share with the PR and content teams to plan how to achieve earned media in those locations.

There’s online research you can do, too.

SparkToro, for example, reveals where your audience consumes content, giving you a great head-start on putting a pitch list together.

For example, with the free account (which gives you five searches per month), we wanted to explore where else folks who visit Backlinko.com get their information.

SparkToro then provides a list of websites, social networks, AI tools, YouTube channels, podcasts, and more that your audience tends to visit.

Sparktoro – Backlinko – YouTube & Podcasts

No matter your preferred method for audience research, if the last time it was updated was over six months ago, it’s time for a refresh.

Further reading: Audience Research: Stop Guessing What Your Buyers Care About

Tip #4: Continue Focusing on Providing Net-New Value Via Content

You know what’s always necessary for building third-party authority signals on a regular basis?

Content. Search engines, LLMs, social sites, YouTube, etc. all need content to surface.

But “better” content isn’t enough. You need something new to compete. Data no one else has. Tests no one else ran. Explanations that resolve the question completely.

This kind of content gives LLM models something concrete to ground on and editors something worth linking to.

What does this look like in practice?

Try shipping one high-value asset per month:

Original data with a simple method and limits
Comparative testing with screenshots, timings, and results
Expert explainers with named practitioners and sources
Product docs or setup guides that others reference to get the job done

Comprehensive guides can still perform, too. Take an example from our own site, Google RankBrain: The Definitive Guide, which is often a primary source for LLMs on relevant queries.

Perplexity – RankBrain – Backlinko source

When you create something better than anything else out there, that’s when it becomes a primary reference. It can even get mentioned on the MIT site in an article about the shift to generative AI.

Ultimately, if you’re providing the best answer that satisfies a curiosity, you’re building a solid foundation for driving authority signals.

Once you create the content, close the loop. Pitch those assets to the outlets from Tips 2 and 3.

If they’re published on a third-party site, implement your typical distribution process to get as much traction as possible.

Then track if they start showing up in your monthly ChatGPT check.

Aim Where Trust Already Lives (And Models Look)

AI search will keep shifting. Your fundamentals shouldn’t.

Stay focused on building durable authority. Track what matters, earn trust where your audience already looks, and create work worth citing. You’ll stay adaptable no matter what comes next.

Tracking your LLM visibility can be tedious, especially as it’s a relatively new addition to your monthly reporting.

For high-level directional data about your industry as a first pass, bookmark and download Semrush’s AI Visibility Index. It’s updated monthly, saving you that first layer of research.

The post LLM Sources Shifted 80% in 2 Months. Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Panic appeared first on Backlinko.

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Content maintenance strategy: 6 tips for a cleaner website

November 7, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design News, Yoast SEO/by

If you’ve been working on your website for a couple of years, chances are that your website has become a giant collection of posts and pages. When writing a post, you might find out you’ve already written a similar article (maybe even twice), or you might get a feeling that you’ve written something related that you can’t find anymore. This can become even more complex when you’re not the only one writing for this website. Cleaning up your older content can be overwhelming; that’s why regular content maintenance is key. In this post, we’ll give you some tips to create a good content maintenance strategy!

Key takeaways

Regular content maintenance is crucial for managing a vast collection of posts and pages on your website.
Reserve dedicated time for content audits and pruning to prevent confusion for site visitors and competition between similar articles.
Utilize data from Google Analytics and Search Console to assess content performance and decide what needs updating, merging, or deleting.
Focus on monitoring key content that drives conversions or ranks well in search engines, and enhance internal linking to improve visibility.
Employ tools like Yoast SEO Premium to streamline the content maintenance process, ensuring your website remains organized and effective.

1. Reserve time for content maintenance

It might be tempting, especially if you love writing, to keep on producing new content and never look back. But if you do this, you might be shooting yourself in the foot. Your articles that are very similar to each other can start competing with each other in the search results. Having too much content that isn’t structured can also confuse site visitors; they might not know where to go on your website. And the more content you get, the more overwhelming cleaning up your content becomes. So, don’t wait too long with the implementation of a proper content maintenance strategy.

It’s a good idea to plan regular SEO audits and reserve some time for content pruning. How often you should do that depends on a few factors, such as the amount of content you already have, how often you publish new articles, and how many people you have on your editorial team.

At Yoast, we try to plan structured sessions with our content team to improve existing content. We create lists or do an audit (more on that later) and start cleaning up. But in addition to these sessions, we also improve and update blog content in our usual publication flow. When we encounter articles that need updates, we add them to our backlog, assign them to a team member, and update or even republish them on our blog.

2. What does the data say?

When you sit down to actually go through your content and tidy up, it’s sensible to base your decisions on data. Apart from looking at the content on the page itself, you should answer the following questions:

Does the page get any traffic?
Does it have value (meaning that the visitor completed one of your goals during the same session on your site)?
How is the engagement?
How long do people stay on this page?

This kind of data can all be found in Google Analytics. If you go to Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens in the left-hand menu, you’ll get a nice overview of the traffic on your pages. You can even export this to a spreadsheet to keep track of what you did or decided to do with a page.

If you want to know how your articles perform in the search results, Google Search Console is a great help. Especially the performance tab tells you a lot about how your pages perform in Google. It tells you the average position you hold for a keyword, but also how many impressions and clicks your pages get. Check out our beginner’s guide to Google Search Console.

There are a number of tools that make this process easier by providing a list of your content and how it performs. This makes it easier to compare how certain (related) articles rank and get their traffic. One tool we like to use at Yoast is the content audit template by ahrefs. This gives you insights into which content is still of value to your site and which low-quality content is dragging you down. It will give you advice (leave as is/manually review/redirect or update/delete) per URL. Of course, we wouldn’t recommend blindly following such automated advice, but it gives you a lot of insight and is a great starting point to take a critical look at your content.

3. Always keep an eye on your most important content

While it’s not harmful if some older posts escape your attention while working on new content, there are posts and pages that you always need to keep an eye on. You’re probably already monitoring pages that convert, whether that’s in terms of sales, newsletter subscriptions, or a contact or reservation page. But you might also have pages that do (or could do) really well in the search engines. For instance, some evergreen, complete, and informative posts or pages about topics you’re really an expert on. This is the content you want to keep fresh and relevant, and regularly link to. These are the posts and pages that should end up high in the search results.

In Yoast SEO Premium, you can mark these types of guides as cornerstone content. This will trigger some specific actions in Yoast SEO. For instance, if you haven’t updated a cornerstone post in six months, it gets added to the stale cornerstone content filter. You’ll find that filter in your post overview. It helps you stay on top of your SEO game by telling you whether any important content needs an update. Ideally, your score should be zero there. If you do find some articles in this filter, it’s time to review those. Make sure all the information is still correct, add new insights, and perhaps check competitors’ posts on the same topic to see if you’re not missing anything.

The stale cornerstone content filter in Yoast SEO for WordPress

4. Improve your internal linking

A content maintenance activity that is often highly underrated is working on your internal linking. Why invest time in internal linking? Well, first and foremost, because the content you link to is of interest to your readers and helps you keep them on your site. But these links help search engines, such as Google, crawl your content and determine its importance. An article that gets a lot of links (internally or externally) is deemed important by Google. It also helps Google understand what content is related to each other. Therefore, internal linking is an important part of a cornerstone content strategy. All your pages, but especially the evergreen guides we discussed above, need attention, regular updates, and lots of links!

So it’s good to link to your other posts while writing a new one. The internal linking suggestions tool in Yoast SEO Premium makes this super easy for you. But while it’s quite common to link to existing content from our new articles, don’t forget that those new articles also need links pointing to them. At Yoast, we regularly check whether our new posts have enough links pointing to them, especially if we want them to rank!

Implementing a cornerstone strategy

But what about the cornerstone content we discussed above? How do you make sure your most valuable content gets enough links? If you want to focus on these articles, Yoast SEO Premium has just the tool for you: the Cornerstone workout. In a few steps, it lets you select your most important articles and mark them as cornerstones. Then, it shows you how many internal links there are pointing to this post. Do you feel this isn’t in line with the number of links it should have? We’ll give you suggestions on which related posts to link from. And in just a few clicks, you can add the link from the right spot in the related post:

The cornerstone workout in Yoast SEO Premium

As you probably (hopefully!) don’t change your cornerstone strategy every month, it’s not necessary to do this workout every month. If you have a vast amount of content that performs quite well, checking this, let’s say, every 3 or 6 months, you should be fine. However, if you’re starting out, publishing a lot of new content, or making big changes to your site, you should probably do this workout more often. As your site grows, your focal point might change, and this workout will help you make sure you stay focused on the content you really want to rank.

5. Clean up the attic once in a while

We mostly discussed your best and most important content until now. But on the other side of the spectrum, we have your older (and more lonely) content that you haven’t touched in a while. Announcements of events that took place years ago, new product launches from when you just started, and blog posts that simply aren’t relevant anymore. These posts keep filling up your attic, and at one point, you should clean your attic thoroughly. You don’t want people or Google to find low-quality pages or pages showing outdated or irrelevant information and get lost up there.

There are some ways to go about this. You can, of course, go to your blog post archive and clean up while going through your oldest post. Never just delete something, though! Take a closer look at the content and always check whether a post still gets traffic in Google Analytics. In doubt whether you should keep it? Read our blog on updating or deleting old content to help you with that choice. And, if you think a post is irrelevant and you want to delete it, you should either redirect it to a good equivalent URL or have it show a 410 page, indicating that it’s been deleted on purpose. You can read all about properly deleting a post here.

Cleaning up orphaned content

Yoast SEO Premium also has an SEO workout to help you maintain old and forgotten content: the Orphaned content workout. It lists all of your unlinked content for you. Because you never or hardly linked to these pages, we can assume they’re pages you’ve once created but never looked back at. Or, they don’t fit into your current content strategy anymore. That’s why this is a good place to start cleaning up! With the workout, you can go through the posts and pages one by one and consider: is this post not relevant anymore? Then delete and redirect the URL to a better destination in a few clicks! Is it still relevant but outdated? Then update it and start adding links to it from related posts. Did you just forget to link to this post? Then start adding some links! The workout takes you by the hand through all these steps, so it’s easy to keep track of your progress.

The orphaned content workout in Yoast SEO Premium

How often should you do this workout? It’s hard to make a general statement about this because it very much depends on the amount of old content you have, how good your internal linking is, and how much new content you’re creating. If you have a bigger site, it will probably be quite a time investment when you do it for the first time. But if you maintain it and do this workout regularly, on a monthly basis, for instance, you will get it done faster every time!

6. Check your content per topic/tag

When you have a lot of similar articles, they can start competing with each other in the search engines. We call that content or keyword cannibalization. That’s why it’s good to look at all the articles you have on a certain topic from time to time. Do they differ enough? Are they right below each other in Google’s search results on page 2? Then you might have to merge two articles into one to make that one perform better. Depending on the size of your site, you can look at this on a category or tag level or even on smaller subtopics.

In the aforementioned post, we describe in detail how to go about this content maintenance process of fixing keyword cannibalization. In short, you’ll have to create an overview of the posts on that topic. Then look at how all of these articles perform with the help of Google Search Console and Google Analytics. This will help you decide what to keep, merge, or delete!

Content maintenance: you need time and tools!

As you might have already noticed, content maintenance can be quite a task. But if you do it regularly and use the right tools, it gets easier over time. And the easier it gets, the more fun! Who doesn’t want a tidied-up website? It will make you, your site visitors, and Google very happy. So, don’t wait too long to implement a good content maintenance strategy and use the right tools to make your life easier!

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Keep reading: What is site structure and why is it important? »

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Last-minute Black Friday SEO prepping for ecommerce stores

November 6, 2025/0 Comments/in Web Design News, Yoast SEO/by

Black Friday is three weeks away, so it’s time to finalize the last adjustments. Here’s what to focus on now, based on two Yoast Black Friday coffee chats with our own principal SEOs, Carolyn Shelby and Alex Moss. Alex states, “Black Friday isn’t one day anymore, but a season. If you’re not visible to AI now, you won’t be in the results when shoppers ask for recommendations.”

1. Stop breaking things (seriously)

No major technical changes. Switching platforms, payment processors, or themes? Wait until January. Focus on optimizing what you have
Code freeze starts now. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Test changes in a staging environment first
Exception: Installing Yoast SEO or WooCommerce SEO add-ons is a low-risk activity. Do it if needed

Pro tip: If you must update plugins, test on staging and avoid updates one week before Black Friday.

2. Fix these right now (or regret it later)

Fraud attacks are ramping up

Fraudsters test stolen credit cards by buying cheap items (<$5). Signs you’re being targeted:

Sudden spike in orders for your lowest-priced item
High failure rates (declined payments)
Orders from VPNs/rotating IPs

How to fight back:

Raise your minimum price. Bundle items to push totals over $5 (e.g., “Buy 2 stickers, get free shipping”)
Add friction (carefully):
- Enable CAPTCHA on checkout
- Turn on Stripe Radar (if using Stripe) or velocity checks (limits orders per IP)
- Avoid disabling guest checkout, as this will hurt conversions
- Contact your payment processor. Say: “I’m seeing fraudulent test orders. Here’s the pattern, please help me block them.”
- Block high-risk countries (if you don’t ship there). Use Cloudflare’s WAF (Web Application Firewall) to filter traffic.

Warning: Fulfilling fraudulent orders costs you product + shipping + time. Verify payments before shipping.

Language and search alignment

AI/LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini) can’t “see” hidden text. If it’s behind tabs/toggles/accordions, they’ll miss it. Move critical info (FAQs, specs, reviews) to visible text.
Avoid “clever” product names. Example: A dress colored “Pristine” won’t show up in searches for “ivory dress”.
- Fix: Add generic terms in parentheses:
  - Wrong: “Pristine Midi Dress”
  - Right: “Pristine (Ivory) Midi Dress”
Test your products with AI: Ask ChatGPT:
“Find me [your product] in [color/size/price range].” If it misses your product, your descriptions need work.

Reviews are trust signals (for humans and AI)

Encourage detailed reviews. Generic “I love it!” won’t help.
- Ask customers: “How do you use this product? What problem does it solve?”
- Example: “These hiking shoes fit my wide feet—finally no blisters!”
Leverage brand reviews. If you sell multiple products, get reviews for your brand (e.g., via G2 or Trustpilot). LLMs pull these when answering questions like “What’s the best brand for X?”
Last-resort tactic: Ask friends/family to leave honest reviews. (No fake ones, because Google penalizes that.)

Pro tip: Utilize Yoast SEO’s FAQ schema for reviews and Q&As. However, please keep FAQs visible; avoid hiding them in toggles.

3. Optimize for AI and search (quick wins)

Product pages: Lead with the good stuff

First 100 words matter most. AI/LLMs and users skim, so put key details up top, such as price, shipping info, and bundling options
Plain and concise language wins over clever marketing.
- Example:
  - Original: “Experience luxury with our artisanal ceramic mug.”
  - Optimized: “14oz ceramic mug. Dishwasher-safe, holds heat for 2 hours.”
Add videos. Show the product in use (e.g., flipping through a planner, wearing a dress). Yoast SEO Premium includes video SEO tools. Please use them
Focus on your “underdog” products. These aren’t your top three bestsellers, but they’re the items ranking lower down your sales list. They might not sell as much, but they often have higher profit margins, making them a worthwhile consideration.
How to optimize them:
- Use Google Search Console to identify:
  - Products with steady sales and high profitability (promote these in bundles or via email).
  - Products that could benefit from topic clustering (group related queries to uncover hidden opportunities).
- Give them a boost by:
  - Bundling them with bestsellers (e.g., “Buy our top-selling coffee maker, get 20% off these premium beans”).
  - Upselling or cross-selling (e.g., “Customers who bought this also loved…”).

Use email and social to seed the AI

Send a Black Friday teaser email this week. Include:
- Your brand name + product names (helps AI recall you later)
- Clear discounts (e.g., “20% off all espresso makers—no code needed”)
- Links to product pages (not just the homepage)
Why? ChatGPT/Gemini now scans emails (if users connect their Gmail). If someone asks, “Where can I buy X?”, the AI may suggest your brand because it saw your email
Social posts: 80% useful, 20% fun. Example:
- Wrong: [Image of pizza with caption: “Ooooh”]
- Right: “Our Chicago deep-dish pizza—now 15% off for Black Friday! [Link] #DeepDishDeals”

Remove friction from checkout

Audit your checkout flow. Ask:
- Do you need a phone number? (Many users abandon carts here.)
- Is shipping info clear upfront? (e.g., “Free shipping on orders over $50”)
- Can users save their cart for later?
- Test with dummy orders. Use Shopify/WooCommerce’s test credit card numbers to simulate purchases

4. Last-minute hacks (do these soon)

Task	Why it matters	Log in to Merchant Center > Check for warnings.
Create a Black Friday landing page	Centralizes promotions for AI/users.	Use a PLP (Product Landing Page) with text like: “Gifts under $50 for sports-loving dads”. Link to it from emails/social.
Update Google Shopping feed	Fix errors (missing SKUs, sizes) now.	Log in to Merchant Center and check for warnings.
Add FAQ schema	Helps AI answer questions like “What’s the return policy?”	Use Yoast SEO’s FAQ block (visible text only!).
Check inventory	Avoid selling out of bestsellers.	Reorder now, because shipping delays are expected to spike in November.
Set up a backup payment processor	Fraud attacks can freeze your account.	Add Stripe (even if inactive) as a backup to PayPal.

5. What not to do before Black Friday

Don’t wait until the last minute to launch promotions or make critical changes. Big brands start their Black Friday campaigns in early November. If you hold off until Thanksgiving week, you’ll miss the early shoppers and the AI “training window.” LLMs prioritize brands they’ve seen mentioned in emails, social posts, or searches before the holiday rush.

Avoid hiding key details behind tabs, accordions, or images. AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini often skip hidden text when scraping product pages, and users tend to overlook shipping costs and return policies as well. Never ignore Fake Friday (the Friday before BF), the unofficial kickoff when bargain hunters start browsing. Run a pre-sale or teaser discount to capture this traffic before competitors do.

Steer clear of overcomplicating bundles or discounts. A “Buy 5 random items, get a mystery gift” deal might sound creative, but it confuses shoppers and dilutes profits. Instead, pair high-margin items with slower sellers (e.g., “Buy a camera, get 50% off a memory card”).

Don’t assume your payment processor can handle fraud spikes. If you’re suddenly hit with stolen card tests (look for a surge in cheap, failed orders), your account could get flagged or frozen. Set up Stripe Radar or PayPal’s fraud filters now—and have a backup processor ready.

Finally, never neglect mobile checkout testing. If your “Add to Cart” button is hard to tap or forms don’t autofill on phones, you’ll lose impulse buyers. Test on a slow 3G connection to simulate real-world frustration.

Your Black Friday success starts now

The countdown is on. Black Friday will be here before you know it. But here is the good news. You still have time to make a real impact. Whether it is tightening up your product descriptions, safeguarding against fraud, or making sure your site is AI-friendly, every small tweak you make now can translate into bigger sales when the shopping frenzy hits.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, remember this. You do not have to do it all alone. Tools like Yoast SEO Premium and WooCommerce SEO can help you optimize your product pages, structure your content for both AI and search engines, and even add schema markup to ensure your products are more visible to both AI and search engines. It is like having an SEO expert in your corner, guiding you through the chaos so you can focus on what really matters. Selling more and stressing less.

So take a deep breath, tackle one task at a time, and trust that you have got this. Here is to your most successful Black Friday yet. Now go get those sales. And if you need a little extra help, you know where to find us.

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